"Now that's fast."
A slightly hoarse voice rang out from the depths of the shadows of a barren galaxy somewhere in the Celestial Deity Seat galaxy cluster.
As the voice faded, three silhouettes of light seemed to condense out of nothingness.
One of them was unmistakably the Shadow Merchant, who had once dealt with Gao Gong's side. It still had that mysterious appearance, shrouded in blurry darkness, but the "gaze" it raised now had become incomparably sharp.
That gaze seemed to carry the deepest shadows in the universe. Rather than moving at the speed of light, it spread soundlessly at tremendous speed along the "dark folds" of space itself, crossing the distance of several galaxies in an instant before precisely "landing" in the star region where the core of the Whip of Ascension's forces was located.
Its perception pierced through the disguises and defenses on the outskirts, directly touching the rapidly developing core.
There, it sensed an ascension aura so dense that it could not be dispersed, an aura that was constantly expanding!
This aura was not ethereal or illusory. Instead, it was tightly connected to tangible megastructure construction, surging energy, and the evolution of laws.
There was no doubt that this emerging faction had not only fully entered the field of ascension, but was also using astonishing efficiency to carry out comprehensive and in-depth ascension-tech evolution in preparation for taking that final, most crucial step!
Even the well-traveled Shadow Merchant felt a trace of surprise at such a scale and speed.
"But," the existence standing beside the Shadow Merchant suddenly spoke. Its voice was dry, carrying a clear hint of doubt. "This is a mechanical civilization, isn't it?"
The speaker was also shrouded in rich ascension radiance, proving that it too was an ascended species.
However, unlike the vibrant,