In the past, birthing a single Angel Warrior often required enormous resources and a great deal of time.
After all, though an Angel's Super Gene could be passed down, activating it required a true Angel's heart.
But under the regulation of the "Final Defense Protocol," these many practical obstacles had all but disappeared.
The technology at the "Final Defense Protocol's" disposal was almost divine. Ever since it had accessed the databases of the Sacred Knowledge Treasury and the Sky-based Computing Cluster, the countless secrets of the Angels had been laid bare before it.
Then it had gone and directly altered their Angel Genes!
Using those as a template, it had taken the Shenhe lifeforms of other planets as a foundation and created new Male Angels, pairing them with the Angels of the original Merlot Heavenly Court.
The Super Gene legacy formed over ten thousand years of Angel evolution had been like clay in the "Final Defense Protocol's" hands, molded at will. It had then produced even more powerful Angel Genes and forcibly replaced the Angels' own with them.
In just a short time, the Angel population, which had numbered a mere million, had multiplied at an explosive, geometric rate!
And now every Angel felt that a casual wave of her hand could almost distort the laws of physics.
The strength of each of their divine bodies had also evolved to an entirely new level, one that made the so-called third- and fourth-generation tiers of the past seem obsolete.
It was nothing short of a super-evolution, from microorganism to prehistoric giant beast!
Keisha herself felt that with her current strength, even without the Silver Blade Armory's support, she could easily beat ten thousand versions of her former self—the one who had commanded the Silver Blade Armory.
What surprised her even more was that she wasn't the only one. Every Angel Warrior had reached the same level as her.
In the past, thanks to her control over the resources of the Angel King, her martial prowess had surpassed that of every Angel, even the gods of the entire Known Universe.
But now, though her personal strength had surged ten thousandfold, Keisha wasn't even fully confident she could defeat several Angels who had once been no more than first-generation warriors.
The Angels had undergone a true collective evolution. Every Angel Warrior had received an equal share of resources, without the slightest difference.
The gaps between individual Angels had been reduced to almost nothing.
The Angel King, once the strongest of them all, was now no different from the weakest Angel Warrior.
Only now did Keisha truly understand what a true interstellar civilization, a true spacefaring society, ought to be.
In the Theocratic Era, she had ruled a thousand Angels through her own overwhelming strength, and each of those thousand commanded another thousand.
Through this system of rule, she had led the Angels in creating what seemed to be a glorious Order of Justice.
They had wantonly spread their justice throughout the Known Universe...
But Keisha knew what lay behind the truth of it all.
The truth was that the entire civilization's burden rested on her shoulders alone. The course of its progress, too, was guided by her alone.
As for where the civilization had been led, or how far it had come, even Keisha couldn't say for certain. But they were sure they had moved ahead of the other God-level Civilizations, so they could boast—
"The Angels stand at the summit of the Known Universe!"
Under the Order of Justice, only she could define what justice was. What, then, was the purpose of the other Angels?
To carry out the Order of Justice?
To uphold the Order of Justice?
Or to spread the word of the Order of Justice?
All of those, and yet none of them.
No matter how strong their convictions or what their status was, the other Angels were, in truth, nothing but pitiful appendages of the Order of Justice.
Justice had never meant fairness.
Keisha had never told the Angels who had once fervently believed in justice one simple truth: "The universe is vast. There are many questions that justice cannot answer..."
If one day justice became meaningless, those ordinary Angels who existed as its appendages would fall into the dust with it.
Their once-radiant exteriors would be stripped away, leaving them looking utterly wretched.
This wasn't a flaw in the Order of Justice, nor was it a flaw in Angel Civilization. It was the shackle binding every God-Making Civilization.
When the Order of Justice was no more, all the Angels might look back on its glorious past and feel lost and bewildered.
Was this the civilization behind us? Was this justice? How could it have such a filthy, sordid side?
Such a cruel truth.
Sometimes, Keisha even asked herself: if she were one of the most ordinary Angels, could she accept the truth?
She thought long and hard, but all she could offer was an even longer silence...
Perhaps some Angels wouldn't want to face the ugliness behind the Theocratic Order of Justice. They would choose to blind themselves and keep going, continuing to cry out in the name of justice as they made sacrifices and fought...
Perhaps others, even after facing this cruel truth, would still hold fast to the path of justice in their hearts. They would use it to remind themselves—
"So this was the justice of the Angels in the past? Fine, then. Let's do it again!"
There might be many other possibilities, too. But whichever path they took, they would inevitably remain trapped within the framework of theocracy and the Order of Justice, unable to break free.
But when the "Final Defense Protocol's" epoch-making technology, almost like a miracle, intervened, the theocratic shackles binding the Angels were broken outright.
Everything from the past vanished without a trace.
Only now did the Angels truly resemble a civilization, a collective!
No longer was justice directed by one person. Now, it was a torrent formed from the combined strength of countless Angels!
If these countless Angels still held to justice, then this would be a true torrent of justice!
The old Order of Justice had come to a complete, silent end.
If the Angels ever had the chance to create a new Order of Justice, it would surely be a new order free of theocracy, forged by bringing countless voices together as one.
Keisha couldn't begin to imagine what the future of the entire Angel race would look like under such an order.
But one thing she knew for certain: it would be a hundred times better than before.
As long as they had the resolve, there should be nothing the Angels couldn't accomplish now.
She only hoped they hadn't woken up too late.
To the Angels, the "Final Defense Protocol" was like a creator who had given them new life!
But when her thoughts returned to reality, Keisha was doused in a bucket of cold water. That bone-chilling cold returned.
She couldn't understand why a seemingly cold machine could give the Angels a warmth they had never known before, caring for and protecting them so tenderly.
And why could the "Human Federation," whose people had flesh and blood just like the Angels, be so cruel?
From the follow-up messages sent by the "Final Defense Protocol," Keisha learned the state of the Angel Nebula.
More than thirty stars had been mercilessly destroyed by the Human Federation. At this rate of war...
It would only take a few more attacks like that to wipe the entire Angel Nebula from existence.
Keisha wanted to help the "Final Defense Protocol" deal with the threat before them on behalf of the Angels, but the sub-individual guarding them strictly confined her to the Organic Sanctuary.
Rumble!
A tremendous spacetime effect arose, and Keisha could clearly sense the fluctuations of a wormhole within it.
"What's going on?"
Whoosh!
Outer space.
The entire Merlot Star vanished, as though it had been erased from its place in the universe.
When it appeared again, the planet was suddenly in an extremely secret, unknown region of space.
If the Angels in the Organic Sanctuary learned what had happened, they would surely cry out in disbelief.
Transporting an entire planet directly was, according to their current understanding of wormhole theory, almost impossible!
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