Chapter 344: Is This the Power of a God? |
"..."
Chen Mang sat inside the train, gazing at the coordinates of the Naomi Civilization displayed on the control console screen.
It was located on the other side of the Dark Abyss.
The level 4987 Akhenaten Light Energy Main Cannon currently traveling through the Dark Abyss was very likely fired by the Naomi Civilization, even though that energy blast had already been advancing through the void for a very long time.
However...
A level-four civilization possessed the ability to return to a past timeline and use the Dark Abyss as a barrier to launch a devastating strike against their enemies.
If the Naomi Civilization was the one that fired it...
Then...
Why would the Naomi Civilization do such a thing?
If that was the case...
Then the deviation was a bit too large.
A massive deviation of eighty thousand years.
Chen Mang shook his head and stopped dwelling on the matter. This issue was temporarily laid to rest. He currently lacked the ability to rush over to the Naomi Civilization to retrieve his Palace. For now, his most crucial goals were to advance to a level-four civilization and find more resources.
Next up...
He finally began sorting through the resources obtained after the war with the Zerg Civilization.
Before going to war with the Zerg Civilization, he already had tens of quadrillions of resource units. After the war, he had taken another massive haul from that prison. By now, the numbers on the train's resource panel had reached an astonishingly impressive level.
-
"2,097 trillion units of iron ore, 389 trillion units of wood, 1,360 trillion units of copper ore, 34.9 billion units of red core rock, 47.97 billion units of titanium crystal ore."
-
His total resource count had once again reached two quadrillion.
Having so many resources stacked inside the train gave him a profound sense of security.
The next thing to do was...
Upgrade again.
He would first upgrade some of the primary components to level 1000. If the level 500 Overlimit Effect had merely touched upon the universe's rules, then the level 1000 Overlimit Effect could basically manipulate those rules.
The train's armor would be set aside for now.
That thing was too expensive.
He temporarily could not afford to upgrade it.
Instead...
A thought suddenly popped into Chen Mang's mind. He would first check what the Telescope's level 1000 Overlimit Effect was. Its level 500 Overlimit Effect was to observe the universe. He had never known what use it had before. Even though he still was not entirely clear on its specific utility or the principles behind its observation, he had finally found a scenario to use it in.
So, what would the level 1000 effect be?
He acted as soon as the thought formed.
The Telescope was only a white-grade component. Upgrading it to level 1000 only required ten trillion units of iron ore.
The price was relatively cheap.
Very quickly...
Ten trillion units of iron ore inside the train turned to ash, completely merging into the train. At the same time, the Telescope on the desk began to emit pulses of white light.
A brand-new Overlimit Effect emerged.
-
"Telescope Level 1000 Overlimit Effect: Can spy on any corner of the universe."
-
"Hmm."
Chen Mang picked up the Telescope, walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window of the train cabin, and peered into the depths of the universe. After looking for a long while, honestly, he did not feel any difference from before.
It seemed exactly the same.
There were no changes.
But right at that moment, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a small holographic panel had appeared at the edge of his vision. It featured an input box. Deep in thought, he typed in the coordinates for the Naomi Civilization.
The next moment...
The scene before his eyes instantly shifted!
Like a divine being, he looked down upon the Naomi Civilization from an incredibly bizarre angle.
It was a very peculiar perspective.
Not from any angle that aligned with common sense.
It was like looking from the fourth dimension into the third, or like a three-dimensional human looking down at two-dimensional ants. From this near-dimensional-reduction bird's-eye view, he could see the Naomi Civilization with absolute clarity.
The territory of the Naomi Civilization spanned tens of millions of light-years.
It occupied a massive area.
Yet, within his field of vision, he could see every single planet belonging to the Naomi Civilization.
With just a single thought...
His view could continuously zoom in until he could clearly see specific objects on a certain planet. Even a young couple hiding in their bedroom enjoying an intimate moment could be seen perfectly through this bizarre, absolutely omniscient perspective.
This was...
The perspective of the universe.
If the universe itself wanted to closely inspect a certain civilization, this would be the exact viewpoint it would use.
Perhaps the universe's view would be even more formidable, allowing past and future to be taken in at a single glance.
The experience of this perspective was extremely mesmerizing. Chen Mang was completely drawn in, holding the Telescope and staring through it for a very long time.
Finally, he reluctantly pulled himself away.
However.
He then inputted the cosmic coordinates of his current location and looked again. Very quickly, from that bizarre overhead angle, he saw the Stellar Train. He could clearly see himself standing in the cabin holding the Telescope, as well as everyone else inside.
He could even see the planet hidden within the Space Portal in his train cabin.
Everything was in plain sight.
He could also see Doba and the others busily working on the Water Blue Star.
After a long while.
Chen Mang set the Telescope aside and sat back down in his chair. It was an excellent Overlimit Effect. It was absolutely perfect for scouting enemy intelligence. He could learn every hidden fortification of his enemies without them ever detecting a thing.
Aside from the fact that he could not hear any sound...
It was virtually invincible.
A level 1000 Overlimit Effect was truly this terrifying.
It was just too expensive.
For a green-grade component to reach a level 1000 Overlimit Effect, it would cost a hundred trillion units. Right now, he only had a total of two quadrillion units of iron ore in the train. He could only pick and choose a few lower-grade, highly practical components to upgrade to level 1000. Reaching a point where all his components were at level 1000 seemed like a distant dream.
Meanwhile...
On a mining planet located within the Naomi Civilization, a chubby boy's father took a note handed to him by a mysterious traveler. A flash of astonishment passed through his red-rimmed eyes. The other party said... the problem was solved?
The reason he had said so much earlier...
Was never because he actually expected the other party to help.
The main reason was simply to vent.
These burdens had weighed heavily on his heart for far too long. With their civilization on the brink of destruction and not knowing how much longer he would live, he had spilled everything in one go, almost as a form of release.
He was just about to say something else.
But the figure of the mysterious traveler in front of him gradually faded away.
His Adam's apple bobbed slightly. Although he found it hard to believe, he still pulled a tablet from his pocket and connected to the Skynet. This was the Naomi Civilization's most expensive communication network. While exorbitantly priced, its transmission speed was exceedingly fast.
Finally.
An hour later.
He saw the videos posted by people everywhere. The people in the footage were no longer staring blankly at the sky; they had all returned to normal. However, their cognition seemed to have been altered. Even when they saw the strange videos from before, no one paid any attention to the anomalies, let alone commented on them.
He tried leaving a comment to remind everyone to notice how unusual it was.
Yet, no one paid him any mind. Some even called him crazy, saying that normal people acted like this anyway.
But he did not care.
Instead, he suddenly burst into laughter, chuckling with tears welling in his eyes.
The Naomi Civilization was saved.
Everything was back to normal.
"Father..."
Right at that moment...
The chubby boy, who had appeared from nowhere, cautiously whispered, "Has the world gone back to normal? Does that mean we're heroes who saved the world?"
"We are!"
The middle-aged man nodded heavily, his red-rimmed eyes crinkling as he laughed heartily. "Of course we are! How could we not be?"
"But... nobody knows we're heroes. Nobody even knows a disaster happened."
"That doesn't matter. This is all thanks to that friend you made. If your friend hadn't used some method to resolve our civilization's crisis, who knows what would have happened."
"Even though I have no idea how he did it."
"He didn't even come to the Naomi Civilization."
"He resolved it from across space. This looks like... the methods of an advanced civilization. Could your friend be the leader of a high-level civilization?"
"I don't know..."
"It's fine."
The middle-aged man took a deep breath and draped his arm around the chubby boy's shoulders. "Come on, let's go find your mother and celebrate our civilization's rebirth! You did an amazing job this time. You saved the Naomi Civilization; you are the hero of the Naomi Civilization."
"Okay."
The chubby boy could not help but scratch his head and laugh. He had traveled so far to mine ore just to earn money with his own two hands and gain his father's approval. He had not expected that while his chosen path would fail, the friend he made would accomplish something so monumental.
Under the setting sun.
The two of them walked toward a distant wooden cabin with smiles on their faces, their voices growing fainter in the wind.
"By the way, Father, how much does that private security company you hired for me cost every day?"
"About a hundred billion."
"How much?! The total profit from my mine after excavating everything is only a hundred billion!"
"Oh, didn't I tell you before? I'm very wealthy."
"Are you really that wealthy? I thought you were just slightly rich."
"Filthy rich."
"Then don't you make more than the fathers of those rich kids I met last time?"
"Those rich kids you met are just the children of my company's lowest-tier suppliers. I'm several levels above their fathers."
"..."
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
"Nothing, just let me process this."
Out in the universe.
The transmission of information required a certain amount of time.
A full six months had passed.
It was only now that the internal factions of the Kasa Civilization Federation fully realized the Zerg Civilization had been annihilated. Moreover, those with certain connections had already obtained footage of the great battle, leaking it through various underground channels.
An event that had occurred six months ago...
...was only truly known by the masses today.
Countless people fell into stunned silence.
Especially those...
...who had previously sent Universe Broadcasts declaring their submission to the Zerg Civilization, pledging to become their subjects and vowing never to associate with the Human Civilization. At this moment, nearly all of these civilizations experienced bizarre, simultaneous coups.
Upon taking power, the very first action of every new civilization leader was to overturn the orders of their predecessors and issue new Universe Broadcasts. They declared that they would be the most loyal subjects of the Human Civilization, expressing a desire for Returning to the Ancestral Clan, and proclaiming that the Human Civilization was the true home of all humanity.
There was no other way.
A Universe Broadcast left an eternal mark on a civilization.
It was nearly impossible to erase and absolutely impossible to deny.
The only thing they could do at this point was change leaders and push all the blame onto the previous administration.
Originally, many civilizations had been observing to see how these turncoat civilizations would end up.
Some guessed they would be smoothly absorbed by the Zerg Civilization as symbolic trophies to encourage others to surrender.
Others guessed the Zerg Civilization might just annihilate them outright.
No one could have ever imagined this final outcome.
"Phew..."
Inside a tavern.
A man sat alone at the bar counter, staring at a viral video playing on the tablet in his hands.
The footage showed a train launching several massive gas giant planets.
Immediately after.
It artificially created an immense gravitational field, using multi-point slingshot trajectories to forcefully gather the overwhelming swarm of Zerg monsters into a single straight line. Then, a single cannon blast obliterated them to ash.
A flawless shot with a 100 percent utilization rate.
With just that single blast...
The Zerg Civilization was destroyed.
What kind of method was this? Such power was far, far stronger than the Kasa Civilization.
"Tsk."
The man suddenly chuckled, shaking his head as he whispered, "To think that such a civilization could emerge in a remote corner like this."
"The more starving a place is, the more likely miracles are to occur."
"Level 500 armor."
"How interesting."
Right at that moment...
A drunk, burly man stumbled over and shoved him. "This is my regular seat. Beat it."
The man did not say a word.
However, a bizarre purple light flashed in his eyes.
The next moment.
The burly man suddenly froze in place. Then, right in front of everyone, he gouged out his own eyeballs and shoved them into his mouth, chewing continuously. He laughed uproariously as he chewed, as if he were feasting on some exquisite delicacy.
Feeling unsatisfied, he forcefully ripped open his own stomach, dug out his internal organs, and brutally stuffed them into his mouth.
Seeing this, the man finally smiled. He picked up a bowler hat from the bar counter and placed it on his head.
Everyone else in the tavern began to mimic the burly man's actions.
In an instant.
The entire tavern was transformed into a living hell.
As the man stepped out of the tavern, everyone in the entire city began copying the grotesque behavior.
The city descended into a living hell.
The man glanced up at the sky and instantly vanished from where he stood.
Every living creature on the entire planet was uniformly mimicking the exact same behavior.
In the blink of an eye.
A vibrant planet was reduced to a dead star. Not a single living being survived.
Standing in outer space, the man looked down at the newly crimson planet. He gazed at his pale, slender fingers and murmured in a fanatical daze, "Is this the power of a God?"
He then turned his head to look in the direction of the Dark Abyss.
"God."
"Wait for me."
"Your most loyal apostle has come to rescue you."
"But before that, let's go kill that man named Chen Mang. The feeling of killing a miracle is truly intoxicating."
"Just think about it..."
"Someone with humble beginnings, who climbed up step by step from weakness, growing to this level in a region utterly devoid of resources. All of this could absolutely be called a miracle. Just when this person believes their future will only grow more glorious, to suddenly step in and erase them completely... that feeling..."
"It's truly magnificent."
"Just thinking about it makes me thrill with excitement."
"Idiot."
Chen Mang sat expressionlessly in his chair, pointing at the screen showing the middle-aged man in casual clothes floating in space. Just moments ago, the Doppelganger Radar had detected a massive and unknown energy fluctuation.
Immediately after.
When the radar zoomed in on that area, they saw this exact scene.
Although they could not hear any sound.
Xiao Ai had already learned the Cosmic Language. Through lip-reading, she easily deduced what the man was saying.
An apostle of God.
He was the apostle of the God Race member imprisoned in the Dark Abyss. The man seemed to possess a bizarre and unfathomable power, the nature of which was completely unclear. Chen Mang did not know if the train's armor could withstand an attack of this caliber.
But that did not matter.
Originally, the enemy was in the dark while he was in the light.
But since the other party decided to put on such a show, the roles had reversed. Now, he was in the dark, and the enemy was in the open.
"Lock onto him."
"Let me fire a shot at him."
"Let's see if he can block it."
The Doppelganger Radar had locked tightly onto the man. Clearly, while this man possessed some incredibly mysterious power, his personal energy level was not high enough to sense that he was being monitored.
This indicated that the power he wielded did not truly belong to him.
If he were an Immortal Emperor or something similar, where the power was his own, let alone someone monitoring him, he would have sensed it even if someone merely chanted his name in their heart.
Chen Mang frowned slightly, staring at the man on the screen.
This man...
Just what exactly was an apostle of God?
Were they really this powerful?
Why did it feel like this power was even stronger than the God Race themselves?
The member of the God Race trapped in the Dark Abyss was imprisoned by just a few machines. But this God's apostle did not look like someone who could be held down by mere machinery. Especially...
His method of movement.
It was the first time Chen Mang had ever seen this kind of movement in the universe.
The fastest thing in the universe was the speed of light. Under normal circumstances, nothing was allowed to exceed it. However, through certain special means, an object could propel itself far faster than light.
For example, that Universe Ge Lei managed to vastly exceed the speed of light by continuously destroying space to create frequent teleportations.
Or, for another example, this man currently locked onto the radar.
He was using a method Chen Mang could not understand at all.
On the screen, the man spread his arms, closed his eyes, and drifted through space like a kite. Then, accompanied by pulses of radiating energy, the man began to float off into the distance at an unimaginably fast speed.
His speed far exceeded the speed of light...
Furthermore, he had shifted into an ethereal state.
Even when meteorite fragments smashed into his body, they simply passed right through him.
"What the hell is this?!"
Chen Mang stared at the screen in utter bewilderment. Relying purely on his own physical speed to far surpass the speed of light?
What did this mean?
Reaching the speed of light required infinite energy. Where was his energy coming from?
Not to mention, he was far exceeding the speed of light.
Most importantly...
The speed of his Akhenaten Light Energy Main Cannon was the speed of light. The enemy's speed meant it was fundamentally impossible for the cannon to hit him.
Moreover, the other party seemed to already know his coordinates.
He was flying straight toward him.
The estimated time of arrival was seventeen minutes.
This was far more terrifying than any star-beast! Traversing a distance of tens of thousands of light-years through a wormhole would take roughly seventeen minutes. You're just brute-forcing your way over here by flying, and it only takes seventeen minutes?!
How the fuck was this logical?
"No, seriously, is this reasonable? On what basis can he do this? This has to be a bug, right?"
"A cheat code granted to the God Race by the universe's rules?"
"Is there even a single shred of logic to this?"
"Throw logic out the window and just become overwhelmingly strong, is that it?"
Chen Mang rolled his eyes in exasperation. This guy was entirely too unreasonable. He was not particularly worried about being caught; however, if he did not find a solution quickly, things were going to get very tricky.
In the blink of an eye.
Fifteen minutes passed.
He still had not thought of a good solution.
The man was already extremely close to him. He did not waste any more time thinking.
Instead, he directly used the Refrigerator to travel back into the territory of the Mechanical Civilization Ruins. On the radar, the man immediately turned around and drifted toward him once more.
To the naked eye, his speed seemed extremely slow.
Like a fallen leaf caught in the wind.
But the speed displayed on the radar was the fastest he had ever seen, countless times faster than any star-beast.
"What kind of solution is there..."
Chen Mang sat in his chair, staring at the thirty-seven-minute countdown on the radar. He frowned in deep thought. Facing such a troublesome enemy, setting aside the opponent's defenses...
Just relying on this speed alone.
If he wanted to land a hit...
He would have to use tens of millions of Akhenaten Light Energy Main Cannon beams to unleash a ridiculously excessive area-of-effect bombardment.
Only then might he score a hit.
And it was only a 'might'.
The enemy's speed did not just exceed light speed; it dwarfed it entirely.
Actually, that was not accurate either.
Rather...
The enemy's speed was not about exceeding the speed of light. He was drifting through the universe in a way Chen Mang simply could not comprehend. After all, there was no visible power source. It was purely drifting.
"Wait a second!"
Right at that moment...
Chen Mang suddenly narrowed his eyes. Why had the estimated arrival time changed to thirty-seven minutes?
The distance between him and the man right now was virtually identical to the distance at the very beginning. Why had the man's speed suddenly dropped so drastically?
Could it be...
He had run out of energy?
Thinking of this...
He thoughtfully and patiently waited for thirty minutes. Just as the man was about to close in, he once again used the Refrigerator to return to his original location.
He could clearly tell.
The man on the screen was growing exasperated. His face filled with fury as he floated in space, his mouth opening and closing constantly as he hurled curses.
And this time...
The estimated arrival time changed back to seventeen minutes.
It was the exact same distance.
Yet the travel speed was different. If his speed had dropped earlier because he was exhausted, then what was the reason this time? Had his inner universe suddenly exploded with power?
He would test it again.
When the man was about to arrive, Chen Mang fled back to the Mechanical Civilization Ruins. The arrival time once again shifted to thirty-seven minutes.
When Chen Mang waited for the man to close the gap before jumping back to his initial spot, the time reverted to seventeen minutes.
"So that's how it is."
"An apostle of God."
Chen Mang looked at the information on the screen and suddenly laughed. He finally understood what was happening. When this so-called God's apostle traveled in the direction of the Dark Abyss, his speed was phenomenally fast.
But when traveling in the opposite direction, his speed gradually slowed down.
Barring any surprises, he knew exactly what was going on.
The 'God' of the God Race likely emitted some kind of unknown magnetic field.
This field allowed the apostle to sense its presence. The closer the apostle got to the core of the field, the stronger they became. And vice versa.
An apostle. An existence that could only unleash absolute power when in close proximity to their God.
He suddenly understood why the God of the God Race could be imprisoned by a level-four civilization like the Niya Civilization. Perhaps it was precisely because the God also needed to rely on apostles to project their power. Maybe the God could not exert their power directly?
Was it a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship?
These were all just guesses.
However, one thing was absolutely certain!
For so many years, an apostle of God had never appeared in the Dead End Star System. Why did one suddenly show up this time?
Looking for variables based on variables.
The most direct variable recently was...
The God imprisoned in the Dark Abyss had been briefly released for a fleeting moment. During that fraction of time, its aura must have leaked out and been captured by the apostle. Furthermore, Chen Mang had taken a vast amount of resources from the prison, likely weakening the suppression mechanism.
In that case.
He needed to run an experiment.
The next moment...
He used the Refrigerator to travel to the prison located inside the Dark Abyss.
He took out all the train's resources and scattered them across various regions on the surface of the prison.
Very soon!
On the Target-Acquisition Radar, the figure of the 'man' slowed down at a pace visible to the naked eye. He gradually dropped below the speed of light, until his speed was roughly equivalent to a car driving at maximum acceleration.
In the vastness of the universe, this speed was worse than a crawling ant.
"Just as I thought."
Chen Mang suddenly grinned widely.
Because the suppression resources had decreased, the aura of the God below had leaked out. That was what drew the apostle's attention and provided him with a source of power.
At this moment, the apostle...
...surely no longer possessed the ability to slaughter an entire planet with a single thought, right?
Following that.
The Stellar Train reappeared in its original location. Gazing at the apostle of the God Race drifting through space just a short distance ahead, Chen Mang did not utter a single word. He directly slammed the red button on the control console.
As the Akhenaten Light Energy Main Cannon atop the train steadily charged up...
A blindingly hot beam of light tore through the cosmos.
His eyes filled with absolute terror, the apostle of the God Race realized he could not evade the incoming strike at all. He could only watch helplessly as the attack slammed into his body.
Unable to turn ethereal.
He perished on the spot.
"Is he dead?"
Chen Mang looked at the slow-motion replay on the Doppelganger Radar. This time, the enemy had not turned ethereal. He did not capture the man alive to interrogate him about the apostles. The enemy's abilities were far too bizarre; who knew what horrific events might transpire if he brought him aboard the train.
He had no desire for close contact.
He merely wanted to eliminate this threat as cleanly and decisively as possible.
"He's dead."
Afterwards.
Chen Mang sat thoughtfully in his chair. Was there truly no way to completely kill a God? What did it mean that the God Race was truly immortal? Even when the universe's rules tried to eradicate the God Race, all it could do was toss them into a black hole. It could not kill them entirely.
They could only be suppressed?
Impossible to kill?
Failing to kill the God Race member in the Dark Abyss would ultimately leave a ticking time bomb. He could not keep his resources weighing it down forever. But if he did not, an endless stream of God's apostles would come knocking at his door to cause trouble.
What if he tried something?
After resolving this issue.
Chen Mang once again appeared above the prison within the Dark Abyss. The Light Energy Main Cannon definitely could not be used. If the blast destroyed the machinery, the God Race member would likely break out on the spot, effectively granting them a full pardon and release.
He felt there was one item that might just work.
That single strand of hair he had once brought out from a dream.
Back then, he did not know whose hair it was.
But now he did.
It was very likely the hair of the God Race.
Why not test if he could use a God Race's hair to kill a God Race?
But...
The gravity inside the cavern beneath the prison was intensely strong. A robot dog had been crushed flat the very instant it descended. A human absolutely could not survive down there. So, who would carry out this task?
Three days later.
"Come, come, come! Give me a hand over here."
"Boss Ai, do you think this piece is alright?"
The surface above the prison was bustling with activity. Countless people and robots were running back and forth.
Over the past three days.
They had primarily focused on one task: constructing an incredibly complex mechanical arm and digging a well!
The plan was like this:
Dig a perfectly straight vertical tunnel from the surface directly down to the space above the God Race member in the cavern.
Then, use the mechanical arm to lower the strand of God's hair down.
Shape the God's hair into a hangman's noose.
And attempt to strangle this God Race member to death.
It sounded a bit whimsical and far-fetched.
If even the universe's rules could not kill the God Race, how could anyone else possibly do it?
"It's useless."
Qi Ya stood to the side, looking helplessly at the busy scene before her. "The God Race cannot be killed. The only way for them to die is if the universe itself is destroyed. They live and die with the universe."
"This is all wasted effort."
"It is absolutely impossible for them to be killed."
"Qi Ya."
Chen Mang chuckled, tilting his head to look at her. "Have you ever killed a God?"
"No."
"Then where did you learn that the God Race is impossible to kill?"
"From my father."
"Has your father ever killed a God?"
"He tried, but he couldn't kill it."
"So your father earned the right to say that Gods can't be killed because he actually tried."
Chen Mang continued smiling. "What I mean is, our understanding of this world shouldn't rely solely on hearsay. We should try it ourselves. Even if we suspect there won't be a result, trying it gives us a much clearer conclusion in our own hearts, doesn't it?"
Right at that moment...
Xiao Ai strode over from the side. "Train Captain, everything is ready."
"Good."
With a serious expression, Chen Mang took the control pad for the mechanical arm from Xiao Ai. The plan was incredibly simple. The mechanical arm's only function was to deliver the 'God's Hair'. Whether it would work or not entirely depended on whether the 'God's Hair' could inflict damage upon a God.
This sounded quite absurd.
A snake could never be poisoned to death by its own venom.
But...
Most venomous creatures were immune to many toxins. However, if their internal venom-storing organs ruptured, they would quickly die from rapid organ failure.
He had always felt that if a creature truly possessed no flaws, then its greatest weakness must lie in its most defining characteristic.
He had to give it a try regardless.
He had never liked eating fish mint.
Not because someone had warned him about it.
But because after eating it himself, he realized he would rather eat shit than that stuff. That was how he reached his conclusion.
'Hearsay' was one way to understand the world.
But one's cognition of the world could not be entirely derived from hearsay.
The next moment...
As the mechanical arm slowly descended along the well shaft into the cavern, it soon reached the space just above the floor. It could not go down any further. The area below was a high-gravity space. If the mechanical arm descended even a little more, it would be instantly crushed into scrap metal.
Looking through the camera mounted on the mechanical arm...
Chen Mang clearly assessed the scene within the cavern and pressed a long button on the side of his controller.
The head of the mechanical arm opened, and a single strand of hair slowly dropped down.
It fluttered and drifted downward through the air.
The God Race member pinned to the pillar looked up at the commotion overhead with a twisted expression, roaring ferociously. An eerie purple light glinted in its eyes.
"I've always been pretty good at claw machines."
Chen Mang held his breath, executing delicate micro-adjustments to constantly tweak the angle of the falling hair. After multiple attempts...
Finally.
The slipknot tied at one end of the hair successfully slipped over the neck of the God Race member below.
"Perfect!"
He let out a long sigh of relief.
He then violently shoved the control stick upward. The mechanical arm rapidly ascended. Because the mechanical arm was installed on the bottom of the train, as the Stellar Train swiftly climbed upward, the strand of hair was continuously pulled taut and elongated.
This strand of hair was highly peculiar.
Before reaching a certain threshold, it would stretch infinitely.
Very quickly.
When the Stellar Train reached a specific altitude, the hair could no longer stretch; it had hit its limit. Yet, the Stellar Train chose to continue its slow ascent.
The next moment...
Chen Mang watched as the God Race member pinned to the pillar below roared in agony, struggling like someone being hanged, unable to break free.
"It looks like it's working?"
His eyes lit up. He continued to increase the pulling force, attempting to hang this so-called God alive!
Your apostle is already dead.
You might as well hurry up and die too.
The God Race member's face grew increasingly livid and hideous.
This process lasted for a full seventeen minutes.
Chen Mang kept his eyes glued unblinking to the scene on the screen.
Right at that moment...
"BOOM!!!"
A heaven-shaking thunderclap suddenly erupted. The boundless dark clouds overhead suddenly flashed with lightning and rolled with thunder, turning a deep, blood-red hue.
According to the sensors of the Stellar Train, which had already flown out of the planet's atmosphere...
Countless patches of 'Crimson Nebulas' had silently materialized around this planetary fragment, as if the universe itself was weeping.
As for that God... its head had been entirely torn off, dropping to the floor and rolling into a corner.
The God...
Seemed to have actually died?
"It actually died?"
Chen Mang stared at the scene before him in disbelief. While he had hoped for a miracle, he had not actually expected one to happen. Didn't they say Gods were absolutely impossible to kill? Even the universe's rules could not kill a God, yet he had done it?
"Huh?"
Standing off to the side, Qi Ya completely froze, her eyes brimming with sheer horror. If her father learned of this, he would absolutely, unequivocally refuse to believe it. This entirely defied cosmic consensus.
How could a God possibly be killed?
They lived and died alongside the universe!
It was completely impossible!
Could it have been... that pitch-black strand of hair?
What was it?
How could it possess the power to kill a God?
Right at that moment...
Chen Mang seemingly sensed something. He swiftly used the Refrigerator to return to his train cabin. On the train's control console screen, a new panel was slowly materializing.
-
"Human Civilization, Civilization Tenet: For every Civilization Wonder constructed that is recognized by the universe's rules, receive a chest containing a random mysterious reward. Limit of nine." (Rainbow)
"The Human Civilization has successfully created a Civilization Wonder recognized by the universe's rules. The universe has named it 'God's Silence'."
"Successfully obtained a chest containing a random mysterious reward."
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Immediately after.
Another new panel emerged.
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"You have killed a member of the God Race."
"This is the very first member of the God Race to fall in this universe."
"You will receive the exact coordinates of all members of the God Race. For every God Race member you kill, you will receive a cosmic reward."
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The former brought him a lucrative reward.
But what the latter brought him was...
A terrifying amount of information.
This panel...
It must have been sent by the current 'Universe Rules'. The rules of the universe had no emotions; this panel was merely an automated response triggered upon detecting the death of a God Race member.
The universe's rules likely desperately wanted to kill the God Race as well.
It just had not been capable of doing so.
But he had accomplished it.
When he reappeared on the surface of the prison, Qi Ya could not stop herself from striding over. Her eyes were still filled with horror as she asked, "Lord Mang, what exactly did you use to kill the God Race?"
"The hair of another God Race member."
"Impossible."
"Why is it impossible?"
"My father ran experiments in the past. Whether using the hair, nails, or anything else from a God Race member, it was impossible to inflict any damage upon them. It absolutely cannot be the hair of another God Race."
"..."
Chen Mang fell silent for a long moment before speaking.
"Then maybe it belonged to its mother."
To be completely honest.
He had always assumed he killed this God using a God Race's hair. But Qi Ya's words reminded him—with so many people in the universe, they could not all be fools. How could no one else have thought of trying to kill a God using God Race hair?
They must have all tried it.
They just all failed.
So what happened with him this time?
He once again recalled that dream—the one he had entered through the Dream Stone.
It was in a deep lake. He had seen a woman squatting by the shore, washing her hair. At the time, he felt like he was drowning. Thrashing wildly in panic, he had grabbed a strand of the woman's hair...
Only to realize.
The woman was not squatting by the lake to wash her hair, but to take a shit.
And what he had grabbed was not hair from her head, but an ass hair.
In his daze.
He had not seen the woman's face clearly. He only had a fleeting impression that she looked very similar to the God Race member he had just killed. Her appearance was nearly identical, so he had subconsciously assumed she was also a God Race member.
Could it be that the woman taking a shit by the lake in his dream was not a God Race member?
Or perhaps...
She really was the mother of the God Race?
"Wait, no!"
Right at that moment, Qi Ya suddenly thought of something and spoke, emphasizing every word: "Every god-tier civilization has attempted to kill the God Race."
"Not a single one succeeded."
"Not even the rules of the universe succeeded!"
"After trying many times, my father theorized that there was only one way to kill the God Race. Didn't I mention before that when the previous Universal Will created the God Race, it used a human female as the template?"
"Who that woman was and where she went, no one knows."
"Not even the current Universal Will knows."
"But my father guessed that only this woman could kill the God Race. After all, the very existence of the God Race stems from her. However... this was ultimately just a theory, and no one could ever find that woman."
"..."
Chen Mang stayed silent for a long time before finally looking at Qi Ya. "Why is your father called the Zerg Mother Queen? Shouldn't he be the Zerg Father King?"
"Zerg Mother Queen is a title. It has nothing to do with gender."
"Now isn't the time to talk about that! I'm saying that the hair in your hands must be the hair of the 'Mother of the God Race'!"
"And then?"
"It's going to be extremely valuable."
"Other civilizations will covet it, right?"
"Yes."
"Sigh."
Chen Mang let out a soft sigh. "Very normal. I'm used to it. We just need to try our best not to let anyone else know. Will you leak the secret?"
"No."
He did not say anything more to Qi Ya. Instead, he brought everyone and all the resources back onto the train. He planned to wait for the machinery below to stop functioning, then fish up the corpse of the God Race to take a good look.
The universe's rules had already declared it dead.
It could not just suddenly come back to life, could it?