Chapter 846: Universe Castle, Super Ruins

Seeing this, Xu Zhi lost interest and watched Caroline continue to conduct various experiments on the Brain Worm God.

Although he didn't say it directly, he couldn't help but feel a bit unsophisticated compared to the players.

"I always feel that instead of wandering aimlessly outside, it's more comfortable and efficient to continue deducing and developing civilizations," he thought, his expression utterly calm.

It wasn't that he was arrogant; he knew that there must be unimaginably powerful higher civilizations in the universe.

However, such entities were extremely rare, perhaps one in a hundred, or even one in ten thousand...

After all, not every civilization could develop as rapidly as the Zerg.

"Never mind. Let them do their research and travel. It's time for me to get down to business," Xu Zhi murmured.

They had arrived at coordinates, intending to target the weakest entity, but unexpectedly encountered a hidden deity. It was a rather inauspicious start.

Next, they would surely seek out the second lone giant octopus nearby...

The path to becoming stronger was already set.

"In that case, I'll go directly to the final destination and take a look. The core gathering place of those seven or eight giant octopuses should be a civilization... I'll set up a plan in advance."

"I'll also set Medusa's coordinates there," Xu Zhi thought. It didn't matter if the other civilization was primitive; he could place Medusa there or even forcibly increase the difficulty.

After all, why bother seeking higher civilizations?

Where would he find a higher civilization in the universe? They would surely mask their coordinates and hide in the void. Finding them would be a fool's errand!

So, the energy from the giant octopuses would be sufficient.

"Medusa lacks energy, so she'll definitely raise these giant octopuses as her power generators... Once she has power generators, the Crystal Wall System Multiverse will become a highly advanced transcendent civilization, capable of making Caroline and the others cry!"

Who was Medusa?

While she had been in seclusion for years and other civilizations were thriving, over 60,000 deities had emerged among the 129,600 living beings, already surpassing half the total.

As long as she didn't fully break through to the Ninth Order, remaining at the threshold of a weak Ninth Order, Caroline and the other two together wouldn't stand a chance against her.

"They're still out there hunting octopuses and searching for energy, so I can arrive ahead of time." Xu Zhi tore through the void and, after some time, directly warped to their ultimate destination.

A ripple.

A spatial fluctuation.

This avatar of Xu Zhi gently descended upon the land.

This was a vast cosmic river of stars, with countless points of light speckling the dark sky, where ancient, dazzling galaxies shimmered.

From a distance, Xu Zhi saw a planet. Turning again, he noticed signs of life and civilization.

Xu Zhi was in no hurry.

He turned again, looking at a nearby galaxy.

"Indeed, it's a civilization with over a dozen planets, inhabited by many races. The Brain Worm God is wandering near the border... There are also many giant octopus presences nearby. This must be the home of his species."

Xu Zhi remained calm.

These planets posed no threat.

He could clearly sense that they were too weak. In terms of the sheer number of deities, the entire civilization combined was inferior to even a single large immortal sect in a random ancient world.

"Just as weak as I imagined. If their genes lack any significant mysterious characteristics, then it's irrelevant..." Xu Zhi's eyes gleamed. "But if they do have unique traits, it would allow the Zerg to absorb those planetary genes, enter accelerated time-space, deduce civilizations, and rapidly iterate through updates... to see the outcome."

Only Xu Zhi could do this.

For him, deducing mature cultivation methods corresponding to genes was incredibly simple. It was merely another act of Genesis, creating a sandbox world for a transcendent civilization—it was simply a matter of knowing how.

But genes that even the Zerg found special?

How infinitesimally small was that probability?

As for visiting low-level civilizations just to show off? Perhaps Xu Zhi might come on a whim for a vacation, but as he evaluated them, he instantly passed a death sentence:

They held little practical value.

Even Caroline would be extremely disappointed to see them. After all, when vacationing in the universe, with its endless potential and possibilities, one hoped to discover and observe rare and exotic creatures, not just a group of ordinary beings without any unique characteristics.

"But mediocrity without unique traits is the most common probability in the vast universe. It's like Di Qi flying for seven thousand years only to encounter a single giant octopus." Xu Zhi shook his head and sighed. "Where would you find a golden axe just by bumping into something anywhere?"

However, Xu Zhi suddenly sensed something. He gently slid through space and arrived in a unique area.

"This is..."

Xu Zhi turned around, a trace of shock on his face. He beheld an unbelievably immense spectacle.

It was a colossal planet.

Or perhaps, it was no longer just a planet...

It was a vast, irregularly shaped, black courtyard.

The courtyard was immense, incredibly vast, stretching as far as the eye could see, covered with mountains, rivers, and streams.

In the center of this colossal cosmic courtyard stood a massive, peculiarly styled black castle, seemingly molded from countless planets. Its dark, fantastical aesthetic evoked the eerie, mystical feel of a vampire's stronghold.

Above the castle, a semi-circular arc of dense fog hung.

Wisps of colorful light shimmered around the castle's summit, forming a unique planetary atmosphere.

From a distance, it looked like an ancient black iron castle nestled in a celestial realm.

This massive planetary agglomeration truly conformed to the mythical concept of a "round sky and square earth."

"This...!" Xu Zhi was somewhat stunned. It was his first time seeing a planet that wasn't spherical, but he quickly understood.

"This is an extremely advanced and mature technology for planetary transformation and fusion."

He had thought the giant octopuses' low-level civilization was merely that, but he never expected...

"It seems I've finally stumbled upon something remarkable. The giant octopus race actually has ties to a Ninth-Order civilization? In this case, it must at least be a cosmic hegemon in this galaxy."

Xu Zhi had originally intended to continue cultivating in his orchard, but now, for the first time, he felt a flicker of interest in the outside world.

"At least seventy or eighty planets appear to have been merged together... Perhaps this is what a true boundless transcendent great world looks like."

"I can sense scorching hot planetary cores whose surfaces have been melted and fused. These cores are distributed within this castle, still providing planetary heat, wind, volcanic activity, earth, and tidal forces in a unique configuration."

This was an extremely ingenious technique for ecological reshaping.

It involved destroying an ecosystem and then recreating it on a planetary scale.

"This is no longer a planet. It has detached from its planetary orbit; it's a civilization's mothership forged from countless planets!"

"Although it currently hovers below a sun, it could at any moment relocate to the orbit of another galaxy."

"Such a structure would require a Ninth-Order cosmic hegemon and tens of thousands of years to create this level of planetary epic construction!"

Xu Zhi's eyes fixated on it.

Was this the true power of a Ninth-Order galactic hegemon?

Shifting stars and terraforming lands—it was exaggerated to the extreme!

"What an eye-opener. Ancient tribal beings moved earth to build houses, advanced civilizations reclaimed land from the sea, and Daoists who transcended cosmic rules shifted stars to create courtyards."

"The garden of this courtyard has the land area of countless planets. From above, it appears large enough to host various colossal super-civilized nations and countless planetary civilizations... And the central castle, judging by the scale of its structures, might be inhabited by terrifying deities the size of half a planet."

"Is it the giant octopus race? Given the size of an Emperor Heavenly Venerable being, comparable to Australia, they might indeed be half a planet in size after breaking through to deity status. But it's probably not them. The castle's style and the gates seem designed for humanoid beings. The giant octopuses, it seems, are merely pets kept in this courtyard."

"Yes, proportionately, the size of the giant octopus race is indeed like that of cats and dogs in a garden, similar to large dogs like Alaskan Malamutes."

"Are the lands in the orchard individual transcendent worlds? Worlds are indeed similar, even ultimately converging towards the same direction," Xu Zhi said, his expression calm. "The owner of this castle must be a colossal creature, comparable in diameter to half of Earth."

Indeed, every realm was a leap in dimension!

Deities were merely the strongest beings on a single planet, while the Ninth Order were great Daoists capable of distorting space-time!

However, Xu Zhi was not worried.

Because Caroline and the others could break through at any time, enough to catch up with such beings.

Their claim of being the strongest Ninth Order was no joke.

With their cultivation techniques, even if they couldn't compensate for the size disparity, they could still escape.

Don't let the terrifying sight of merging planets to build a planetary garden castle deceive you.

Most Ninth-Order beings could achieve this level.

Such massive construction projects lacked not combat power, but merely time.

For an average Ninth-Order, cultivating one or two genes to perfection was already extraordinary.

The difference in combat power varied greatly.

He hadn't witnessed their specific combat power, so he truly didn't know.

However, this scene also gave Xu Zhi a new idea, unique to the Ninth Order: merging planets to create a grand courtyard.

"The path to the Ninth Order is still in its nascent stages of deduction. Perhaps I can learn from the accomplishments of other Ninth-Order beings."

"If this Ninth-Order being isn't very powerful, Caroline and the others can break through and suppress it. If they can't defeat their opponent, even a sound beating would give them motivation."

Xu Zhi glanced around, then suddenly stated, "But why does this cosmic estate feel devoid of that terrifying, powerful aura? It's very dilapidated. Could it be... a fallen Ninth-Order being?"

Tap, tap.

Xu Zhi took a step forward, drawing closer, observing from outside the atmosphere. "There's a terrifying sense of destruction, riddled with holes, with residual law turbulence. It's very difficult to survive here."

He suddenly realized,

"Right, I should have thought of this earlier. If a Ninth-Order being existed here, how could they not shield their home, allowing us to easily find it? Something must have happened. Did they die before we even began our conquest? Or did they simply die of old age?"

A Ninth-Order being typically only lived for about a hundred thousand years. In the universe's 13.8 billion-year lifespan, countless Ninth-Order beings must have fallen.

Cosmic ruins were far more common than imagined.

"Then, I'll have to use an avatar to investigate," Xu Zhi mused slightly.

In the living room, his main body, imbued with the laws of reincarnation, severed and distorted the connection with his avatar.

The avatar, meanwhile, prepared to explore.

"This seems somewhat interesting. I'm only now realizing that while the creatures on this land are weak, they are also quite bizarre."

"Their numbers and diversity of intelligent races are too great to be natural... Could it be that in ancient times, this Ninth-Order being traveled through the myriad universes in this galaxy, collecting these civilizations?"

"They might have kept these civilizations as slaves to serve them, but with their demise, these subordinate transcendent civilizations have completely declined over tens of thousands of years, their legacies broken, and their lands utterly desolate."

"Even if this grand villa wasn't plundered by enemies upon his death, other Ninth-Order beings would have arrived to empty it out. It's now worthless, like an abandoned village house, left behind. Passing Ninth-Order beings would simply disregard it, finding it beneath them, while Eighth-Order deities couldn't even enter... It's just a ruin, completely uninhabitable."

With a gentle step, he landed on a nearby life-bearing planet. "First, I'll gather some information. If they're truly dead, don't blame me for becoming the direct owner of this grand villa."

Xu Zhi's figure soared, his lustrous black hair fluttering in the night wind as he entered the atmosphere, rustling like a divine demon descending from beyond the nine heavens.

"But for me, none of this matters. Is there any harsh land that even my Zerg evolution cannot inhabit?"

"Being stylish is what truly matters."