# Chapter 38: Above the Dome
While Joshua fought and destroyed the various evil gods, many other things were happening elsewhere in the multiverse.
**Bloody Star River, Amos Royal Court.**
— In the conventional sense, it was impossible for pure stars to exist in the void.
All luminous bodies in the void were the light of worlds, and the light of a world confirmed the intensity of its internal energy circulation. That is to say, the higher the concentration of transcendence, the brighter the light. And the number of intelligent life forms was also intriguingly factored into the energy circulation—an increase in intelligent life would also cause the light to become more dazzling.
A star, as a stable yet fragile ball of fire, could not exist independently in the void without the protection of a world. It would rapidly disperse into basic energy clouds, then be blown away by temporal currents to distant places.
However, somewhere in the void of the multiverse, there existed a wonder entirely composed of stars.
The territory of the Amos Royal Court spanned the entire World Star River, standing in sharp opposition to the Takur Annihilation Order. But strangely, its core star domain was located not too far from the front lines, emitting an incomparably magnificent radiance.
Even across hundreds or thousands of star domains, through chaotic temporal currents, one could still see the location of the Royal Court, and a towering arch that covered the entire star domain… a dome.
"When I first came to the Royal Court, I stood frozen in place for over ten minutes. I strained my eyes to see its end, but was disappointed to find it impossible,"
In the void, a semi-transparent streamlined warship was flying at tremendous speed. Elma spoke softly to Crele, who stood on her bridge: "Now, my strength has increased, but the awe has not diminished at all, because the farther I see, the more I understand its grandeur."
"Crele, do you see it?"
The human captain being questioned did not speak. He simply stared with wide eyes and slightly open mouth, straining to take in everything before him… At this moment, the warship had entered the range of the world's radiance. Massive void ports and void settlements appeared on their left and right, but Crele had no energy to focus on these structures, each larger than an entire mountain range. What he could see was billions upon billions of times more vast than these insignificant things.
It was a dome that covered an entire star domain, colossal beyond measure, piercing through the void, its peak hidden in the endless dark currents of spacetime, composed of countless flowing stars and nebulae, its complete size utterly unknowable!
Even in the multiverse, there were probably few structures with a dome of this scale. How could such an exaggerated building exist? Dazzling light pierced through the void. One could see many worlds enveloped by this dome, as if subdued and collected by it.
"…I see it…"
Watching this scene, the country boy who had previously seen nothing larger than the core teleportation obelisk of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, former captain Crele, said in a sleepwalking voice: "No, I haven't really seen it… This is just a pillar, right? I can only see this one pillar, and a little bit of the top."
"It's too big…"
Before this enormous dome, whether void warships, city ports, or massive void settlements, all were less than ants—mere specks of dust. Before a great wonder whose basic building material was stars, no one could find any additional adjectives. They could only repeatedly repeat words like majestic, towering, and inconceivable.
Rushing streams of aether acted like invisible cement, connecting the forces between stars, forming flowing walls of the star river. These walls extended upward endlessly, expanding, and then converging into a zenith that covered the star domain. Crele subconsciously raised his hand, his face full of longing to touch the stars he could never actually reach. This action made Elma blink. She hadn't expected that her companion, when faced with the starry dome, could still move, even showing desire and curiosity.
"Legend says that is the shell carried by the Great Emperor."
But this was not important. Elma turned her head and gazed at the dome together with Crele. Her tone was incredibly complex, filled with awe, piety, unwillingness, and hidden doubt and anger: "The 'burden' that the Amos people have carried since their birth."
"Crele, welcome to the Royal Court Dome… welcome to the 'Amos Royal Court.'"
Not long ago, Elma, who had eliminated a limit creature in the assembly zone, received a summons from the Royal Court headquarters, allowing her to have an audience with Emperor Amos. In fact, every Amos person who eliminated a limit creature within the Royal Court's territory could obtain the opportunity to meet the Great Emperor. The Great Emperor would split off a thread of his consciousness to communicate directly with these lucky individuals, bestowing rewards and granting glory.
But Crele still remembered that when Elma learned she could have an audience with the Great Emperor, her expression was more complex than he had ever seen… Even when facing a limit creature, preparing to sacrifice herself, she had not been so troubled.
"If you really don't want to go, then refuse," Crele had advised instinctively at that time. He didn't want her to be troubled by such matters: "We still have the transcendent system granted by the Marshal on us. If we're discovered, it won't be good."
"No, I still have to go." But these words instead helped Elma make up her mind. The entire void warship trembled slightly, as if letting out a sigh: "Escape is useless… When I received the notification, I knew the Great Emperor was already watching me."
So, Elma and Crele traveled from the distant frontier of the Royal Court to this core location.
"Is this the Great Emperor's residence?"
After entering the range covered by the dome, the internal world's light made it impossible to see the distant dome. Crele shook off his inner awe and asked curiously: "The Marshal and the others analyzed that the main body of Emperor Amos should be a nebula creature far larger than ordinary worlds. Its main body size should theoretically be measured in light-years—if that starry dome is its shell, then its main body must be unimaginably huge. We should be able to see it now."
"…We don't know."
But Elma's answer was unexpected. This alien woman's avatar hesitated for a moment, then shook her head and replied: "The Great Emperor has an extremely powerful avatar inside the dome—look, that's the light."
Hearing this, Crele quickly looked up. With Elma's assistance, he could see a massive luminous body in the distance. A distorted temporal vortex made its true form unclear. Numerous medium and small worlds floated around it, orbiting it. Crele quickly nodded, indicating he had seen it.
"That is the Great Emperor's avatar within the Royal Court—indeed very powerful, but it's just an avatar. We have no idea where the Great Emperor's main body is. He only left his shell as the Royal Court headquarters, and left an avatar to guard it… We know nothing else."
Elma and Crele gazed together at the distant light. She said in a low voice: "But at least, we know the Great Emperor exists."
"For the vast majority of Amos people, that is enough. The Great Emperor is their faith. Even if the Great Emperor does nothing, merely existing allows the arrogant Amos people of the Royal Court to coalesce together, becoming a collective, a civilization."
Crele noticed Elma clenching her fist.
"But precisely because of this… precisely because the Great Emperor does nothing except fight with the strongest beings of other civilizations, precisely because of this, our Amos civilization has become the Great Emperor's tool, weapon, and even… a reason for fighting with external powers."
The warship raced through the void. They crossed extremely long distances in an instant, but due to the temporal distortion caused by the Royal Court Dome, they couldn't determine how far they had traveled. They could only see the distant massive luminous body growing closer. After a moment of silence, Elma gazed at the avatar of Emperor Amos and said calmly: "Let me give you an analogy."
"We are essentially a nest of raised ants.
The Great Emperor—the human raising the ants—doesn't usually care about the ants' lives or how they develop. After all, whether the ants open a few new nests or make their teeth and venom stronger means nothing to the human. He occasionally picks a few larger, more attractive ants that he finds interesting and puts them in separate jars, treating them as pets.
Those titled generals and Royal Court guards are just living specimens collected by the Great Emperor and placed beside him."
Elma glanced at the silent Crele, chuckled lightly, and continued: "Does this feel familiar? Powerful transcendents probably think this way when facing ordinary people or natives of other worlds, right?"
"The ants exhaust all their strength to become stronger and develop better, but the human doesn't care. He just knows his ant nest has a few more and the numbers have increased. When he thinks the numbers are about right, he unhesitatingly takes the ants to fight with another person's, another strong person's ants. That's his life."
"But for another human, his ants might not be ants at all, but people who haven't yet grown up… Haha, whether ants or the enemy's strong ones and ants, they are all hurt and feel unhappy, but he is very happy."
"The Great Emperor is simply the epitome of our Amos people—arrogant, warlike, revering strength, and having reached the extreme of strength."
Elma laughed quite sincerely. She genuinely found this matter amusing. But Crele beside her couldn't laugh. He only felt twisted and a chilling realization that this might be the truth.
"This, Elma, although I think what you said might all be true, but if…"
Not knowing what to say, Crele racked his brains and could only dryly say: "If among you, um, I mean among the Amos people, another strong person like Emperor Amos appeared—not necessarily the same, just close, as long as they reached above Legendary High-rank… If such an existence appeared, then no matter how arrogant the Great Emperor is, he would surely change his view, right?"
Noticing Elma turning to stare at him, Crele quickly waved his hand: "I'm just saying—"
But Elma didn't speak immediately. She only showed a sorrowful expression, then shook her head. She didn't continue this topic, but looked up at the void outside the bridge and slowly said: "My parents were once two thought sub-entities. They didn't choose to download other Amos people's data from the central information library for self-reproduction, but chose the ancient method of mating reproduction. I and my twenty-three other siblings were products of this—but only I survived to this day, inheriting all their data, which also changed my thoughts and made me want to rebel."
"My parents once secretly studied the Great Emperor. By consulting various ancient texts and records, they had a very bold guess—the reason why Emperor Amos no longer allowed other alien bloodlines in the Royal Court, directly turning a multi-racial empire into today's pure racial empire, might not be as complicated as everyone imagines."
Saying this, Elma laughed again, her tone calm: "He just found too many races displeasing to the eye—and the Amos people happened to be his original race, looking a bit more pleasing, so we were kept."
"Nothing complicated. That's all."
— Whether it was the aggression against other races in the Bloody Star River or the thousands of years of war with the Takur Annihilation Order, it was probably for this reason alone. He was in a bad mood. He found things displeasing. He wanted the entire star river to become one color—a little cute obsessive-compulsive disorder, a game to pass the time.
Anyone could understand, couldn't they? Who doesn't want to conquer the whole world when playing war games, taking everything on the map for themselves? Even a seven or eight-year-old boy has this impulse.
— That's why it's so sad. Above the Royal Court Dome that the Amos people are so proud of, there are eyes whose thoughts cannot be measured. They watch everything, decide everything, and whether it's continuation or destruction has nothing to do with the Amos people themselves.
"Can you understand? We are just potted plants placed in the palm of a hand, drifting fluff following the whim of a strong person. Who knows whether our future will be continued prosperity or destruction because the Great Emperor thinks we don't look good and wants to play with a new, pleasing race? A civilization is just a plaything in the hands of a strong person… This pitiful inability to decide our own future is… my motivation to resist."
"…I can understand."
Facing Elma, whose expression was gradually firming, Crele only needed to imagine the world she described to feel a wave of sorrow and chills. He suddenly realized that in the Mycroft World, whether it was the Seven Gods or other legendary experts, if one person intended to do this and the others didn't object, then the fate of ordinary people would be no better than that of the Amos people.
Facing a strong person who could change everything with a single word, what meaning did ordinary people have? Perhaps… maybe just pets. Speaking of this, the Amos people could even be considered lucky—they at least lived in a vast void empire, a super civilization at its peak.
Their race could occupy half a star river, becoming a major force with a name in the multiverse. Every individual felt pride and glory in this.
And in those small worlds, the native civilizations ruled by transcendent experts and primitive deities lived lives countless times more miserable than theirs.
The void warship approached the massive light cluster that occupied most of the void's field of vision. A world passed above them. Crele could see that it was a dense nebula completely wrapped in aether and magic, so thick that the internal affairs were completely unclear. Within the nebula were thousands of vortex-like storms, large and small. These storms appeared golden and red, like pairs of enormous eyes that could swallow stars.
The density of the nebula should have long since generated stars, but supported by streams of aether like a skeleton, these nebula materials constantly moved, maintaining their form during rotation without collapsing into a super black hole.
"How do you have an audience with Emperor Amos?"
After arriving beside the avatar of Emperor Amos, Crele suddenly remembered this question. Elma was about to explain when suddenly, with an invisible wave spreading through the void like thought, the entire star domain was enveloped by an inexplicable noise.
Crele and Elma couldn't hear this noise, but they vaguely felt that something extraordinary had appeared and spread.
Boom——————
A tremendous tremor came. A temporal storm formed in the distance.
The two turned around in shock, looking ahead of the warship.
The avatar of Emperor Amos, who had sat in the very center of the Royal Court Dome without moving half a step for thousands of years, had just moved.