Several decades later.
Inside a super battleship floating somewhere within Seven-Dimensional Space, in a luxurious room.
Looking at the expressionless fellow calmly grinding the blade in his hand.
The commander of the Fadop Civilization's Third Fleet sat in his seat. After casually taking a sip of wine produced in his homeland.
He slowly shook his head and sighed:
"I never expected you to actually endure those several hundred operations..."
"By now, among the natives of this universe, you should already be the strongest."
Hearing what sounded like praise, Hood replied without raising his head:
"What does it matter?"
With a casual wave of his hand, the commander answered indifferently:
"Of course it matters."
"After all, it is a valuable honor, isn't it?"
"You should know that if we went back a few decades, those operations were not something ordinary people could even come into contact with..."
"Basically, only the upper echelons of our race were qualified to undergo them..."
"Back then, even I was..."
Hood did not respond to the other's words.
He merely crouched on a chair inside the battleship, adjusting his various tools as he silently listened to the other man's rambling.
Only after the other fell silent.
Did he speak unhurriedly:
"Are you afraid?"
"I heard nostalgia... and fear... in your tone."
Although this universe's main time had passed by only a few decades, through the use of Time Technology.
Hood had in fact lived for more than two hundred thousand years.
In truth, it was precisely because of those long years of training and trials that he had been granted the qualification to undergo the special operations.
Thus becoming a super lifeform.
Now, even if he stood upon the singularity at the moment of the Big Bang and faced the might of creation head-on, he would