126: Chapter 126: A Thousand Years

Lin Yuan hovered high in the sky above the Wasteland Divine Domain, looking down at the vast territory of 3.2 million square kilometers below.

The newly devoured wreckage of Plane 093 had begun to integrate into the crust, its dark purple soil intertwining with the red and black Wasteland.

There were too many resources, and the territory was too vast.

The current Wasteland Divine Domain was like a giant beast whose belly was about to burst.

Continuing to plunder other planes in the outside world would be meaningless.

"Digesting our accumulated foundation is the top priority right now."

Lin Yuan made his decision, withdrawing his consciousness from the Divine Domain and returning to reality.

Opening his eyes, Lin Yuan swiped his finger.

He connected to the military's intranet and went straight to the resources section.

[High-Tier Time Card]

Effect: Provides a closed acceleration period of one thousand years. During this time, the Divine Domain's crystal walls are absolutely locked, isolating it from all external detection.

[Life Reproduction Tide Card (Gold High-Tier)]

Effect: Releases a tide of Life Origin. Forcefully increases the reproduction rate of all creatures in the domain by 800% and the survival rate of offspring by 500%.

Total Price (discount included): 63.2 million faith points.

Lin Yuan didn't even blink, immediately clicking to purchase.

His account balance decreased, and two teleportation array patterns lit up in the real world.

Two cards fell into his palm.

Without delay, Lin Yuan gripped the cards, and his consciousness descended into the Divine Domain.

He was in no hurry to crush the cards. With a flash of his figure, he arrived in front of the [Liquid Metal Blood-Devouring Demon Tree] in the Central Basin.

On the massive, 100,000-meter-tall trunk, a human face woven from liquid metal slowly emerged.

"Hungry..."

Lin Yuan ignored its instinct and injected a wisp of Mental Energy into the core of the demon tree.

"I am going to close off the Divine Domain for a thousand years," Lin Yuan's command was cold and clear. "During this period, you are responsible for stabilizing the Laws, drawing Void Realm energy, and extracting underground mineral veins."

"Remember, try your best not to interfere in the slaughter, reproduction, and resource distribution of the vassals below. Just watch."

The demon tree's human face twisted slightly, seemingly processing this complex piece of information.

After a moment, a fragmented wave of mental fluctuation was sent back.

"Watch... not eat... living... fight..."

The corner of Lin Yuan's mouth twitched.

Its comprehension ability was truly touching, but at least the message had been delivered.

As long as the demon tree didn't go crazy and swallow all the vassals as snacks, it would be fine.

"That's all."

Lin Yuan wasted no more words, exerting force with both hands simultaneously.

Crack.

The Time Card and the Reproduction Card shattered at the same time.

A silver phantom of the river of time manifested on the dome of the Divine Domain.

Immediately after, a brilliant green tide of life gushed out from the ground, sweeping across the entire 3.2 million square kilometers of the Wasteland.

The flow of time was forcefully severed.

An irresistible repulsive force acted upon Lin Yuan.

His Soul was forcefully expelled by the turbulent flow of time, returning to the main world.

The long, thousand-year hands-off period had officially begun.

...

Within the Divine Domain, time flowed at a crazy speed.

One day outside was a hundred years inside.

During this first century, the effect of the Life Reproduction Tide Card was pushed to its absolute limit.

The entire Wasteland welcomed the most exaggerated species explosion in its history.

The vassals no longer worried about food; their only tasks were to reproduce, expand, and slaughter.

The newly integrated wreckage of Plane 093 provided massive amounts of flesh, blood, and mineral resources.

The populations of various races increased seven to eight-fold within a century.

Among them, the most terrifying was still the [Heaven-Devouring Zerg].

In the deepest depths of the insect hives, the Zerg Queen had become a tireless troop-producing machine.

She devoured the high-tier flesh and blood brought by the Worker Insects, and the egg-laying sac on her abdomen expanded and contracted endlessly.

Over the century.

The Zerg population skyrocketed from a few million, breaking through the seventy million mark in one fell swoop!

Seventy million Heaven-Devouring Zerg packed the underground network.

They digested the foundation of Plane 093, ushering in an unprecedented integration of their base genes.

The current Zerg still retained highly detailed unit branches such as the [Mad Sickle Shadow Blade Beetle], [Nether-Uranium Heavy Armor Beetle], [Rot-Toxic Bursting Beast], and [Psionic Plasma Bug].

But deep within their genes, a unified brand had been stamped.

Whether it was the Blade Bugs acting as assassins, the Heavy Armor Beetles acting as meat shields, or the Plasma Bugs acting as long-range mages,

every single insect perfectly inherited the characteristics of the Abyssal Armor Bone Locust: [Void Oscillation] and [Pain Link].

And these characteristics were further improved upon.

The smallest in number was the [Calamity Fire Spirit] of the Far North Volcano Group.

Fire Spirit did not possess the reproductive capabilities of carbon-based organisms.

Their birth was either through the natural gestation of volcanic magma,

or by high-tier Fire Spirit consuming their own Origin to split into new individuals.

Over a hundred years, the number of Fire Spirit only grew from three thousand to fifteen thousand.

However, all fifteen thousand of these Fire Spirit had stepped into the Platinum rank.

With the explosion of the vassal population, the original Central Basin and peripheral areas could no longer accommodate so many lives.

Expansion became inevitable.

The newly devoured territory of over two million square kilometers welcomed its first batch of residents.

To avoid the increasingly abnormal Violent Demon Race in the Central Basin,

the seventy million Heaven-Devouring Zerg directly migrated their entire headquarters to the newly formed land.

The Zerg, who had scraped by in the underground for countless years, finally crawled out of the ground.

They no longer hid themselves.

On the plains, valleys, and deserts of the new continent, grand insect hives rising thousands of meters high sprang up from the ground.

The seventy-million-strong insect ocean spread out, turning this land into a black ocean of Zerg.

They didn't dare provoke the Tyrant Demons in the center of the Divine Domain.

But for the Demon Vultures and bats in the sky, and the bone fish and crabs in the Styx, they chose to strike with heavy fists.

In the sky above the new continent.

Tens of thousands of Demon Vultures had built nests in this area.

They swooped down, their sharp claws lunging toward the insect swarm on the ground.

Below, tens of thousands of [Mad Sickle Shadow Blade Beetles] looked up.

In the past, as squishy assassins, the Blade Bugs would have suffered heavy casualties when facing the dive of high-tier Demon Vultures.

But now was different.

The Blade Bugs did not dodge.

The dark purple patterns on their backs flashed in unison, and tens of thousands of joints waved at the same time.

Buzz!

Tens of thousands of [Void Oscillations] stacked together.

High-frequency spatial shattering waves soared into the sky.

Large patches of space collapsed directly.

Before the Demon Vultures in the sky could even scream, their wings and bodies were sliced into fragments by spatial rifts, and a rain of blood scattered across the sky.

In the tributaries of the Styx.

Dozens of bone fish and [Oscillating Liquid Metal Crabs] tried to swim downstream to occupy the waters.

Bone fish leaped out of the water, their sharp bone spines biting into several stray [Psionic Plasma Bugs] on the shore.

A force strong enough to crush steel erupted.

But the bitten Plasma Bugs not only didn't die, even their shells weren't cracked.

[Pain Link] activated.

The damage sustained by these few Plasma Bugs was forcefully shared among hundreds of thousands of their kin within a ten-mile radius.

Averaged out, this fatal blow was not even a scratch to them.

Unscathed, the Plasma Bugs raised their tails, and thousands of high-energy plasma spheres smashed into the river.

The water's surface exploded, and the river boiled.

The bone fish turned their white bellies up, dying in droves.

The Liquid Metal Crabs were so terrified that they waved their giant claws and desperately burrowed into the silt layer at the bottom of the Styx.

Relying on the property of the Styx's dead water to block mental detection, they shrank tightly into the mud, not even daring to blow a bubble.

The sea and sky races were completely beaten to a pulp by the Zerg.

The Zerg officially established their overlord status on the new continent.

They were the bullies of this region.

But this was not enough.

Forty thousand Dominator Bugs gathered at the top of the tallest main hive.

Their slender bodies were covered in silver-and-black interwoven exoskeletons, and their narrow compound eyes were filled with rationality.

The command issued by the Insect King before going into hibernation was deeply engraved in their genes.

Secure third, strive for second.

The trash of the sky and the ocean had already been trampled underfoot.

The Tyrant Demons in the Central Basin were still an insurmountable mountain.

Thus, the only target left was the Fire Spirit of the Extreme North.

The forty thousand Dominator Bugs turned their heads simultaneously, looking toward the distant far north.

There, the sky-rocketing dark-gray karmic fire burned a hole through the clouds.

They knew very well the terror of the Fire Spirit.

The karmic fire, carrying the Law of End, could easily burn through the shells they were so proud of,

ignoring the Pain Link and burning their flesh along with their Souls to ashes.

They couldn't win.

This was the conclusion the Dominator Bugs reached after countless combat simulations.

But there was no such thing as backing down in the Zerg's dictionary.

If they couldn't win, they would evolve.

The forty thousand Dominator Bugs released mental signals, issuing a brand-new supreme command to the seventy million Zerg.

Years ago, to make the race adapt to radiation, the Insect King had driven tens of millions of his kin to their deaths under the wasteland radiation towers.

Today, they were going to replicate this feat.

They would use the lives of tens of millions of their kin to temper a brand-new gene that was immune to karmic fire.

On the very day the command was issued,

on the edge of the new continent, five million low-level Zerg, judged to have "outdated genes that couldn't keep up with the patch version," were driven out of their hives by Soldier Insects.

These five million Zerg made no move to resist.

They spread their joints, forming an insect tide dozens of kilometers wide, and rushed wildly toward the Far North Volcano Group.

They crossed the wilderness and crossed the Styx.

The five-million-strong Zerg army marched upon the Extreme North.

Ahead lay a scorched earth flowing with dark black magma.

The air was filled with bone-chilling cold and deadly toxic fire.

A dozen or so Platinum-rank Fire Spirit, standing dozens of meters tall, were crawling out of the magma.

The bone halos on their backs spun as they looked coldly at these uninvited guests.

There was no communication.

The Dominator Bugs issued a death order from the rear.

Five million Zerg charged.

Just as the frontmost Zerg stepped onto the scorched earth, the Fire Spirit moved.

They swung long whips condensed from karmic fire, lashing them fiercely into the insect sea.

Boom!

The dark-gray flames exploded.

There were no screams.

The hard shells of the Zerg touched by the karmic fire vaporized instantly.

The Zerg instinctively activated [Pain Link], trying to share the damage.

But the Law of End contained within the karmic fire spread along the mental connection.

Swarms upon swarms of Zerg turned to ashes as they ran.

Against a five-million-strong Zerg army, the dozen or so Fire Spirit were engaged in a completely one-sided massacre.

But the Zerg did not retreat a single step.

Stepping on the ashes of their kin, they rushed forward wave after wave toward the magma, toward the Fire Spirit.

They opened their mouths, attempting to bite off a piece of bone from the Fire Spirit,

even if they would be burned to nothingness in the very next second.

On the first day, the five million Zerg were completely wiped out.

Not even a single intact corpse was left behind; they all turned into nourishment for the Extreme North.

The Dominator Bugs watching from the rear did not show the slightest emotional fluctuation.

They used the remaining [Pain Link] signals to transmit the sensations of being burned by the karmic fire,

word for word, to the Zerg Queen deep underground.

The Empress continuously wriggled her egg-laying sac, trying to forcefully piece together fire-resistant genes in the next generation of eggs.

The second day.

Another five million Zerg were driven out of the new continent, continuing their charge toward the Extreme North.

Raging flames engulfed the battlefield.

The Fire Spirit tirelessly swung their fire whips, burning these annoying insects to ashes.

They did not understand why these insects were coming to seek their own deaths.

The third day, the fourth day...

Over half a month.

A full twenty million Zerg died on the edge of the Far North Volcanoes.

An extremely abnormal pawn-sacrificing tactic.

The base population of seventy million Zerg was reduced by nearly half in this one-sided suicide run.

But forty thousand Dominator Bugs still persisted.

They were waiting.

Waiting for that one-in-a-million miracle.

They firmly believed that under absolute numbers and ruthless death screening,

there would eventually be one insect that could withstand the burning of the karmic fire.

As long as one survived,

the Empress would be able to extract its genes and breed a brand-new offspring immune to karmic fire.

By then, the position of the runner-up in this Wasteland Divine Domain would have to change hands.

The ashes of tens of millions of Zerg coated the Extreme North in a thick layer.

The suicide run was still ongoing.

The river of time rushed above the Divine Domain.

This cruel Gu cultivation spanning a century had only just raised its curtains.