Over on the other side... Fallen Star City.

Ethan stared at the live video on his phone and fell silent.

Just like he’d predicted, the Void Realm passage had opened again.

Not only opened—opened this completely.

Looks like the real challenge had finally arrived.

The problem was, this was one hell of a difficulty spike.

Even with all of Ethan’s trump cards, he still didn’t feel steady. Void Realm creatures were too mysterious... too strong. And with so many passages opening at the same time, nobody could guess how many terrifying things would pour into Earth.

Just thinking about it made Ethan’s scalp prickle.

Unfortunately, the opening of a void passage wasn’t something you could "undo." All he could do was watch it happen.

"Boss... this is gonna be trouble," someone said, brow knotted.

Ethan let out a slow breath.

"We’re not dead yet," Ethan said. "First thing, we stay calm."

"There’s no way the Void Realm creatures are all on the same side. They’ll have factions, grudges, territory disputes—things that stop them from moving as one."

"And if that many of them are coming through at the same time, they won’t all be focused on us. We’re natives of this world. In their eyes, that might make us useful before it makes us enemies."

"If we play their conflicts right and keep giving ourselves room to maneuver, we still have a chance."

"Yeah." The others nodded, but their faces stayed tight.

"Ethan," someone asked, unable to hide the hope in their voice, "do you think Earth will get another mysterious-energy surge?"

"I don’t know." Ethan shook his head.

His eyes drifted to the Nine-Star Dipper overhead. It looked... dimmer than before, almost drowned out by the Crimson Star’s glare. And a quiet instinct told him: probably not.

He remembered how bright the Nine-Star Dipper had been at the very beginning. After the last mysterious-energy upheaval, it had noticeably dulled. Maybe those surges were connected to the Dipper itself.

Now that the Dipper had faded, the odds of another upheaval felt low.

Besides—if the Void Realm was about to invade in force, and Earth also got another mysterious-energy eruption...

Wouldn’t that just be handing them a gift?

It would lure even more Void Realm creatures that hadn’t crossed yet, driving them into a frenzy to flood in. At that point, humans wouldn’t even have space left to breathe.

Ethan had a strange feeling—the Nine-Star Dipper was protecting Earth. It wouldn’t do something like that.

Under everyone’s tense watch, the dimensional rift continued opening at an unbelievably slow pace.

So slow it almost looked like it had stalled—like some invisible force was trying to hold it shut.

But whatever was pushing it open was stronger. Even at a crawl, it kept widening.

One inch. Two inches. Ten...

The rift gradually grew.

Finally, at five in the morning, the Nine-Star Dipper and the Crimson Star vanished together.

And the moment the stars disappeared, the rift stopped expanding.

But by then...

It had already grown to more than thirty feet long, and nearly seventeen feet wide.

Across the world, dimensional rifts now stood in open air—gashes hanging in space, surrounded by dense spatial power.

Everyone who saw it went quiet.

Ethan immediately ordered the guards stationed at Riverton City compound to leave a few cameras behind and pull their people out as fast as possible.

They already knew the Void Realm passage at Riverton City compound connected to Eldoria, a higher-tier continent.

Just looking at the Stoneborn powerhouses that had come out of there before made one thing obvious:

That place was strong. Dangerously strong.

And Riverton City compound was close to Fallen Star City.

Which meant this rift... was almost certainly going to be Fallen Star City’s first real test.

Right now, in the various Void Realms, creatures clustered around those dimensional rifts, staring into them with naked curiosity.

They wanted to know what was on the other side—but they didn’t dare gamble.

Whether it was humans or Void Realm creatures, the unknown always came with fear.

Still, there were always a few bold ones.

After hesitating, they gritted their teeth and dove into the rifts anyway.

On the Yamato Archipelago—where the old Yamato Empire had long since fallen—deep in some mountain range, a dimensional rift stood like a wound in the air.

Suddenly, the rift rippled.

A moment later, one bull-headed, man-bodied figure after another squeezed through.

Minotaurs.

They looked around, stunned at first—then their faces split into raw delight.

They hadn’t expected it.

A rift leading to a world this beautiful?

Across the Pacific, the Cathay Republic had also clawed its way back from the apocalypse.

It had soldiers. It had factories. It had population. Most importantly, it had a government disciplined and centralized enough to keep the country functioning when the old world collapsed.

While many nations were still barely holding their compounds together, Cathay had already turned mysterious energy into a national priority. Crystal core synthesis, energy weapons, absorption techniques—breakthrough after breakthrough pushed its Awakened forward.

Once Cathay brought its own zombie problem under control, it began pushing operations beyond its borders. Officially, these were joint rescue, evacuation, and reconstruction missions. Cathay’s forces cleared zombie-infested zones, secured transport routes, and moved survivors into safer protected settlements.

In practice, those operations expanded Cathay’s regional influence. Every rescued population, every secured route, every rebuilt settlement strengthened the safety buffer around its borders. Cathay called it regional stabilization. Other nations viewed it through the lens of their own interests.

In the ruins of the old world, Cathay wasn’t merely trying to survive.

It was trying to protect its people, rebuild order, and make sure it had a place in whatever world came next.

So yeah—Cathay’s Enhanced were generally stronger than average, at least in that part of the world.

Unfortunately, their luck seemed to run out tonight.

More than a dozen dimensional rifts appeared within Cathay’s territory, and living creatures emerged from three of them.

The beings that stepped through looked nothing alike. But the moment they saw this world, the same emotion hit their faces—pure, greedy delight.

Then they scattered, fanning out in every direction.

And it wasn’t just Cathay.

Big countries, small countries—everywhere on Earth, dimensional rifts appeared in greater or lesser numbers.

The largest share, though, was over the oceans.

More than seventy percent of Earth was water. Over those endless seas, it made sense that countless rifts would hang in the sky.

Void Realm creatures came through those ocean rifts too.

And a lot of them were... unlucky.

They popped out, dropped straight into the sea, and immediately learned what "ocean terror" really meant.

Sea monsters surged up without warning and tore them apart like scraps of meat.

The same scene played out again and again across the world’s oceans.

If ocean life could feel gratitude, today they’d be thanking nature for its generosity. Void Realm creatures falling from the sky were basically free food delivery.

Of course, not all of them died.

Some Void Realm creatures could fly. The instant they emerged, they beat their wings and escaped.

Others were so powerful they didn’t need wings at all. They simply stepped onto the air itself and moved like the sky was solid ground.

Every now and then, some enormous sea beast would launch out of the water to grab them—

Only to get smashed into pulp with a casual slap.

If humans saw scenes like that, it would scare them out of their minds.

But overall, the survival rate for creatures emerging over the ocean was still brutally low.

Most of them ended up in the bellies of sea life.

Even strong Void Realm creatures, if they couldn’t fly, were basically doomed the moment they hit the water. The ocean had endless predators. Endless swarms. Endless teeth.

No matter how tough you were, you could still be worn down. Drowned in bodies. Ground down until you ran out of strength.

Land creatures lost too much fighting power in the water. They couldn’t match native sea monsters on their own turf.

And the ocean’s ecosystem was a meat grinder that never stopped. Creatures devoured each other constantly. Who knew how many truly terrifying monsters had already been born down there?

If those things could freely leave the sea and live on land, there probably wouldn’t be land creatures left.

But nobody could say for sure that the ocean’s "restriction" would hold forever.

Maybe once a creature grew strong enough, it could break past what its species was supposed to be.

Maybe one day...

Fish really would grow legs and start running around on land.