The surroundings fell eerily silent. Less than twenty meters ahead of us stood the phantom of an ancient high-ranking mystic-side officer named Reiji. Yes, she was a phantom, as insubstantial and ethereal as a recording. This image had been preserved for tens of thousands of years. What we were seeing was something this Old Empire officer named Reiji had done countless millennia ago. Though only a few dozen meters separated us from these phantoms, an even greater distance lay between us: the passage of ages.
Yet this image recorded in ancient times had now turned its gaze toward us—when she did this back then, there had surely been nothing but emptiness before her. What had she seen?
Because of interference, the image of Reiji was blurry and indistinct. It was impossible to make out her features, much less her eyes. Yet suddenly, I felt a gaze fall upon me. It was the projection's gaze. Those were powerful eyes, piercing through millennia of change and the barriers of time and space to settle on me. She seemed to smile faintly, and I heard a distorted voice: "I saw something... very interesting, but it has nothing to do with you as you are now."
She had said that to her own emperor, but I felt that she was also conveying something to us. Yes, she was telling us one thing: I see you.
"Is that so?" The Fifteenth Celestial Region Emperor's figure froze for a moment, as though she had recalled something, before letting out a soft laugh. "All right, I know your rules. I won't ask further. Prepare to depart. We have less than a hundred years to complete this final expedition. Within a century, whether we find that Void Creature or gain its help, we must return and face the