Chapter 96: Preparing to Enter Seclusion

After the first trial of the Artificial Divine Realm, a surge of enthusiasm for psychics swept across the internet. Whether they were former researchers dabbling in quirky experiments, entertainment bloggers playing with chemical reactions, gourmets, abstract artists, philosophers, hype masters, or even battlefield streamers, they all began showcasing their understanding of psychic powers, performing small magical experiments, and displaying their innate energy parameters on their personal channels.

These internet celebrities, quick to pivot to seize the wave of traffic, inevitably faced one burning question: Who among you is the strongest?

Beastfighters reveled in this challenge. Previously, they could only boast about their strength in online forums and group chats, stacking their power like collectible cards. Now, with real corresponding targets for their psychic beasts, these celebrities could finally settle scores in an octagonal cage match. Wouldn’t a direct showdown be more convincing than arguing over hundreds of forum posts?

Boredom gave way to thirst for bloodshed. The bloodthirsty audience clamored for carnage!

Encouraged by their viewers, driven by profit, pushed by traffic, and intoxicated by power, these internet psychic celebrities—brimming with martial virtue and reckless bravado—began upping the ante on their channels.

At first, it was mere knife fights and metal destruction, then target challenges using magic and martial arts to hunt permitted prey in the wild. They progressed to subsonic and supersonic bullets, various firearms—each escalation inching up their strength. Casualties from accidental injuries or deaths surpassed even the account deletion rate of female riders.

On the dark web, things grew more twisted.

Psychics privately attacked ordinary people, assaulted professional boxers, and even ambushed enemy soldiers. The infighting among psychic warriors was auctioned for high prices.

The beastfighting intensity soared further.

The bloodthirsty audience grew dissatisfied with mere human combat.

How powerful could psychics truly be? After all, the Artificial Divine Realm was perilous; without some skill, psychics would be utterly helpless there.

Forget about blowing people up in the open; what about masters who could demolish walls and entire buildings with magic and martial arts?

Li Wanzhou was one such high-level beastfighter.

As a child, she played card-based beastfighting at the roadside; in middle school, she played online male protagonist-style beastfighting in class; in university, she battled in the lab; and in the military camp, she fought hand-to-hand with pure muscle strikes. Much of her chaotic, fierce personality was forged from these beastfighting experiences.

“Breaking news: wall-busting, building-crashing, and street-demolishing have become commonplace at the roadside. The strongest now is—”

She titled her post, applied a mosaic blur, and uploaded her record on the hottest beastfighting channel: Blue Old Demon single-handedly cleansing 743,300 square kilometers of land.

According to the rules of celebrity psychic beastfighting, assistance and magical materials were permitted, but the actual attack had to be completed by a single individual.

Blue Old Demon fit the requirements perfectly. Even without his own channel, Li Wanzhou thoughtfully included his profile: “Blade of the Rivers,” “Thunder Phoenix in Flight,” “Natural Enemy of the Mutants,” and “Strongest Among Humans.” He was the undisputed leader of the Rivers!

“Heh heh heh! I’m going to defeat all you weaklings! Victory belongs to me!” After clearing sporadic infected in the city, sitting beside a tall pile of ashes, dressed as an armed girl with a chaotic, fierce demeanor, she wagered her entire fortune on this.

Li Wanzhou’s uploaded video ended the beastfighting competition.

Internet celebrity psychics fell silent, then erupted in denials: Impossible! Absolutely impossible!

How could a human be this strong? Could it be that monsters from the Artificial Divine Realm had invaded the main world? We’re flying to Lan Fang right now to expose the fake!

But exposing the fake was impossible—this lifetime, it simply couldn’t be done.

It wasn’t that these psychics didn’t want to ride the wave of immense traffic, but…

They couldn’t get through.

Not only Lan Fang, but all flights around Borneo were suspended; sea routes were urgently halted; even land checkpoints and blockade lines were heavily guarded—as if under martial law. The latest videos of Blue Old Demon demolishing cities, one after another with ease, were most likely genuine.

A lethal, professional killing machine had been given a kill order.

Anyone attempting to breach the epidemic zone would be shot on sight.

After Blue Old Demon obliterated the epicenter of the Southern Plague, those aware of the opportunity to seal off the epidemic rapidly mobilized fleets and overseas base soldiers to establish blockade lines and launched continuous drone patrols.

Rarely had the Rivers and the Ocean united with such resolve.

Blue Old Demon beamed with satisfaction.

“Since you’ve reflected on your mistakes, I’ll grant you some strong symbiosis fluid. Use it to kill the zombies.”

“Is it really wise to hand over something like strong symbiosis fluid to the Umbrella and Trauma squads?” came a voice.

It was Jian Ziyue.

The effeminate sword cultivator held a long sword, eyes half-closed, fishing alongside Blue Old Demon on the aircraft carrier. The beautiful swordsman was striking—every line and aura sharp and poised, as if ready to instantly transform into a flying sword to cleave through any obstacle.

Blue Old Demon judged that Jian Ziyue possessed at least two primary life clusters: “Soaring Cloud” and “Gang Qi.”

“Soaring Cloud,” location unknown, could be extracted from the body and implanted into devices for remote operation and enhancement through continuous magical input.

“Gang Qi,” located in the blood, involved nanometer-scale Qi particles gradually replacing blood, enabling psychic energy accumulation without relying on energy furnaces, and simulating elemental attributes like metal, wood, water, fire, and earth through various combinations.

“It’s not a strategic resource, so it’s not aiding the enemy. Giving them an internal dose to keep things balanced is acceptable. Even if not, the Umbrella and Trauma squads—” Blue Old Demon flicked his fishing hook.

Fishing by suppressing all abilities was a male psychic’s pastime, akin to playing the lottery.

Whoever used their power first lost.

“No wonder you dragged Junola into the room earlier, deliberately cuckolding this generation’s Jupiter, grabbing strong claims, and making the Pantheon and Ingray restless,” Jian Ziyue suddenly understood, nodding as his stray hair bobbed.

The sun shone brightly over the endless blue waves, the sea and sky blending as one.

Two days ago, Blue Old Demon had completely eradicated the Southern Plague’s demon lair.

The remaining time was mostly spent clearing sporadic infected in cities, burning corpses, burying ashes, and gathering survivors.

Jian Ziyue was a foolish beauty.

In their past lives, he and Blue Old Demon had little interaction—neither enemies nor friends.

His gender had long been a topic of fascination in human civilization.

Though he appeared somewhat clueless and directionless, his record of conquests rivaled Blue Old Demon’s.

This time, Jian Ziyue came to the South for two reasons.

One was to report preliminary exploration data following the opening of the Artificial Divine Realm 1909 portal and to draft regulations with Si Lingluo regarding shares in the realm’s exploitation.

The other was to succeed Blue Old Demon’s work, completing the reconstruction of the South. Although most infected were wiped out and blood clans fled, corruption and dubious non-human elements remained among the old order’s upper echelons. They needed to reflect deeply.

How deeply was up to the Rivers. If they didn’t speak up, they could reflect forever.

This was power wielded with the threat of national annihilation.

Blue Old Demon couldn’t handle this task—not only would it be beneath him, but if he did it, the Southern seas would probably turn blood-red for seven days straight.

Jian Ziyue was the perfect choice.

“A slight accident occurred. Your reminder was effective. Our dispatched unmanned robot squad in the portal was attacked,” he said, twirling his finger.

Particles emitted from his fingertip instantly constructed a dynamic image near the sharp humming flying sword, surrounding the two men in an immersive display.

This wasn’t a simple projection. The particles of “Gang Qi” perfectly replicated the scene, including sounds, clarity, machines, and even psychic fluctuations—equivalent to direct on-site observation for psychics.

The squad consisted of reconnaissance drones, all-terrain combat vehicles, and scout-class mechanical dogs.

A standard modern unmanned combat squad, all military-grade, equipped with basic AI and strong battlefield autonomy—ideal for exploration.

Moreover, the artificial realm portal was unstable. Any living being carrying psychic energy entering it might provoke unwanted disturbances.

Thus, psychics avoided entering until stabilization.

The unmanned squad advanced steadily.

From the “Gang Qi” imagery, they were actually very close to the exit—only ten meters away.

But just as they neared the Artificial Divine Realm 1909 portal, the entire image jolted violently. Several black shadows flickered, and the unmanned squad was instantly torn into pieces.

They barely had time to transmit footage.

At the entrance, main world forces immediately counterattacked.

High-energy lasers, infrasound waves, kinetic weapons, mixed with Jian Ziyue’s dual-phase flying sword aura and Zhang Shouzheng’s psychic shockwave.

The emerging black shadows were overwhelmed by a barrage of attacks.

Yet, they remained unharmed.

All attacks passed through the blurry shadows with eerie ease, including psychic strikes. Within a second, the shadows vanished as abruptly and startlingly as they had appeared.

The footage froze there.

“We were attacked. The attackers’ identity is unknown but likely not from the opposite side. Preliminary detection suggests a temporal overlap phenomenon: someone else tried to open the gate simultaneously, causing the portals to momentarily overlap before separating,” Jian Ziyue explained.

“They have quite a temper,” Blue Old Demon acknowledged, having just exterminated tens of millions of infected.

Jian Ziyue nodded.

The portal overlap was only momentary.

Yet, in that instant, the assailants attacked without hesitation, dismantling the unmanned squad ruthlessly—a style beyond mere tyranny, bordering on savage brutality.

“Afterward, we recovered drone wreckage and obtained this data from some sensors,” Jian Ziyue said, tapping in the air.

A data chart slid into view.

Post-incident global analysis revealed the attackers were humanoid, standing 2.5 to 3 meters tall, capable of delivering hundred-ton-level blows barehanded, with bodies easily reaching supersonic speeds. Their flesh was tougher than military-grade alloy steel. Most conventional firearms controlled by ordinary humans could barely harm them. They appeared to have psychic shock abilities and attempted to disrupt the unmanned machines.

Most frighteningly, they demonstrated abilities akin to “Gang Qi,” enabling bodily speed and directional changes impossible through brute strength alone—abilities that could be classified as magical arts.

They communicated during supersonic combat.

Linguistic analysis confirmed their language was very similar to the Rivers dialect, indicating origins from a world dominated by the Rivers civilization.

In their brief communication, they repeatedly mentioned a term translated as “King.”

“Not unlike the Golden Lion,” Blue Old Demon said succinctly.

Jian Ziyue agreed.

If all grunts equaled Golden Lions, the enemy’s strength was astronomical. The Golden Lion was currently a T0-level entity—the ultimate nightmare for the main world, which had only just passed its first trial.

“They are scouts or soldiers. Their world’s civilization level is likely undeveloped, probably ruled by holders of supernatural power in a primitive, brutal hierarchy of tyrants, warriors, and slaves,” Jian Ziyue said, enlarging an image of drone wreckage.

Inside the pink plastic was a row of bite marks.

The attackers likely mistook the drone for a beast and, upon discovering it wasn’t metal, decided to taste it.

The existence of supernatural powers in the Artificial Divine Realm was not necessarily a blessing.

Especially if such powers were monopolized.

In past lives, psychics had witnessed countless hellish worlds deliberately arranged this way—supernatural abilities reserved for a select few, followed by merciless oppression.

If such a world hadn’t reached industrialization, it was even worse.

By feudal standards, those ruling with supernatural powers were tyrants at the level of Jie and Zhou, no longer seeing those beneath them as human but as disposable playthings. Even if killed off, more would be rounded up from the countryside or bred with drugs, replenishing the numbers in a decade or two.

Living in such a world…

Without experiencing the light of hope or the ability to change, people of the main world would surely despair and commit suicide.

“Our technology can’t yet invade this unknown Artificial Divine Realm from the main world, and their target is likely not us but the Artificial Divine Realm 1909,” Jian Ziyue concluded.

“Issue the draft summons,” Blue Old Demon instinctively tapped twice.

If he personally handled this, his breakthrough in magical arts would be delayed, and he might have to enter the second trial directly.

It had taken over a week to eradicate the Southern plague.

Blue Old Demon couldn’t afford to waste more time.

As leader, his authority was absolute.

Issuing a draft summons and recruiting psychics with corresponding rewards was the optimal solution.

“I’m heading to the Heavenly Palace. Ji Ning is on the roster—he’s guaranteed a squad spot for either battle or exploration. If he refuses this time, I have the right to forcibly conscript him for future missions or emergencies.”