In a sense, the Chaos Gods tearing apart the Eye of Terror had actually done Duanmu Huai a huge favor.
Originally, the construction stages of the Aetheric Engine were as follows—the first stage: the Aetheric Engine would establish a fragile foothold in Warp Space. The second stage: the Aetheric Engine's tendrils would burrow deep into Warp Space, gradually invading and expanding this region. The third stage: the Aetheric Engine would tear open a massive hole between reality and Warp Space. Then came the final stage: fully stimulating Warp Space energy to elevate the entire race.
Before the final stage, players had to resist the Evil God's daemon army attacking the Aetheric Engine and protect the foothold. But now, Duanmu Huai didn't need to do that at all. The Chaos Gods' "active" act of letting Warp Space swallow the Aetheric Engine was exactly what he wanted. Moreover, Duanmu Huai had never intended to perform the original Aetheric Engine ritual to achieve the entire race's psychic ascension—after all, in the real world, humanity still had a chance to fight the daemons. But if they truly went to Warp Space, that problem wouldn't exactly disappear either.
This meant that the Aetheric Engine had now skipped stages one, two, and three. The next thing to do was to activate it completely.
But before that, Duanmu Huai still had one final thing to do.
A burning, even more enormous star suddenly appeared and swallowed the Aetheric Engine. But it wasn't an ordinary star. It was the core of Duanmu Huai's Divine Domain as the God of Destruction. After Duanmu Huai became the God of Destruction, countless Xenomorphs and Heretics had been destroyed by him, and their souls had all been thrown into the enormous star to strengthen his divine power.
But now, Duanmu Huai's ambition