Chapter 15

The stars of the Azure Star System vanished, and the myriad stars disappeared as well.

The entire universe was shrouded in profound darkness, so hollow it sent chills down one's spine.

Asta gently placed her hand on the viewport, gazing out at the void beyond.

Dark and hollow, without a shred of light, it seemed as though the entire universe had been swallowed by a black hole.

Countless doubts surged in her mind; even if the stars truly vanished simultaneously,

given the speed of light, the starlight visible to the naked eye originates from stars of the past,

so after the stars disappeared, this starlight should have faded away gradually in sequence...

As Asta watched, she began to feel dizzy and disoriented.

An unbearable sensation of falling assailed her; the darkness seemed to start writhing and spinning, as if some terrifying entity were about to drill out from within and tear the entire universe apart...

"Hey." Herta's puppet grabbed Asta's shoulder, pulling her gaze away from the dark depths of space.

"Don't look too long; staring at the starless deep space for too long will drive a person mad."

Herta said lightly:

"Habitable planets cannot produce heavy elements."

"The iron in living beings' blood comes from supernova explosions during a star's death."

"The zinc in tissue fluid comes from neutron star collisions."

"Trace amounts of copper come from the extinction of white dwarfs, while cobalt comes from nebular splashes."

"The calcium in bones, the carbon in macromolecules, and the oxygen we breathe—all these were forged in the furnaces of stars."

"Thus, life is the child of the stars, born because of stars and existing because of them."

Herta glanced at the silent deep space outside the window:

"If you cannot see the stars, your nerves, synapses, and brain will begin to malfunction, eventually driving you mad."

Hearing this, a flicker of fear flashed in Asta's eyes: "Lady Herta..."

"I know what you want to ask."

Herta said with hands on hips:

"Where have all the stars gone? Why does the Azure Star System continue to function normally after the stars vanished?"

"Why can I still feel the heat of the stars? Who extinguished the stars of the entire universe?"

"I am just as curious as you are, so... come be my assistant; I need to re-measure the physical effects of the stars."

"... What about the Sun?" Bronya asked, her eyes wide with bewilderment.

The Sun was gone; the Sun that illuminated all of Jarilo-VI and even the entire star system had vanished.

The sky was instantly shrouded in darkness, as if night had fallen in the blink of an eye.

Only the starships of the Calamity Empire in the sky remained clearly visible, massive like a needle that had torn through the cosmos.

All of Belobog fell into brief panic; residents in the city pointed at the sky, uttering frantic and terrified remarks.

Bronya gazed at the hollow sky, a strange feeling arising in her heart...

If the stars had extinguished, logically the other stars should have become visible... but...

A possibility that she herself was unwilling to believe surfaced in Bronya's mind.

She turned her head, her lips trembling slightly, and asked in a hoarse voice:

"What about the Sun?"

"What about the stars?"

Zhou Xuan leaned lazily against his chair.

Beside him, Gray Wind used a fork to spear a Belobog specialty dessert and fed it into Zhou Xuan's mouth.

"They are just far away."

Zhou Xuan blinked:

"If there were no stars, all star systems would collapse at the same instant."

"We could indeed do that, but you probably wouldn't be happy about it."

A chill rose in Bronya's heart, her thoughts becoming a tangled mess.

She pointed at the pitch-black sky, looked at Zhou Xuan, then looked back at the sky.

"But... but why can't we see them?"

"I turned them off." Zhou Xuan made a switching-off gesture.

"... Turned off?" Bronya's eyes were full of confusion.

"Just like turning off a light."

In the Herta Space Station, Herta slammed the observation instrument heavily onto the floor.

"Madman!"

"Was it that madman who did this?!"

"He actually shifted the light of all stars into the invisible spectrum?!"

22. 【All Things Must Bow Before Us】

Asta stared blankly at the data calculated by the instruments.

It showed that the physical effects of the stars in the Azure Star System were completely normal.

It was merely that the light emitted by the stars had been shifted out of the visible spectrum for intelligent beings, rendering it invisible to the human eye.

Strangely, although the wavelength of the starlight had changed, its physical effects remained unchanged.

It continued to radiate heat outward normally; apart from being shrouded in darkness, the Azure Star Planet suffered no other effects.

Such a bizarre situation completely contradicted any physical phenomenon within Asta's understanding.

"How could such a natural phenomenon occur?" Asta couldn't help but ask, "This defies the laws of physics, Lady Herta!"

Hearing this, Herta's puppet couldn't help but laugh aloud.

"Natural phenomenon? Laws of physics?"

Herta tightly gripped the survey results in her hand, her fingertips trembling as she said:

"How could you think this is a natural phenomenon? How could you believe the laws of physics are impregnable?"

"Asta, among that group of fools at the Corporation, you count as the smarter type."

Herta turned her head to gaze out the space station's viewport into the endless deep space.

Inside the observation chamber, the counter rotated gently, coming to a stop at the forty-two-minute mark.

In the deep space beyond the viewport, streaks of starlight suddenly blazed forth; the star of Blue Planet bloomed with light once more, revealing itself within the dark void.

"Stars across the entire universe extinguished simultaneously in the same manner for forty-two standard minutes."

Herta said softly:

"Only self-deceiving fools would think this is a natural phenomenon, or believe it conforms to the laws of physics."

After falling silent for a moment, she couldn't help but let out a laugh and said:

"Countless civilizations among the stars have spent countless years studying the laws of physics, attempting to fathom the truth of the universe."

"But today, some existence tampered with the laws of physics, committed the universe's truth to the flames, and forced the myriad stars to bow low before It."

"The stars were extinguished for forty-two minutes, and physics ceased to exist for forty-two minutes."

"Tampered with the laws of physics..." Asta couldn't help but murmur to herself, "But... but... Lady Herta, why would that existence do such a thing? And who is It?"

"Perhaps It merely played a joke on all living beings in the cosmos."

Herta shook her head gently.

"As for who? Asta, who do you think it might be?"

Hearing this, Asta paused slightly, and a voice immediately surfaced in her mind...

"The Calamity Empire?" she murmured softly.

Belobog, Goethe Grand Hotel.

Bronya looked at the sun blazing brightly in the sky once more and couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.

For an instant, she had even thought the sun would never shine again.

"How exactly did you accomplish this?" Bronya couldn't help but ask.

Although her understanding of technology was limited, her basic scientific literacy told her:

For all stars in the universe to extinguish simultaneously violated the laws of physics.