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Jiu Chonglou returned to the room where the magic circle was located. It was not yet time for the castle to be returned to its original state, and the place was still a ruin.

The supernatural beings weren't so keen on cleanliness that they would come to clean up despite the presence of intruders. They were busy hiding in what they thought was a safe place and trying to call back the Yellow Springs.

"...There are no rules to follow. Old Man Ji is busy underground and won't be here for a while."

Muttering to himself, Jiu Chonglou watched the small pebbles roll to the side of the road, showing no intention of taking out the [Lamp of Time].

Those were props she used to fool people. Directly using the power of time was too terrifying. With props to cover it up, she could still explain it as the Time's Favor.

As for whether others believe it or not, Jiu Chonglou doesn't care.

Anyway, she believed it.

The thought of using the [Lamp of Time] flashed through Ji Mo's mind several times. "Ah, I knew it," she scoffed. "Pretending to believe it is fine too."

With a thought, time began to rewind.

The collapsed stone pillars leaped up from the ground, spinning backward along their original trajectory, tightly piecing themselves back together to form their original shape. Sand and soil from the ground surged towards the central depression, repairing the spiderweb-like cracks.

Soon, the place returned to how it looked when Jiuchonglou first entered.

"Not enough, keep retreating." Jiu Chonglou stepped forward.

Time continued to rush forward.

A colossal figure appeared in the room, its body resembling a giant walking dragon, with broad shoulders, a tiger's head, and a snake-like tail, much like a gigantic chimera.

Jiu Chonglou read the conversation between Huang Quan and Duchess Wayne, remained noncommittal, and continued reading.

She saw the room where Huang Quan had brought the real Tasha, and the terrified girl was still in her human form. She begged Huang Quan to let her go home, even if it was to a slum where she couldn't get enough to eat, rather than stay with a bunch of cannibalistic monsters.

Huang Quan ignored Tasha's pleas and instead transformed her into an undead and imprisoned her there for several days for observation.

Several days later, Huang Quan killed Tasha, swiftly extinguishing her soul, and drew the magic circle that Jiu Chong Lou had first seen beneath her. The filthy blood of the zombie stained the ground red, but it was incompatible with the patterns of the magic circle.

Huang Quan muttered to himself, "In this way, she will have the memories of being an undead..."

Jiu Chonglou frowned, realizing that Huang Quan's research on the illusion of possession and resurrection caused by the Void Erosion was probably quite in-depth.

Few people know about the ability of the Void Erosion to revive corpses, not only because those who do know it intentionally keep this information secret, but also because those revived by the Void Erosion are prone to self-doubt and rapid self-collapse in self-denial. Even if there are witnesses, they will only mistakenly believe that it is due to the mystical side of corpse resurrection.

What makes the Void Resurrected most swayed is their ability to reside in unfamiliar corpses.

If the implanted memories include those of the original being who became an undead, this problem can be alleviated.

What puzzled Jiu Chonglou was whether Huang Quan really had a way to extract Tasha's life memories from the Void Eclipse.

The Void Erosion is not something that can be easily guided; otherwise, it wouldn't have indirectly caused so many disasters back then.

Even if Huang Quan offers various rituals to enhance fortune, it's nothing more than a method that's been overused since the age of gods.

Huang Quan clearly didn't have high expectations for his experiment. Being able to completely "revive" someone would be a victory, and being able to revive Duchess Wayne, who had a certain relationship with Tasha, was already a rare achievement.

Huang Quan adjusted his mindset and quickly moved on to the next round of experimental testing, trying his best to meet Duchess Wayne's needs.

As for delving deeper into questioning Duchess Wayne about her hatred for the mortal realm? What if she starts to feel increasingly uneasy while answering and begins to break down? Wouldn't that be a huge loss?

"...Just luck?" Jiu Chonglou stroked his chin and continued to push the timeline forward.

Before Tasha, there were hundreds of other human victims who, in the rapidly receding time, became the cornerstone of Huang Quan's experience in figuring out how to make the Void actively infuse corpses with individual information.

Initially, the Void Eclipse was uninterested in the corpses provided by the Underworld, allowing them to rot and stink in the energy. Then, the Void Eclipse began to pick and choose, randomly bestowing varying amounts of memories, possibly mixed with those of multiple individuals. Finally, it began to give complete individual memories...

Huang Quan gradually realized that the Void Erosion had certain requirements for corpses, and most of his time was wasted searching for suitable human test subjects.

The experiment has been running for over a hundred years, and on average, fewer than five people are resurrected each year.

"Retreat, retreat, keep retreating." Jiu Chonglou muttered to himself, his brows never relaxing.

The deceased is gone, and there is nothing she can do.

She could only continue to watch from the sidelines until time rewound to a certain point in time.

The room wasn't always empty; the further you went, the more frequently various technological devices unrelated to the eerie appeared in the room.

It seems that Huang Quan received support from the technological side of the world? Jiu Chonglou just hopes that world isn't Wu Hai Realm, otherwise it will be very troublesome.

It appears to be the preparation stage before the laboratory is set up. This place is no different from an ordinary scientific research site. Jiuchonglou specifically checked all the locations where the source of the equipment might be listed.

At that time, Huang Quan stood out conspicuously wherever he was.

More than a researcher, he was like an experimental subject waiting to be dissected.

He was chatting with the terminal in his hand.

On the phone, a processed, gender-indistinguishable synthesized voice:

"...I've sent you all the relevant information about the fake city. There wasn't much data that was salvaged back then."

"...There's no need to worry about test subjects either; I have plenty of resources."

A fake city?

Upon hearing the familiar term, Jiu Chonglou immediately sensed something was wrong.

Not everyone can accept the passing of the living.

Attempts to transform the dead into the immortal, or to transform consciousness into intelligent AI, or even to snatch people from the cycle of reincarnation... the methods people use to keep those they care about have always been eye-opening for Jiu Chonglou.

Jiuchonglou didn't understand, but respected such behavior, provided that the method used by this person was unrelated to the Void Erosion.

But obviously not everyone thinks that way.

The ruler of the false city comes from a destroyed world, and he cannot accept the fact that he is the last survivor, while the souls of his acquaintances perished along with the world.

After learning of the rumor that the Void Eclipse had a very small chance of "resurrecting" corpses, he devoted the rest of his life to this research.

Huang Quan's enormous size and tiny terminal were two extremes. While receiving information, he quickly skimmed through the events of the fake city and commented, "To resurrect his deceased lover, he actually went to study the Void Erosion and even found a method... In human terms, isn't this a miracle created by love?"

Not only did he successfully reincarnate into an identical body, but his lover's personality and thought process remained normal for decades.

Since the Huangquan Experiment, the highest level of logical performance maintained by the experimental subjects has been only three months. After that, they began to deny themselves without reason, went insane, and committed suicide.

Thinking about this, he was so envious he almost cried.

Fortunately, the other person's ending wasn't pleasant, and with that contrast, Huang Quan felt much more at ease.

Perhaps it was the successful resurrection of the lover that gave that person confidence, or perhaps the resurrected lover had problems and had been encouraging or hinting at something.

No one knows the reason behind the change; all that is known is that the desires of the false city's rulers have swelled.

He was no longer satisfied with just resurrecting his lover; he wanted to resurrect his entire hometown, all the acquaintances he knew… he wanted everything that had passed away to return.

If A has B's appearance and memories, and is exactly like B, what does it matter if A has no soul?

He doesn't care.

The Huangquan experiment has been going on for over a century, and with the support of various channels, only a few hundred suitable test subjects have been found, which is enough to prove the harshness of the conditions for the resurrection of the Void Eclipse.

"They killed people from several worlds just to raise a city full of resurrected zombies with familiar faces..." Huang Quan exhaled softly, closed the lightweight terminal, and held it in his palm. "In the end, the city and its people were all wiped out. It was truly... a spectacular farce."

This has led to the world, which knows the truth, tacitly choosing to block the information that the Void Eclipse can erode non-living entities, for fear that another love-struck person might perform the miracle of "Resurrect my love."

Huang Quan didn't care whether the resurrected lovers or acquaintances truly possessed a self, nor did he care what exactly happened in those sacrificed worlds.

All he cared about was that lost technique.

"Krysette is dead, but her authority has not been condensed in the artifact like [Space], but has been scattered throughout the worlds."

"Krysette...?" Jiu Chonglou knew this name; it was the true name of the pillar god of [Death].

Located in the past, Huang Quan naturally couldn't hear Jiu Chonglou's grumbling in the present; he only complained incessantly.

"The concept of death is everywhere, yet it cannot be gathered to give birth to a corresponding god. Even if we forcefully intervene, it only gives birth to a pseudo-god that is neither fish nor fowl."

"Its thinking ability and physical limits are far below what we need."

"The church is now impatient and thinks that since it cannot cultivate a new God of Death, it is better to change its approach and revive the pillar of death, God."

"Ha, so you're saying a hastily found corpse is no match for the original project's false god."

At this point, Huang Quan looked regretful.

As the project's main person in charge, he had to discard his own work and use it as the substrate for cultivation to ensure the smooth progress of another experiment.

The sense of accomplishment from creating one's own Grim Reaper is vastly different from that of reviving the pillar god of death through one's own creation.

Not only that, the church, apart from itself, is a bunch of useless and bizarre people who just freeload. How can you expect them to overcome the problem of consciousness grafting?

The project, which was started from scratch, made no progress. After recruiting Death, the church leadership brought Huang Quan back to the project team, praising him with the words, "The project can't do without you. The bizarre future depends on you," and made him continue to be the project's chief person in charge.

The bizarre society is one where the strong rule. Faced with countless bizarre beings stronger than himself, Huang Quan was overwhelmed and had no way to refuse.

"They even said that once this matter is resolved, they will help me advance to the eighth rank, so I can be on equal footing with them... Damn it, if I can figure out these issues, I'd be better off in any major realm than staying in this lousy church."

"At least they genuinely respect me, but the higher-ups are just taking advantage of their superiors and keep giving me the runaround."

Although the temptation of advancing to the eighth rank was great, the thought that he was still not the strongest in the church and would still be bound by the highest levels of the church made Huang Quan feel like there was darkness above his head.

"You agree, right? Hey, when did you hang up?"