The Shattered Cosmos, a realm of wonder and diversity, is home to many intelligent species and formidable high-tier beings. These native races have formed a multitude of distinct civilizations across massive floating landmasses suspended in space.

The great goblin elder recounted his youth, a time when he traversed numerous floating continents. On his adventures, he encountered a variety of civilizations, from mechanized lifeforms akin to Transformers to magical realms akin to Azeroth, and even picturesque oriental fairylands.

These disparate civilizations converge in the Shattered Cosmos like a deity's experimental garden. However, as the great elder put it, it resembles more a scrapyard abandoned by the creator gods. For the intelligent species of the Shattered Cosmos have never felt the favor of the gods, only the strife and turmoil between the various races and civilizations.

The floating landmasses of the Shattered Cosmos are not eternal; they too have life cycles. Smaller landmasses, akin to islets, usually last only a few thousand years. In contrast, larger ones, comparable to planets, decay over eons.

Periodically, some landmasses crumble into dust and vanish into the vastness of space. Meanwhile, new landmasses coalesce from the cosmic ether, slowly forming cores and growing into fresh floating continents.

Although the positions of these floating landmasses within the Shattered Cosmos remain fixed, not colliding with one another, they must engage in trade and warfare due to limited resources. In fact, this is the source of most apocalyptic disasters in the Shattered Cosmos.

When a native race from one floating landmass prepares to invade another, they use unique star gates within the Shattered Cosmos for intercontinental transport. This transfer is not a spacetime teleportation but is limited to the internal space of the Shattered Cosmos, ignoring distances and types, with the only limitation being the size of the star gate.

Smaller star gates can only transport individual beings, while larger ones can send entire city fortresses to other floating continents.

"So you're saying that in the Shattered Cosmos, beings like demigods, angels, and dragons are at the top of the racial hierarchy?" Lyla couldn't help but interrupt the elder's narrative with curiosity, turning pale as she realized her breach.

Yet, the murderer among them seemed equally keen to know the answer, and for a moment, no one bothered with her.

"No, those high-tier beings generally remain hidden and rarely show themselves. The dominant species of the Shattered Cosmos are those whose individuals are not particularly strong but are numerous and have vast potential. Examples include humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, undead, mechanical lifeforms, and elemental beings," the great elder said, shifting to a more comfortable position, his expression oddly grim. "Actually, your status as transdimensional travelers has a lot to do with this..."

Everyone's eyes brightened, sensing that the great elder was about to reveal why the "Lulu clan" valued transdimensional travelers so highly.

It turns out that not only do the floating landmasses of the Shattered Cosmos have internal star gates, but they also have unpredictable spacetime gates. Occasionally, beings from other dimensions are sucked into the Shattered Cosmos through these gates.

Unlike the native creatures of the Shattered Cosmos, these transdimensional beings, upon successfully traversing the spacetime gates, combine with the world laws of the Shattered Cosmos to form unique law bodies centered around their souls.

Initially, the transdimensional beings' law bodies are indistinguishable from normal humans—they can get sick, bleed, and die. However, due to the special nature of law bodies, transdimensional beings have almost unlimited potential. Some powerful transdimensional beings can unleash catastrophic power, rivaling gods and demons in combat prowess, and can even survive critical injuries to vital organs like the brain and heart.

Nevertheless, transdimensional beings are not natives of the Shattered Cosmos and constantly face its rejection. This rejection grows stronger over time, forcing these beings to be transported to other dimensions at regular intervals.

This spacetime transfer is highly random, and no one knows where the transdimensional beings will end up. Each transfer triggers a series of mission directives in their minds, the origins and motives of which even they do not understand.

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Failure to complete these missions weakens their souls, leading to death. Most transdimensional beings perish during these missions, but those who complete them before being transported back to the Shattered Cosmos benefit greatly.

It's as if the Shattered Cosmos has entered a contract with the transdimensional beings: one side provides labor to complete tasks, while the other grants them life and power. Hence, transdimensional beings are known to the native life of the Shattered Cosmos as Contract Apostles.

Apostles live amidst constant danger, and all mature ones possess formidable combat abilities. Some apostles with exceptional talent can become beings rivaling gods and demons in just a few short years. With their array of weapons and equipment from other dimensions and virtually no fatal weaknesses in their law bodies, even gods and demons are reluctant to confront apostles.

In the ancient times of the Shattered Cosmos, the rise of many apostles led to the fall of dominant high-tier beings, with some species being wiped out entirely, forced to retreat and hide away from sight. To apostles, these high-tier beings were walking treasures. They gladly used the legacy of gods and demons to secure safety in their otherworldly missions.

That era came to be known as the Twilight of Gods and Demons. Apostles effectively decapitated the top of the Shattered Cosmos' hierarchy, ushering in a new era of contention among the powers. Intelligent species with vast populations but weaker individual strength rose to become new rulers of the cosmos.

The influence of apostles on the Shattered Cosmos didn't stop there. Their focus and energy were devoted to adventuring and missions in other dimensions, treating the Shattered Cosmos as a mere resting and adjusting stopover. Given the complex relations of alliances and hostilities due to their missions, they could not become the actual rulers of the Shattered Cosmos.

However, the ruling intelligent species could not ignore the power of apostles. Unlike gods and demons, apostles had no inherent value to hunt, but they could be hired to strike at enemy races and continents.

In wars between two evenly matched floating continents or intelligent species, the apostle teams they possessed could become the deciding factor in victory or defeat. Even some smaller races, by hiring powerful apostle teams, defeated stronger adversaries in war, securing broader living spaces for themselves.

From the extinction of gods and demons in ancient times to the current intercontinental wars, all intelligent species of the Shattered Cosmos adhere to an iron law: they cannot rely entirely on apostles for survival, nor can they afford to lose their assistance.

The reason is simple: due to the existence of spacetime gates, apostles cannot be eradicated at the root. But complete reliance on certain apostle teams means losing the initiative in war should those apostles suffer severe injuries on otherworldly missions.

This bizarre and absurd phenomenon led to the creation of a unique entity in the Shattered Cosmos: floating cities. Built by intelligent species pooling all their resources, these enormous cities can move freely over floating continents and use star gates to travel between them, serving as both a fundamental survival mechanism for the species and a special venue for apostles.

Intelligent species owning such floating cities can greatly enhance their survivability by relying on the city and continuously attract apostles to reside within. They need not fear sudden loss of apostle forces during wartime.

Floating cities vary in size and style, encompassing all types. Divided by the civilizations they represent, there are technological cities, magical cities, bio-cities, psychic cities, and more. Based on the services they offer to apostles, there are academy cities, entertainment cities, trade cities, and fortress cities.

No matter the type, all cities treat resident apostles with great hospitality, providing not only basic benefits but also a full set of service regulations that follow the principle of equivalent exchange. After all, not every apostle becomes a godlike being; most perish during their otherworldly missions.

To vie for apostle resources, floating cities regularly travel between floating continents. Today, any intelligent species without a floating city either slowly fades into extinction or becomes subordinate to others. The number and size of floating cities have become the sole standard for distinguishing the strength and prosperity of intelligent species and floating continents.

Curiously, large floating continents with numerous populations seldom see spacetime gates. Instead, smaller and medium-sized continents like the Red Gobi, sparsely populated and desolate, frequently encounter spacetime gates and transdimensional travelers, or potential apostles.

Potential apostles lack great martial power, but as the saying goes, it's better to add fuel in snowy weather than to add icing on the cake. Floating cities provide assistance when these apostles are at their weakest, so naturally, the apostles reciprocate and reward the cities that helped them once they grow stronger.

In essence, the more potential apostles a floating city attracts, the greater its potential becomes. Of course, floating cities are enormous entities, capable of floating in the air and traveling between floating continents, but they cannot roam like ants searching for unpredictable potential apostles.

Thus, on remote and isolated continents like the Red Gobi, "scavenger" tribes have emerged, specializing in searching for relics of spacetime gates.

For example, the Lulu tribe before the human prisoners!