Chapter 867: Civilization's Dread, Terrifying Evolution

"Impossible, utterly impossible..."

The Thirteenth Prince could scarcely imagine the severity of the situation. This was an entire planet. How could their highly developed civilization, capable of hunting even gods, be destroyed by a virus? Viruses and diseases were things of the distant past, only appearing in elementary school history books. They had surpassed this primitive stage of civilization tens of thousands of years ago.

But the servant continued, "A few scientists say it might not just be the entire planet, but even our entire civilization that faces destruction... It's highly probable that the Catfolk of the neighboring Bird Planet will also be destroyed along with us. This is a super catastrophe for the entire galaxy!"

"Are you saying that if the infected population is large enough, these viruses could evolve into vacuum viruses and leap directly to nearby planets?" The Thirteenth Prince, being immensely knowledgeable and a formidable scientist himself, quickly grasped the implications, feeling a chill run down his spine. This was terrifying beyond imagination.

He rose to his feet, pacing back and forth, deep in thought. Finally, he gritted his teeth. "Issue an order: halt the pursuit of that mysterious infant, disregard it entirely. Instead, mobilize all forces on the planet to control the area where the jump occurred!"

"The area has already spread across the entire continent in the Southern Hemisphere," an urgent voice reported from beside him.

"What?! It's already spread across the entire Fulijia Shi Continent? It's likely impossible to ascertain the number of infected?" His expression grew utterly grave. "Immediately deploy orbital space cannons to pierce through all borders of the entire continent, using the cannons' spatial turbulence to encircle and completely isolate the landmass."

The adjutant beside him paled with fear. This was an audacious and insane decision! Using orbital cannons to create a deadly zone of spatial turbulence to seal off an entire continent... if this got out, the entire empire would be furious, and they would be held accountable. This meant instantly abandoning over three billion lives. Moreover, creating such an enormous border isolation zone with orbital space cannons would not only consume vast energy weapon resources but also completely devastate the planet's ecosystem...

However, such a decisive and ruthless decision could indeed only be made by the Thirteenth Prince, widely considered to possess the greatest potential as a ruthless contender for the throne and the most likely winner of the election.

"Yes, sir!" the adjutant immediately responded.

The Thirteenth Prince, Miege, walked back and forth with a solemn expression. "That infant won't cause us any trouble, nor will it expand the infected land. All it desires, I fear, is to grow safely! Meanwhile, the Pillar God Như Lai, the enemy pursuing it, is an ancient forbidden entity capable of annihilating great universe-achievers—a terror unimaginable throughout the cosmos... It must hope that we can deal with its pursuer, and even clean up these viruses." This was his inference, and given the current situation, it seemed the most probable scenario.

"It's time to inform His Majesty, and those foolish princes and princesses." His face quickly regained its composure; remaining calm in the face of crisis was a mandatory lesson for royals. Originally, he had suppressed news from the outside, as he had wanted to monopolize this extraordinary encounter, capture the entity, and then claim credit publicly, without others interfering. He had never imagined that such a thing would happen, causing him significant loss and burdening him with infamy.

"Crisis and opportunity coexist." Soon, he connected with His Majesty and the other princes and princesses, informing them of the situation. The virtual council chamber fell silent; no one had anticipated such an event. Princes and beautiful, handsome princesses sat politely on their virtual seats, including Princess Shaer, who had recently gained considerable renown.

"Thirteen, how dare you suppress information and allow this situation to escalate!"

"Thirteen, you actually abandoned an entire southern continent! Those were billions of people!"

"And Thirteen, you used His Majesty's favor to gain control of the empire's only seven suppression-class weapons, the orbital space cannons, to seal off a continental border? That's thousands of years of the empire's strategic energy reserves! You've fired two thousand shots' worth of energy; do you know how many gods that could eliminate?"

"With such suppression-class combat power lost, what if those barbaric natives harbor ill intentions against us now?" One by one, the princes and princesses spoke calmly.

Emperor Teal, a dignified middle-aged man seated at the head, looked at his children and said, "Discussing these matters now is futile. We will assign blame later. First, let us fully understand the situation and try to resolve it... But I must say, if the truth is as described, using orbital cannons to seal off the entire continent was the best choice."

"Sacrificing over three billion lives to definitively prevent the infection and potential extinction of our entire civilization is the best decision! If any of you princes and princesses faced such a situation, I would hope you would act as Thirteen has done... Civilization must look to the distant future, not immediate glory or shame."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty speaks wisely."

"As expected of Your Majesty. Your humble subject was foolish."

Indeed. From the perspective of the entire vast civilization, this was already the best choice, like a warrior cutting off a limb to save the body.

On the Fulijia Shi Continent, the people of the entire planet's continent were still unaware of what was happening. Television stations were still broadcasting.

Bang, bang, bang! Relentless gunfire echoed.

"Is this all they've got?"

"They're so weak! The viruses of these native civilizations are unimaginably feeble!"

"So-called viruses are just things that low-level civilizations fear."

"Hahaha, this reminds me of that necromancer on the native land, who also controlled a ridiculous number of corpses and fancied himself an empire."

Countless soldiers exchanged jokes and burst into laughter. "After this is over, the general said he'd treat us to the Midpar International Club to have fun with the native Light Church's Seventh Generation Saintess. She's a legendary powerhouse who once ruled half a country and led an entire city in defending itself during war. She was revered as a divine, blessed, and incredibly pure Daughter of Heaven!"

"The general is really splurging!"

They continued to lead the populace in resistance, finding the creatures infected by the virus incredibly weak. As for the viruses of these natives, it was said that the necromancers in that land also dabbled in dark experiments, combining viruses with extraordinary energy mutations to create extraordinary biological viruses. These were rumored to even pose a threat to high-level powerhouses, but they were nothing compared to their antidote development technology!

Clang, clang, clang! The sounds suddenly became sharper, distinct. At this point, in just thirteen minutes, the virus had evolved hard skeletons, making them difficult to penetrate.

"What's happening?"

"A mutation?"

Three minutes later.

The third mutation... began!!

They finally felt a creeping fear. How much time had passed? Only a little over forty minutes since the virus outbreak. The mutation speed was accelerating, each time faster than the last. Bizarre variants began to appear, swift and ghost-like, relentlessly hunting them down.

"Ah!"

"What's going on?"

"Too fast, beyond human reaction limits! Quickly, use machines to take over the firing! Humans can't keep up anymore!"

"But Captain, we don't have that many security robots..."

"Tell them to stop attacking! We'll gather together, defend our positions, and await higher-level support!" They tried to connect to external signals but found they couldn't, sensing that something was wrong.

"Retreat! We must retreat!"

But they soon discovered something even more terrifying: projectile weapons and robots were failing, forcing them to use higher-grade laser weapon robots.

"Monsters!"

Dada dada! Countless laser beams tore through buildings.

On the other side, the two generals from the martial arts institute also escaped. One couldn't help but laugh aloud, "These are very much like those necromancer viruses that once infected our lands. Seventeen city-states fell; it was a very dark time, those were truly fearsome guys!"

"Are you still laughing? We're going to die too!" the other general scoffed.

"Hahaha, I will laugh! My wretched life should have ended long ago! Even if they are hostile, evil dark wizards, I'm happy to see this!" The two cautiously pushed forward. They had grown up in the shadow of necromancers, experiencing the dark, corpse-ridden days of ghouls and shambling dead. In a strange way, they seemed somewhat in their element.

At this moment, the entire imperial high command was observing the continent. Leaders of various consortia and the princes gathered.

"We have already paid a massive price, using orbital space cannons to create a spatial isolation zone, sealing off the entire southern continent. Perhaps this could serve as an excellent testing ground for gods and demons. These viruses cannot escape, and we can quietly observe this mysterious, forbidden entity." The Thirteenth Prince's expression was utterly calm as he gestured towards the land. "Crisis comes with opportunity. Over three billion people as test subjects are more than enough to observe many things."

Emperor Teal mused, "Indeed. Two descendants of beings who surpassed universe-achievers have suddenly appeared here. It is both a crisis and an opportunity! We can study them, observe them!"

Ninth-level beings. How terrifying were such entities? Their civilization might never break through that realm, even at the brink of destruction. It was a terrifying threshold of civilizational dimension. And the neighboring Bird Planet had even less hope. It was true that they possessed seventeen supreme gods who had stepped onto the path of the Ninth Level and could master laws. However, while thousands, even tens of thousands, of law-wielders had embarked on the Ninth-Level path, had even one of them truly broken through to the Ninth Level? Giving them 170, or even 1,700, might still not be enough! After all, embarking on the long path of laws and reaching the destination were two vastly different concepts. Yet now, beings of such cosmic magnitude had descended into their time-space...

"This is truly a troubled time, and a great crisis for our civilization." Emperor Teal sat on his throne, eyes closed. "The ancient Ranimanska is reawakening in the cosmic garden, widely accepting disciples... Meanwhile, a terrifying civilization of universe-achievers has fallen, and its orphan has drifted here, its purpose unclear. Perhaps it came to seek tutelage from the reawakened achiever, to find refuge... and the even more terrifying dark forbidden cosmic entity, the Pillar God Như Lai, is also pursuing the remnant." These matters were enough to make his heart pound, forcing him to consider the civilization's future.

As he pondered, the terrifying virus, existing in higher-dimensional space-time, was iterating and evolving at an increasingly rapid pace.

"Initially, the first mutation took seventeen minutes, the second thirteen minutes, the third four minutes... The mutation speed is actually growing exponentially!"

"It seems the larger the infected population base, the faster the rate of mutation."

"According to virus dissection, the virus's nucleus is a prismatic crystal, and it even contains structures resembling computer circuitry and brain networks. Inside the prismatic crystal is DNA."

"Each virus is like a mini-computer? As they multiply and form vast computer clusters, their evolutionary mutation rate accelerates?"

One after another, terrifying pieces of information arrived, utterly shocking. They watched as the entire continent, which had initially held an absolute advantage, now rapidly headed towards collapse. The streets were ruins, amidst which tattered zombies wandered, creating an eerie, dark scene. People screamed and wailed. Survivors, armed with firearms, laser weapons, and even heavy laser cannons, defended themselves in fortresses and guarded entrances to underground structures.

"There's no more support."

"We can't contact the outside. We might... have been abandoned by the empire."

"What?! How could such a primitive virus, or native gods, be something our powerful technology couldn't handle?" Some still refused to believe it. These beliefs were deeply ingrained in their minds: technology was supreme. What if those native cultivators were backward and foolish? What if even powerful gods were just blasted down by a few shots from a spaceship, then sent off for research? Yet now, they found themselves in such a desolate situation.

"You don't understand," someone yelled, "This isn't from native civilizations; it's from a terrifying super-cultivation civilization!" Some people still knew the truth.

In real time, just over an hour had passed, and the virus was mutating faster and faster. It had already mutated thirty-seven times. Even plants and animals were rapidly being infected, undergoing unknown mutations. They even began to undergo assimilation. It was like the great genetic explosion of old, starting to exhibit a "great unification" characteristic... Zombies with genes of great stags were strangely merging with the cat-tailed alien zombies previously held captive, and rare slaves from four original planets, such as the Minotaur-aliens... Bizarre transformations were occurring, bodies gradually growing taller, developing strange new forms, and reaching heights of three meters. Animals were also rapidly unifying... Plants showed similar changes...

"Can anyone tell me what's happening?"

"Why are the viruses fighting among themselves? They seem to have split into three factions? Is this following some special rule?"

"Animals, plants, humans... Ah! What exactly is going on? It's as if the virus is performing a resequencing of genetic data across all infected organisms, requiring an immense amount of processing power to achieve—"

"These three factions aren't trying to summon three terrifying, unseen forbidden entities to reappear, are they?" Gasps filled the imperial conference room. They were too astonished to speak. Anyone with discerning eyes could see that these infected, mindless, rabid beasts wandering the streets were undergoing a peculiar form of evolution.

"They've been infected and turned into living dead, into beasts, but if they continue to evolve like this, will they regain sentience?" A terrifying thought emerged. Everyone was incredibly excited. This virus was terrifying beyond limits, shattering all their understanding of reality!

"Our civilization has achieved an unimaginable, monumental breakthrough!"

"We strongly suspect this virus is from some terrifying, technology-oriented forbidden civilization!"

"Yes, the civilization that destroyed countless terrifying universe-achievers, the Pillar God Như Lai, might be an indescribably powerful Ninth-level technological civilization!"

"Not necessarily. It now appears to be a hybrid path, integrating both systems!"

Perhaps something extraordinary had emerged right before them. They could observe it in secret, as the entity was already isolated by orbital cannons, forming a massive testing ground. "They can't escape! My heavens, it's only been a little over two hours, and it's already evolved to this extent!"

"Don't forget, this virus resides in higher-dimensional space-time; this isn't just two hours in real time!"

"We must observe!"

"Wait, what if it breaks through the orbital cannon's spatial turbulence and escapes the continent?"

"Impossible, unless it possesses law-twisting abilities comparable to those native supreme gods of law!"

As these words were spoken, they seemed to recall something, and goosebumps rose on their skin.

Xu Zhi paused slightly, then shook his head, already foreseeing the future. "The Pillar God's virus is indeed an invasion tool of the Zerg." He found the opponent's law-based weapons quite interesting. "I actually underestimated them. They can pose a certain threat even to weak Ninth-level beings. A single full-fledged Ninth-level Super Saiyan might not be able to destroy them directly... perhaps two would be needed." He concluded, "One could call them the strongest Eighth-level civilization below the Ninth Level."