Du Zhaodi was currently located at the site of the "space string" that had originally been used to open the void passage, with less than one astronomical unit between the two sides.
For an entire faction that had mastered faster-than-light technology, such a distance might take only a few breaths to cross.
Yet at this moment, those few breaths had become an impassable chasm.
The void began to convulse.
The dark background of the universe suddenly filled with unnatural noise, like the snow on an old monitor with a bad connection. The noise rapidly organized itself, forming an expanding hexagonal grid. Every grid node flashed with fluorescent-green verification codes, as though the underlying interface of some enormous operating system was loading.
The vacuum itself began to "render errors." In some regions, the darkness suddenly tore like corrupted textures, revealing an even deeper electronic abyss composed of viral code.
The quantum foam floating in the void was recompiled. Every elementary particle acquired a translucent border marked with intrusion commands, while constantly refreshing parameter logs scrolled across its attribute panel.
This was not a natural phenomenon.
This was a jailbreak against the physics engine!
"Looks like this civilization's greatest specialty is modifying the universe's underlying rules."
"To be precise, it's hacking."
Aside from a small number of panicked people, most members of Du Zhaodi's core team remained sufficiently calm.
They even had time to critique the technical methods of that "Vessel Overlord."
"Actually, it's still transformation. A very miraculous transformation."
A mechanical master sighed in admiration.
As the underlying universal code was modified, the first mote of metal dust appeared out of thin air. It had no source and no reason for existing; it simply emerged abruptly in the vacuum, like a drop of ink lightly placed there by some unknowable will.