In the vast expanse of high-latitude starry skies.
The Bone Colossus sat upon a bronze throne.
Suddenly, two eerie green flames flickered violently within its hollow eye sockets.
"This aura…"
A hoarse voice, like the whispers of countless lost souls, echoed through the void.
Slowly, it raised its head, its gaze piercing through endless time and space to land upon a distant corner.
There—the battlefield of the Great Thousand Worlds!
"So... so this is it…"
The Bone Shepherd's voice trembled, its skeletal frame creaking as if in agitation or fury.
"Heaven's Dao… I see now!"
Its bony fingers clenched abruptly, shattering the surrounding stars into dust!
"You dare drag that existence into your scheme?!"
"You dare… do this?!"
"Reapers... so that's it... that's it!!"
The Bone Shepherd's wrath threatened to incinerate the cosmos as it finally understood—
The true purpose of that damned Heaven's Dao!
The Reapers, minor worlds, the Great Thousand War, the struggle for faith, the tide of abominations… all of it was part of Heaven's Dao's accursed script!
And it—believing it had found the right path by slaying Reapers—had been utterly, disastrously wrong!
From beginning to end, it had been dancing to Heaven's Dao's tune!
But…
"Heh… hehehe…"
The Bone Shepherd suddenly chuckled, its laughter dripping with icy malice.
"That existence…"
"You actually dared to involve that existence in your script."
"I… will never forgive this!"
With those words, it slowly raised a skeletal finger and gently tapped the air.
Hum—!
A pale beam of light separated from its fingertip, streaking through the void toward the most radiant of the Great Thousand Worlds!
......
......
Time flowed steadily onward.
Deep within a shadowy cavern on the Great Thousand battlefield.
The damp walls were covered in clusters of squirming insect eggs, their viscous fluids dripping to the ground with a corrosive hiss.
The members of the Black Crow Squad held their breath, advancing with utmost caution.
"Captain, this place… feels way too creepy," one member gulped, his voice shaking.
"Shut it."
Night Owl shot him a cold glare, his masked eyes sharp as blades. "The mission target is just ahead. Don’t cause trouble."
The others fell silent and pressed forward.
At the cavern’s end, the space abruptly widened—
A massive cocoon hung at the center, its surface covered in dark chitin, something writhing faintly within.
"That’s it…"
Night Owl took a deep breath and pulled out a crystal shimmering with an eerie blue light from his chest.
[Worldbreaker Key]
A mission item issued by Heaven’s Dao Space, designed specifically to break the seal on the Insect Queen.
"All units, prepare to release the target!"
Night Owl barked the order, and the Black Crow Squad members swiftly took defensive positions.
Weapons trained on the cocoon, ready for any sudden threats.
He raised the Worldbreaker Key high—its glow intensifying until it erupted into a beam, striking the cocoon!
Crack—!
A fissure split the cocoon’s surface, spewing forth a torrent of black fluid!
"SCREEE—!"
A piercing shriek tore through the cavern as the cocoon convulsed violently, its chitin shell fracturing!
"It’s coming!"
Night Owl’s pupils constricted as he roared, "Full alert!"
But the next moment—
BOOM—!
The cocoon exploded—yet instead of the expected form of the Insect Queen…
What emerged was a grotesque fusion of pale bones and a spider’s body!!
The skeletal spider slowly rose, emerald flames flickering in its hollow eye sockets.
It glanced down at its bony limbs, its voice a rasping echo from the abyss:
"The Insect Queen…"
"Heh. To think a branch of your kind still lingers in this world."
"If only…"
The Bone Spider paused mid-sentence as its gaze fell upon the Black Crow Squad.
Night Owl froze under that hollow stare, the Worldbreaker Key slipping from his fingers and clattering to the ground.
What… what is this?!
An overwhelming pressure crushed down on them all.
They swallowed hard, their bodies locked in terror, unable to move.
"Oh?"
The Bone Spider’s eyes swept over the squad, its mouth twisting into a ghastly grin.
"The stench of Heaven’s Dao."
"You… are connected to it?"
Night Owl opened his mouth to speak—but in the next instant.
Squelch!!
The Bone Spider clenched its bony fist—
Night Owl’s body twisted grotesquely, flesh and bones crushed by an invisible force, reduced to a mist of blood that splattered across his comrades!
"ARGHHHHHH!!!!"
"CAPTAIN!!!"
The Black Crow Squad lost their minds. Their S-rank captain… gone, just like that?!
The Bone Spider prepared to continue its slaughter but hesitated upon seeing Cold Crow and Blood Crow.
Yet, mercy was not in the cards.
Instead—its fury only grew.
"HEAVEN’S DAO!!!"
The Bone Spider roared in frenzy. "YOU DARE!! YOU DARE TAINT THAT EXISTENCE WITH YOUR FILTHY POWER?!"
"That existence is our King! The one who leads us!"
"YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!!!"
POP! POP! POP!
One after another, bodies burst apart.
"NOOOO!!! RETURN!! LET ME RETURN NOW!!"
A surviving member turned and fled in sheer panic.
His eyes were glued to his system panel.
[System Notification: Mission successful. Returning to Heaven’s Dao Space.]
[3...2...1... Initiating return!]
Yes! Thank god!
Since they’d technically completed the mission by breaking the seal, escape was possible!
But then—
BZZZT!!!
Glitched code flooded his mission interface, followed by a glaring red warning.
[WARNING!! Unknown interference detected!! Return suspended!]
The man’s face twisted in horror.
"I’m done for…"
Splat!
His final thought before oblivion.
Meanwhile, the Bone Spider stepped out of the cavern, its gaze lifting to the golden leaderboard in the sky—lingering on the words "Netherfrost Divine Realm"—before dissolving into black mist.
My King…
We will meet again soon.
......
......
In the rest area of the battlefield camp.
[Two members with 100% loyalty have perished!]
"?"
Qin Luo set down a tray of freshly baked cream puffs on the coffee table.
Frowning, he studied the system notification.
Two fully loyal members dead?
He performed a quick divination—then his eyes sharpened.
"What’s wrong?"
Su Muwan, munching on potato chips, tilted her head in question.
After a pause, Qin Luo spoke quietly:
"The two we planted in Heaven’s Dao Space—the ones in the Black Crow Squad—are dead."
Su Muwan blinked. "They’re dead? Were they exposed?"
Qin Luo took a deep breath, his expression grave. "Not exactly."
The fact that even the captain of the Black Crow Squad had fallen was precisely why he saw trouble ahead.
At the tail end of the Great War, an incident like this...
Qin Luo couldn't shake a growing sense of foreboding.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
