Translator: CinderTL
Hearing Xia Qian say that the Domain Field's expansion had suddenly accelerated, Feng Qi's heart sank. He had been flipping through cultivation techniques when the news arrived.
"Open the granaries," he said, immediately standing up.
"Follow me!" Xia Qian replied, turning and heading out of the command center.
Feng Qi followed without hesitation.
He knew the apocalypse was inevitable.
But he refused to abandon the human spark within the shelter.
With the Flesh and Blood Sacrifice cultivation technique still uncracked, Lin Ran seemed to be the only hope for saving humanity's future.
Yet Feng Qi wouldn't sit idly by, waiting for fate to decide.
There was still one possible way to save the Future People: help Suction Cup recover her strength. If Lin Ran failed to achieve consciousness transfer, Suction Cup would attempt to kill the Lord of the Mist before he could "snap his fingers."
Feng Qi didn't know how likely this plan was to succeed. He wasn't even sure if Suction Cup could even fight the Lord of the Mist.
But he had to try. He couldn't give up on the last glimmer of hope for the human spark.
Following Xia Qian out of the command center, Feng Qi saw the group leaders of the combat teams gathering their members. They then began marching in an orderly line through the metal corridors toward the surface.
From their expressions, Feng Qi knew they had all prepared to sacrifice themselves.
Although the Star City Shelter had a complete internal recycling system, it was clearly overloaded with residents.
Besides the food and resources produced by the system, the shelter warriors often had to venture outside to scavenge for supplies.
These warriors knew they couldn't possibly stop the Domain Field's expansion with their abilities.
But they chose to die fighting.
Without further sentiment, Feng Qi followed Xia Qian through the crowd to the shelter's western iron gate.
Xia Qian swiped his hand across the gate's scanner, and the heavy iron door slowly retracted into the wall on the right.
Inside the iron gate was another door made of special metal.
After another identity verification, this inner door also slid into the metal wall.
"The resources are inside. Take whatever you need. I have to go prepare for battle now."
"Understood!" Feng Qi nodded immediately.
Xia Qian turned and left. As Feng Qi was about to step into the room, he noticed the open door of the armory nearby.
Inside, cold weapons were neatly arranged: knives, swords, spears, clubs, halberds—every type imaginable, all lined up against the walls.
He was no stranger to this armory.
He still clearly remembered discovering a mysterious scroll in this armory.
Inside, it depicted a landscape painting of mountains and rivers, with three gilded characters at the center: "Heaven-Reaching Painting."
At the time, he had suspected the scroll might be related to the Heaven-Reaching Road.
Now, he realized the mysterious scroll was likely left behind by a domain creature lurking within the shelter.
But with all the domain creatures in the shelter now eliminated, he had no time to investigate the scroll's origins.
After a brief pause, he immediately stepped through the iron door.
As the sensor lights flickered on one by one, he followed the narrow, downward-sloping tunnel for about fifty meters. Pushing open the iron door at the end, a blast of cold air hit him.
Before him lay a refrigerated warehouse, with rows of shelves neatly arranged on either side of a central aisle.
Each drawer on the shelves was labeled with text information.
Potato seeds, sorghum seeds, rice seeds... The vast cold storage facility held a massive collection of carefully selected plant seed samples.
Even with the impending apocalypse, these seed samples had been preserved.
Seeing this, Feng Qi's heart grew heavy.
Clearly, the human survivors still held onto the hope of one day returning to the surface. When that day came, they would scatter these seed samples, allowing the plants of this world to bloom anew in the New World.
After walking a hundred meters down the central corridor, he reached the end of the cold storage facility and pushed open the iron door at the end.
The motion-activated lights in front immediately flickered on, illuminating the space.
Before him lay a vast warehouse.
The warehouse was divided into two halves. The left side stored grains, each type separated by transparent glass partitions. Each partition also had a display screen attached.
The screens displayed information about the food, along with details such as the temperature and oxygen content within the glass compartment.
This automated monitoring system continuously scanned the stored food, adjusting the temperature and oxygen levels within the glass compartments to prevent potential pest infestations and other issues.
The right side of the warehouse was also divided into two sections. The front section held neatly arranged energy crystals.
These crystals included spirit blocks, made by artificially extracting and purifying free-floating spiritual energy particles from the air, as well as spirit stones harvested from the Domain Field and various other rare minerals imbued with spiritual energy.
Behind Feng Qi stood rows of metal canisters, each over two meters tall. There were dozens of them.
Labels on the canisters revealed that they contained spirit liquid extracted from spirit plants.
The suction cup clinging to Feng Qi's chest opened its eyes at this moment, sniffing the air twice. Starlight flickered in her eyes.
Feng Qi rubbed the suction cup's tiny head and immediately said, "Suction Cup, time for dinner."
The suction cup slid down his body and, upon landing, lunged toward the Resource Repository on the right.
The transparent glass separating them shattered instantly.
Her first target was a canister of spirit liquid. She rammed her head straight into it.
Spirit liquid gushed out, accompanied by a rich medicinal fragrance. Feng Qi heard the suction cup gulping down the liquid with gusto.
[Your personal suction cup is undergoing enhancement. Experience +100, Experience +100.]
Ignoring the Narrator's snarky comment, Feng Qi turned his gaze to the neatly arranged spirit stones.
Before his bloodline advancement, he lacked digestive organs and couldn't grow stronger or replenish his energy progress bar by consuming food like the suction cup could.
However, this problem no longer existed after his bloodline advancement.
Now, with a mountain of spirit stones before him, he wanted to try boosting his strength or charging his energy progress bar.
With this thought, he immediately went to the neatly stacked spirit stones, picked up a faintly glowing pale golden one, and bit into it.
Under the influence of his Adamant Fangs innate ability, the hard spirit stone crumbled like tofu under his teeth, and he easily bit off a small chunk.
As he chewed and swallowed, he could clearly feel spiritual energy surging through his blood, coursing through every limb and bone in his body.
But soon, a familiar situation from his cultivation arose.
The spiritual energy that entered his body quickly leaked out and dissipated, unable to be absorbed by his body.
As for his energy progress bar, it remained completely unchanged.
Unwilling to give up, he immediately went to a metal canister, pressed the switch on its screen, and a pale green liquid began to spray from the valve.
He immediately bent down and put his mouth to the nozzle.
As he continuously swallowed, he quickly felt full.
His body rapidly digested the spirit liquid, and he felt his qi blood surging, his strength steadily increasing.
Yet his bloodline evolution points remained unchanged, and his energy progress bar showed no fluctuation whatsoever.
[If I'm not mistaken, you can only increase your strength by killing domain creatures. No other method will work.]
"But I can clearly feel my strength increasing, even though the energy progress bar hasn't changed," Feng Qi frowned.
"Remember our previous speculation? The innate abilities you gain by devouring domain creatures can traverse timelines, but strength gained through other means cannot. It won't travel with you through time."
"So the qi blood boost I got from consuming spirit liquid won't carry over?"
"That's likely the case. Otherwise, the qi blood boost should have been reflected in your bloodline evolution points. It's impossible for your attributes to remain unchanged."
Hearing the Narrator's explanation, Feng Qi felt frustrated.
"You don't have Mu Qing's ability to devour and grow stronger. Even if consuming spirit minerals and spirit liquid could make you stronger, your digestive capacity can't keep up. Relying on consumption to rapidly increase your strength in a short time is completely impossible."
Just as he was about to reply, Suction Cup emerged from the metal container.
Jade-colored light shimmered across her body, and the green liquid clinging to her slid off.
Suction Cup burped contentedly, then turned her gaze toward the other metal containers.
A new round of gluttonous feeding began.
Inheriting a powerful digestive ability, Suction Cup was like a bottomless pit. The spirit liquid she consumed was digested in a matter of moments, allowing her to eat almost endlessly.
The rune crystal on her arm, once covered in cracks and dim, gradually healed as it filled with energy.
Watching Suction Cup grow stronger at a visible rate, Feng Qi was once again stunned.
"I really want to know what kind of domain creature left behind this rune crystal. It possesses such terrifying abilities."
[Perhaps it's an even stronger domain creature than Little Black. Limited information prevents analysis... But I suspect that if you were to kill Suction Cup, you'd gain the ability to devour and grow stronger as well.]
Hearing this, he rolled his eyes.
Any creature he killed was highly likely to be erased from the timeline.
Even if he could truly kill Suction Cup, he wouldn't. Doing so might permanently erase both Suction Cup and Mu Qing from the timeline.
Watching Suction Cup continue her feast, Feng Qi, already full, could only stand aside and wait anxiously.
All he could hope for now was that the Domain Field wouldn't expand too quickly, giving him time for one last struggle—even if the outcome wouldn't be what he desired.
Outside the shelter.
The Blood Moon hung high in the sky, its presence and the expanding Domain Field pushing the sun toward the opposite horizon.
It felt as though the entire world was turning upside down.
The once distinct boundaries between the Real World and the domain world were gradually dissolving, as the domain world rapidly consumed the Real World.
The sky flickered between light and darkness, occasionally revealing arcs of electricity and cracks that quickly vanished and healed.
Within the area covered by the Domain Field, all vegetation withered and died in an instant, as if ravaged by centuries of erosion.
As the Domain Field expanded, so did the disturbances within it.
The ground trembled violently, and countless domain creatures, as if drawn by some unseen will, pressed toward the Star City Shelter along with the expanding Domain Field.
At this moment, spatial vortices appeared in the sky.
From these vortices emerged domain creatures of all shapes and sizes, including many powerful super-creatures.
There was the Mountain Colossus, whose body was as vast as a mountain range, half of it shrouded in clouds.
There was the thunder creature, which descended with arcs of electricity and wielded the power of lightning with ease.
There were Bizarre Domain Creatures that could endlessly fission their bodies into grotesque forms.
Amidst the echoing roars, the domain world launched its final battle against the Real World.
At that moment, a spatial vortex appeared in the western sky, spewing forth a thick, gray mist.
The Lord of the Mist emerged from the mist, leading countless fierce spirits toward Star City Shelter's fortified walls.
Shelter warriors, already assembled within the city, watched the terrifying spectacle of the approaching apocalypse. Fear of the unknown etched itself onto their faces, yet their eyes also held the grim determination to fight to the death.
Standing atop the city walls, Xia Qian, clad in silver-white battle armor, gazed at the endless Domain Beast Tide stretching for miles. A sense of helplessness washed over him.
As Feng Qi had said, they would be the last spark of Human Civilization.
In this battle, they had no chance of victory.
He gripped his battle blade tightly, his voice firm and resolute:
"We will not retreat."
No one feared death more than life itself, but some things held greater significance in Xia Qian's heart and those of his warriors.
At that moment, Xia Qian activated "War Mode" on his wrist.
Various weapons stationed throughout the city sprang to life.
A swarm of drones rose first within the city, heading toward the expanding Domain Field to relay images from the front lines.
Then the carpet bombing began.
Amidst the deafening explosions, flames erupted throughout the city, and all war machines entered high-load operation.
For a short time, the onslaught of the Domain Beast Tide was suppressed.
But soon the tide broke through the fire coverage zone, continuing to devour the Real World alongside the expanding Domain Field.
Among them was a domain creature with bat-like wings, which braved the barrage and pierced through the fire zone, soaring directly above the shelter.
Before it could launch its attack, an invisible force seized its neck.
A human warrior pointed at it from afar, and with a sudden wave of his hand, the creature's body exploded.
At the city gates, the warriors, already in formation, watched the approaching Domain Beast Tide with cold eyes.
Feeling the ground tremble beneath their feet, they tightened their grips on their weapons.
They knew what fate awaited them, and they had long anticipated this day.
Yet they were still stunned by the scene before them.
It felt like witnessing the collapse of the world, and they could clearly feel their own insignificance.
Before the overwhelming power of heaven and earth, all struggle seemed futile.
At this moment, on the right flank of the battle formation, a burly man in black armor stood alone at the front, turning to face the warriors behind him with a grin.
"Tell me, are you afraid?"
"Group leader, we're not afraid!" the warriors behind him roared in unison.
"Bullshit you're not afraid. Even I'm afraid, how could you not be?" The black-armored man couldn't help but curse with a laugh.
"But do you know why we can't retreat? Why we can't take shelter?"
Gazing at the familiar faces of his subordinates, the black-armored man continued, "Because we are the elite. When the sky falls, we must stand at the forefront. If Human Civilization is destined to be destroyed, we, the elite, should be the first to die. This is the spirit we have always upheld."
Sweeping his gaze across the faces of his warriors, the black-armored man declared in a grave tone, "As the strong, as warriors, as the elite, you have enjoyed the flowers and praise that come with your status. This is the duty you must fulfill. You should be proud to stand here today, for you are the elite."
Hearing the black-armored man's words, the warriors' eyes hardened with resolve.
Turning to face forward, the black-armored man at the front drew the battle blade from his back and pointed it at the roaring, endless Domain Beast Tide.
"Heaven's Mandate Battle Group, charge!"
The ground trembled violently. All the warriors of the Heaven's Mandate Battle Group raised their weapons.
A single drop of water falling into the river of history had created ripples that, 1,500 years later, had grown into a tidal wave.
(End of the Chapter)
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