The entire Milky Way Galaxy became aware of the change in their Sea of Stars Custodian.
Humanity fell silent once again. They began steadily pulling back their fleets and stopped concerning themselves with the internal affairs of other nations. Vast numbers of Nanite Fleets withdrew from the battlefields and returned to human territory, leaving not a single fleet behind.
In the northern Milky Way, the fleets of the two awakened empires and Cetana were enough to confine the Swarm to a narrow region of space, while Machine Dad and Cyberlex Beta could hamper the Contingency at every turn.
Xi Yan dispatched a ship into the Homeworld System in the territory of the Rixi Reconquest Empire, which humanity had already annexed.
He spoke with Cetana personally, explaining the Ascension Plan in detail from beginning to end.
Cetana had always been a byproduct of the Ascension Plan, and her recent efforts aboard her flagship were no exception.
The Queen Titan could also alter the rules of the universe. Cetana had been trying to rewrite its laws to erase all consciousness, and ever since her philosophical discussion with Zarqlan, the queen had stayed aboard her flagship, meditating day and night.
Xi Yan found her, told her everything about the Ascension Plan, and invited the queen to help liberate the entire universe.
The benevolent queen readily agreed.
Ascending the entire universe to shield it from the Extradimensional Invaders was on a far higher level than merely erasing consciousness. As long as Cetana had even a shred of conscience, she would know what to choose.
Avoidance was indeed one way to solve a problem, but it was not always an honorable one.
The queen contributed her technology. Her universe-editing technology could erase all consciousness in an instant, or send all consciousness into the Shroud just