Chapter 52: Passing by the Beaten-to-Death Demented Emperor and the World Cauldron

In addition, there were the dozens of crates of enchanted golden apples that Fang Zheng had given away before his mysterious disappearance.

Their resistance-boosting effect lasted for five minutes and reduced all damage except void damage by 20%. This sublime percentage-based effect enabled Taiyin and her allies to almost completely ignore the attacks of the hostile Supremes.

On the Immortal-Ascension Road, more than ten Supremes who sought to slaughter all living beings were successfully slain.

Fortunately, by using the gateway of the Immortal-Ascension Road as the battlefield, the universe itself did not suffer catastrophic collateral damage.

However...

Hearing this, Fang Zheng looked at Taiyin and asked with great curiosity, "However, what?"

"Didn't the future you foresaw end with all of them being defeated and killed?"

"Why would you say this is a tragic future?"

Faced with Fang Zheng's question, Taiyin paused her narrative, fell silent for a moment, and then continued:

"However..."

"The battle among the Supremes on the Immortal-Ascension Road drew the attention of someone."

"A powerhouse from the Mythological Era who founded the Heavenly Court and created an era where numerous emperors coexisted—Emperor Zun!"

"Who is Emperor Zun?" Fang Zheng asked.

Taiyin sighed. "He is... an unlucky fellow."

"A... very tragic, yet deeply admirable fellow."

Taiyin's narration continued.

When the battle on the Immortal-Ascension Road concluded, when the fragments of the Immortal Domain began to drift away, and when Taiyin and the others returned to the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths universe and began to heave a sigh of relief, an uninvited guest arrived.

Across the entire universe, starting from the cosmic borders and the uninhabited star domains, ancient runes left behind from distant ages began to light up.

Taiyin, Taiyang, and other Supreme-level existences recognized those marks as runes used for artifact crafting.

Lighting up across the entire cosmos, these runes—constructed with star domains as ink—formed a gigantic artifact-crafting grand array. It seemed intended to refine the entire Nine Heavens and Ten Earths universe, along with its endless starry sky, boundless divine materials, and even the myriad Dao of heaven and earth, into a single weapon.

An existence that far surpassed Emperor artifacts, surpassed Immortal artifacts, and perhaps deserved to be called an Immortal King artifact!

At the same time, a powerhouse radiating the aura of eternal immortality—someone who could unquestionably be called a True Immortal—descended from beyond the cosmos.

Taiyin, Taiyang, and all the other Supreme-level beings immediately recognized him. It was Emperor Zun, recorded in ancient ruins as one of the Nine Venerables of the Mythological Era, the founder of the Heavenly Court, Emperor Zun!

And then...

Emperor Zun was swiftly beaten to death by Taiyin and the others...

"Huh? Just like that?" Fang Zheng was astonished.

"Just... no protracted, grueling battles, no heavy sacrifices or anything?"

"What does this have to do with the black mist and whatnot that you mentioned earlier?"

"Didn't he just show up and get beaten to death by your future self?"

Taiyin shook her head and said with a solemn expression, "It shouldn't have happened so quickly."

"But he was already mad, trapped in a muddled, incoherent state."

"Otherwise, he had already completely surpassed the Great Emperor realm, and even surpassed the True Immortal realm I glimpsed from the temporal echoes of the Immortal-Ascension Road. He could have achieved eternal immortality without entering the Immortal Domain, walking through the mortal world in everlasting youth."

"Perhaps he could even be called a Mortal Dust Immortal."

"He should have been stronger than us. Even with a dozen or so Supreme-level beings joining forces, we should have only been able to inflict heavy injuries upon him; killing him ought to have been extremely difficult."

Fang Zheng voiced his doubt: "Didn't your future self have an infinite supply of vital blood? Couldn't even that kill him?"

Taiyin shook her head. "Although my vital blood was immense, there is still a limit to the power my realm can precisely control."

"Burning a massive amount of vital blood simultaneously is indeed enough to beat him into heavy injuries, but unless he stood completely still and allowed me to attack at will, it would still be impossible to kill him."

Fang Zheng asked, "Then why did he just die like that?"

Taiyin replied, "Because he actually did stand there and let us kill him."

"In fact, it is very likely that he voluntarily allowed us to kill him."

Taiyin recounted their subsequent discoveries.

When they, amidst doubt and surprise, had slain the muddled, uncommunicative Emperor Zun—who had attempted to refine the entire universe into an Immortal King artifact—they began to disperse and clear away the artifact-crafting runes that had been activated across the cosmos.

Yet during this process, they unexpectedly noticed anomalies.

The runes spread across every corner of the universe, constructed from star domains, were extremely bizarre.

It was as if the person who designed these runes was a schizophrenic madman.

Roughly half of the runes, once fully activated, would refine everything within their coverage area and sacrifice all living beings to maximize the power of the ultimate weapon.

The remaining half of the runes, however, were completely different from the former.

If activated, they would bypass all living creatures, melting only the cosmic void and starry sky into the weapon, while leaving the star domains inhabited by all living beings perfectly intact.

Moreover, after deciphering these runes, Taiyin and the others discovered that within this weapon forged from the universe itself, vast and suitable habitats had been deliberately reserved, enough for all living beings throughout the cosmos to survive.

Fang Zheng asked, "So the future you saw... this guy named Emperor Zun had schizophrenia?"

"Did he want to kill everyone while also saving everyone? Or was he planning to kill half the universe, keep the other half alive, and raise them like pets?"

Taiyin shook her head and sighed. "No, he is a man worthy of respect."

"Because not long after they discovered these puzzles, the anomaly occurred."

When Emperor Zun was slain, a drop of his blood—which had not been completely obliterated and was left behind at the cosmic frontier—began to emit a mysterious black gas.

When Taiyin and the others in that future timeline investigated because the anomalies in the runes alerted them that something was wrong, the catastrophe had already spread across several star domains.

The eerie black current, defying the distances of space and time, permeated multiple star domains, eroding all living things.

Within those star domains, ordinary humans, animals, and demonic beasts touched by the black mist rapidly lost their sanity, exhibiting symptoms of mania, bloodlust, or dullness. They went berserk and began endlessly devouring and gnawing on uninfected creatures.

The infected had hollow gazes, black spots blooming on their skin, and black veins like expanded blood vessels spreading across their bodies. Their flesh festered and oozed black mucus, while bone spurs, tentacles, and other bizarre, twisted growths sprouted all over them. They gradually lost their five senses, their pupils turned white, and they lost all capacity for pain.

Those mortals who had never cultivated rapidly transformed into corpses that were rotting yet still moving.

"Ah?" Fang Zheng cried out, "Isn't this the typical zombie virus from doomsday novels?"

"Have they turned into zombies?"

"Zombies?" Taiyin glanced at Fang Zheng. "That's a very apt description. If infected by corpse poison, they indeed exhibit similar symptoms."

"However, in the future I saw, this thing is more appropriately called a Dark Evolver."

The black mist radiating from Emperor Zun's drop of blood did not stop after infecting those few star domains and turning ordinary humans and animals into living corpses.

Those walking corpses devoured and fused with one another, growing stronger at a mind-boggling and frantic pace.