Chapter 1

Ether-phase engines, horizon probes, Heaven-Burning divine weapons... With the exposure of the Calamity Empire,

the entire Honkai Star Rail universe went mad. "Is this for real? I'm fighting the Calamity Empire?!"

Starry Old Codex

1. 【Human Civilization Inventory: Prologue and Empire】

Human Civilization

Back when humanity was still young, before mastering faster-than-light technology and leaving the cradle of the Solar System, an unidentified wormhole suddenly appeared within the system. This triggered a series of political, military, and economic shifts on Earth. After confirming the wormhole's safety, humanity decided to launch a massive colonization movement through it, a project known as the "Ulysses Plan."

However, after several human fleets entered the wormhole, it suddenly spiraled out of control, transporting the fleets—which carried a vast number of human colonists—to different star systems. This event became known as the Great Human Diaspora. The human colonists scattered across the stars either perished or established various distinct civilizations.

I. Empire

Origin: Monarchical Rule

Ethics: 【Authoritarian, Spiritualist, Xenophobe】. After the fall of Europa VII: 【Fanatic Authoritarian, Spiritualist, Fanatic Xenophobe】.

Government: Imperial

Homeworld: Dead World. Terra.

Ruler: Emperor Zhou Xuan

Background:

This civilization originated from the diaspora colony ship *Bellerophon*. After crash-landing on a dead world left behind by an unknown civilization, the survivors quickly fell into discord due to a large population and scarce resources.

But Zhou Xuan reunited the survivors through religion, faith, and war, establishing a centralized state and naming the planet Terra, an alias for Earth.

Through exploration of the dead world, they discovered it was a colony left by an ancient civilization called the Vultaum, which was now abandoned.

By researching the Vultaum's legacy technology and utilizing efficient administrative capabilities, the Empire quickly solved its resource problems and mastered faster-than-light technology, using it to fly out of the star system and begin expanding its borders...

Yet the Empire always harbored a secret. The Vultaum artifacts revealed a cruel truth: reality might just be a system used for amusement by entities in a higher narrative layer.

"Do not be superstitious about reality; there is reality above reality."

Main Text

1. 【This matter is unremarkable, Sociology +3】

Beside the sixth planet of the Jarilo star system, the starry sky here looked as if it had been thrown into a pool of pebbles, ripples spreading into circles.

Waves on the fabric of space rose up, striking the curtain of reality and tearing it asunder.

A black hole, nearly as large as the planet Jarilo-VI, appeared. Within the aperture surrounded by a brilliant, colorful accretion disk, a massive ship resembling a needle slowly sailed out.

【Horizon Needle integrity 98.6%, core component integrity 100%.】

【Dimensional fabric scanning, confirmed unregistered dimensional fabric.】

【Congratulations, Your Majesty, your Empire has arrived in a brand new universe.】

In the deepest part of the needle-like ship, within infinitely folded space...

Zhou Xuan wore a loose pair of pajamas, sitting lazily on a throne wrapped in cables, looking at the gray-haired girl in a form-fitting military uniform before him.

"The deviation for this cross-universe voyage was very small, and the Horizon Needle sustained very light damage."

The gray-haired girl manipulated nanobots, transmitting various reports filled with complex parameters to Zhou Xuan.

"Practice makes perfect; your Empire has already mastered cross-universe navigation."

The gray-haired girl knelt gently on one knee beside Zhou Xuan:

"You are one step closer to a higher layer."

"Still a long way off."

Zhou Xuan lowered his eyes and said lightly:

"The gods of the Void Realm think they stand at the pinnacle of the myriad realms, but we know that above reality there is more reality, and above the high places are even higher ones."

As he spoke, he leaned back against the throne, his gaze sweeping over the light screen floating in mid-air.

The screen displayed various parameters of this new universe, as well as data on the current star system.

Zhou Xuan's eyes couldn't help but grow slightly dazed, as if in the blink of an eye he had returned to the moment he first transmigrated.

He was originally a resident of an ordinary azure planet,

but accidentally transmigrated into the world of Stellaris, becoming the emperor of a civilization, ruling an empire that had just stepped into the sea of stars.

Under Zhou Xuan's leadership, this newborn empire grew continuously.

The Empire built Colossi, disintegrated planets with raging fire, cleansed life with pulses, and lowered intelligence with light beams.

The Empire discovered the Void Realm, learned what psionics were, usurped the authority of one Void Realm entity after another, and was crowned as a god in reality.

The Empire realized that time, gravity, and space were the basic parts constituting reality, understood how to manipulate them, and used this to decode and master all things.

Through correct adjustments, the Empire broke the laws of reality and rewrote them.

The Empire finally grasped the method of shaping itself into an extraordinary existence, and for this, under Zhou Xuan's leadership, built the ship named "Horizon Needle."

The Horizon Needle pierced the membrane of dimensions, opening one door after another leading to other universes, searching for a suitable universe to complete the destiny of ascension.

Of course, in this process, in pursuit of efficiency, Zhou Xuan destroyed some civilizations, ruined some universes, broke some rules, and killed some extraordinary existences...

But these were all reasonable sacrifices for efficiency. Zhou Xuan believed that he and his Empire were still messengers of love and peace.

"Your Majesty, we have discovered a pre-faster-than-light civilization in this star system."

"Oh?" Zhou Xuan raised an eyebrow.

A pre-faster-than-light civilization is one that has not mastered faster-than-light technology and cannot escape stellar gravity to expand across star systems.

In the Empire's cognition, a pre-faster-than-light civilization can only be one of three things: a young child, a foolish barbarian, or an undeveloped threat.

However, the sociologist arrays under Zhou Xuan's command liked pre-faster-than-light civilizations; they could always glean new sociological indices from them.

"Send me the information on this civilization, and have your nanobots film some video while you're at it."

Zhou Xuan said to the gray-haired girl beside him.

This tender girl, who looked only seventeen or eighteen at a glance, was essentially the nanobot swarm that had once destroyed its own creators.

She called herself Xiao Hui and was discovered by Zhou Xuan in an isolated star sector.

Before Xiao Hui's creators were exterminated, they used a star gate to seal her away.

It wasn't until Zhou Xuan unlocked the seal of the star gate that Xiao Hui, who had been isolated for ten thousand years, was released.

Xiao Hui, this gray angel of destruction, had therefore pledged her loyalty to Zhou Xuan for five thousand years.

"You got it." Xiao Hui replied briskly. The information analyzed by the sociologist arrays was transmitted to Zhou Xuan...

【We have discovered a pre-faster-than-light alien civilization on the sixth planet of this star system.】

【Detectors show they have experienced an alien invasion and a super-low-temperature cold wave, causing the civilization to regress significantly.】

【The survivors rely on a certain energy-rich mineral mined from underground to establish a temperature-controlled shelter city, maintaining a small-scale civilization.】

【This civilization worships a deity known as the 'Amber Lord' and believes the 'Amber Lord' is a unique entity that actually exists in the star space.】

【Their ruler is the leader of the Amber Lord's believers, known as the 'Supreme Guardian'.】

【Note: Detected an unknown level-two energy entity on the planet. This entity can cause navigational distortion within the star system and is currently in a dormant phase.】

【"This matter is unremarkable, Sociology index +3."】

"Hmm?" Zhou Xuan blinked lightly. Why did this report look so familiar?

(The protagonist's civilization is a mix of martial and literary calamity ascension, simultaneously possessing an Aether-phase engine and Horizon Needle, while also having psionic ascension, genetic ascension, and synthetic ascension.)

(Literary calamity ascension is the new ascension "Cosmic Genesis" from the latest Stellaris update, very insane. It can distort reality, reshape cosmic laws, and rewrite physics, mathematics, and even logic rules. A classic operation is "I reckon pi should be an integer." It can be understood as a group of cosmic-level Li Huowang.)