The temple disciples, who had been so aggressive, were all taken aback when they saw Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang. They stared at the two women in a daze.
The humans in this world generally resembled Easterners on Earth, but were noticeably shorter. Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, who were considered tall even among Eastern women on Earth, appeared even more imposing and astonishing to the people of this other world. Their delicate features and slender figures were incomparably perfect in this world. Coupled with their uniquely styled white combat uniforms, they appeared even more heroic and stunningly beautiful. The temple disciples had never seen such beauties before, and upon seeing them, they were naturally awestruck and unable to resist their charm.
A fairy... This must be a fairy descended from heaven, otherwise how could there be such a beautiful woman on earth?
Almost every disciple of the temple had this thought as the first thing that popped into their mind after seeing Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang.
How could someone protected by two such beautiful fairies possibly be a messenger of a demon? For a moment, many people began to seriously question the Grand Elder's words.
"Kill him... Hurry up and kill him! What are you all standing there for? Do you also want to betray the temple?"
As soon as the tent on the ostrich's back was dismantled, the elders standing below could vaguely see the three people above. Although they were far away and could not see Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang's faces clearly, they were both stunningly beautiful. Even just a figure standing at a distance would inspire admiration in people.
Upon seeing this, the Grand Elder immediately realized that things were not going well. The longer the matter was delayed, the more disadvantageous it would be for him. He immediately shouted angrily and urged them to hurry up.
No one could bear the crime of betraying the temple. If this crime were confirmed, they would be burned alive on the spot. So, although the temple disciples suspected that Zhou Ziwei might not be the messenger of some demon as the Grand Elder claimed, the Grand Elder was the one who had the final say in the temple. With the power granted by the temple, the Grand Elder was like a god's representative on earth. If he said you were human, you were human; if he said you were a demon, you should be burned alive. For a long time, it seemed that few people dared to question the Grand Elder's authority.
Even though the temple disciples were unwilling, they were afraid of angering the Grand Elder and being burned alive, so they had no choice but to draw their weapons...
Volume 2 The Assassin's Nightmare Chapter 414 This World... Just As Expected
Just as the dozen or so temple disciples who had climbed onto the ostrich's back drew their swords, blinding red beams suddenly shot out from Zhou Ziwei's motionless body. Each beam of red light corresponded to an arm that had drawn a sword, and in an instant, both the sword and the hand were reduced to nothing by the intense heat generated by the red beams.
Screams rose and fell, and in the blink of an eye, more than half of the dozen or so temple disciples who had climbed up had lost an arm out of thin air and fell down with cries of pain.
Only a few lucky ones, who were standing in the middle and couldn't free their hands to draw their swords because of the crowd around them, remained.
The lucky few looked at each other, but none of them had the courage to draw their swords. However, the Grand Elder was still watching from below. If they did nothing, they would likely be charged with betraying the temple and burned alive. Compared to that, losing an arm at most seemed a slightly better deal.
After carefully considering their options for a moment, the two temple disciples, who considered themselves somewhat clever, finally gritted their teeth and drew their short swords from their waists...
However, they soon realized they were wrong, and this time they made a fatal mistake. The previous temple disciples who drew their swords had only lost the arm that could draw them, but that did not mean that anyone who dared to continue to provoke the divine child in this way would have the same good fortune.
As it turns out, the previous punishments of losing an arm were merely a warning, and if anyone dared to disobey this silent warning, their fate would be only one thing... that is, to completely vanish from the face of the earth.
Two dark red rays, noticeably thicker than before, suddenly erupted from Zhou Ziwei's chest just as the two men had drawn their short swords halfway out. This time, however, the scorching dark red rays did not strike the hand that had drawn the sword, but instead shot directly between the waist and abdomen of the two men.
A burst of scorching light erupted from the thick ray, instantly transforming into a massive ball of flame that completely engulfed the two men. In less than three seconds, the two lively individuals vanished from their spot, their short swords and half-armor burned to ashes.
Strangely, the flames completely incinerated the two temple disciples before leaping away and disappearing, without touching the back of the massive ostrich beast at all.
Seeing this scene, everyone in the square was stunned. These people from the temple were all well-traveled and knowledgeable, but none of them had ever seen such a terrifying and bizarre scene. Now, many of them were beginning to believe what the Grand Elder had said. Perhaps this terrifying young man really was a messenger of the devil! Otherwise, how could he be so cruel?
What truly terrified everyone was Zhou Ziwei's indifference! After so cruelly killing two living people, they clearly saw that Zhou Ziwei was still sitting there motionless, his expression serene and natural, his eyes still slightly narrowed, as if he were dozing off. He showed no sign of the tension that followed the killing, as if what had just happened had nothing to do with him.
This guy... is too cold-blooded. Is he even human?
Actually, while Zhou Ziwei was indeed involved in what had just happened, it wasn't a major factor, because he was still in a state of closed senses and was completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world.
All the attacks were autonomously controlled by the independent soul within the alloy suit on Zhou Ziwei's body. Even the timing of each attack and the intensity of the attack on each target were all determined by the independent soul within the alloy suit itself.
Although they are both independent soul entities, their spirituality is completely different.
An independent soul created from a living organism is clearly more spiritual than an independent soul created from an ordinary non-living organism.
However, this alloy suit is an exception, because it incorporates some divine power. Therefore, it was extremely difficult to create an independent soul entity. It took Zhou Ziwei nearly 20,000 units of his soul power to create it successfully. It was as if half of Zhou Ziwei's soul had been cut off. Naturally, it was extraordinary. It was not only quite spiritual, but also had a certain degree of room for self-thinking and growth.
In any respect, this differentiated independent soul is almost equivalent to Zhou Ziwei's second soul. However, because it was created by Zhou Ziwei's main soul, it is instinctively suppressed by Zhou Ziwei's main soul.
In fact, splitting one's own soul in half to create an independent soul entity is a very dangerous thing, because after possessing half the energy of the main soul entity, the intelligence of this newly born independent soul entity will definitely not be lower than that of the main soul entity.
Every soul possesses a selfish nature. As long as the main soul exists, the independent soul that has differentiated itself will forever remain in a subordinate position.
If the main soul body is always stronger than the differentiated independent soul body, then it will naturally be able to suppress the independent soul body completely. However, if the main soul body suddenly weakens, or even becomes weaker than the differentiated independent soul body, then it is very likely to encounter a backlash from the independent soul body. At that time, Zhou Ziwei's own soul might be controlled by the independent soul body in the alloy armor.
Just imagine a living person being controlled by a piece of clothing, which tells you to go east and you dare not go west – that would be absolutely terrifying.
Zhou Ziwei was completely unaware of this possibility. Fortunately, shortly after creating the independent soul entity of this alloy suit, Zhou Ziwei absorbed a large amount of soul power, which increased the solidity of his soul again and again. Now, it is far beyond what the independent soul entity in the alloy suit can compare to.
If Zhou Ziwei's soul does not weaken to the same extent as before, there will be no more danger of backlash.
The Grand Elder and the others clearly did not expect Zhou Ziwei to be so dismissive of their temple's power. Even though he had come to the main temple's headquarters, he showed no humility befitting an outsider. He not only showed no respect for the Grand Elder, but also injured so many people with a single move and completely killed two of the temple's disciples.
Now that things have come to this, even if the Grand Elder regrets his decision and wants to acknowledge Zhou Ziwei's status as the Divine Child again and get along with him again, it is completely impossible. Moreover, the Grand Elder is absolutely unwilling to let his absolute authority in the temple be suppressed by an outsider.
What kind of bullshit "Divine Child" is that? That's just nonsense spouted by some temple ancestors years ago after indulging in too much wine and women. He, the Grand Elder, has worked his whole life to earn this position. Why should he give up a portion of his hard-earned supreme power to someone else just because of a sentence his ancestors once recorded on the altar?
In truth, these elders are just like Protector Mo. Although they have lived in the temple their whole lives and held high positions, deep down they do not believe that the creator god they have always worshipped truly exists.
It is precisely because he does not believe in God at all that he can disregard the prophecy of the temple prophets about the God Child in order to protect his existing interests.
"Activate the temple's destructive divine light and kill him—" When the Grand Elder saw that the last few survivors who had just climbed onto the ostrich beast's back no longer had the courage to attack Zhou Ziwei and were scrambling back, he didn't make things difficult for them or force them to go up and die.
Since human power is useless, let's use the power of the gods! Destruction God Light—this is the most powerful ultimate power in the main temple. Unlike the divine light released by ordinary temples, the destructive power of this Destruction God Light is terrifying to the extreme. Anyone or anything swept by the Destruction God Light will be completely reduced to nothing in an instant. Such powerful force is beyond human resistance.
In fact, the main temple also has the ordinary divine light attack method. However, the Grand Elder knew that Zhou Ziwei had been attacked by the ordinary divine light once before. Not only did that attack not kill him, but it also gave him the source of divine power. Therefore, the Grand Elder did not waste the ordinary divine light again and planned to directly bring out the temple's ultimate weapon.
"No! Elder!" Upon hearing the words "divine light of destruction," the old charlatan was terrified and cried out in panic, "Elder, the person above is indeed the divine child mentioned in the prophet's prophecy... Elder, you must see clearly and absolutely must not do such a blasphemous thing!"
"Release him!" the elder roared. "You traitor who betrayed the temple and colluded with the devil, how dare you turn around and accuse me of blasphemy... Take this traitor away!"
Several elders of the main temple, upon hearing the Grand Elder's order, also became somewhat worried. One of them, emboldened, advised, "Grand Elder, although the devil's messenger is indeed wicked, but... could we try other methods to reform him? This... once the Light of Destruction is activated, it will cause considerable damage to the divine tower itself... This main temple has only activated the Light of Destruction three times in its history, but because of these three times, the degree of decay of the divine tower has far exceeded that of the other twenty-six ordinary divine towers. This... do you think we can use another method..."
"Hmph... any other method?" The Grand Elder snorted coldly and said, "This demon wields the power of the devil. What other method can we use to subdue him besides the Light of Destruction? If Elder Xu has a solution, please speak up. I will definitely adopt it if it is feasible. But if it is a foolish move that we are not confident in, then let's not waste our time! Can't you see that this boy must have suffered a serious injury on Wolong Mountain and is still meditating to heal his wounds. He is not yet able to move on his own."
"If we delay him too long, and he regains his ability to move freely, then... I'm afraid even if we unleash the Destruction God's Light again, we might not be able to hit him. And in that case... hehe... haven't you heard? This guy is a monster who single-handedly fought against hundreds of thousands of troops on Wolong Mountain... and most of the troops in Xianjing City have already been sent out to participate in the defense of Wolong Mountain. If this kid recovers his strength, who will be able to stop him then?"
Elder Xu was slightly taken aback upon hearing this, then sighed and finally said nothing more.
"Prepare to launch the Divine Light of Destruction. Everyone, retreat to within 500 meters of the target..." The Grand Elder's order was immediately transmitted to the tower through a special method, and soon a voice rang out from the tower in front of the plaza.
Upon hearing the warning, the crowd in the square quickly retreated to a safe distance.
Although none of the people present had ever seen what the Destruction God Light looked like, they were already very familiar with this most powerful ultimate attack method of the temple. The Great Xia Dynasty in history had encountered three disasters that almost led to its demise. In the end, it used this Destruction God Light to kill the enemy leaders who had attacked Xianjing City, thus turning defeat into victory and escaping the fate of national subjugation.
Moreover, it is said that the radius of this destructive divine light reaches a terrifying hundred meters. Within the nearly hundred-meter range of the destructive divine light, any matter will be reduced to ashes under its illumination.
Therefore, before that divine light appeared, anyone who got too close would be affected, and naturally no one would dare to test it.
Everyone in the temple retreated, leaving only a huge ostrich beast and three people on its back in the center of the square.
Taming an ostrich is quite difficult, and there are only five ostriches in the entire temple, making them very precious. However, it is impossible to remove the ostriches now, so they have no choice but to prepare to sacrifice them all.
Although Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang couldn't understand the language of the Great Xia Dynasty and didn't know what the Grand Elder had just said, anyone who wasn't an idiot could guess from the reactions of the people below that the other side was about to use extremely powerful weapons; otherwise, those people wouldn't have retreated in such a panic.
Although they knew in their hearts that staying here would be extremely dangerous, neither of the two women intended to leave Zhou Ziwei's side. They exchanged a tacit glance, then retreated to Zhou Ziwei's side, sitting down on either side of him, gently leaning against him, quietly waiting for death to come.
Just then, Zhou Ziwei's eyelids twitched slightly, and he finally slowly opened his eyes.
The red light in his eyes was much dimmer than before, but it had not been completely eliminated.
The 400,000 souls in the Sea of Souls had not yet been completely purified. However, Zhou Ziwei received a message from the independent soul on the alloy armor, informing him that the temple might launch a terrifying attack on him. Under these circumstances, he had no choice but to temporarily stop purifying the souls.
However, Zhou Ziwei woke up a little too late. Just as he realized that the situation was not good, he released a wisp of wind energy in an attempt to ride the tornado and the two women beside him away from the back of the ostrich beast and head towards the dozen or so temple elders. Suddenly, a blinding white light shone down from the towering tower in front of the square.
It was a huge pillar of light, several hundred meters wide. Although Zhou Ziwei had already ridden the tornado and carried the two women into the air, he still couldn't fly out of the area covered by the pillar of light before it appeared.
In the next moment, Zhou Ziwei and the other two seemed to be frozen in place, suddenly suspended high in the air, showing no signs of struggling.
"Hahaha... Die! Die, all of you! What divine son? I am the true ruler of the temple... Hahahaha..." Seeing Zhou Ziwei and the other two enveloped in the divine light of destruction, unable to escape, the Grand Elder couldn't help but burst into excited laughter.
But after the Grand Elder laughed wildly for a while, he discovered that although the three were trapped in the divine light and unable to escape, they did not turn everything to ashes as the legends said... This... it had been so long, and the three were still high in the divine light, showing no sign of disappearing. The Grand Elder's heart immediately sank...
"DNA testing confirmed... Cell sample analysis confirmed... Electroencephalogram analysis confirmed... Friends from the main plane, TX-3 Artificial Pilot Dimension Optical Brain Robot No. 006 welcomes you..."
Just three seconds after being enveloped by that enormous pillar of light, a strange, stiff, and mechanical voice suddenly rang in the minds of Zhou Ziwei and the other two, startling them all.
The main plane, the artificial pilot plane... just as I thought...
Upon hearing that stiff and strange voice, Zhou Ziwei suddenly realized what was happening, followed by immense horror.
This place... is indeed a man-made world. No wonder it's so strange. Apart from a vast landmass and a huge fireball in the sky that could barely be called a sun, there are no other celestial bodies. It turns out this is a man-made space.
Volume 2: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 415: Return to Earth
A world created by human hands.
It sounds unbelievable, but the facts are undeniable, leaving Zhou Ziwei no choice but to believe it.
However, Zhou Ziwei was certain of one thing: the person capable of creating such a miraculous world was definitely not someone that any country on Earth could do.
Prehistoric civilization?
This is the only answer Zhou Ziwei can think of right now, or perhaps the only possible answer. Although the existence of prehistoric civilizations is a mystery to many, everything Zhou Ziwei sees here is enough to prove the existence of this civilization. If it is not a prehistoric civilization, then perhaps only aliens could build such a terrifying independent world!
Artificial dimensions are truly baffling. Compared to this technology, the current level of technology on Earth would probably seem no different from that of primitive society to people of that era!
But if prehistoric civilizations were so powerful, why is the technological level of humans in the artificial planes they created so low? Could it be that... a catastrophe that wiped out humanity also occurred in this artificial plane? And the humans in this world today are all people who gradually evolved later?
That's quite possible. If that ancient prehistoric civilization could disappear from Earth, why can't the humans in this artificial dimension become extinct?
It seems that no matter how powerful humanity is, it can never compare to the power of nature, and even the greatest technological civilization will eventually disappear into the long river of history.
What puzzled Zhou Ziwei even more was that... the people here could speak Chinese... and it was very similar to the Chinese spoken on Earth today. Could this language be inherited from a prehistoric civilization? Or... after the civilization in this world disappeared, when new humans evolved, did new humans come here and teach the people here to speak Chinese?
However, this seems unlikely, because the robot that calls itself TX-3 is speaking Chinese, which proves that humans in prehistoric times really did use Chinese as their primary language.
Just as Zhou Ziwei was lost in thought, that stiff and strange voice continued to ring in the minds of the three of them: "This is the procedure for opening an artificial passage to the main plane. Friends from the main plane, please choose whether to open the plane passage. If you choose yes, the artificial plane passage will open in three seconds. Please be prepared."
"Wait a minute..." Zhou Ziwei was slightly taken aback when he heard the robot, number 006, say that the beam of light was actually a dimensional portal leading to the main plane of Earth. He was overjoyed after a moment of surprise.
However, upon hearing that he would be teleported away in three seconds after the passage opened, Zhou Ziwei suddenly became anxious again.
Zhou Ziwei had already learned through the independent soul of the alloy-clad elder that the elder had tried to kill him. Zhou Ziwei wasn't the type to hold a grudge; if someone wanted to kill him, he certainly wouldn't let that person get away with it. If he were teleported away like this, he probably wouldn't have another chance to come back and take revenge. And that elder might even think that the three of them had really been killed in that pillar of light... Wouldn't that make that old bastard ecstatic?
The thought of this filled Zhou Ziwei with rage. He was worried that Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang had opened the dimensional portal with their minds, so he quickly shouted, "Excuse me, Mr. Robot, could we wait a moment before opening this dimensional portal... or... could we open it after a while?"
"Okay..." the mechanical voice replied emotionlessly, "However, the mainframe's energy storage is insufficient. This time, the opening of the dimensional channel can only be delayed for a maximum of fifteen seconds. After fifteen seconds, the energy will be exhausted, and the dimensional channel will not be able to be opened again. Once the energy is completely exhausted, the mainframe will need approximately fifteen years to be able to open again. Please select... whether to open the dimensional channel... waiting time remaining is eight seconds... seven seconds..."
"Fine, seven seconds it is. Can you let me get away from this damn beam of light first?" When Zhou Ziwei heard that if he missed this opportunity, he would have to wait another fifteen years to open it again, he couldn't help but feel annoyed.
However, a few seconds was enough for him; it was just killing someone, it wouldn't take long.
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Ziwei felt his body lighten, and the binding force in the pillar of light disappeared without a trace. However, Chu Qiutang and Wang Xuewei were still suspended in mid-air, their bodies stiff and motionless.
Zhou Ziwei dared not delay and quickly rode his vortex to escape the huge white beam of light, which was hundreds of meters wide, at top speed.
"Ah...he's out...how is this possible...he actually came out of the God of Destruction."
When everyone saw that Zhou Ziwei and the other two were firmly imprisoned within the pillar of light but showed no signs of disappearing, they were already somewhat suspicious. However, they did not expect that in the blink of an eye, Zhou Ziwei would break free from the divine light and fly out directly from it.