168: Chapter 168 The Infected Worm Displays Its Power and the Evil God's Projection Descends
That terrifyingly steady, even slightly indifferent voice did not travel through air vibrations, but instead boomed directly in the deepest part of the mental link of every Zerg Swarm unit.
"Self-destruct?"
"Did you have my permission?"
The moment the words fell, the violent trembling of Laws within the entire disintegrating Rotten Garden plane abruptly froze.
As if an invisible giant hand had seized the throat of this world's destruction.
Just a second before the Corrupt Mother Tree's Divine Power, accumulated over tens of thousands of years, reached its peak to detonate the plane's core and perish together with everything.
*Puchi!*
*Puchi! Puchi!*
Several extremely faint sounds of breaking through the soil, completely drowned out by the roar of the world's collapse, rang out beneath the shadow of her massive root System.
The soil and rotting flesh there suddenly arched upward into several bulges.
In the next moment, several plump and bloated creatures, covered in disgusting folds and carapaces, burst from the ground!
The moment their bodies sprang from the ground, they displayed a terrifying explosive power completely at odds with their bloated appearance, accurately pouncing on several nodes on the Corrupt Mother Tree's trunk that were frantically flashing and outputting massive amounts of energy.
Those were the "nerve centers" she used to mobilize her entire body's Divine Power to detonate the plane's core!
High-tier Infection Bugs!
They were ghost assassins who had long since used the "Burrow" skill to silently lie in ambush beneath the enemy's heart before this earth-shattering battle even began!
"Hiss—!"
Amidst the sharp hissing, the hideous mouthparts atop the Infection Bugs' heads snapped open, and sharp bone needles, shimmering with an eerie green luster and harder than diamonds, pierced ruthlessly into those energy nodes with deadly precision!
Talent Skill—[Neural Hijack]!
"No—!"
The crazed expression on the Corrupt Mother Tree's giant face instantly froze, replaced by a horror originating from the depths of her Soul.
She could feel an incomprehensible, irresistible foreign object invading her Divine Power circulation System through those bone needles.
Those were billions of nano-scale biological viruses completely invisible to the naked eye.
They weren't energy, nor were they Mental Energy; they were a pure "information command" based on the most fundamental logic of life.
This torrent of commands instantly crushed the Corrupt Mother Tree's own will.
Her erupting, violent energy fluctuations, powerful enough to tear the plane apart, were suddenly choked off at the source by a cold palm.
It came to a grinding halt.
The entire world's collapse process was forcibly interrupted within this ten-thousandth of a second.
"No... my body..."
The Corrupt Mother Tree discovered in terror that she was rapidly losing control over this divine body, which had been in Fusion with the plane for tens of thousands of years.
"Why... why won't it obey me anymore..."
Her thoughts began to fracture, and her will was being overwritten and smothered by a vast, cold, efficient stream of consciousness devoid of any Impurities.
It was an indescribable experience.
Her "self" was like a lone boat in a vast ocean, while that foreign will was a monstrous wave sweeping away everything.
In her spiritual world, cold, emotionless notification sounds were rapidly flashing by.
[Target neural network detected... invasion beginning...]
[Rewriting core control permissions...]
[Progress 30%... 50%... 80%...]
Her resistance was laughably fragile before that terrifying will, which felt like the collective of an entire race.
Her struggle only caused a few milliseconds of delay in the rewriting process.
[Neural network rewriting complete.]
[Hijack successful!]
On the trunk of the Corrupt Mother Tree, all expressions vanished from the giant face.
Fear, madness, resentment... all faded away.
Leaving only a deathly silent, Puppet-like emptiness.
Within the mental link of all Zerg Swarm units, that supreme will issued a simple, cold command through the perception of the High-tier Infection Bugs.
"Kneel."
Rumble—!!!!
The loud crash didn't come from an explosion, but from submission.
The massive demonic tree, thousands of meters tall and standing for tens of thousands of years, worshipped as a deity by countless believers, moved.
Its movements were stiff and sluggish, filled with a pain that defied its biological instincts.
The incredibly thick trunk let out a tooth-gritting "crack" and bent down inch by inch with great difficulty at an absolutely impossible angle.
Countless thick roots were forcibly torn from the earth, bringing with them a spray of mud and gravel.
Finally, its crown, which once stood high and looked down upon all living things, drooped heavily and humbly, lowering its proud head toward the Dragon Nora in the sky and the Zerg Swarm that had just slaughtered its demigod army.
Self-destruct?
Before the Zerg's biochemical hackers, death was never a right one could choose.
This was only the beginning.
"Perfect material, it shouldn't be wasted."
Su Chen's will flowed through the mental link.
[Activating higher-tier permissions... Gene Reverse Erosion!]
The kneeling Corrupt Mother Tree's vast root network now became the most terrifying channel for spreading the Plague.
A deep purple bio-energy containing the Zerg Swarm's gene template spread frantically from her center along the roots that spanned the entire plane!
Beneath the earth, a deep purple neural network seemed to light up, covering the entire world!
Within the plane, the millions of surviving Dark Elf believers, who were fervently praying for their Mother Goddess's impending mutual destruction, suddenly froze in unison.
"Ah—!"
"My head! My head is splitting open!"
"Mother Goddess... save me..."
Piercing screams rang out simultaneously in every corner of the plane.
Countless Dark Elves clutched their heads in agony, rolling on the ground. Their eyeballs rolled back, leaving only the terrifying whites.
Then, an even more terrifying transformation occurred.
Patches of purple substance, resembling fungal carpets, seeped out from under their skin and quickly covered their entire bodies.
Their body structures were forcibly remodeled in just a few seconds; bones cracked, and muscle fibers were reorganized into more aggressive forms.
Their wails gradually subsided, replaced by beast-like low growls.
When they stood up again, no reason remained in their eyes, only absolute obedience to the Swarm Overlord.
They were no longer Dark Elves.
Instead, they were those who only took orders from the Zerg Swarm—the "The Infected."
Su Chen's will swept across the land that had just finished its transformation, looking at the army of The Infected standing still like walking corpses across the earth, and the giant mother tree kneeling on the ground.
He gave a satisfied "commentary."
"What perfect material."
Right at that moment.
The sky of the entire Rotten Garden split open without warning.
It wasn't a spatial rift, but a "tear" from a higher dimension.
The Laws of the plane wailed, as if forcibly pulled apart by an invisible giant hand.
A blood-colored eyeball, too massive to describe in words, slowly opened from behind that rift.
Its projection alone made the entire plane overburdened, pushing it to the brink of collapse.
High-Dimensional Evil God Jeremiah.
His true form's projection descended once again.
According to their agreement, his subordinate god, the Corrupt Mother Tree, should have already captured that interesting "prey" and be waiting for him to receive it.
With a hint of condescending scrutiny, he cast his gaze toward the ground.
However, in the next second, the scene he witnessed caused the massive blood-colored pupil of this evil god—who had existed for countless eons and viewed gods as playthings—to shrink violently!
His subordinate god, the Corrupt Mother Tree he had personally raised to rule this plane, was kneeling on the ground in the most humiliating and lowly posture.
And the living beings of the entire plane, who were supposed to be sacrifices offered to him, were now being eroded and transformed by a "Plague" emitting a deep purple glow that he had never seen before.
He could feel that the essence of those life forms was being forcibly altered from the most basic genetic level, turning into creations belonging to another System that he completely failed to understand.
That so-called "Newly ascended demigod," the "prey" in his eyes, was controlling this terrifying power that even made his heart palpitate, arbitrarily painting and reshaping the forms of life.
This wasn't Divine Power.
It wasn't Law.
It wasn't any kind of power within his knowledge.
Jeremiah's gaze locked onto the Golden Lightning Dragon floating in the sky and the cold, indifferent will hidden deep within the mental network behind her.
"You..."
Jeremiah's voice, powerful enough to awe the gods, for the first time carried a hint of uncontrollable fluctuation—a deep wariness originating from biological instinct.
"...Just what are you?"
This wasn't a war between gods.
This wasn't the game he was familiar with, where gods fought over faith and authority.
This was... a Plague!
A Universe-level Plague capable of contaminating gods and subverting the very definition of life!