Having found a solution to the soul combustion problem, Chen Luo couldn't manage a smile.
There were tens of thousands of new cities on the surface, each with at least ten million inhabitants. This planet, roughly the same size as the mother world before its upgrade, was packed with billions of people.
Under unlimited energy, the Nine Dragons' productivity had reached an extreme. They indiscriminately cultivated and herded humans across the globe.
But these humans were merely the sustenance required for the high-ranking Soul Masters to survive.
Thinking of the happy smiles of his four disciples over the past few months as they fought the Nine Dragons and liberated the new cities.
Chen Luo couldn't tell them that to survive, they would have to feed on mortal souls, just like the Nine Dragons.
Seeing Chen Luo fall into an eerie silence, the city's intelligent system wisely shut up.
After a moment, Chen Luo withdrew his fist, which had been buried in the glass curtain wall. Without a word, he continued down the stairs to the lower levels.
A method to solve the soul combustion problem had been found. The remaining task was to clean up the trash in this world.
Chen Luo, the master, would fulfill the destiny in place of his disciples.
According to the main brain, all the Apostle-level beings and the Nine Dragons had gathered at Zero Battlefield.
As Chen Luo advanced, he didn't need to ask the intelligent system where Zero Battlefield was.
Because ever since he stepped into this disgusting and blasphemous human breeding ground, Chen Luo had clearly felt it.
At the end of these stairs, deep within this land, an increasingly strong fetal movement was emanating.
Certain beings being nurtured were about to be born!
...
The Kowloon Walled City, buried deep underground, was vast enough in area to rival a thousand ordinary new cities on the surface.
But as he continued to descend, an even more expansive and terrifying world slowly unfolded before Chen Luo's eyes.
Beside the constantly descending passage, the equally constantly extending glass curtain walls seemed to have no end.
As Chen Luo walked, the deformed corpses behind the glass curtain walls became fewer, and their ages increased.
Under the bright lights, the endless corpses suspended in the pale red liquid on both sides of the glass curtain walls gave Chen Luo the illusion of walking in hell.
And Chen Luo knew very well that behind the glass curtain walls, there were many rooms connected to these cultivation tanks.
These included massive "recycling rooms" that functioned as industrial meat grinders, as well as many rooms for brainwashing and screening.
Metal hooks hovered in the pale red liquid. Humans, once caught, were like pigs in a factory.
Only by coming here could one truly understand why Fang Zheng had collapsed.
The Nine Dragons had reshaped the entire world. Both humans and Soul Masters could be mass-produced by the Nine Dragons.
Even age was no longer an absolute number. The memories of childhood in many Soul Masters' minds were merely the result of the Nine Dragons' brainwashing.
As they grew, the Nine Dragons would constantly use brainwashing techniques to imprint themselves onto their minds.
Obeying the Nine Dragons had become the deepest part of their subconscious.
New cities stood tall on the land. With billions of people, it seemed that humanity had reached unprecedented prosperity.
But in essence, they were merely pastures destined to be harvested.
In fact, if humans, once completely brainwashed and lacking sufficient real-life experience, did not have their soul value greatly diminished during harvesting,
Perhaps the breeding grounds would have been directly connected to the slaughterhouses, and the new cities on the surface might not have existed.
Only by witnessing the Nine Dragons' manipulation of humanity could one understand that the so-called resistance army was merely a group of surviving rats from the old era!
Only by living among the Nine Dragons could Fang Zheng truly understand this suffocation.
And all the pressure had finally erupted after he witnessed this breeding ground that had cast humanity into the dust.
The result was that an Iron Man, who had been undercover for many years behind enemy lines, had completely collapsed after that.
...
On the brightly lit stairs, Chen Luo's footsteps did not stop again. He continued to move deeper.
Even the longest road has an end. When the surrounding cultivation tanks became sparse, Chen Luo finally reached the end of the path.
What appeared before Chen Luo was an ordinary elevator, the kind one sees in an apartment building every day.
"My lord, this elevator is the only passage directly to Zero Battlefield. Even I don't know what lies at the end of it."
"If you wish to go to Zero Battlefield, I will open the elevator for you now."
Seeing Chen Luo nod slightly, the silver elevator doors slowly opened.
Ding...
Chen Luo calmly walked into the empty elevator. As the elevator doors closed,
In Chen Luo's eyes, the hellish human breeding ground outside the elevator stood silently.
After the elevator doors closed, Chen Luo's vision was completely blocked.
Inside the elevator, with only Chen Luo, even his breathing was clearly audible.
The elevator had no buttons, but the moment the doors closed, Chen Luo felt a continuous sense of weightlessness. The elevator was plummeting downwards at an unimaginable high speed.
Chen Luo's reflection was cast on the elevator's mirror-like doors.
The young man's face no longer held his usual gentle smile. His eyes were as calm as a frozen lake, but if one looked closely,
Deep within those dark, profound eyes, endless flames were burning.
Ding....
The sense of weightlessness instantly disappeared, and with a crisp sound, the elevator doors opened again.
And this time, what greeted Chen Luo's eyes was a pitch-black darkness.
Chen Luo calmly stepped out of the only elevator that still flickered with light, stepping into an endless world of darkness.
Gazing at the profound darkness all around, a smile reappeared on Chen Luo's lips:
"The guests have arrived. The hosts should come out to greet them!!"
"I really, really want to kill you all quickly!!!"
Thump!!
As Chen Luo's words fell, within the endless darkness, a muffled thunderous heartbeat suddenly sounded.
The next moment,
In the darkness, streaks of bloody moons suddenly lit up!
No, these were not moons! They were blood-red eyeballs!
"Heh heh, guests? We don't recall inviting you!"
"I remember you! Invader from another world!! You deserve to die!!"
"Ah! I want to go back to the sea! I knew I shouldn't have come back. All my poor little secretaries are dead, and I'm dying too!"
"Shut up, Dickens! It is an infinite honor for us to contribute to our lord's great cause! How dare you speak such nonsense!"
"Alright, alright, mighty Neumann, I know I was wrong!"
"Aaaah! Evolve! Evolve!! Ultimate!!!"
"Heh heh, it seems Dickens, your strength is the limit of maintaining self-awareness. There are also gaps between Apostle-level beings. Those who are too weak can't even maintain their self-awareness."
"This is so interesting, I really want to study it!!"
"Shut up! Rady! I, Kyle, can't believe I have to stay with trash like you until the end!!! I want to get out, I want to kill that traitor Fang Zheng!!!"