Facing the sudden change, Feng Qi tensed up, ready to strike at any moment.
In the distance, where the purple meteor had landed, a massive crater a hundred meters wide had been blasted into the ground.
When he approached the edge of the crater, he saw a two-meter-tall egg, its surface crackling with purple lightning arcs.
Inside the egg, flashes of light flickered from time to time, illuminating the curled-up figure within.
That small, frail figure was clutching an item in its hands—it was the same war horn held by the king of the silver-white legion.
Feng Qi recognized it instantly.
That horn, capable of accelerating blood flow, had left a strong impression on him.
In the silver-white king's hands, the horn wasn't just a battlefield command tool—it was a divine artifact that boosted the entire army's combat power.
The identity of the figure inside the egg was now obvious.
Feng Qi had many thoughts about the Silver King.
The battle system he developed gave Feng Qi tons of new ideas.
Right now, humanity's main combat structure still relied on battle squads, a strategy centered around small-group operations.
After centuries of development, that system had become quite well-structured.
But when it came to large-scale warfare, humanity's weaknesses were glaring—the battle squad configuration just didn't scale into full-scale armies.
The biggest reason was still the lack of a complete cultivation system.
Take the silver-white legion, for example. They had beast tamers, charging cavalry, shield-bearing tanks, flying units, long-range spiritual spellcasters, short-range lightning spear fighters, and close-quarters sword-and-shield troops, among others.
Their cultivation system brought out the unique strengths of every single unit type.
Each troop had a clear role and never crossed over into duties outside their designation.
For instance, the shield guards focused entirely on protecting allies—they wouldn't just rush into combat like the assault troops.
That made their entire battle flow extremely well-paced.
Human battle tactics might look orderly on the surface, but without clear troop roles, things always devolved into chaos during actual warfare.
In the end, all they had was blind, blood-heated charges.
At that point, it was just about brute strength.
But the army crafted by the Silver King had opened Feng Qi's eyes.
When faced with an enemy army of equal size and strength, like the pitch-black monsters earlier, the silver-white legion's combat rhythm utterly crushed them—each offensive and defensive maneuver pressed the monsters to the ground.
Feng Qi didn't doubt at all that under the Silver King's command, this army could challenge forces far above their own tier.
If humanity could learn and adapt this kind of system, it would absolutely boost their war efficiency and overall combat strength.
Still, Feng Qi understood one thing clearly.
In the face of overwhelming power, all the tactical structures in the world might as well be made of paper.
Just like how the silver-white legion fell before that Blood Soul Clan member.
Even with their solid strategies, and plenty of trump cards yet unused, they were crushed without suspense before the Blood Soul Flag.
But that didn't mean the system's advantages should be overlooked.
Its ability to dominate same-tier fights, and even challenge stronger enemies, made it more than worth learning from.
He looked up at the glowing egg, watching the faint figure inside flicker along with the flashing light.
Just then, the voice of the Demon Blade echoed in Feng Qi's mind:
"I scanned his body. He's badly hurt—his system's kicked into a self-preserving flesh-remolding state. Every second, his body's burning through flesh and blood. The overload has pushed him into a kind of reverse-aging phase... all the cultivation he spent his life building up is about to be used up completely."
Hearing that, Feng Qi nodded.
"At first, I thought this was the Silver King's kid. I even imagined some whole scene where the king and his warriors fought to the death just to send the child out alive."
Demon Blade: …
"You sure do like to fill in the blanks."
After hearing the explanation, and linking it to the presence of the war horn, Feng Qi finally understood the real situation.
His original assumption was clearly off. It was probably the opposite—the tribe had risked everything to break open an escape route for the king himself.
But the Silver King had suffered heavy injuries during the retreat and ended up in this self-healing, reverse-aging state.
Now that he knew the truth, he immediately asked:
"Brother Dao, how much blood energy can I get if I kill him right now?"
"It'd be a waste. He's already burned through nearly all his vitality. Killing him wouldn't net much at all.
"But the eggshell wrapping him? That's a different story. It's rich with flesh energy—basically the last of his blood and meat turned into essence. Eating that would give a decent vitality boost.
"If you don't eat it, once he wakes up, he'll probably reabsorb the shell and recover a chunk of his power."
The Demon Blade's explanation gave Feng Qi an idea.
Without hesitation, he took a step forward and slammed his Demon Blade, now glowing with black light, straight onto the giant egg.
The egg's self-defense mechanisms instantly activated. Purple lightning arced out across the surface, flowing from the blade into Feng Qi's body.
His muscles spasmed under the current's surge.
But electricity at this level couldn't even scratch him.
The Demon Blade pressed down, and cracks instantly appeared across the surface of the giant egg. Thick arcs of lightning burst from within.
Crack!
The egg couldn't withstand the Demon Blade's force. The fractures spread rapidly, and with a loud rumble, it shattered completely.
Inside, curled into a ball, was a small boy with blue hair and shut eyes, his delicate features like a porcelain doll.
He looked to be about the size of a three-year-old.
Feng Qi reached out and picked the boy up.
With the egg shattered, the boy's self-healing process was interrupted. He opened his eyes.
Purple lightning danced in the boy's pupils—his gaze was dazed, almost pitiful.
Seeing this, Feng Qi froze.
The boy reminded him of Suction Cup when he had lost his memories.
Could it be that the body reconstruction from heavy injuries had also wiped this guy's memories?
Feng Qi could feel the budding vitality inside the boy's body. Clearly, his physical state had nearly recovered completely.
But the cost was massive—he had used up all the cultivation foundation he'd built over a lifetime.
It was like falling from a veteran player straight back to the tutorial zone.
From here on, everything would have to start from scratch.
But surviving alone was already the greatest fortune.
To make it out alive under the Blood Soul Flag... that meant his people had paid a heavy price to get him out.
Looking at the boy's lost expression, a sudden thought popped into Feng Qi's head.
This little guy... could he be raised?
He obviously understood the danger of raising a tiger that might one day bite back. But what he valued more was utility.
As the boy closed his eyes again and drifted back into sleep, Feng Qi decided he'd bring him along for now.
As for whether or not to raise him, that decision could wait until they got out of here.
His gaze shifted to the shattered eggshell on the ground.
According to the Demon Blade, these eggshell fragments contained highly refined blood and flesh energy.
Originally, they would've continued feeding energy into the boy's body to help him recover further.
But since the healing had been cut off early, there was still a good amount of potent energy left in them—couldn't let that go to waste.
"Po Jia, Xiao You, gather the eggshells."
As soon as he gave the order, Po Jia and Xiao You sprang into action, collecting the fragments and stringing them up with rope Xiao You had made, then slinging the bundle onto Po Jia's back.
Once everything was done, Feng Qi looked up toward the sky.
The cracks spreading above were still growing rapidly.
The rain had stopped. The once-clouded sky filled with thunder and lightning had become vast and hollow.
Like a slow-opening abyssal maw ready to swallow the whole world.
"Run!"
At his shout, Feng Qi, Xiao You, and Po Jia bolted toward the edge of the domain field.
The Blood Soul Flag's summoned wraiths were still devouring this world. Its collapse was inevitable. Staying here any longer was suicide.
Their devouring ability made Feng Qi think of Little Black.
In terms of raw consumption intensity, the wraith legion might even surpass Little Black.
But for some reason, Feng Qi still felt that Little Black's limit far exceeded them.
After all, he had never seen Little Black go all-out.
Little Black was always laid-back when fighting—its strength only seemed to rise as its enemies grew stronger.
So far, no one had even come close to testing Little Black's limits.
Just how powerful Little Black truly was remained completely unknown.
According to the Narrator's observations, Little Black had never revealed its full power.
It had three seals within its body—three forms, you could say.
The first two were already close to being invincible, and the third form... that was what the Narrator called its fully unsealed state.
One could only imagine how terrifying it would be then—easily on the level of a world-ending weapon.
As for how to beat Little Black, Feng Qi could only pin his hopes on Mo.
But to even get Mo to the negotiation table, humanity had to be powerful enough first.
Strength was the only real leverage in any negotiation.
His plan was to build a joint human army fifteen hundred years from now to help Mu Yan defeat Mo—preventing Mo from devouring the human world.
If Mo lost and wanted to live, it would have no choice but to compromise.
If they could push Mo to that point, Feng Qi might finally be able to learn the full truth about Little Black from Mo's mouth.
Besides that, there was also Plan B—head for the island ruins.
There might be intel about Little Black's origins there too.
But all these plans had to move forward step by step.
As they crossed through the southern edge of the domain field, a new resistance force appeared—signaling that they were entering a new domain.
In a place this saturated with domain fields, there was no such thing as human-world space. The domains were packed so tightly together that expansion could only happen through devouring and merging.
Once the resistance faded, an entirely different world unfolded before Feng Qi's eyes.
This place looked like the land of the dead.
The sky was a blood-red hue beneath a hanging blood moon. The air reeked of rot.
Off in the distance, he could see skeletal figures wandering around.
If he didn't know that Xiao Can had only arrived in the human world fifteen hundred years later, he would've thought he'd stumbled into her old hometown.
There was no pause—they kept pressing forward.
Half a month later.
In the Bone Domain Field.
Inside a massive, serpentine skeleton over a hundred meters long, a campfire blazed.
Feng Qi sat cross-legged, the Demon Blade hovering before him. His consciousness entered the blade as he familiarized himself with the new internal nodes revealed by the second-level unsealing.
Compared to the first-level unsealing, the Demon Blade now had more than triple the nodes, becoming far more complex.
In exchange, its power had increased drastically.
After a long while, he slowly opened his eyes.
Crackling sounds popped from his body in rapid succession.
Nurtured and nourished by the Demon Blade's feedback, the strength of his physical body once again broke through its threshold and improved noticeably.
Clenching his fist, he felt the surging power rolling within.
The steady progress and tempering had brought a deep, rewarding sense of improvement. It also gave him a clearer understanding of his strength.
This kind of enlightenment was something the main timeline's direct boosts in combat power couldn't provide.
And the memory of this steady power growth would be retained in the main timeline, resulting in real, tangible improvement in his control over power.
He stood up and stretched. As he did, his blood rushed through his body like a tide.
Stretching complete, he turned to look at the campfire.
There, Po Jia was doing push-ups on the spot. Though drenched in sweat, he gritted his teeth and persisted.
His muscles had already begun to take form under the repeated forging of the Blood Refinement Method, exuding raw, terrifying power.
His gaze shifted to Xiao You.
Xiao You was sitting cross-legged on the ground, her head tilted, mouth slightly open, clearly nodding off again.
In her hand, threads of energy drifted lazily in the wind, and on her knee, a half-finished energy construct flickered with light.
Clearly another case of her giving up halfway after a brief burst of enthusiasm.
As for Xiao You's endless naps, the Demon Blade had a different take.
He'd suggested that Xiao You's intense drowsiness likely had to do with the inherited memories in her mind.
She couldn't digest the knowledge quickly, and each time she absorbed a portion, it cost her a great deal of mental energy—meaning she needed long periods of sleep to recover.
"Boss."
Xiao You seemed to notice his gaze and suddenly opened her eyes, looking at him brightly and nodding hard, only to slowly close her eyes again and fall back asleep.
Feng Qi was used to these sudden outbursts by now.
She'd often shout "Boss" out of nowhere, and when he asked why, she'd just reply:
"Just wanted to say it. No other reason."
He looked from her to the nearby Lei Ting.
Now reverted to a child, Lei Ting looked like a three-year-old, naked and dazed, little bug out in the open.
A toddler already showing signs of senility.
Over the past days, Lei Ting had been switching erratically between moments of memory and amnesia.
Just then, a spark of purple lightning suddenly flashed through Lei Ting's eyes.
His previously vacant stare sharpened.
He abruptly stood up, furious, and pointed at Feng Qi as he started shouting:
"You brat! How dare you disrupt my recovery, you—"
Before he could finish, Feng Qi stepped forward, set down the Demon Blade, and smacked Lei Ting across the butt.
Every time Lei Ting regained his memory, he'd go into a rage-fueled meltdown.
And nothing worked better than a good spanking.
Under Feng Qi's "discipline," Lei Ting's eyes welled with tears from the pain, yet his mouth kept spewing threats.
Things like "Just wait till I recover my strength," or "I'll make you pay—"
Which only earned him even harder smacks.
In the end, Lei Ting crouched on the ground rubbing his swollen rear, glaring at Feng Qi with teary eyes, trying to express his displeasure—and his refusal to give in.
"Lei Ting, have you thought it over? Wanna join me?" Feng Qi asked.
"You? Worthy?" Lei Ting snapped back.
"You've got no strength left. Without me, surviving in this place would be nearly impossible." Feng Qi tossed a piece of wood into the fire and glanced sideways at him.
As he said this, a perfectly timed monster howl rang out in the distance.
Looking up, Lei Ting saw bone figures shambling far away, and his expression finally softened just a little.
But he still huffed, "Fine, we can cooperate. But only cooperate—never submit!"
"Powerless stubbornness," Po Jia muttered nearby.
Hearing even Po Jia mocking him, Lei Ting's pride took another blow. He charged forward, ready to attack.
But then Po Jia's cold gaze locked onto him.
The battle fury rising in his chest instantly fizzled out.
A while later, Lei Ting sat limply on the ground, eyes blank, posture defeated—like someone who had lost all purpose and joy in life.
The former king, and now... couldn't even win a fight.
Just then, Xiao You woke up. She stretched, then leaned over to pat Lei Ting's head.
"Good boy."
Lei Ting turned his head.
Xiao You's gentle, petting gaze only made his humiliation worse.
His fists clenched. Rage and sorrow battled within him—he wanted to snap back.
But when his eyes fell on Feng Qi's smiling face not far away, Lei Ting grit his teeth and swallowed the retort that had nearly burst out.
He decided to play it cool—for now.
Just you wait... all of you!