"What is it?!"
Zhang Chen suddenly dodged to the side, rolled on the ground, and then swung his divine iron long sword towards the black shadow.
However... just as the long sword was about to strike the black shadow.
Zhang Chen froze!
He saw an octopus, about a meter long, floating in mid-air. Its massive head had a single, tightly closed eye.
"Guji..."
"Xiao Ruan's... kin?"
Zhang Chen was taken aback.
"Guji~"
"Guji guji..."
"Gugu..."
Countless Gromos floated out from the surrounding crystal clusters.
They looked at Zhang Chen curiously, their eight legs swaying softly in mid-air.
"Have I arrived at the Gromos' nest?"
Zhang Chen paused slightly, then quickly came to his senses.
Someone had said before that Gromos were not products of the apocalypse world because they possessed the ability to absorb energy and traverse space.
Creatures created by the meteorites of creation and destruction in the apocalypse did not have such powerful interdimensional abilities.
It was highly likely that Gromos were lifeforms from a higher dimension.
Now, Zhang Chen had finally found them.
They lived at the very top of the Pillar of Life.
There was nothing to eat here, only divine iron ore and the vast amount of energy it contained.
And Gromos just happened to feed on energy.
"What a marvelous race!"
Seeing that these Gromos were not hostile towards him but were surrounding him with curiosity, Zhang Chen relaxed his guard.
"Guji!"
Suddenly, a teleportation gate opened out of nowhere, and Xiao Ruan floated in.
"Xiao Ruan?"
Zhang Chen was overjoyed.
"Weren't you with Zhang Wenwen? Did you sense my presence and come back?!"
"Guji!"
Xiao Ruan affectionately rubbed against Zhang Chen, then floated above the group for a moment.
It seemed to be introducing its master, Zhang Chen, to the others.
"Guji..."
"Gugu..."
"Guji guji..."
The surrounding Gromos then relaxed. One by one, they floated out from behind the divine iron crystal clusters they were hiding in, approaching Zhang Chen and forming a circle.
"What, you've become the leader of the race?"
"Well done, Xiao Ruan!"
Zhang Chen said, smiling and gently stroking Xiao Ruan's smooth head.
"Guji..."
"Don't be modest. Also, what's with the cracked crystal in the middle?"
"Are the core meteorites of creation and destruction from the apocalypse, and the time and space meteorites from Chen Xiao's world, all from here?"
Zhang Chen asked.
"Guji..."
"As expected, but how did this crystal break?"
"Guji..."
"Nobody knows? The secret of the crystal is the secret of the entire world?"
Zhang Chen repeated Xiao Ruan's words.
What secret could the entire world hold? The origin of everything?
However, to be honest, Zhang Chen wasn't interested in the origin of the world.
No matter how it originated, it had originated. He had no intention of destroying the world or becoming a conqueror of the multiverse.
He just wanted to live a quiet life.
"Guji..."
"Are you saying... these three meteorite cores will leave the Pillar of Life?"
"Does the Pillar of Life belong to the multiverse?"
Zhang Chen felt that Xiao Ruan's words had suddenly become profound.
Suddenly, the crystal cracked open again with a large fissure.
This time, the last pink crystal shattered.
"Guji!"
Xiao Ruan let out a loud cry and rushed towards the crystal.
It seemed to want to prevent the crystal from shattering.
However, a powerful force directly repelled it.
In front of these meteorite cores, even Gromos appeared exceptionally weak.
Crack...
The cracks grew larger, and a large portion of the pink core detached from its original crystal body.
The three meteorite fragments were already repelling each other.
The repulsive force, combined with the force of shattering and detachment, caused the massive crystal fragments to fly towards the edge of the Pillar of Life.
And during their flight, several small pieces of the core broke off.
"We can't let it fall into a parallel world, or the Pillar of Life will shatter, and the existing parallel worlds will be re-shuffled?!"
Zhang Chen understood Xiao Ruan's words.
A re-shuffling of the entire world would mean that everything within it, including civilizations, buildings, and creatures—and of course, humans, including those Zhang Chen knew—would instantly disappear, replaced by a new world, new civilizations...
"Damn it, we can't let them disappear!"
If the Gromos couldn't approach the meteorites, then he had to do it himself!
Zhang Chen roared, disregarding everything else.
He had only one belief in his heart: he could not let his friends, loved ones, and family disappear.
Perhaps this was the ultimate meaning of him absorbing the meteorite core and climbing the Pillar of Life.
As for what would happen if he touched the third meteorite core, he had no time to consider.
Whoosh!
Zhang Chen rushed forward with all his might.
Fortunately, the speed at which the meteorite detached was not fast. Zhang Chen, starting later, quickly caught up.
However, the moment he reached out towards the third meteorite fragment, his divine iron armor began to shatter and vaporize.
It didn't turn into liquid but simply evaporated and disappeared.
After the divine iron vanished, the flesh and blood on his arm also began to vaporize, evaporate, and then his bones...
Slowly, his entire forearm, which was close to the meteorite, disappeared.
But Zhang Chen did not stop. He continued to push forward.
Although getting close would cause vaporization, as long as his speed was faster than the vaporization speed, he would definitely be able to touch the meteorite and change its trajectory.
As long as he prevented it from falling to the outer edge of the Pillar of Life, he would have succeeded!
He was going all out!
"Stop!"
Zhang Chen brought his body as close as possible to the meteorite core, enduring the pain of his muscle tissue vaporizing, and swung his right hand forcefully.
Bang!
"Oh no!"
Just as his vaporizing right arm was about to touch the pink meteorite core, the meteorite core shattered again, splitting into a palm-sized fragment that struck Zhang Chen's severed arm.
Shoo!
The areas where the meteorite core made contact began to vaporize continuously.
By this time, Zhang Chen had lost both arms. His shoulders and chest were also starting to vaporize, and his legs could no longer muster any strength.
In this way, he could only watch helplessly as the fragmented core pieces, like an unstoppable force, tore through his body and collided with the energy core within him.
Boom!
A blinding white light flashed.
Zhang Chen and the meteorite fragment vanished together.
The large pink meteorite core, however, flew directly to the edge of the Pillar of Life, bounced a few times on the ground, and then plunged into the clouds...