Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

The sound vanished once more, this time disappearing even deeper and farther than before. Its disappearance was accompanied by the fading of memory, and after Gu had forgotten everything, an inexplicable emotion made him subconsciously look up at the sky.

He... saw a sky covered by a river of blood.

The next moment, a vast amount of knowledge and information descended from the depths of the blood-red sky and flooded into his mind.

He reached out and touched the drop of blood dripping from the tip of the axe.

As he crossed that extraordinary boundary, a pair of enormous bat wings suddenly unfurled behind him, accompanied by a rapid transformation between power and knowledge!

This is... power.

It transcends the shackles of mortals, enabling him to stand above the heavens and contend with the gods.

He decided to share this power with every one of his fellow countrymen.

He thought this, and he acted accordingly. And it was precisely because of this that when the demon explorers finally realized the unusual changes in this area and visited, they had already vanished without a trace, along with the mortals of this continent.

..........................................

The human race is rising.

The rise of the human race is happening much, much faster than expected.

Gu named that power 'Gene Lock'. This was a conclusion he reached after acquiring an elven research vessel and studying its database. He then passed that power on to his companions and was pleasantly surprised to find that his companions and people were quite adapted to it.

The gene lock is divided into five levels, and most people can easily break through to the third level. His companions reached the fourth level with ease. He himself unlocked the gene lock to the limit of the fourth level in just a few years, and could break through to the fifth level at any time.

He himself didn't know why he could become so strong so quickly; he couldn't even understand why practicing martial arts would make him stronger. He only knew that the speed at which his strength grew was abnormal, but even after knowing this, he was still willing to accept this power.

What is there to fear?

What else is there to lose?

He lived only to help his people and to pave a path for them. And now, this power could help him share his burdens.

Jun had warned him several times that sudden, overwhelming power could alter a person's mind. It could turn conservatives into radicals, and humble people into arrogant ones—he knew this, yet he persisted. Because he knew even more important than arrogance was the strength to survive.

“Everything you do today will bring bitter consequences in the future.” Jun calmly told him in his final reminder: “There are differences between short-lived and long-lived species. Mortals need a long adaptation process to complete the transition from short-lived to long-lived species in both body and mind. Otherwise, their power will not be perfectly controlled by their minds. And our people will bring disaster to this world.”

"But to whom does this land belong?" Gu Fan asked.

"It belongs to all races, and to the mother of all races," Jun replied.

"Are we humans one of all races?" Gu asked again.

“…No.” Jun hesitated for a moment, but still gave his conclusion. “We can survive even if we go to war with all races. But our descendants may not be able to.”

“Therefore, we must end all of this in our generation.” So Gu nodded and replied, “We will take everyone and end all of this in this generation.”

Jun did not answer.

As Gu looked outwards, the Demon Clan's fleet stretched out like stars across the sky.

The dimensional coordinates of the human settlement have finally fallen into the hands of the demon race. According to an ancient tradition among all races, if a mortal kills a transcendent being with a mortal body, that mortal and its entire community must be exterminated. If no such mortal is encountered, then they should be considered as nothing.

—A very strange tradition.

It looked as if all races feared mortals, feared the hidden power of mortals.

The fleets they dispatched were powerful enough to annihilate multiple true gods in an instant within this primordial world. If Gu hadn't obtained the power known as the Gene Lock, they might not have even been able to detect the fleet's arrival before being wiped out.

However, they were ultimately too late. On this vast and untamed land, they could never have imagined that humanity's growth rate would be accelerated to such an extent during this explosive period. In just five objective years, the number of extraordinary and near-extraordinary mortals had piled up like a sea.

And so, the battle began.

Gu loosened his restraints on all his compatriots, allowing them to unleash their full power in the war.

Thus, the battle ended as soon as it began.

This is normal. How could a mere dimensional fleet used to wipe out true gods possibly deal with a quasi-saint? Even though Gu, being a quasi-saint, did not make a move, his closest comrades had generally reached the level of true gods or transcendent beings—the demon fleet was annihilated in an instant, and after that, war ensued.

War, a war between humans and all other races.

It wasn't until the war finally began that Gu discovered he actually had such a vast number of people on this primordial continent. One died, another group appeared. A thousand died, ten thousand immediately appeared. And each and every one of them was a rare talent, a gem who could master combat almost instantly.

This is not normal, Gu knew it perfectly well.

But what can be done if things are abnormal? Once the chariot starts moving, it can't be stopped easily. There's no turning back, no room for maneuver. It's simply a matter of life and death.

But Gu is still fighting.

He became stronger.

He unlocked the fifth-tier gene lock before the first True Saint could make a move, and defeated his opponent.

He became the emperor of the human race when the two emperors of the Eastern Heaven awoke from their slumber, and defeated the powerful beings of all races.

He rallied many allies and, with Jun's assistance, sowed discord among the various races. He defeated them one by one, and was invincible.

He knew his compatriots were in trouble; the disparity in their knowledge, experience, and strength had distorted their mentality. They possessed the shortcomings of short-lived species but lacked the advantages of long-lived ones. They could unite and pool all their resources in times of crisis, but they couldn't share wealth and prosperity in peacetime.

Was it his fault?

Perhaps. Because he shared this power called the Gene Lock, and this power allowed his race to rise mysteriously and become strangely powerful.

However, he knew even more that if he did not share his power with his people, they would only face death in the near future.

So... is it more important to be right or wrong? Or is it more important for the survival of the tribe?

He did not answer, nor did he need to answer.

He simply treated his allies from other races with greater kindness amidst the increasingly fierce war, because he knew that reckoning would eventually come, and that his people could only share their hardships, not their prosperity. More importantly, he knew that, no matter what, he would stand by his people.

Survival is more important than right or wrong, so he had to do it.

In order to solve this problem once and for all, and to completely eliminate humanity's vulnerability, he decided to do something.

He plans to go... to create the world!

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Zheng Zha, Part One

"Zheng Zha's situation... is indeed very troublesome."

After bidding farewell to Luo Ye, Alice's will detached from the battlefield where Luo Ye was. The moment she left, the battle between Luo Ye and Hu Hai resumed, instantly turning the vast Qin outer star system into a chaotic cauldron.

The Qin territory was vast, large enough even within this single universe.

Its size is roughly equivalent to a cluster of galaxies on the scale of hundreds of billions of Milky Way galaxies, or it can be understood as the total size of about 60 million Virgo Supercluster galaxies.

It is very large, but it is not without limits.

In this finite universe, it occupies approximately one-quarter of the entire universe.

The remaining three-quarters are collectively referred to as the Qin Outer Starfield.

According to Luo Ye's markings, Zheng Zha's location was in a closed, chaotic star cluster about six billion light-years away from the Qin Empire.

An avatar of Alice has come here.

She didn't intend to contact Zheng Zha, after all, Luo Ye had already given her a stern warning. But not contacting him didn't mean she didn't understand him, nor did it mean she wouldn't cast a probing glance at him in the right place—and when she arrived at that star field, what came into her view was an empire that wasn't large, but was well-developed and full of potential.

An empire of humanity. Yet, this star system originally contained no trace of human genes.

"The phenomenon of road erosion".

Alice spoke softly. She had read the history of this star system from the stone and learned that Zheng Zha's arrival occurred at a somewhat imprecise point a thousand years ago—his name in this world was still Zheng Zha. And his identity was that of the highest-ranking captain on a ship during the Qin Empire's explorations of the outside world.

Unsurprisingly, his ship exploded.

The life support capsule containing 'Zheng Zha' drifted to this star system along with most of the damaged hull amidst spatial turbulence. Subsequently, the biochemical leak caused by biological samples from inside the ship began to corrode this part of the starry sky.

The land was transformed to be habitable for humans. Mortals appeared in this star field after the world had stabilized. If it were only here, Alice might simply see it as some rare but harmless natural phenomenon—humans in the multiverse are as numerous as weeds, so their emergence isn't unusual—but when Alice stood at the edge of the chaotic starry sky and observed closely, she noticed something strange about these 'mortals'!

She saw a thin, blood-red stream hanging down from the top of the sky, unevenly but delicately sprinkling onto this chaotic star cluster that was blocked and blocked by spatial turbulence!

A crimson aura of destiny directly watched over them. And this made the inhabitants of this star cluster almost identical to those of a certain primordial era...

Alice's will then descended...

..............................

As she descended from the outside to the inside, a massive amount of information flooded into her thoughts.

She saw the entirety of this star system, the numerous civilizations built upon continents and floating islands. She saw the structures and frameworks of those civilizations. And finally, she saw the 'protagonists'.

Luo Ye told her to take a good look at the world, to see the civilization of mortals—but she didn't really think there was anything worth seeing or admiring about those mortal civilizations. At most, she could only feel pity for them, and in the fields of scientific research and architecture, she had more faith in herself—but she would listen to Luo Ye.

Since Luo Ye had reminded her, she would do it. Whether it worked or not, she would at least give it a try.

So her will continued to descend...

She saw it...

"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, never underestimate a young man's potential!"—A cold, stern young man in black stood in the hall, rebuking the uninvited guest. A deep red aura surged from a hidden dimension into his brow, which, instead of making the person he was rebuking instantly forget thirty years later, filled him with shock and interest.

She saw it...

"I, Lin, have never been inferior to anyone in my life!"—A young man sneered, holding a long flute. The flute's melody filled the air, and leaves fluttered down from the trees. A faint, crimson aura seeped into his heart, and the music he played resonated with heaven and earth, leaving everyone present, friend or foe, in awe and fear. Several women, some with cool elegance, others with lively spirits, gazed at him tenderly, clearly captivated by the music.

She saw it...

"To fight me is the greatest honor of your lives." — A man, long sword in hand, stood arrogantly. Beneath his feet lay mountains of corpses and seas of blood, behind him lay the city he had slaughtered. A crimson aura swirled around him, seeping into his body and his weapon. The tens of thousands of soldiers standing opposite him trembled, their bodies shaking, and they immediately prostrated themselves in worship.

She saw it...

"Damn you, Heaven! I, Long Aotian, will defy you today!"—A swordsman raised his sword to the sky in full view of the crowd, the sky filled with dark clouds and rolling thunderclouds. However, before the lightning struck, a dark red aura surged into his body like a tide. The next moment, the falling lightning dissipated in the air before hitting him. And he laughed even more arrogantly.

"Hahahaha! Even the heavens fear me!"—His voice echoed through the crowd. Several handsome and extraordinary warriors looked at him with awe, their eyes revealing a hint of submission. Meanwhile, several beautiful young women on the platform cast admiring glances at him, their hearts already openly pledged to him.

She saw it...

Okay, she stopped looking. She rubbed her eyes and, while doing so, squeezed some water from nothingness to wash her face.

Very well, the same old trick. The same kind of mortals she encountered during her creation of the Styx Apocalypse, the same kind she'd run into once again. Power without the will to control it—they looked like a bunch of monkeys brandishing nuclear buttons. Yet even so…

Even so, the nuclear button in the monkey's hand could still detonate a nuclear bomb.

She blinked, and a vision of an ordinary girl—still blonde and blue-eyed, but whose looks were comparable to Luo Ye's usual appearance—silently descended into a private room of a tavern in a bustling city. A corresponding identity was then created, and events were implanted, linking her temporary persona to this constellation of stars.

There's no need to go into detail about her identity; she was just an unremarkable, ordinary girl. She heard commotion and fighting coming from outside the private room. It seemed to be a dispute over an annulment of an engagement, and soon blood was drawn between the two sides.

This is a rather interesting world, but that "interesting" is relative. Within this star cluster enveloped by a spatial ring, tens of thousands of floating continents and islands drift in space. And on these islands live a diverse group of nations with almost indistinguishable East-West hybrid civilizations.

People with black hair and black eyes live together with people with blond hair and blue eyes, and their names are often composite and arbitrary. The land is dotted with various Western-style temples that worship gods and Eastern-style sects and schools. Supernatural powers are simply divided into two categories: warriors and mages, and their core element is 'qi'.

Battle aura and magic are simple and homogeneous substances. The inhabitants here only need to absorb and integrate them to rapidly improve their physique and greatly increase their energy reserves. Then, by 'breaking through' a conceptual 'bottleneck,' they can quickly advance to a higher level of being.

It's very simple, very direct, but also very effective. Because the nature of this 'qi' is extraordinary.