Chapter 1 Experiment

Just as Elias was about to send a message, preparing to remind Su Zhou that the water god's followers had begun to act, Su Zhou was in the underground labyrinth, experimenting with the results of his cultivation during this recent period.

-Underground Labyrinth, Seventh Layer, Hurricane Cliff-

Hurricane Cliff is so named because this layer of the labyrinth is subject to extremely destructive, unusually fierce gales from time to time.

These winds erode the rock layers, making almost the entire layer of the labyrinth steep wind-eroded rock, with few flat places to set foot. Even if there are any, they are the habitat of some powerful magical beasts.

Now, a flat mountain platform, clearly the nest of a powerful magical beast, has a black-haired youth standing calmly in the center of the platform, signaling a huge moth-shaped magical beast standing opposite him to attack him.

The youth is wearing a simple short-sleeved shirt and shorts that are convenient for movement. His dress is just like a tourist on a summer beach, and his exposed skin is flashing with layers of gray-white, lustrous light.

"Hurry up!"

The moth beast, whose nest had been occupied, did not dare to complain at all and originally did not dare to attack the person. However, under Su Zhou's slightly impatient urging, it flapped its wings with a mournful cry, fully absorbing the magic power in the surrounding atmosphere, condensing it all on its wings, and then gathering it into a rainbow-light jewel on its forehead, eventually transforming into an incomparably bright beam.

With a buzz, this strike, which gathered all the energy of the moth beast, shook the atmosphere. The mere prelude tore the air into vacuum waves, and the torrent of magic power, formed by the fusion of various elements, caused alternating dryness, humidity, and electric shock phenomena in the surrounding air, making it clear that its power was extraordinary.

But Su Zhou, facing this strike that could pierce giant rocks, simply raised his left hand, steadily blocking it in front of him.

With a bang, the dazzling elemental torrent, upon contacting the palm of Su Zhou's left hand, had layers of gray-white, faint dragon scales rising from the very center of his palm. These scales, which looked very fragile, firmly blocked all the elemental impacts like a dam, with almost no damage to themselves.

Even, if there were extraordinary high-level cultivators present, then they would be able to see that these gray-white scales, after coming into contact with the elemental torrent, began to rapidly change color, quickly transforming the elements they touched into other types of elements—each scale converted a fixed type of element, some only converting water, some only converting fire, and most adjacent scales converted different types of elements.

After these elemental powers were converted by the scales, they began to conflict with each other, cancel each other out, and even transform into pure impact force, flowing out along the grooves on Su Zhou's arm, which seemed to be muscle outlines.

For a time, it could be seen that a long white air shock wave flowed backward along the direction of Su Zhou's elbow joint, and the forward thrust it produced was roughly equal to the backward thrust produced by the elemental torrent in front—Su Zhou didn't even need to use his own power. As long as he ensured the correct angle of his arm, he could block this attack almost without damage!

Soon, the moth beast's full-strength strike ended. The elemental torrent gradually became thinner and smaller, like a river gradually drying up, eventually disappearing—this time, the moth beast performed beyond its usual level. At least, an ordinary low-level transcendent magical beast could never block this strike.

"Not bad!"

But even so, Su Zhou was still unscathed. He clapped his hands, dispelling the green smoke rising from his palm. The youth raised his hand and looked at the scales on his palm with joy—this time, the newly modified scales did not become charred due to frequent element conversion, nor did they collapse and bleed due to overload.

--It remained stable, maintaining its normal shape!

Without a doubt, this proved that, compared to the previous dozens of experiments, this time the corrected scales received less damage and had a higher degree of completion.

"Your strength has exceeded the general standard for extraordinary tiers."

Yala could be heard making a fairly objective comment: "The talent-based magic ability of this low-level extraordinary elemental moth is enough for it to challenge opponents above its tier. If an ordinary mid-level extraordinary magical beast with insufficient defense is hit in a vital area by this elemental beam, it might really be killed in one strike. But your defense can already ignore this level of attack, causing its full-strength strike to be ineffective."

"After all, it's me—if I can't even do this, how can I be worthy of my hard work during this period!"

Su Zhou replied as a matter of course. He clenched his palm, causing the scales on his palm to disappear and sink into his skin. The youth nodded in satisfaction: "It seems that the scale material for the True Body has been confirmed. In addition to the muscle tissue structure that was confirmed some time ago, after a while, I can officially start storing physical mass and start the True Body cultivation transformation."

Previously, the scales that appeared in the center of Su Zhou's palm were a secondary extraordinary organ that Su Zhou had modified and degraded from the Peacock Divine Bird's 'Five-Colored Spiritual Feathers'.

The original Five-Colored Spiritual Feathers can rapidly and freely convert spiritual power of various attributes, allowing one spiritual power to radiate multiple characteristics. It is a highly efficient spiritual energy converter and storage device.

However, the structure of the Five-Colored Spiritual Feathers is too delicate and complex, making it difficult to shape and repair. Even if it is converted into Five-Colored Spiritual Scales, it cannot conceal its characteristics—although this extraordinary organ is sturdy, it is difficult to repair and regenerate, and it cannot be used as a daily consumption item, especially as a body material for defense.

Therefore, Su Zhou simply degraded it, removing the multi-type spiritual power free conversion function of the Five-Colored Spiritual Scales, so that it could only convert one type, like a processor with reduced performance. In this way, he had extra space to strengthen the scale structure and greatly accelerate the regeneration speed.

"It's just a pity that there is still an upper limit to the conversion speed of the dragon scales. If the limit is exceeded, they will explode—if it were at the level of the Five-Colored Spiritual Scales, even a torrent of high-level extraordinary spiritual power could be blocked, but the degraded version of the dragon scales is already very strenuous to block a full-strength attack from a low-level extraordinary magical beast."

Therefore, Su Zhou was still not very satisfied with the defense of this scale. However, fortunately, being able to explode also had its advantages. This meant that the gray-white dragon scales could become a structure similar to reactive armor. If they really couldn't block an attack, they could also reduce the enemy's damage to him through self-destruction.

If it really didn't work, Su Zhou could also throw out the overloaded scales and use them as explosive scale bombs to attack his opponents.

--Although it sounded somewhat similar to the ability of a certain world police officer, but thinking about it carefully, Su Zhou was also a righteous policeman. Since everyone was a policeman, it was normal to have similarities.

"Buzz?"

At this time, the moth beast that had launched the attack earlier to help Su Zhou conduct the experiment made a soft sound, seemingly cautiously asking Su Zhou, who had successfully completed the test, smiled and waved to the other party: "Alright, I'll leave right away, I won't continue to bother you."

After saying that, he used the Gale Armor to control the wind and left the platform, leaving the moth beast in place, shaking its wings as if relieved, and then slumped to the ground.

Just as Su Zhou was preparing to find a place in the seventh layer of the labyrinth to continue his cultivation, he also received a notification from Elias.

"Is that so, the enemy is coming? I knew that the water god's followers couldn't have no reaction for so long. It turns out that they have been acting separately and attacking other cities recently."

Su Zhou nodded slightly, and immediately felt that the recent peace had an explanation. However, for the sake of caution, he still asked, "Are you sure that the merchant team member who sent the message isn't a spy?"

"No." Behind the communication device, Elias's voice came, the young man seriously explaining: "We tested according to the method you left behind earlier, and did not find any inhuman signs. He is not a fish-man, but a pure human."

"Is that so. In that case, we must be prepared to resist the enemy's impact."

Although Su Zhou felt that even if that chamber of commerce member was not a spy, he could not trust the other party's one-sided words, the information that the water god's followers were raging around the world could not be faked and could be easily proved to be true. There was no need for the other party to cheat in this regard.

During this period when Su Zhou was recently training his abilities in the underground labyrinth, Elias had also not wasted any time.

Through the known news of the 'water god', the young man, with his identity as the Duke of Nesser City, collected all the legends and news related to it.

Although most of them were hypotheses of heretical sects that deceived the ignorant masses and fabricated information, some truly ancient books vaguely described relevant information.

--The oldest god is the wind born of fire.

The gale howls, and the world sways in the air.

--The next god is the water condensed from the wind.

The rain falls, and the world drifts with the waves.

--The current god is the earth gathered from the water.

The firm rocks rise, and the world is fixed in shape.

This song, from an ancient barbarian tribe that had been left behind before the apocalypse, did not directly praise the name of the 'water god', but it described in detail the strange elemental alternation phenomena such as 'wind in fire', 'water in wind' and 'earth in water', and all this did indeed match the relevant information about the earth god and water god that he now knew.

Of course, it also seemed to vaguely imply that, in addition to the water god, there might be a wind god that had also recovered--but there was no news of it yet.

In order to find this relevant song of creation, Elias spent a lot of time flipping through the various books stored in the Nesser family, even reading them for three or four days without sleep. Even Su Zhou was surprised by this effort and couldn't help but ask why.

"Is it really necessary?"

At that time, Su Zhou asked in such confusion, "Don't you often joke yourself? The world is about to be destroyed--in that case, why bother to find this kind of information? Elias, you also know that no matter what the enemy's origin is, we only need to defeat them."

"It's different, Mr. Su Zhou."

At that time, Elias replied so calmly, "Fighting the water god may not require knowing His origin, but if we want to find the truth of the epoch change and find a way to avoid the apocalypse, we need to find its source--the water god's followers still exist now, which proves that there is indeed such a feasible method."

After explaining his behavior, the gray-eyed youth was silent for a while, and then slowly said a more real reason, "Moreover, even if the world is destroyed in an instant, I will be curious, curious about the truth behind the world, just like now, I am still curious about what is at the bottom of the labyrinth."

"After all, according to the order sung in that song, the next one to appear should be 'fire in the earth'...... Is this related to the fact that the lower you go, the higher the temperature is in the labyrinth? I can't help but think about it."

Saying so, he even laughed, with a simple and pure joy: "After all, my father once told me that the most important virtue of human beings is curiosity...... Whether it is above the sky or in the depths of the earth, human beings want to explore, want to go to unknown places."

"Perhaps this is also why, even though the first few layers of the labyrinth are enough to supply people's living needs, there are still many human beings, at the end of the world, who are still struggling to explore the deeper layers of the labyrinth."

At this moment, Su Zhou had risen to the fifth layer of the labyrinth, and he saw many adventurers exploring and collecting information in this layer of the labyrinth, searching around in this vast labyrinth like ants.

Unlike the surface shelter, which was full of a deep twilight atmosphere, Su Zhou saw an aura of vitality in this deep underground labyrinth.

Although the Nesser Duke's exclusive expedition team had already opened up the road to deeper areas, the various details in the entire labyrinth could not be completely found by a single assault team. It was inevitable that adventurers would continue to explore, and information would be sought bit by bit.

"Human curiosity..." Su Zhou felt that this instinct, which could not be suppressed even by the despair of the end of the world, was quite romantic. Anyway, he liked it very much: "At least it shows that this world, although it looks like it's just a mix of waiting to die, is actually a little bit active."

"If that's the case, it feels like even if it's not for my own purposes, but simply fighting for these ordinary people who are working hard to live, it's quite motivating."

Thinking so, Su Zhou returned to the surface, and then flew towards Nesser City.

But just as he was flying back to the city, Su Zhou vaguely noticed that the distant sky had become much gloomier and darker.

A heavy air of death was coming from the distant other side.

"Could it be that the undead are gathering?"

Although Su Zhou had been cultivating in the underground labyrinth during this time, it did not mean that he did not know the fact that a large number of undead were wandering on the surface of Tartadis now. Some time ago, he had specially gone to the wilderness for a walk to see what was so special about the undead.

The result was very regrettable. It was no different from the vengeful spirits on Earth. In general, it was just the resentment left behind by the large number of people who died at the end of the world. However, because the world itself was gradually dying, this kind of undead was particularly easy to generate.

And just as vengeful spirits would instinctively attack humans, a large number of undead gathered would naturally move closer to the shelters and cities where humans gathered, causing the phenomenon of undead besieging the city. The large amount of death energy appearing in the distance made Su Zhou suspect that it was a precursor to the undead besieging the city.

However, when Su Zhou came to the mostly repaired Duke's Mansion, preparing to inform Elias of this news and ask him what he thought, Su Zhou received extremely shocking news.

"What? Water god followers slaughtered the city for sacrifice?!"

Watching Elias, with an extremely solemn expression that did not match his age, say such news, even Su Zhou was stunned: "The entire Mickelsonburg shelter was slaughtered and used for sacrifice to restore the water god's power, no wonder there is such heavy death energy...... But how could they do this?!"

"After all, it's the end of the world, isn't it."

The young Duke seemed to want to force himself to calm down and tell a joke, but it was obvious that from the knuckles of his fingers, which had been pressed white, he himself did not think there was anything funny.

After a moment of silence, Elias sighed, but his eyes regained their motivation: "Although I don't know how effective the sacrifice is, there is no doubt that the water god's power has greatly increased, and their next target is us...... Originally, I thought that at worst, I would just die, but now it seems that the situation is not so simple."

And Su Zhou's reaction was much simpler.

"They are dead."

At the bottom of the blue-purple dragon pupils, it was as if a raging fire was burning, the Evil-Eating Demon Lord stated:

"--In the heavens and on earth, no one can save them."