"Honestly, you're being so distant. We've come this far, and you still don't remember who I am?"

"That was one hell of a battle."

Mistofen, Crown Prince of the Empire, looked over the smoke-filled battlefield and could not help sighing.

Was this what one should expect from people favored by the Philosopher King? Their strength far exceeded their imagination.

The area between the combatants had already been annihilated into a vacuum. The powerful collisions seemed to have created something with singularity-like properties, causing severe damage to the entire space.

Fortunately, this was the Fixed Time Domain. Its spatial resilience and self-repair capabilities were far stronger than the Layer Abyss's fragile physical laws. With their preparations in advance, there had been virtually no problems.

As long as the Empire wished it, outsiders would not even be able to kill an ant within their Fixed Time Domain.

If this had happened outside... this offensive could probably have leveled an entire star system.

"That strike fused an enormous amount of Aoneng. It wasn't entirely the Society Councilor's power... How interesting."

He was clearly a councilor, yet he had betrayed his origins and actively sold out a vast amount of information—no, rather than selling it out, it was more like he had deliberately come to deliver intelligence.

Then he had taken the path of destruction, yet wielded and controlled Aoneng with effortless mastery.

He did not seem to be a clone or an Implant Equipment Vanguard, either. He communicated with those Descenders without any barriers—he was simply one of them.

"It seems we need to reassess the talents of these Descenders."

Previously, the Narrative Civilization had not paid much attention to the existence of players.

Although Li Aoz's arrangements had allowed a large number of players to use White Candle Star to reach Valkyrie Fortress ahead of schedule—the Layer Abyss's largest mercenary platform—and show off their abilities, the world the players