Ian hovered inside the cold metal workshop.
He watched the massive mechanical entity methodically execute its inhumane production process.
Destroying this cold machine would be as meaningless as crushing a messenger ant.
It was merely a tool, a servant programmed to perform a task.
The true culprits were at the other end of the sea of stars.
Ian's gaze pierced through the factory's metal shell, looking into the boundless depths of the universe.
His divine sense extended infinitely into the cosmos at a speed surpassing light and causality.
He followed the aura of arrogance and distortion unique to the Qu, which was engraved in the genetic memory of this planet.
It was a sickening mental brand, a mixture of extreme conceit and sadistic pleasure.
Following this cold malice that spanned several epochs, he accurately locked onto their location.
In an incredibly distant galaxy.
A vibrant blue planet was being shrouded in shadows.
The Qu fleet hovered silently in the planet's orbit like a flock of cosmic vultures perched on a corpse.
Their battleships were alive—hideous biological constructs.
Their locust-like carapaces were covered in irregular crystals, and massive, mantis-like scythe legs waved unconsciously in the void.
Behind the Qu were four wings, thin as cicada wings yet capable of easily distorting space, emitting an ominous faint light.
They were in the midst of a new "creation."
A civilization that had just mastered basic warp drive and stepped into the space age full of hope.
In the eyes of the Qu, they were nothing more than a new toy to be molded at will.
On the surface, cities were dissolving, and lives were wailing.
The Qu's movements were elegant yet cruel. Using invisible force fields, they deconstructed and reconstructed the intelligent lifeforms of this planet one by one.
They twisted their flesh and blood into unspeakable "works of art."
They reveled in this process, filled with a disregard and mockery for life.
Ian merely shifted his thoughts.
The entire starry sky where the Qu fleet was located, along with the blue planet undergoing modification, was like a painting gripped by an invisible giant hand.
It was forcefully "extracted" from three-dimensional space.
Then folded in half, and folded again.
Time, space, energy, matter... all physical laws instantly froze within this folded region.
Those living battleships, those arrogant Qu, were firmly imprisoned in an eternal "instant."
At this moment, these cosmic gardeners who styled themselves as "gods" felt, for the first time, the soul-deep terror they had inflicted upon countless civilizations.
Then their movements froze, and their thoughts stagnated.
Their proud ability to distort spatial dimensions was as fragile as paper in the face of a higher-dimensional power.
Ian slowly reached out his hand and gently grasped at the endless void.
That folded spatial "cube," which froze the entire Qu fleet and that planet, instantly crossed an immeasurable expanse of space and time.
It appeared in the palm of his hand.
It was like a crystal-clear piece of amber, sealing the eternal, terrified postures of the Qu inside.
Ian's face was devoid of any expression as he casually tore open a rift in front of him.
It was not a spatial rift, but a wound leading to another dimension, to the chaotic Warp.
On the other end of the rift was madness and chaos that could not be described with words.
It was an ocean composed entirely of negative emotions.
Four greedy and ecstatic wills instantly rose from that ocean, locking onto this "feast" that had fallen from the sky.
The souls and despair contained within were the nourishment they craved most.
With a flick of his finger, Ian tossed the "cube" sealing the Qu civilization into the rift.
He seemed to hear the satisfied and joyful roars of those four Evil Gods over this unexpected "gift."
The Qu would not die; they would be eternally torn apart, devoured, digested, and reconstructed in that chaos.
They would experience billions of times the pain they had inflicted on other civilizations, until the end of time.
After dealing with the Qu, a massive surge of Interdimensional Energy rushed into Ian's body like a bursting flood.
This was the source power of the entire Qu civilization and the countless worlds they had enslaved, now entirely belonging to Ian.
The Transmutation Tablet within him let out a crisp, melodious chime.
A brand-new mod was lit up and unlocked.
Ian's consciousness sank into it, instantly understanding the meaning of this mod.
The spark of civilization, the exploration of the sea of stars, the ascent of technology, the evolution of species, cosmic warfare...
This mod symbolized all the dreams and possibilities a civilization could possess regarding the stars and the sea.
He then recalled this world, that Golden Age where human civilization was brutally interrupted.
That "Star People" civilization, full of innocence and pride.
An idea quietly sprouted in his heart.
Simple salvation was far too boring.
What he wanted to give this civilization was not a rescued present.
Instead, he wanted them to rely on their own two hands to win back all their tomorrows.
He wanted to give this civilization a chance to conquer their fears and personally strangle their nightmares.
Ian slowly reached out his hand, as if to touch an invisible river.
It was the river of time flowing through the entire universe.
He gently plucked at the river of time.
*Hum—*
The time of the entire universe began to flow backward madly in an inconceivable manner.
The massive factory ship high in the sky dissolved into motes of light and dissipated.
On the ground, those twisted fairy tale characters broke down into their most primal genetic information.
The modified planet shed its red surface, becoming vibrant and full of life once more.
Mountains returned to their places, and oceans reappeared.
The twisted forests, the black stone towers, the mushroom villages... everything turned into illusions, dissipating in the regression of time.
The river of time was plucked by him, washing away all traces left by the Qu.
Finally, time stopped at a critical node.
An era before human civilization had ushered in that brief Golden Age, and before they had ever encountered the Qu.
This universe seemed to have merged with fragments of other worlds.
During his previous investigations, Ian had discovered the microscopic traces of a probe left by another alien civilization deep within the planet's strata.
It was a civilization known as "Trisolaris."
Finally, this planet regained its original azure blue.
Towering buildings, bustling traffic, filled with the noise and vitality of modern civilization.
But beneath this prosperity, an invisible, oppressive panic permeated the air.
The super artificial intelligence known as "Sophons," deployed to Earth by the Trisolarans, had already locked down the progress of basic physics.
That omnipresent surveillance, that arrogant declaration.
It loomed like a lingering dark cloud over the hearts of every human being.
They could not see the enemy, yet they felt as if a pair of cold eyes were watching them from the other side of the universe at all times.
Ian concealed his figure, hovering above the Earth's atmosphere.
He looked down upon this world he had "reset," looking down upon this group of humans who felt lost and terrified about the future.