Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 261 Illusion
(I took a break, but will continue updating later)

Prehistoric times, 20,000 BC.

On the vast, desolate land, the autumn grass withered, a group of people squatted on the ground, and in the open space in front of them was a wild buffalo with its four legs bound by ropes.

The ferocious bison struggled, trying to break free of its ropes, making noises and snorting, thick breaths billowing from its nostrils, forming two strong plumes of white vapor.

Gazing at the wild buffalo that had been captured alive at the cost of several tribal warriors' lives, a gaunt young man in the crowd couldn't help but swallow hard. One buffalo was enough to feed the entire tribe for half a month, but here, no one dared to touch it.

Because this is an offering to the "god".

"Win? Success? Huhulugu Shen, failure, death..."

The young man asked in a strange, meaningless voice.

In this era, a mature language system had not yet been developed, and people often had to gesticulate wildly when speaking, even their speech sounded like a monkey's cooing.

The man who appeared to be the leader was slightly older. Unlike the youth's nervousness, he seemed more composed. Several deep wounds could be vaguely seen on his body: horn impacts, claw tears, and bite marks from wild beasts... each of which could have killed him, but he had stubbornly survived.

The man roared as he looked at the young man.

"Huhulugu God, death, we, need no sacrifices, have more food..."

He spoke with a mixture of shouting and gesturing, but in the end, he didn't know how to express it in words. Humans, who hadn't yet developed a complete set of abstract vocabulary, didn't know how to explain things that were difficult to explain with nouns.

Finally, the man simply reached out and punched his chest hard.

Hammering his fist into his chest is often a sign of confidence in a successful hunt in tribes, but here, everyone can only feel his encouragement and an invisible belief.

"courage."

This word, not yet coined by humans in the primitive era, represents the spirit of abandoning life and death, confronting all things with a fearless attitude. Mountains, seas, rivers, skies—nothing is insurmountable in the face of determination, not even gods.

Just then, a young man noticed something was wrong.

"coming!"

He exclaimed.

Amidst a commotion in the crowd, and under the watchful eyes of many, a gigantic python slowly emerged from the deep grass. Everyone present had seen snakes before, but none had ever seen one so enormous.

Its body is over twenty meters long, as thick as a giant tree, with fine scales covering its robust body. When it raises its head, it is as tall as two people. Its cold pupils send chills down your spine, and it occasionally flicks out its long, thin tongue.

Huhulugu god.

No one knows when this deity was born, but it already existed when these young people were old enough to remember things. Every year at the end of autumn, the tribe would offer a large animal to the god Huhulugu, otherwise the hungry god would come to the tribe and eat the people of the tribe until it was full before leaving.

No one can harm Huhulugu God, never, not even an animal, not even a human spear.

The giant python seemed unconcerned about the young men, merely coiling around the enormous bison. The bison, as if sensing the danger, trembled.

Then, the snake opened its enormous mouth and began to try to swallow the entire bison whole.

At this moment, it was completely unaware that the young men who were squatting on the ground with tense expressions were quietly tightening their grip on their spears.

"Ahhh!"

As the man suddenly sprang up, the young men wielding spears immediately swarmed forward.

The youths rose from their crouching positions or were already advancing, their hands gripping spears, and before them lay the gods, who were feasting. History seemed to freeze at this moment.

They will never know that this behavior has a specific term in the mouths of their offspring:
Killing God.

……

Galactic calendar year 20247, Ring World.

Inside the quiet room, a naked man with well-defined muscles slowly opened his eyes, waking from a state that was half meditation and half slumber. An AI voice then sounded.

"K-3968, 178 seconds ago, the psionic monitoring instrument detected an abnormal change in your psionic fluctuations while you were in a psionic rest state. What did you see?"

"Some illusions."

The man referred to as K-3968 spoke calmly.

As he spoke, the man stood up, and as he was enveloped in a beam of light, clothes shaped by molecular structures appeared on his body.

"Please submit your illusion to the psionic terminal at Base Seven in 3 minutes..."

The AI's voice continued to ring in his ears, but the man walked straight out of the quiet room.

The man's figure flickered, moving forward swiftly like a phantom, and in the blink of an eye, he had already appeared a kilometer away.

Psionic teleportation is not an easy ability to master. Even among interstellar humans, where everyone is a psionicist, only a very few possess this ability. But for the legendary psionic warriors, it is as natural as breathing.

Yes, a psionic warrior. This man is a psionic warrior shrouded in legend.

Legend has it that psionic warriors are immortal and eternally youthful. They can move across time and space and summon thunder and storms with a single thought, much like the gods of legend.

Not all of these rumors are true. At least the man knows that he cannot live forever. With the help of genetic modification and psychic energy, his natural lifespan is a little over 35,000 years. Although it is far greater than that of ordinary people, it cannot be called immortality.

But some of the rumors are true...

"Rumble..."

Suddenly, a dense layer of thunderclouds formed in the sky, with electric dragons darting within and lightning flashing. "Boom!"

A bolt of lightning flashed, and the man's figure disappeared in the lightning, while the thunderclouds in the sky gradually dispersed...

……

Outside the ring world, in the void, an old man with a weathered face quietly gazes at the vast universe before him.

Without relying on any equipment, the old man moved freely in space. If an interstellar human were to observe him with his modified prosthetic eye, he would realize that he was not breathing at all, and there was almost no heat loss.

Through wondrous psychic powers, interstellar humans have already been able to accomplish all sorts of incredible things, such as traversing space in their physical bodies.

The old man gazed at the universe before him, a dazzling cosmos filled with mesmerizing galaxies and planets, all of which were reflected in his pupils… a pair of swirling vortexes filled with strange light.

The eyes are the most direct channel for psychic energy to reach the real world, and powerful psychics often exhibit many unusual phenomena in their eyes.

For example, the emperor who single-handedly created the First Empire had pupils as vast as the universe. His power was so great that even in the real world, his inner world could be reflected in his eyes.

Just then, his eyes twitched slightly.

The next instant, a figure suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Ah, Duwu."

Upon seeing the man who suddenly appeared before him, the old man naturally emitted benevolent spiritual energy fluctuations.

The man called Duwu had a cold expression and seemed unsmiling, but he simply said...

“Master, I have seen the illusion of the great will manifesting.”

The psionic warrior's psionic fluctuations were very calm, and the information emanating from the Great Will was not enough to move him.

Every psionic warrior has undergone hundreds of years of training, and anyone whose personality doesn't meet the standards is eliminated. In this long training process, whether it's their nature or the training they've received, the men have long been accustomed to silence.

"An illusion of a great will..."

The old man saw the illusion he was being transmitted to and seemed to be deep in thought.

"Master, the Great Will has been experiencing more and more abnormal fluctuations in recent years. What do you think is going on?"

"I asked the man."

The Great Will is something that has been publicly acknowledged in recent years. Anthropologists believe that the Great Will is formed by the collective psychic energy within every human being. Today, the number of interstellar humans scattered throughout the galaxy exceeds trillions, reaching a level that must be counted in gigabytes. Such a large number of humans and such powerful psychic energy have naturally given rise to things beyond imagination.

Great will.

Scholars believe that the Great Will contains information about all humankind from ancient times to the present. It is not a deity, but it is more like a deity than anything known.

Normally, the Great Will does not have a clear intention, but in recent years, the Great Will has been experiencing some kind of abnormal turbulence that is not well understood by humans. The Great Will illusion, which was originally extremely rare, is now frequently appearing in the meditations of some powerful psionicists.

The old man did not answer directly, but instead asked about something else.

"Duwu, do you know when this started?"

Duwu did not answer, because he did not know.

The old man said slowly.

"That was 98 years ago."

98 years ago?

This is a seemingly ordinary number, but with just a little thought, you'll immediately realize something is amiss.

Ninety-eight years ago, the monster known as the "Star Eater," the "Primal Beast," and the "World Devourer" first appeared before the interstellar humans.

"98 years ago?"

Duwu asked again.

The old man looked at him and spoke slowly, his spiritual energy fluctuating.

“Duwu, you must know that although we have only recently come to know that thing, for the Great Will, we have lived in it for the long years since the birth of humankind.”

"Those illusions are hints from the Great Will, which gathers information from all of humanity from ancient times to the present. It knows everything, including our destined enemy. We were destined to fight this battle from the moment we were born."

The old man's gaze was deep, as if he were reminding someone of something, but Du Wu could not understand the meaning at this moment.

"After three more cycles of light and darkness, you should set off. Get ready... Your teacher will do his best to help you."

The old man gave him an encouraging look, but Du Wu remained silent and disappeared from the spot.

After glancing at the spot where Duwu had disappeared, the old man looked once more into the distant reaches of space. He knew that in that unseen place lay a colossal serpent, slithering through the vast expanse of space, destined to arrive in 2200 years at this most brilliant and proud place of interstellar humanity.

In his eyes, a vortex of strange light swirled slowly.

A spiritual energy beyond human imagination was brewing within him, an energy capable of accomplishing all sorts of incredible things, even communicating with that great will.

"Satan."

The master called out the name spoken by the Great Will, and for the first time in his long life, he realized that even the Great Will, which he regarded as a god, could be wary, even fearful.

(End of this chapter)