The Lord of Ashes' Reward

Before them stood a colossal womb, over a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter. Its walls were condensed from pure definitions, translucent like a thin layer of skin, revealing the structures within.

Using the last harmonic scan still available, Harmonic Leaptone turned pale as paper. She projected the image into every member's mind:

Inside the womb, a massive embryo-like entity floated at the center. It already possessed the bulk of an adult, curled up like a fetus within its mother. Yet its surface was not skin, but countless symbols of universal definitions—time, space, color, sound, emotion, memory. Every symbol flickered slowly, and each flicker represented a definition being "digested" by it.

The embryo's umbilical cord connected to the womb wall, its other end stretching deep into the Definition Sea. Harmonic Leaptone traced it and discovered that it split into countless branches, each linked to a universe's Definition System.

The Ember Era's Definition System was among them.

The embryo was consuming the Ember Era's definitions.

Harmonic Leaptone clenched her teeth and forcibly steadied her emotions. "Devouring Offspring, development progress... seventy percent."

Iron Curtain Overlord stared at the umbilical cord connected to the Iron Curtain Universe, his eyes filled with terror and fury. That cord was thicker than all the others—most of the definitions plundered throughout the Iron Curtain Universe's endless eras had been fed to this monster through it.

"We've been... raising it?" His voice was hoarse.

"Not raising it." Lin Ye walked to the womb wall and reached out to touch the translucent membrane of definitions. "It's parasitism. It parasitized the Definition Mother and used it to connect to every universe. The definitions you plundered were merely desserts on its menu. Its main course is the Definition Mother itself."

The instant he finished speaking, the embryo suddenly convulsed violently. It was