Chapter 499

Chapter 499: The Selfish, The Transcendent, The Compassionate, The Protector (Part One)

In Hope City, where cheers erupted like the roaring of mountains and oceans, everything tangible or intangible seemed to be infused with an invisible stimulant.

People celebrated their victory and were filled with hope for the dawn of a brighter future.

This was wonderful, but not for Lachesis.

If everyone was so confident about the future of humanity and their own futures, how could he manipulate and erode them?

The previous erosion and corruption had been remarkably successful, largely due to the boundless despair inspired by the beast tide.

Now, although he didn’t know what had happened, Clotho on the front lines was clearly facing problems.

Since the main attacker, Clotho, had already shown signs of retreat, what reason did he have to continue supporting?

His will had already reached new heights, and he was constantly refining his abilities in the realm of erosion. Even if Clotho and Atropos had failed, he could survive by delving into the underground layers of biomass through those mycelium.

As long as he evolved beyond the need for light, he would become the ruler of the underground world, a nightmare beneath the feet of the people on this planet.

Countless biomasses would become part of him, and at that point, he would—

Become this planet.

“Ha.”

Just as Lachesis thought of this, he faintly heard a scoff.

He initially assumed it was one of his humanoid bodies that had heard the sound, so he paid it no mind and began to retract his tendrils from Hope City as Clotho fell back.

His attacks had become ineffective, not only because of the superpowered individual who could induce dreams, but also because the emotions he could influence had lost their survival space.

That short slogan felt like a highly corrosive liquid, constantly tormenting him in return.

Lachesis became resolute.

As he prepared to withdraw his main consciousness back into the endless tall grass, returning to his domain, he suddenly sensed something was amiss.

“Why… am I…”

Lachesis, in his consciousness space, exclaimed in shock as he realized he couldn’t go back.

Recognizing that something was off, Lachesis abruptly elevated his view, examining his domain from a higher perspective.

He soon fell into complete terror and confusion—

The Tower, the Biomass Tower he had forged by dividing consciousness, was now crashing down dramatically.

His Crystallized Essence could not withstand such a powerful impact; those purified or not yet fully purified biomasses crashed upon his tall grass like waves.

Lachesis’s differentiated organisms—the tall grass—were already relatively weak individuals, relying entirely on overwhelming numbers to achieve erosion and corruption.

This was different from Clotho’s spores in the Misty Forest or Atropos’s mixed woods teeming with countless organisms.

Faced with this Toxic Biomass falling from the sky, the tall grasses had no resistance and were completely assimilated.

That biomass seemed to possess extreme corrosiveness, with an impenetrable interior; anything swallowed by it would totally vanish into the terrifying, viscous liquid.

“How could this happen?”

Lachesis, now panicked in the sea of consciousness, felt his domain, his very source of life, confronting such an upheaval. Who was behind this? What was going on?

Just as Lachesis was about to cut away the eroded parts and escape with the remaining mycelium domain, he suffered another crushing blow.

Deep within the outer city, the Giant Tree, rooted in the depths of the mine and infused with the genes of countless organisms, nourished by the blood of extraordinary beasts and the humanoid bodies of humans, began to manifest anomalies.

The faces etched into its bark suddenly erupted in a chorus of terrified howls, the sound reverberating through the sea of consciousness and forming an insurmountable barrier that blocked Lachesis’s path of retreat.

To corrupt the humans in the inner city, Lachesis had successfully extended his eroding tendrils into the inner city by using this Giant Tree as a conduit.

But now, this sudden anomaly, or rather, betrayal from the Giant Tree, completely severed Lachesis’s way home.

His connection to the external Mycelium Ecology and his domain of tall grass grew weaker and weaker.

The will of the mycelium, a collective consciousness born of life, left Lachesis feeling dazed and weak as the bond to his essence diminished.

Struggling against the slowing of his thoughts, Lachesis could no longer afford to worry about who was attacking him.

At that moment, he had only one thought:

“I must survive!”

Lachesis could no longer sever his own tail to escape, for if he did, his consciousness would be trapped in the tail section, forcing him to sacrifice the majority of his bodily components, letting this so-called “tail” become his new essence.

But what did this tail comprise?

Just a few hundred dwindling humanoid bodies.

Amid the eternal agony, Lachesis completed the separation from his body, abandoning the biomass tower, the Giant Tree, and the tall grass, becoming an invisible creature residing within the brains of hundreds of humans, yearning to live to the next day.

—

At the moment before the explosion struck, Lin Qingliu dove into a spatial rift to complete his teleportation.

However, this was not the same as his initial plan; he did not return to Hope City to reclaim various system rights from Wang Xiao. Instead, he found himself suspended in midair.

Below Lin Qingliu were strange Giant Trees, extraordinary beasts displaying various traits, and a large group of creations that bore a striking resemblance to humans, about seventy to eighty percent similar.

This was Atropos’s domain.

Lin Qingliu slowly descended as a Humanoid Figure approached him, moving with nearly the same grace as a human, unarmed and displaying no hostility in his every gesture.

“This way, please.”

The figure seemed entirely unsurprised by Lin Qingliu’s arrival, which surprised Lin Qingliu. After all, he had come with the intent to kill Atropos, so the figure’s courtesy seemed odd—surely they didn’t intend to make him vulnerable.

“Atropos wishes to see me?”

“Yes.”

The figure replied.

“Where to?”

“To the sea of consciousness.”

As the figure answered succinctly, he leaned forward, revealing a transparent skull with a brain floating in liquid inside.

Lin Qingliu reached out and subtly pointed, sending a wisp of his consciousness into Atropos’s sea of consciousness.

In the limitless void, buildings roamed and collided in disarray, constantly forming new structures or scenes.

Some of those buildings were grand and towering, some were exquisitely delicate, others seemed to have emerged from history, while some exuded a style filled with near-futuristic design.

A path unfurled before Lin Qingliu, and he walked forward, arriving at a pure white room at the end, where he encountered an elderly man.

“Atropos?”

“It’s me.”

“Did you need something?”

“Yes, please sit down and let’s talk.”

The old man reached forward, and a chair rose from the ground. Lin Qingliu sat down without hesitation.

“It’s a bit late to beg for mercy now.”

Lin Qingliu didn’t believe that mere words could make the other side surrender, but he still needed to maintain his stance.

The old man shook his head slightly.

“There’s no need for that anymore.”

After saying this, he asked,

“Did you see it? The one to the south and the one to the north.”

Lin Qingliu thought for a moment and replied,

“I saw it; I call it the ‘black tide.’”

The old man nodded.

“You should realize it will devour everything, whether it’s humans or us.”

“You don’t intend to use this reason to ally with me, do you?”

Lin Qingliu raised an eyebrow; his principle was simple—the enemy of my enemy is still an enemy. If it isn’t human, it’s an enemy.

“Why would I?”

A rare smile appeared on the old man’s face.

“I dream of eradicating humanity; in this regard, we are no different.”

“Well, then.”

Lin Qingliu chuckled.

“So what do you really want to say?”

“I hope you can answer a few questions for me.”

The old man remained calm and unhurried.

“What’s the cost?”

Lin Qingliu asked.

“The price is my life. Once you have the answers to the questions, Atropos’s domain will completely wither, and what you do afterward will have nothing to do with me.”

The old man’s tone was calm, as if he were discussing a small matter.

“Then I’m willing to answer.”

The old man nodded and then asked seriously,

“Do you know where we came from?”

Lin Qingliu shook his head.

“I don’t know; I only know that initially, it was a human spaceship that had close contact with the cocoons carrying your original forms.”

“So, we are not the masters of this planet?”

Lin Qingliu nodded.

“Next question, are we… creations of humanity?”

“No. If the crew had known the consequences of attacking the cocoons, they would never have acted that way. Although biological engineering had advanced greatly in the Old Era, it had not reached that level yet.”

“Final question, have you seen this symbol?”

Atropos waved his hand slightly, and a simple pattern appeared in the void before them.

It was a rectangle with dimensions reflecting the golden ratio, standing there like a door.

At the four edges of the “door,” points were taken based on the golden section, connecting to form a new rectangle.

By repeating this process, the pattern was constructed. Atropos extended his hand to enlarge it, but the internal loop still had no end, as if the depths of the pattern contained the entire universe.

Lin Qingliu stared at the pattern for a while, captivated by its exquisite beauty.

After a long moment, Lin Qingliu shook his head.

“I haven’t seen it.”

“Good, I understand.”

Atropos did not show any disappointment; instead, he seemed somewhat intrigued by the human before him.

At the end of his life, he appeared especially talkative.

“My demise has already begun; it won’t be long before Atropos disappears from this world.”

Lin Qingliu nodded.

“Don’t you want to know why?”

The old man asked.

“I do, but it’s unnecessary.”

Lin Qingliu smiled and said,

“I know what you want to say, so I won’t ask. That’s just humanity.”

“Yes, that’s humanity.”