Taville analyzed information about the Hometown World from the World Fragments that collided with us, thus confirming our course is correct. This is actually great news—because even now, we still have to describe the coordinates of the Hometown World as "suspected to be correct," and dare not confirm their accuracy.

The initial coordinates of the Hometown World were left by a Divine Race Sentry in the Ancient Era (which is considered ancient even for the eternal Divine Race). Since then, time has passed, and even the Universe, which lives for tens of billions of years, will undergo countless cycles of life and death. Although the Hometown World has not perished, its position will change amid the Void’s alterations, and the Divine Race inferred a series of "suspected coordinates" according to the Void’s changing rules.

Clearly, there is much uncertainty in the above process, with too many variables at every step. Even though the Divine Race devoted months to meticulously select the coordinates, we still cannot confidently affirm that the Hometown World must be at the locations indicated.

Although Sandora and I are reluctant to admit it, this fleet expedition indeed involves playing luck. But necessity forces us; the imminent Void Cataclysm leaves us little time, so we have to try even if relying on chance. Now that Taville has analyzed signals of the Hometown World from the World Fragments, everyone’s hearts settled. Whether the Hometown World still exists or not, at least our finally determined course through elimination is assured.

"Can you determine the precise location of the Hometown World?" I somewhat greedily asked, but Taville isn’t omnipotent. Facing this question, she could only shake her head apologetically, "Unable to determine. The information is very sparse and extremely vague, likely just traces left by some material leak. However, we only have three suspected coordinates, so it won’t take long to find them by elimination; theoretically, that’s the case."

I nodded and didn’t desire more. Indeed, it is quite difficult to identify information about the Hometown World this simply because typically, one Universe would not contain any information about another. Even occasional "crossing" phenomena would be corrected by the World’s own mechanisms: either the crossing material would be obliterated, or it would be thoroughly transformed and given a local identity, depending on the version of the World Management System. According to Bingdisi’s introduction, several official new versions of the World Management System from the Pantheon support an automatic identity-switching function.

In summary, detecting information of another Universe from a World Fragment is quite rare, but the situation for the Hometown World is special—although the reason is unknown, the Hometown World seems to be continuously leaking material or performing large-scale information exchanges with other Universes. Perhaps its World Barrier is faulty; regardless, anything near the Hometown World or having interacted with it is stained with the "Hometown’s essence."

This claim seems odd, yet it is an auspicious phenomenon. This is why we can deduce the coordinates of the Hometown World based on this essence.

This grand Void collision has ended, leaving only a few splendid bands of light slowly dispersing in the Order Field. The struggling World Fragment has finally reached its end, and the collision with the Order Field broke its final stability, leading to swift and pain-free Void assimilation. The brilliance we see in the Order Field now is just the last image before the fragment completely evaporates. Little Crow also completed her task; dragging a plume of tail flames, she appeared in the Order Field and landed using her signature joyful 59-style landing method on the Imperial Admiral’s horizontal arm—by which she firmly stuck her beak into the armor plate, landing accomplished in an instant with a single strike.

Obviously, she learned this landing method from some silly Dragon God who insists on landing with his mouth. But Little Crow isn’t as troubled by landings as that silly dragon; she lands using her beak simply because it’s quicker. Considering she bears heavy equipment, normal landing would take her ages to decelerate and hover, so crashing makes it more convenient. After all, Crow God’s body is sturdier than a spaceship, and she’s not worried about injuring her beak. Because now more than one individual uses this novel mouth landing technique, Qianqian leveraged her imaginative advantage and named this landing method "59-style"—I find this code meaningless, but Qianqian’s reasoning is that it allows for easy modification. No matter how many new positions Little Crow invents, they can all be collectively called 59-style... Continuing this topic feels weird, so let it end here.

Abyss Xyrin personally piloted a work ship to pull Little Crow off the armor strip, then handed the silly bird’s equipment over to the Expert Team for analysis. Thus, we roughly determined the "direction" from which the world fragments drifted. However, this "direction" cannot directly determine the Hometown World’s position; it can only serve as a reference for adjusting the Void Engine’s parameters, which is better than nothing.

What followed was several days of full-speed navigation.

We can now fully affirm that the fleet has entered the range of the "destruction wave," and can be sure that this destruction wave is still surging. The nearby void remains, but various signs indicate that it is becoming increasingly hostile, a certain "atmosphere" is gradually becoming unfamiliar. The fleet began to encounter a large area of cosmic debris, not like at the very beginning where we’d occasionally bump into one or two, but now, just by turning on the void radar, one can casually scan out a large swath. We were navigating like traversing a chaotic scene littered with floating corpses; the shattered universe lingered outside the fleet’s order field, countless world fragments quickly evaporated within the radar’s sensing range, violent information tides came from every direction. This is the unconscious spasm after world destruction, sigh-inducing but more headache-inducing: the information impact produced when world fragments evaporate forms endless pieces, almost affecting the spaceship’s navigation system, turning into vague scenery in the void.

Luckily, Taville anticipated this happening before departure and installed numerous modified plugins on every spaceship, a considerable portion of which was specifically for enhancing radar strength and precision, and there was a powerful filtering and disruption system set against the evaporation noise of world debris. While these settings can’t completely counteract the surrounding interference, they can at least maintain the navigation device in an operational state, ensuring navigation remains smooth is stronger than everything. Besides, honestly, the fleet here doesn’t need a large-scale scan; we only have three targets remaining, the last three "suspected coordinates" to inspect, with the hometown world being one of them, the fleet just needs to input the coordinates into the navigation device and rush straight over, it doesn’t matter what we collide with en route.

However, our luck was considered good; the major collision when we first entered the destruction wave did not recur (certainly, that day’s collision was due to Sandora ordering to hold our course, which could originally have been avoided), world fragments being dense was only relative, in the vast void there still exists a path that allows the fleet to pass safely. We advanced cautiously yet swiftly in this unfamiliar environment, lamenting and mourning the cosmic debris encountered around, while hoping the hometown world would appear sooner, preferably as the first coordinate.

Yet it’s not all debris along this journey; we also encountered some universes not yet destroyed. As the exploration team reported, the destruction wave only increased the number of apocalypses but did not truly destroy everything like a catastrophe. Although the mechanism of effect remains unclear, some universes survived, standing out strikingly amid the wreckage-laden void, and could anytime become the next victim. Our radar had once detected a fairly large-scale information tide, then the next day large swaths of "fresh debris" drifted in from the direction of the information tide outbreak, undoubtedly another apocalypse—iron-clad proof that the destruction wave still operated.

We can’t delay the journey any longer, but nor can we turn a blind eye, after all, in the Xyrin Apostle logic, anything that belongs to the order camp counts as an ally or potential ally (hmm, in the Old Empire era it’s called cannon fodder and potential cannon fodder), so when the fleet discovers surviving worlds with civilization, it will delegate some work teams. These work teams are prepared in advance, carrying sovereignty broadcast towers produced during the journey (the core component of the sovereignty hub), their task is to set these broadcast towers into the surviving universes found along the way. The sovereignty broadcast towers will continually emit signals to the world, declaring the place as Empire territory, and the broadcast towers are connected to the pioneering outposts we set up along the way, through layered transitions connected all the way to the data total network of the Imperial District, thus truly tying these wild universes with the Empire as one entity.

This broadcast is of course not a pointless formality; the broadcast towers work through ghost energy in special frequencies, leveraging ghost energy on the void ladder and the world’s level principle, they can change a world’s basic data, turning it into the Empire’s "component," thereby taking it under the protection of void creatures. Those experts have confirmed as long as void creatures are mounted on the data total network, each network node will be immune to various void disasters, even if a node is remote, with weak connections it won’t matter.

This counts as exploiting a void loophole, hanging out with Dingdang and a big bunch of unreliable Divine Race for long, I’ve realized myself being assimilated by them, becoming more adept at exploiting my own loopholes...

Fifteen days into the voyage since leaving the Imperial District, we finally arrived at the first coordinate.

Theoretically, this could be where the hometown world is located, however regrettably, here lies nothing but chaotic debris and a universe already entering the twilight of death. The surrounding information tide is intense, evidently several large worlds had collapsed not too long ago, their demise spasms still scrubbing this void.

Taville dispatched an expert team to inspect each piece of debris here along with the dying universe, finally reporting with a tone of great relief, "It’s not the hometown world, this coordinate can be eliminated."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief: upon reaching the first coordinate, seeing cosmic debris everywhere, everyone’s hearts were truly up in arms suddenly, even those carefree like Bingdisi and Qianqian were tense for a long time, truly fortunate, no bad news yet.

"But just hanging like this every day isn’t ideal," Bingdisi sat in the chair rocking back and forth out of boredom. "I’m depressed. I hate this kind of nerve-racking stuff. Can’t they just finish it with a single blow?"

The Abyss Xyrin floated around the officer platform like a wandering soul. Her life form is special, and her true self cannot leave the Abyss Zone, so what we see is merely an interactive interface. Clearly, her main focus isn’t here. Qianqian poked at her face for a while out of boredom before the Abyss Xyrin suddenly snapped out of her trance-like state as if she were sleepwalking: "Huh?! What’s up?"

Qianqian continued to poke at her face: "Nothing, just poking you to kill time."

The Abyss Xyrin thought for a moment and nodded silently: "Oh, then go ahead."

I feel that this half-month of tedious sailing has really gotten the best of us. Look, even these two dull heads are almost synchronized!

The initial tense excitement mixed with the blood-boiling sense of mission that we felt when departing has gradually settled down. After half a month of navigating through this desolate Void White Zone filled with decay, the hearts of all have been left with nothing but calmness and a bit of anticipation and unease. The increasingly numerous world fragments along the journey have finally made us feel numb, yet Taville and her researchers remain high-spirited: they won’t tire of the abundant cosmic debris scattered everywhere here, which holds endless secrets waiting to be unearthed. This place is full of novel phenomena and valuable data for researchers like them. The others have slowly turned this voyage into a routine, acting as if they are at home and doing their daily chores. The initial excitement and the in-between boredom have both passed, leaving only a quiet wait behind. Big Sister has been busy teaching Little Crow to write; Lin Xue is holding a crystal ball every day, doing fortune-telling on the streets of the city within the ship. Bingdisi occasionally leads the Divine Clan Tiaozi Five around the Order Field edge for a stroll. Sometimes they even take a walk in the world fragments they pass by, treating it like an exploration of isolated islands at sea while claiming to collect data for improving world management terminals. The most entertaining one is Qianqian, who has been busy weaving a scarf for me recently, saying she found the feeling of being a gentlewoman and a great housewife. The scarf she’s weaving now is long enough to tie me from the Nicaraguan Falls... The efficiency is truly terrifying. I have ample reason to believe this girl uses Time Acceleration on strange things, and I’m sure she has no idea how to finish the stitch...

Xyrin Apostles and Divine Race are creatures that can endure loneliness, and each member of my family is quite absentminded, finally demonstrating the greatest advantage of being an Immortal Species: once life becomes dull to a certain degree, we quickly organize a new routine.

But the monotonous voyage eventually has a destination. Ten days later (already twenty-five days since leaving the Imperial District), we reached the second coordinates, and this time, a clear signal appeared on the radar.

A sharp system alert first echoed through every warship, followed by fleet-wide broadcasts resounding across all corners. This was at dawn; the family, keeping Earth’s routine, hadn’t risen yet, but after the broadcast sounded, everyone rushed out from their rooms as fast as possible. In the midst of the commotion, I was still a bit dazed but the repeated broadcast finally assured everyone it’s not a dream: "Large-scale information source detected, pattern determined to be a native universe, confirmed to be the hometown world. Large-scale information source detected, pattern determined to be a native universe, confirmed to be the hometown world..."

I came out of the living cabin, standing on the edge of the ecological area, gazing at the distant scenery with a surprised expression, listening to the broadcast repeat over and over, the simulated dome above gradually brightening, and beneath it, the city within the ship visibly bustling with activity. Imperial Soldiers started moving in groups, preparing for upcoming landings according to the scheduled process. High-speed flying devices constantly zipping through the skies, they’re heading to the engineering fleet’s expert team.

The entire city awoke at dawn, and we too found the hometown world amidst the dawn—whether logical or not, I felt this was a positive omen.

As waves of excitement surged within me, a sudden delightful cheer, exhilarating yet formidable, rang out from beside: "Ooooh finally found it la la la—"

Turning my head, I saw Bingdisi, ecstatic as ever, yelling excitedly at the city center. Behind her were the Divine Clan Tiaozi, hesitant to voice their cheers due to the boss’s intimidation, and a tiny voice mingled within Bingdisi’s joyous cries: "Ooooh, finally found it la la la..."

It’s Dingdang; the little one fears no intimidation, bouncing excitedly atop Bingdisi’s head, though her movement draws little attention.

The bit of excitement I had in my heart was instantly erased by this lot: "Why do you look more excited than the Xyrin Apostles?" 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Bingdisi tossed her head (sending Dingdang flying in the process), her tone cool: "Nonsense, those Xyrin Apostles are as reserved as anything, they can’t even celebrate when something huge happens, so I’m yelling for them."

I: "..."

Never mind, it’s a good omen too!

(There’s a crucial thing to say—the Xyrin Empire is going to conclude soon; most of the big pits have been filled, the small ones... well, don’t mind those. In summary, it’s soon coming to an end. This should be the last month of the book fighting for monthly votes.

Here, I’m asking for monthly tickets, subscriptions, and rewards; the data in this last month seems to matter a lot to give this book a solid closing stat and make the launch of a new book smoother.

After the conclusion, something might still be released, like creating a new volume with new plotlines or something, and also announcing news about the physical book and peripheral items here, with the physical book seemingly hitting shelves next month, so stay tuned here for significant intel.

Both the physical book and peripherals will contain new content, so I hope for your support to see related intel soon.

Lastly, repeating one more time—monthly votes, subscriptions, rewards, not forcing, but if you have them, please support over here! Truly when this village is passed, this store will be gone. Let’s give the Xyrin Empire a good performance in the last month!) (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations, monthly tickets; your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com for reading.)