The first bird cry of the morning dispelled the gloomy atmosphere left behind by last night’s storm. Shadow City was awakened by this call—though unfortunately, it didn’t sound pleasant: caw!

A gigantic storm crow swooped down from the Egg Tart Tower (remember? Shadow City’s new landmark structure), the gusts from her wings almost conjuring two arcane vortices in mid-air. Her descent left behind faint black spatial fissures, clearly indicating this crow had just flown from the Void into the real world, the lingering Void power leaving noticeable marks on the Main Material Plane.

The storm crow landed on the small plaza with an impressive but harmless presence. Seeing the familiar sights of her home, the Crow God, just returned from a distant journey, decided to compose a poem. Her neck stretched, causing the air to tremble: "Caw! Caw caw, caw—caw caw!"

I waited on the plaza for this young lady for thirty minutes, only for her to show up and start cawing like this, so excited that she didn’t even notice her master below her. I was at a loss whether to laugh or cry: No wonder crows are considered one of the most annoying creatures in the world; anyone who hears her voice would be floored.

"Alright, alright, little bird, enough with the noise, I’m over here!" I craned my neck and shouted, finally drowning out the excited clamor of the silly bird, "It must have been a hard journey... Hey, you rascal, don’t use your beak! Don’t you know how hard your beak is?!"

Seeing her master, the silly bird was overjoyed and, as usual, wanted to come over for a peck. Luckily, I dodged quickly—her beak hitting the ground sounded just like a car crash! I can’t imagine what would happen if she actually managed to peck me.

Little Crow has just returned from the White Zone, having been away for three whole days, traveling a great distance; it’s understandable she’s excited upon returning home. As for why she ventured to the White Zone, that story starts a few days ago...

A few days ago (the day after Bingdisi made big news at the barbecue festival in front of over a hundred key figures from the Void Three Clans), we received some new intelligence from the ancestors across the way. Taville, based on this new information, boldly hypothesized that the key to solving the bridge-building problem lay in the hometown world: The hometown world is a universe impacted but not destroyed by an Inactive Abyss Gate. It possibly reached a symbiotic relationship with the enormous Inactive Abyss Gate, coincidentally meeting the conditions for building a Peace Core. Thus, the hometown world would be an unprecedentedly suitable "bridge pier." Taville’s hypothesis quickly received high praise from experts among the Divine Race and strong support from the Abyss Xyrin, even securing unanimous approval from three of us Void Creatures: "Although we don’t fully understand, it seems to make sense."

Thus, the search for the hometown world was upgraded from a regular important task to a "major special operation." The Star Domain Divine Race doubled their patrols (since the Abyss Zone had been conquered and the Divine Race could allocate more personnel), and the Huron Divine Race transferred many from their old home to assist in the search (some suspected coordinates were near the Huron Divine Realm). The Abyss Xyrin also dispatched several deep space explorer teams to help check remaining world coordinates. However, the Abyss Xyrin was short on manpower; after all, they were the hardest hit in the Abyss Zone’s great battle. The unfortunate one had to scrape together just five teams. It’s not that her soldiers were near extinction, but high-speed deep space exploration ships are difficult to build. These ships require special void engines and sensing modules, can’t be mass-produced, and aren’t useful on the frontline. The Abyss Xyrin, always valuing practical spirit, didn’t build such production-chain monopolizing items while preparing for war. Additionally, several of her Starport Worlds were wiped out during the war, making the exploration teams from the Abyss Zone the most under-resourced—though her sincerity in helping was genuine.

The Empire also took actions; aside from dispatching more deep space explorer teams, they released the Little Crow.

I almost forgot about this little bird’s skills before; after all, she spends more time idle and mischievous than handling serious matters, recently turning into a professional crier. If Big Sister hadn’t mentioned at the dinner table, "Medivh is known as the Messenger God, right? Isn’t she as fast in Void travel as our fastest void shuttles?" I might still have taken this silly bird as a mascot at home.

But once I thought of her abilities, it naturally wouldn’t do to let her continue wasting her talents at home, so Little Crow became the most unique deep space explorer, responsible for clearing the coordinates furthest from the Imperial District. To enhance her work efficiency, Taville equipped Little Crow with various gadgets, mainly for navigation and emergency communication, to prevent this silly bird from flying too far and getting lost (though the probability is small). As for her personal safety, there’s no need to worry: Admittedly, she’s not very bright, lacks common sense, has a slightly quirky temperament, frequently misconstrues reality, and particularly loves picking up and eating strange things along the way (does she have too many issues?), yet Little Crow’s combat prowess is outstanding. The crow god, grown under the Void Creature’s influence, is still astonishingly advancing in her combat abilities. I’m unsure to what extent her prowess will grow, but she can already pin Yelsen down and peck him into a lump, so the family feels assured letting her venture out.

I believe there wouldn’t be danger unless she encountered a fourth god-level civilization in the Void. Even if faced with danger, she could run—the girl’s escape skills are almost on par with Little Baobao’s epic level. I suspect she’s invested all her talents in agility and combat prowess—this might explain her intelligence and skewed worldview.

After being thrilled for a long time, the silly bird finally calmed down, lowering her neck to gently nuzzle my cheek with the edge of her beak, making a purring sound. I felt moved by this "little" creature’s affection yet sighed internally: Alas, her misconceptions are getting worse; she seems to think she’s a cat...

"Any new discoveries?" Knowing there might be little progress, I still asked while stroking Little Crow’s beak.

Little Crow shook her head dejectedly: "Caw..."

"Speak human language." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"No discoveries," the silly bird’s voice finally resonated in the spiritual connection, "I flew quite far, but there was only Void, or unknown new worlds, which don’t seem like the hometown world. But I’ve left beacons there, and we can drag it back later as a new nest!"

"New nest" is a term Little Crow often uses, referring to new territories. I have to say she indeed grew up in the Imperial First Family; the first thing this girl learned is to expand territories, "When you see a nice world outside, be sure to bring it back to the Imperial District as territory," which is a compulsory course for every Xyrin Apostle.

I gently patted her beak, reassuring her not to feel too disheartened. Then, with a wave of my hand, a large group of Autonomous Machines and Engineering Soldiers, who had been waiting for some time, came forward to dismantle the odd gadgets from Little Crow. Honestly, seeing Little Crow armed by Taville looked like a fully armored and sharp fighting raptor, with metal plates on her wings, a radar station on her back, dozens of antennas on her tail, and even her head covered in a shiny alloy helmet. This last thing wasn’t any high-tech equipment; Bubbles forcibly put it on Little Crow, saying it made her look more like a boss, giving the impression one could level up five notches upon toppling her...

Other than the mighty golden helmet, all the attachments on Little Crow were temporary plug-ins designed by Taville, as previously mentioned. These plug-ins provided Little Crow with additional scanning and communication, recording abilities to prevent this careless girl from missing crucial information along the way. After all, the silly bird’s only advantage is her speed in the Void; her vision isn’t that great—everyone should remember her astigmatism...

If not for those gadgets, she might not recognize the target even having flown past the hometown world.

"Installing and dismantling temporary equipment is too cumbersome. We need to devise a set of battle attire based on your power, something instantly wearable after transformation," I couldn’t help but cringe as I spoke, watching a large group of engineer machines sparking and bustling around Little Crow (who, to be honest, seems to betray the term ’little’ given her massive body), "Look what a mess you’ve become..."

"I feel great," Little Crow tilted her head, seemingly unfazed by the sparks flying from the construction team (mainly from cutting power lines); the defensive strength of her feathers wasn’t inferior to the armor of warships, "Wearing all this makes me feel super awesome! Though occasionally they make me feel itchy."

Professional hands move quickly; Little Crow’s garb was soon dismantled entirely, and then the silly bird reverted to her human form. The skinny little Crow God Girl wiggled and checked her body, eventually pouting unhappily: "No feathers, no sense of security caw! Master, are we going to report today caw?"

I nodded, tugging at the girl who looked reluctant and was eager to run off to play, and headed toward the Command Center. Little Crow kept glancing back at the increasingly distant tower on the way; her gaze was entirely fixated on the golden giant egg at the top of the tower...

Alright, this silly bird is still hung up on Lin’s egg, and even chose this egg tower as the landing spot for her trip back. Perhaps I should figure out how to put some kind of shield on that giant egg to prevent Little Crow from hatching it. Given the Crow God’s power combined with the Star Domain Dragon God’s strength, I can hardly imagine what she might hatch... Let’s drop this topic before it begins to involve ethical issues.

Several exploration teams returned today from the distant Void White Area. Little Crow was the last to return because she traveled the farthest, but she wasn’t too far behind the others. By now, the commanders of several other just-returned exploration teams had already gathered at the Command Center, and I needed to bring this last "one-person exploration team" over to report. But it’s more a formality; after all, this silly bird’s speaking skills aren’t great, and all her reports are compiled in that mess of automatic devices on her back.

But as Little Crow and I were unhurriedly making our way to the Command Center, Sandora’s voice suddenly echoed in my mind: "Ah Jun, is Medivh back?"

I detected a bit of urgency in her voice and immediately frowned, "Just got home, heading to the Fortress District with her, why?"

"The other exploration team commanders have arrived, and they’ve reported some phenomena. Bring the little bird and get here quickly; there’s a situation."

"Gah?" Little Crow tilted her head and called out curiously when she saw my expression change. Without a word, I took her hand and opened a teleportation gate, "Something seems up, let’s go quickly!"

The Fortress District, Command Center building. Sandora and Sivis were in the large office listening to several exploration team commanders’ reports, with Taville and Abyss Xyrin sitting by as expert consultants. As I led Little Crow through the door, a tall Imperial Soldier was describing their peculiar experience:

"...After crossing a very desolate Void Area, we saw a large number of world remnants that all appeared to have been recently destroyed. These remnants came from several different universes, coincidentally drifting in front of the exploration team. However, we found that the time of their destruction was more or less similar... basically within the past few decades."

I knew right away that this wasn’t a small matter; I quickly patted Little Crow’s head to stop her from "gah-ing," and then nodded slightly at Sandora to greet her before sitting next to her.

"You’ve also discovered that many worlds have been destroyed recently..." Sandora frowned, "This is not a good omen."

"What exactly is the situation?" I only heard part of it, but the few sentences I caught were enough to suggest that something big was happening, "Is there an Abyss uprising in the White Area or what?"

"Not necessarily an Abyss uprising, it should be something more troublesome," Sandora whispered, "All exploration teams returning from the White Area reported seeing a large number of world remnants, destroyed within the last few decades—calculated by Empire standard timeline. Some of these worlds were attacked by the Abyss, but others collapsed for unknown reasons, and some didn’t even show signs of collapse, as if they just abruptly broke apart. All remnants are at roughly the same distance from the Imperial District—from the Imperial District, when you reach the most distant White Area, there’s a barren Void where almost nothing exists, with extremely low cosmic density, and beyond this barren Void are world remnants. This situation is quite unsettling."

In my mind, I started building a model, from Sandora’s few words realizing an uncomfortable truth: is this a disaster spreading from the outside in?

Abyss Xyrin seemed to guess what I was about to say, nodding without changing her expression, "Consider the Imperial District as an origin point; now the void at a certain radius from this origin is descending into chaos. Although it hasn’t reached total extinction, the number of casualties is already quite alarming."

I instinctively asked, "Is this the Great Cataclysm?"

"No, the Great Cataclysm is much more intense; in an instant, the entire void is zeroed, not this slow grind of one universe after another," Abyss Xyrin raised an eyebrow, "This seems to be the ’prelude.’ I had guessed there would be some omen before the Great Cataclysm, and it turns out I wasn’t wrong. It’s just that this omen appeared so far away initially that no one noticed. Perhaps the Void Creatures’ power is suppressing this destructive wave; the Imperial District is temporarily safe, the disaster is contained at a certain distance, and it hasn’t spread here over the decades."

"How about on the Divine Race’s side?" Mentioning Void Creatures immediately made me think about how it was going with the homes of the other two.

"Their exploration teams set off late, with only a third returning now, but there are reports of similar situations. Universes at a certain distance from the Huron Divine Realm and Star Domain Divine Realm are dying en masse from various causes, at roughly consistent times of death," Sandora handed over a scroll, "Left by the two Divine Kings, Father God and King Huron have each returned to their realms to hold the fort because it’s unclear if this surge might sneak through when the Void Creatures step away temporarily, so they have to serve as protectors in the Divine Realm."

I took the scroll, and the moment I touched it, images of Xingchen and Hila surfaced in my mind. The former still wore that gentle smile, but his tone was much more serious than usual: "You should have already understood the situation when you see this message. It was only just confirmed, so we left in a hurry without having time to say goodbye. Don’t worry about us, the Divine Race will protect its people. We’re planning to drag the mortal worlds on the border areas closer to the Divine Realm; if that doesn’t work, we’ll directly connect them all with the Divine Realm. You should do the same—although for now, the disaster is blocked outside the White Area, it’s unclear how long it can be contained, as we still don’t fully understand what mechanisms are holding it back. Also: the general coordinates of the Hometown World have basically been determined, which is good news. You can consult Abyss Xyrin for details..."

Then came Hila’s mumbled words: "Hey, don’t pull me, don’t pull me! Let me say a few words to our little brother... Little brother, don’t panic. If the sky falls, we can lie low... um, Big Sister means that you have to learn to adapt, there’s always a way out, any situation can turn around, the Hometown World will be fine... Hey, why are you pulling me! Just because you think we have a secret doesn’t mean... alright, alright, I’ll stop, okay? That’s it then, we’re each going back home to save lives. Little brother, take care of yourself, as I said, if the sky falls..."

The message ended there, and in that moment, my emotions went up and down several times.

Firstly, Xingchen gave some good news: the coordinates of the Hometown World have been more or less determined!

Then what did Hila’s words mean... is there a situation with the Hometown World? (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote for recommendations and monthly tickets on Qidian.com, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)