Chapter 664: Pasture

Yang Muquan froze.

This miniature sun came so fast that he had no time to react. Endless light and heat instantly filled his vision. He felt no pain, only a warmth as if he were about to melt into it.

A churning torch rose from the earth, expanding continuously. Lü Liangren and the others' pupils contracted sharply. He grabbed the Fourth Hall by the collar, and the next moment, they were all swallowed by it!

BOOM—!!!

The earth trembled, and the scorching sun slowly annihilated within the ruins.

When the Fourth Hall opened his eyes in terror, the ink ocean looked like a scorched scroll with a hideous tear burned into it. Amidst the flying embers, a blurry stain of blood remained on the ground.

That was Yang Muquan.

No defense, no resistance, no corpse... The flesh and blood had been burned to ash in that explosion, not even leaving bone fragments behind. A Seventh-Rank had vanished from the world in silence.

The Eighth Hall, dead.

"This..." The Fourth Hall stared blankly at the scene, still unable to recover from the explosion.

At the same time,

The Second and Third Halls looked at the dust-filled ruins, their expressions incredibly ugly...

Amidst the dancing embers, a figure wearing a white research lab coat was walking slowly toward them;

He was a tall, thin middle-aged man with his hands in his pockets, walking as casually as if he were strolling through his own garden. His skin and features looked as if they had been sculpted, without a single flaw... Two scarlet Philosopher's Stones were embedded in the center of his brow, emitting a mysterious and dangerous glow.

"...Wuji Sovereign," Lü Liangren's eyes were filled with astonishment.

How could he be here??

If he had come to the Red Dust Domain, what about the Wuji Domain? Who would maintain the Domain that protected the Wuji Domain from the Gray Realm Convergence!?

The Wuji Sovereign didn't even look at the three Halls. He stopped calmly beside Brand, who had also been blown into a puddle of blood.

"Stop playing dead," the Wuji Sovereign said flatly.

The next moment, the puddle of blood actually began to spread, like an octopus with thousands of tentacles, slowly outlining a small alchemy array. Wisps of electricity swirled within it, and a body actually struggled to crawl out from the blood bit by bit!

First the hands, then the head, the torso... From white bone to bloody muscle, the figure hadn't even had time to regrow skin before it knelt before the Wuji Sovereign with a thud.

"Thank you, Lord Wuji Sovereign!!" Brand's vocal cords didn't seem fully repaired, but his tone was full of passion. His voice sounded like fingernails scratching a blackboard—harsh and unpleasant...

The Wuji Sovereign glanced at the skin-crawling blood-man and looked away with disgust.

"Is the array for refining the Philosopher's Stone ready?"

"Reporting to Lord Wuji Sovereign, not yet," Brand knelt and said aggrievedly. "I had just entered the Red Dust Domain when I was chased and beaten by these Halls; I had no time to set it up."

"Go do your work."

"...Yes!"

Brand stumbled to his feet. That hideous face without a shred of skin turned to look at the three Halls, gave a chilling smile, and walked toward the depths of the Red Dust Domain without looking back.

Seeing this, Lü Liangren's expression turned incredibly dark. He knew what Brand was going to do, but they had finally beaten Brand to the verge of death—how could they just let him leave?

Lü Liangren gripped his eight-foot ink brush, about to move to stop Brand, when a breeze brushed his cheek...

His pupils contracted slightly.

"You..."

SNAP—!!

A soft sound came from behind Lü Liangren. He turned his head sharply, only to see that the Fourth Hall's head was gone... A torso carrying a drawing board stood in place, but from the neck up, there was only void.

At this moment, the white lab coat was walking calmly past his shoulder, holding a golden head in its hand.

On the face of that golden head, the Fourth Hall's astonishment and terror still remained, vivid and lifelike. Any sculptor in the world would find it hard to replicate such realistic details...

It was a perfect piece of art.

The Wuji Sovereign casually threw the golden head onto the ground. In mid-air, the gold suddenly turned into ceramic and shattered with a bang, splashing blood and gore everywhere.

The Fourth Hall, dead.

"Now, the small fry are gone."

The Wuji Sovereign clapped the dust from his hands, as if he had just casually pinched two ants to death.

Lü Liangren watched as two Halls died before his eyes, the rage in his chest burning fiercely. "Wuji Sovereign!!! Do you really want to be the enemy of all humanity??"

"I am not the enemy of humanity... On the contrary, I am saving humanity, saving this deformed era."

"Saving humanity? How do you have the face to say that??"

"The lifespan of carbon-based life is limited. Even if it can be dragged out for a few hundred years, there will eventually be a day of death... Betting the future of all humanity on nine carbon-based lives is inherently deformed."

The Wuji Sovereign said calmly,

"The continuation of human civilization lies in reproduction, and reproduction requires a stable environment... The nine human domains based on the Nine Sovereigns cannot be stable. Human domains are like rotten wooden boats sailing in a turbulent river, always at risk of capsizing.

Therefore, the best way to change all this is to build a giant ship that will never rot or capsize...

And I am the best candidate to become that giant ship."

"To become a giant ship, you actively capsize everyone else's boats?"

"The continuation of human civilization requires sacrifice."

"That's not called sacrifice," Lü Liangren pointed at the blood-man Brand, who was excitedly rushing into the depths of the Red Dust Domain, and said grimly, "This is naked, intentional slaughter! This is genocide!"

"So what if it's genocide? As long as I achieve immortality, the Wuji Domain can also be eternal; even if only ten thousand people are left alive by then, humanity can still continue... for hundreds of years, thousands of years...

My life is boundless, therefore humanity is eternal."

"To hell with your human eternity!" Lü Liangren couldn't help but curse.

"From the perspective of human continuation, your idea is indeed feasible," the Second Hall suddenly spoke, causing Lü Liangren to look at him in astonishment. But then, he continued,

"But human destiny must never be subservient to a single, fixed human individual... If an individual's thoughts can easily manipulate the survival and continuation of humanity, then humans are no different from pigs and dogs kept in captivity.

Your body may be eternal, but your spirit and thinking will gradually stiffen, and even undergo mutations during thousands of years of absolute power and absolute loneliness... Your thinking is standing still, but human society is rolling forward. This is an irreconcilable contradiction. At that time, a single thought of yours might lead human society to destruction.

You are not building a giant ship, but a human pasture completely under your control."