Chapter 42: Destroying a Civilization, Creations on the Assembly Line

Liu Jun descended from the Wutong tree and stepped outside.

"Greetings, Prophet," Sylph whispered with a faint smile.

Liu Jun looked at her in silence.

He could never have imagined that the single Tree of Life he planted back then would, in the blink of an eye, evolve into a brilliant and magnificent grand civilization.

It had only been a little over thirty years.

Originally, he had thought that cultivating the Tree of Life would be a long-term endeavor spanning centuries, or even millennia.

Who could have foreseen that worldly events would be unpredictable and accelerate to such an extent?

At first, he had intended to impart some education, but now it seemed...

After being infected, that was no longer possible.

Because knowledge is addictive.

They had also lost all sensibility, leaving behind only pure rationality.

Sylph spoke:

"The world is truly a cycle. The angels of yesteryear are what we are today."

"I still remember reading history in my youth. Back then, the King of Angels and his four major legions attacked the Wutong tree, yet they vanished into the past in the blink of an eye."

"Please, Prophet, take up residence in the Elven Forest, settle in our ancestral land, and grant me longevity. In this lifetime, I shall be the most magnificent king."

"I want to live a little longer, to gaze at the colors of the starry sky above, to see the edge of the world, to understand what the gods... truly are, and to witness the form of the Creator."

"And your demands, we will fulfill every single one of them."

Sylph possessed peerless beauty and a detached expression, her eyes holding nothing but pure, unadulterated rationality.

Liu Jun smiled faintly. "I refuse."

Sylph took a deep look at this deity from an ancient era. "I understand."

She turned and walked away.

...

Up in the Wutong tree.

Butterfly Stratus showed a hint of worry.

"They have lost their rationality. I'm afraid they are going to resort to force."

"Just like the angels back then?" Butterfly Red Fungus frowned. To this day, he still had no idea who had framed him.

"This is far more terrifying than back then."

Butterfly Stratus said: "With the development of the current era, quite a few of their leaders have reached the third tier. Equipped with massive armies and their terrifying intellect..."

This was a group of intellectual madmen capable of destroying the world.

The companions present were overcome with a deep sense of powerlessness. They wanted to protect their god, but...

They were simply too weak.

"Power, power!" Butterfly Stratus took a deep breath. "Why, why have I still not managed to integrate into any of the treasures?"

Wind, light, evolution.

Three treasures, why was not a single one compatible with me?

...

The 214th Year of the Butterfly Era.

On the Tree of Life, the beautiful elves possessed slender and handsome figures, leaping from tree to tree as they continuously recorded the weaving data of various cocoon fruits.

They were already the seventeenth generation of elves.

Today, they were powerful, handsome, pursued rationality, had lost their emotions, and even their lifespans had become extremely short.

Because they could not bear the burden of this "high intelligence," the average lifespan of their souls was less than twenty years.

At this moment.

The Elven King Sylph looked toward the elven elders and said:

"Everyone, my time is running out. If the God of Longevity is willing to bestow upon us the blessing of longevity, we might live a bit longer, but now we have no choice but to fight for our own lifespans."

Left with only rationality, they did not consider this to be a bad thing.

"The God of Longevity is a true deity walking the mortal realm; he likely hails from the previous era."

"Every divine artifact possesses the power of infection. Drawing parallels to intelligence, when he obtained the power of longevity, a catastrophe of longevity must have erupted."

"During the catastrophe of longevity, universal longevity occurs. When all things live too long, chaos inevitably erupts. How did he evade it?"

"And after the catastrophe of longevity, this God of Longevity is still alive. Perhaps..."

"It might even be that he slaughtered an entire era with his own hands."

Possessing towering intellect, they continuously analyzed the situation.

Even the Emperor of the Angels from the previous generation, renowned for benevolence and mercy, was a monarch who had slain enemies far and wide.

The Prophet would be no exception.

Could an ancient deity who survived into this present age be simple?

"He possesses the power of longevity, but this power is not meant for frontal combat; rather, it is of a support type. Therefore, we have a great chance!"

"Do we not possess the augmentation of intelligence ourselves? This is also a divine artifact not meant for frontline warfare."

"Neither side excels in direct combat, which cancels each other out."

"Should we invite the Titans, Angels, and Dragons from next door?"

"Their numbers are scarce now, and they are of no use."

"We shall directly initiate the slaughter of the god."

"Agreed, let us begin the slaughter of the god!"

Within the elven race, the most rational decision was swiftly reached.

Every single one of them being a "sage" allowed this civilization to traverse what would have been a millennium of time in just over thirty years, arriving at its most brilliant and dazzling peak.

They pursued truth, were audaciously bold, and utterly unconstrained...

This group of addicts was entirely derectic!

Naturally, they could not be measured by conventional standards.

Half a month later, a super-giant tree comparable to the ancient Wutong tree slowly approached from afar.

Every single tree hollow upon it housed an elven archer carrying a quiver, and densely packed armies arrived aboard fortress-trees.

Seeing this scene, Liu Jun could not help but sigh. In the end, he still could not escape it.

Behind him, Butterfly Stratus and the other butterflies wore expressions of deep anxiety.

Those fellows enhanced by wisdom were simply too insane, and their growth rate was too astonishing.

Swish!

With a flash.

Liu Jun vanished from the spot.

No words were needed, no communication required, for all of that was completely pointless.

"Release telekinetic tracking!"

Following Sylph's low roar, an army of one hundred thousand elves unleashed their telekinesis.

Pity...

They could not find him.

Vanishing without a trace—was that something they could easily locate?

This was spiritual concealment, a cognitive shielding of the soul.

The next moment, they vaguely saw a blurred rain of swords transforming into lightning that pierced through the ranks of the elves, blooming with massive amounts of green blood.

Cracks appeared all over the entire War Ancient Tree, followed by its collapse.

"If you can't find him, then defend, defend!" Sylph roared. "Wait until he exhausts his stamina."

Unfortunately.

Liu Jun's "Longevity and Eternal Vision" was a low-consumption, evolved version.

His physical stamina consumption was exceptionally low.

Being of the same third tier, he was currently like an untraceable, low-consumption assassin—a true god of slaughter in the mortal world.

Boom!

As the sun set in the dusk, the entire elven race was utterly defeated, the ground drenched in green blood.

"It is over."

Liu Jun stood quietly upon the mountain of corpses, his expression utterly calm.

When the choice was made to kill him, all possibility of redemption had vanished.

Only Sylph remained in a daze, as if her mind could not quite process what had happened.

Her consciousness was in complete blankness.

This was an army of one hundred thousand soldiers!

Yet this god of slaughter had single-handedly wiped them out...

After a long while, she managed a bitter smile, looking up at this lofty deity.

"Is this the power of an ancient deity? How hateful. If only we had been given a dozen more years, we might not have failed to slay the god, drink the blood of longevity, and forge it into the Tree of Life for our elven race."

Before coming here, they had even thought of the name for the pool used to bleed the God of Longevity.

"All things in the world are balanced. Having granted you wisdom, how could I also grant you longevity?"

Liu Jun's figure on the twilight battlefield seemed draped in a layer of golden divine radiance.

Sylph offered a gentle smile. "Indeed. However, is the catastrophe of wisdom not your catastrophe as well?"

"Today I die, but behind me lie countless short-lived yet wise civilizations yearning for longevity."

"I fear the entire world will seek your death, O god from the days of old."

"This is a predetermined decree of fate. Our new era does not permit refugees from the past."

"Civilization after civilization, rushing forward wave upon wave, will ultimately shatter you, this deity of the old days!"

Sylph's expression was calm and cold. "I shall wait for you below."

With those words falling, Sylph breathed her last.

Liu Jun opened his eyes, directly transforming into a shooting star as he headed toward the Elven Forest.

In the distance, atop the Wutong tree, A-Feng could not help but ask, "What is he off to do now?"

"How can divine might be violated? He is going to exterminate their race," Butterfly Stratus said in a low voice. "It is entirely possible he will wipe out all living beings of this era."

The butterflies fell silent, the shock in their hearts beyond description.

Aside from shock, their emotions were filled with deep sighs, mixed with a peculiar sentiment.

That was a young civilization that had just dominated the world, yet just like that, they were...

The Prophet had always been merciless in action and sparing with words.

The last time the angels attacked, he couldn't even be bothered to speak much, and it was the same this time around.

Behind them, the imperial historian recorded:

[In the 214th Year of the Butterfly Era, the Dark Elves waged war against the god; the god brought down divine punishment, and the elven race perished.]

...

The Elven Forest.

When Liu Jun arrived here, he witnessed the Dragons, Titans, and Angels—three tribes—battling fiercely among themselves.

Evidently, they had intended to take advantage of the elven army's departure to seize the source of their wisdom, the legendary origin of intelligence, Chong Qiqi.

"What has come?"

"It's a god! The God of Longevity!"

"Did he win? Did the elven race lose?"

"Just in time, he must be heavily injured. Let's encircle and kill him together, and drink the blood of longevity!"

Accompanied by a series of roars and screams.

The Titans, Dragons, and Angels—all three tribes perished entirely.

"A bunch of lunatics," Liu Jun exhaled a breath.

However, the Titans' body-refining techniques were worth studying.

Liu Jun silently memorized the techniques, and upon browsing through their various data archives, he could not help but marvel at their talent and capabilities!

According to the human history Liu Jun had read.

Does a civilization not have to go through internal strife, conflicts, power struggles, various entanglements of love and hate, and generations of human effort to reach where they were today?

Yet they did not follow that path.

They were all pseudo-sages—emotionless, possessing absolute rationality, advancing along a single path to rapidly max out their technology tree.

"A civilization like this has no epic tales, no touching, heart-rending stories..."

"It is like dumplings wrapped by a machine, creations off an assembly line, completely devoid of a soul."

Liu Jun continuously looked over these racial blueprints, yet still could not help but sigh:

"Still, these soulless dumplings are delicious."

He could not help but mock internally.

The techniques for this body-refining cultivation method had actually been pioneered into a prototype by them!

Preposterous!

Simply too preposterous.

He even entertained the thought that if they were allowed to go crazy a few more times, and if he himself were not killed, then once this catastrophe of wisdom ended, the entire Butterfly Era civilization would undoubtedly leap forward by several tiers!

"But I cannot endure it."

"Civilizations rushing forward wave upon wave."

"They grow exponentially and treat me like a boss to be cleared in a video game?"

"I had better try my best to curb this catastrophe of wisdom first."

From beginning to end, Liu Jun did not experience too many emotional fluctuations.

He had long mentally prepared himself that he would witness the evolution of civilization after civilization, and naturally, he might also have to destroy civilization after civilization.

He was no saint, nor would he sit idly and allow himself to be killed.

"I still need to control this infection."

Walking into the forest fortress once again, he found Chong Qiqi in the depths.

This black-winged angel now possessed four full wings and was tightly bound to a cross, driven through with various steel spikes, much like a suffering deity in a mythological tale.

Her eyelids drooped, her eyes radiating a profound and deep intelligence:

"You have come."