396: Chapter 396 The Master of Stitching Reveals His True Form, Boasting of Being on Par with Heaven in Creation

"This sort of eyesore..."

Zhou Wannian relaxed his fingertips.

"...it's better to smash it for some peace and quiet."

The moment the words fell, his slightly curved index finger flicked out in an ordinary manner.

There was no dazzling brilliance of Spells, nor the thunderous roar of tearing space.

A wave of Absolute Mass, so pure it defied all reason, flowed from Zhou Wannian's fingertip like an invisible, bursting ocean, slamming violently into the massive mechanical optical computer's main control screen ahead.

"Bang—Crack!"

That massive screen, flashing with a crimson alarm and forged from an unknown deep-gray alloy of the Truth Realm, buckled inward like fragile paper the instant it touched the ripples of mass. Immediately after, the ear-piercing sound of metal snapping exploded within the cavernous underground hall.

The gray eye composed of lines on the screen's surface, along with the rapidly flowing binary code, twisted and shattered in an instant, turning into a flurry of ghostly blue electric sparks.

The crushing force of this Absolute Mass did not stop at the screen's surface. It surged along the metal circuits of the console like a rampaging beast, brutally crashing into the internal structure of the entire platform.

"Sizzle—Boom!"

The surrounding energy cannons that had just emerged and finished charging didn't even have time to spit out a single beam before they were crushed into balls of scrap metal under the irresistible pressure. Azure energy detonated inside the barrels, erupting into clusters of scorching fireballs. The thick smell of burnt machine oil and the pungent scent of gunpowder instantly filled the air.

The entire control platform shook violently. Metal plates on the floor buckled and snapped, exposing the intricate network of pipes and flickering crystal circuits beneath.

Zhou Wannian stood his ground, his spotless green robe fluttering in the airwaves kicked up by the detonations. He slowly lowered his right hand, clasping it behind his back once more, his deep eyes quietly watching the pile of smoking metal ruins ahead.

Illuminated by the firelight, the underground space fell into a brief, deathly silence. Only the gurgling of bubbles in the pale green slime within the translucent incubation pods continued to echo.

"Tap, tap, tap."

A series of unhurried footsteps abruptly echoed from behind the pile of smoking metal ruins.

The footsteps weren't heavy, yet they carried a strange rhythm. Every step seemed to land on the pulses of the Divine Souls of the surrounding half-Immortal, half-demon monsters, causing tens of thousands of incubation pods to hum in unison.

Zhou Wannian raised his eyelids, his gaze piercing through the curling black smoke.

From the shadows of the ruins, a slender figure slowly emerged.

The newcomer wore a voluminous robe. The style of this robe exuded a hair-raising eeriness. The left half was a pure white Immortal's robe woven from ice silkworm silk, embroidered with auspicious clouds and Auspicious Beasts in gold thread, radiating an ethereal, otherworldly grace. The right half, however, was a pitch-black suit of armor pieced together from the scales of an unknown Demonic Beast, with viscous, black Devilish Qi dripping from the edges of the scales.

These two completely incompatible materials were forcibly stitched together by a fine thread shimmering with ghostly blue light.

The newcomer's face was even more peculiar.

His facial features were handsome and sharply defined. However, from the center of his brow down to his chin, there was a visible suture line. To the left of the suture, his skin was as warm as jade, his hair white as snow, and his eyes held a compassionate Immortal Qi. To the right, his skin showed a gray, ashen Death Qi, his hair was a cascading black, and his pupil burned with a frenzied, dark red demonic flame.

Set into his right eye socket was a monocle that emitted a cold metallic luster. On its lens, rows of tiny Truth Realm code cascaded down like a waterfall.

Immortal Qi, Devilish Qi, and the mechanical logic of the Truth Realm achieved a deformed and dangerous balance within this person.

"You destroyed my main control screen and smashed the defense matrix I so meticulously arranged."

The person stopped ten paces away from Zhou Wannian and spoke. His voice was layered and overlapping, as if two people were speaking simultaneously in different tones—one a clear, Immortal melody, the other a raspy, demonic roar. Hearing it caused an uncontrollable surge of irritation and nausea in one's heart.

He raised his right hand, his slender fingers gently nudging the monocle over his right eye, a fanatical smile curling at the corner of the mouth.

"That Your Excellency's flesh and blood body can actually erupt with pure mass that crushes the rules of space... Marvelous, truly marvelous! I have searched through the material libraries of the myriad worlds, yet I have never seen a structure as perfect as yours."

Zhou Wannian looked at the half-human, half-ghost stitched monstrosity before him. The pungent smell of embalming fluid wafting from the man made him frown slightly.

"So you're the head chef of this pot of sludge?" Zhou Wannian's tone was lazy, his eyes filled with unconcealed disgust. "To chop yourself up and throw yourself into the pot to stew... your skill isn't much, but you certainly have nerve."

Being called a chef didn't anger the newcomer; instead, he let out a series of overlapping, low chuckles.

"A mere mortal only sees the surface and knows nothing of the underlying principles."

He spread his arms, his wide, stitched Immortal-demon robe billowing in the cold wind like a deformed giant bird spreading its wings.

"My name is the Suturing Grandmaster. I am the absolute Dominator of this Immortal-Demon Great World's Creation Furnace."

The Suturing Grandmaster lowered his arms and turned around, his gaze fanatically scanning the dense clusters of incubation pods suspended in mid-air. Inside the pods, the half-Immortal, half-demon monsters twitched in agony within the slime, the sounds of bones snapping and restructuring rising and falling.

"Your Excellency calls me a chef and this place a pot of sludge. Little do you know, this 'pot' you see is the ultimate Holy Land for the evolution of all things in the Universe!"

The Suturing Grandmaster turned to look at Zhou Wannian, the compassion in his left eye intertwining with the madness in his right.

"The evolution of the Universe is flawed."

He took a step forward, walking to an incubation pod and gently tapping the transparent wall with his pale fingers.

"Cultivators follow the Heavenly Dao, sitting in bitter meditation to absorb Spiritual Qi, wasting tens of thousands of years just to seek longevity equal to heaven and earth. But once heaven and earth collapse, those so-called Immortals are nothing more than ants who have lost their nest. Demonic cultivators plunder all things, progressing by leaps and bounds, yet they are easily consumed by Evil Qi, eventually becoming beasts that know only slaughter."

The Suturing Grandmaster spun around, the blue light on his monocle flaring brightly.

"Birth, aging, sickness, death, and the conservation of energy—these are but laughable iron Laws set by a low-dimensional Universe! Why should life be subject to these rules? Why can't all the ultimate powers of the world be fused into one?"

He pointed at the monster in the pod, its left half covered in white feathers and its right half grown with demonic armor. His voice rose an octave, echoing through the cavernous underground hall.

"I extracted the purest immortal bones from the myriad worlds and drained the most violent demonic blood from the Endless Abyss. Using the absolute logic granted by the Truth Realm as my suture, I forcibly severed their rejection reactions, perfectly smelting life and death, Yin and Yang, Immortal and demon into a single crucible!"

The Suturing Grandmaster pressed closer, stopping only three paces away from Zhou Wannian.

"This is true creation! This is a supreme feat that rivals the Heavenly Dao! The beings I create require no bitter cultivation, no comprehension of the Dao. Upon leaving their pods, they possess the strength of a Half-step Deity Transformation, with indestructible Physical Bodies and endless energy."

He stared intently at Zhou Wannian, his eyes filled with a twisted pride.

"I don't blame you for destroying my screen. Because your appearance has proven to me that there are even more perfect mass compression models in this world. As long as you cooperate and let me dissect your Physical Body and analyze your Divine Soul's Laws, my art of creation will surely Breakthrough its final Bottleneck!"

Zhou Wannian listened quietly to this long-winded speech.

In his eyes, which were as calm as an ancient well, not a single ripple was stirred by this seemingly grand theory.

The sound of bubbles gurgling in the surrounding incubation pods remained muffled. The smell of blood and machine oil in the air mixed together, becoming increasingly pungent.

Zhou Wannian slightly tilted his chin, reached out his right hand, and picked his ear with his pinky finger.

"Are you finished?"

Zhou Wannian blew on the tip of his pinky finger and refocused his gaze on the face of the monster who called himself the Suturing Grandmaster.

“No matter how much you talk it up, you're just a mason using glue to stick rotten wood together. Do you really think of yourself as Nüwa molding clay into humans?”

Zhou Wannian dusted off his sleeves, his tone calm, yet every word scraped across the Suturing Grandmaster's eardrums like a blade.

“You piece together a frame from dead men's bones, pour in a few mouthfuls of turbid Qi, and then use a few lines of broken code to forcibly sew the wounds shut. You call this creation?”

Zhou Wannian let out a cold laugh and shook his head.

“You don't even understand how a single blade of grass breaks through the soil to sprout. These scraps you've created are nothing more than rabid dogs biting people everywhere; they can't perceive the changing of the seasons, nor can they feel joys or sorrows. They don't even count as living things.”

Zhou Wannian watched the Suturing Grandmaster's face gradually darken.

“Stop flattering yourself. You're nothing more than a butcher in charge of slicing meat under that tin-plated abacus-wielder from beyond the heavens.”

These few sentences were like several loud slaps, landing solidly on the Dao Heart that the Suturing Grandmaster took such pride in.

His face, stitched together from left and right halves, twitched violently. The Immortal Qi in his left eye was completely swallowed by the tyranny in his right, and the monocle flashed frantically with a red light representing extreme danger.

“Ignorance! Stupidity! A summer insect cannot speak of ice!”

The Suturing Grandmaster roared, his voice turning into visible sonic ripples that made the surrounding walls of the cultivation pods creak under the strain.

“Do you think I spent countless eons and drained the Origin of tens of billions of worlds just to manufacture these Half-step Deity Transformation weapons for slaughter?”

The Suturing Grandmaster took two steps back, spread his arms, and tilted his head back to look at the pitch-black dome of the underground space.

The fanaticism in his eyes turned into a nearly tangible faith at this moment.

“These are nothing but defective products! They are merely stepping stones in my search for the perfect creation!”

He suddenly lowered his head and stared fixedly at Zhou Wannian, his voice low yet carrying a madness that made one's Divine Soul tremble.

“Our true goal is ‘Ultimate Completion’!”

As soon as this term was uttered, the air in the entire Creation Furnace seemed to grow significantly heavier.

The Immortal-demon monsters that had been struggling frantically in their cultivation pods actually stopped all movement upon hearing those four words. Countless pairs of eyes stared blankly toward the high platform through the pale green slime.

“The myriad worlds of the heavens are like scattered grains of sand, with strict barriers between dimensions.”

The Suturing Grandmaster's fingers swiped through the void, trailing streaks of blue data light.

“The Immortal Dao is ethereal, the Demonic Path is brutal, and while the mechanical code of those fellows in the Truth Realm is rigorous, it lacks the infinite variables of biological evolution. The Universe itself is incomplete!”

He suddenly clenched his fist, and the data light shattered in his palm.

“Only by extracting the ultimate attributes of all dimensions—using the agility of the Immortals, the resilience of the Demons, and the absolute logic of Truth—can we forge an unprecedented ultimate vessel capable of carrying the Karma of the myriad worlds!”

The Suturing Grandmaster's chest heaved violently, his breathing heavy.

“Once the ‘Ultimate Completion’ plan succeeds, that perfect vessel will break all dimensional barriers. We will no longer be anglers hiding at the edge of this fish pond; we will become the true Creators, reshaping the Laws of the entire Universe!”

He pointed a finger at Zhou Wannian, the red light in his monocle locking onto the center of Zhou Wannian's brow.

“The mass of your Physical Body is the strongest variable I have ever seen. As long as you are smelted into that ultimate vessel, this final puzzle piece will be complete!”

The temperature in the air plummeted, and a thin layer of dark purple frost condensed on the metal floor plates.

Zhou Wannian finished listening to this grand plan that could be described as nothing short of insane.

He showed no signs of panic.

He just stood there quietly, looking at the frenzied Suturing Grandmaster as if watching a madman rolling in a mud pit while bragging to passersby that he had learned how to swim.

“Ultimate Completion.”

Zhou Wannian chewed on those four words, a trace of mockery flashing in the depths of his eyes.

“Packing all the trash into one bucket and then slapping a label on it doesn't make it a bucket of nectar.”

He shook his head, seemingly having lost all interest in this conversation.

“The brains of you people have truly been strangled by that fishing line.”

Zhou Wannian spoke no more and began to walk forward, meeting the Suturing Grandmaster's knife-like gaze. His green cloth shoes stepped on the frosted metal floor, making crisp cracking sounds.

“Refusing the toast only to drink the forfeit! Since you are so stubborn, don't blame this seat for first breaking you into bone fragments and then slowly boiling your Divine Soul!”

Seeing that Zhou Wannian was not intimidated by his grand plan but was instead pressing closer step by step, the killing intent in the Suturing Grandmaster's heart completely boiled over.

He slammed his hands together in front of him, forming an extremely bizarre hand seal. Half of his fingers displayed the agility of an Immortal's finger technique, while the other half curved into the hideous claws of a Demon.

“Myriad Realms Origin Strangling Grand Formation, activate!”

Following his violent shout,

the core platform of the entire Creation Furnace completely came to life at this moment.

The originally flat, dark grey alloy floor emitted a tooth-aching sound of metal grinding. Countless massive metal plates began to shift, flip, and rise, like a gargantuan Rubik's cube rapidly reorganizing itself.

Blinding light erupted from beneath the ground.

Pure white Immortal Sword Qi, Nine Serenity Demonic Flame as black as ink, and the grey-white spatial cutting rays of the Truth Realm.

These three terrifying forces, which were originally incompatible, were forcibly constrained by the Formation into visible, materialized storms.

The storms soared into the sky, intertwining and entangling in mid-air to form an incredibly massive meat grinder, tightly enveloping the space where Zhou Wannian stood in its center.

The air was sucked dry, and space was sliced into countless tiny fragments.

The gravitational constant within the Formation fluctuated wildly; one moment it felt as heavy as Mount Tai, and the next it was as if falling into a bottomless abyss.

This was the strongest trump card the Suturing Grandmaster used to suppress this Creation Furnace. He was confident that under the alternating strangulation of Immortal, Demon, and Truth forces, even a true star would be ground to powder within three breaths.

At the edge of the platform,

the Suturing Grandmaster floated in mid-air, his robes billowing, his monocle staring fixedly at the center of the Formation's storm. He was already prepared to strike and seize the core materials the moment that perfect Physical Body was sliced open.

In the center of the storm,

Sword Qi howled, Demonic Flames rolled, and rays intertwined.

The deafening roar drowned out everything.

However,

within that violent light and shadow of energy capable of tearing all things apart,

a green figure stood there steadily.

Zhou Wannian still had his hands behind his back, without forming any hand seals or summoning any Magic Treasures.

The three feet around him seemed to be an absolute vacuum independent of the Universe.

The pure white Immortal Sword Qi hacked at that invisible barrier, like an egg hitting a rock, instantly shattering into specks of starlight; the black Demonic Flames swept in, only to have their sparks extinguished by that incomprehensible Absolute Mass; the grey-white spatial cutting rays failed to even stir a ripple on that barrier before silently refracting away.

The sky-filling killing intent and the world-destroying grand Formation

could not even lift a corner of his wash-faded green cloth robe.

Zhou Wannian stood in the eye of that strangling Formation, looking up through the violent energy storm at the Suturing Grandmaster in mid-air, whose face was filled with disbelief.

On that handsome face, a bone-chilling smile appeared.

“This meat grinder...”

Zhou Wannian's calm voice ignored all the roaring and clearly reached the Suturing Grandmaster's ears.

“The blades are too dull.”