At this moment, in a galaxy cluster ravaged by the combined forces of the Mechanical Revolt and the Infinite Strongman World.
A cold metal flood had once swept through this place. Planets had been dismantled and reassembled into enormous war fortresses or energy nodes; stars had been bound and transformed into "batteries" powering the mechanical network; nebulae had been ionized and molded into "curtains" for information transmission and rule interference.
Enormous, hideous mechanical creations could be seen everywhere. Some were still operating slowly, while others had completely shut down. They were embedded, pierced through, or half-buried in the ruined structures of the galaxy in ways that violated every aesthetic principle. The void was permeated by the stench of engine oil, ionizing radiation, and the grating "afterechoes" of metal fatigue and fracture.
At the same time, within the encirclement of the entire galaxy cluster, the starfield once "visited" by the Infinite Strongmen had suffered permanent distortions to its physical constants.
The speed of light there fluctuated, gravity intermittently reversed, and space was as soft and malleable as melted cheese. Countless energy phantoms with conflicting properties wandered, fought, and annihilated one another among the ruins like ghosts, stirring the already chaotic energy environment into even greater disarray.
Then, something strange happened. All the anomalies came to a halt.
It was as if they had become a "scene" in a photograph.
Then, without the slightest warning or information fluctuation, the entire galaxy cluster truly became a "photograph."
A hand that seemed to be wrapped in tree bark caught the photograph.
Then it flicked it lightly. The scene in the photograph changed, and several hundred civilizations disrupted by the Mechanical Revolt appeared.
Another flick, and the civilizations vanished. In their place appeared countless ascending species fleeing for their lives. In the direction those ascending