The old man you see with your phone is highly suspicious.

Now the power of reproduction has completely disappeared, and the whole world has fallen into a state where the gods are dead, and all living beings can no longer reproduce.

Xue Dinglu closed his eyes. Sure enough, this was the underlying logic behind why he could only summon heroic spirits that represented reproduction.

The so-called Outer God summoning ritual was not created by him. In essence, it was the world that summoned the Outer God through him, an alien, in order to replace the originally missing "reproduction".

Schrödinger's law is merely a medium.

Or perhaps, Xue's Law became a "sacred relic," summoned by this world to be the Outer God it needed most.

The Xue Law's sealing of the four foundations is also correct; if any one of them were to reclaim its place in the power of reproduction, it would bring unimaginable disaster to the entire world.

Zeus is the song of killing and scorching, Typhon will turn everyone into a den of monsters, Poseidon will turn everyone into something monstrous, and when Aphrodite reclaims her power of reproduction, she will turn the whole world into the land of Slaanesh, a place of pleasure and debauchery.

This is fucking a headache...

After the Ninth Apostle died, who held the reins of power in this world? Did He still have his own consciousness?

Xue's Law doesn't know, but based on all the available intelligence, the truth will emerge after the victory of this great expedition.

He has now filled in most of the gaps in the world's intelligence and information; all he needs to do next is...

war!

Chapter 335 Zeus, let's use "insult" on it for the sake of the world!

Xue Dinglu then saw the enemy they had encountered, the barbarian they had spoken of.

Beside him was a beast resembling a giant deer, and above his head was a circling bird of prey. At this moment, he was merely looking at Xue Dinglu from a distance, yet the aura and pressure he exuded were extremely strong and powerful.

Near-5th rank, even the giant deer and the giant eagle have near-5th rank strength.

It's very strong, but everything is within people's expectations.

At this moment, Xue Dinglu even had the mood to ask, "Do you know what exactly that contamination originating from the Heroic Spirit Contract is?"

The Golden Emperor looked completely bewildered, while the Mad Viscount pondered for a moment and said, "A kind of soul?"

"More or less, but your research on the soul is still lacking. It seems to be a humanoid race that integrated into the entire Heroic Spirit Summoning system through specific means before the Heroic Spirit Summoning."

"It's not just that they might appear in the contracts of Heroic Spirits. I even suspect that for humans, they are the ones who enter the contracts to be a burden, while for demons, they are responsible for strengthening those Heroic Spirits, or directly replacing the summoned Heroic Spirits to enhance the overall strength of the demon side," Xue Dinglu said, sharing his research.

At this moment, both the Golden Emperor and the Mad Viscount were stunned again. They suddenly understood what Xue Dinglu was trying to say and said, "You mean, the reason that barbarian and her pet suddenly became stronger is because they were invaded by that kind of pollution?"

"But for the demons, this invasion of pollution means replacing the original heroic spirits, or perhaps their so-called summoned creatures are actually all controlled by those foreign souls that are like the sources of pollution?" the Mad Viscount added.

"Yes, Yellow Weasel, when you first completed the Great Expedition, did your side have any summoning or clone-type Heroic Spirits?" Xue Dinglu looked at the Golden Emperor.

"Are you asking me?" The weathered middle-aged man didn't know when he had acquired the nickname "Weasel," but he was now certain that Xue Lude was calling him, so he had no choice but to answer, "Yes, the Heroic Spirit Shadow Lady that I once summoned was a clone-type Heroic Spirit. She could instantly create nine phantoms... and each phantom possessed a certain amount of the original's strength and could become a physical entity..."

"Even after my great expedition, the Shadow Lady continued to help me govern the country, gather intelligence, and collect information on tribes across the continent. She also taught people how to live in peace and prosperity, how to reproduce and multiply, and how to increase the population as much as possible..."

At this point, the golden emperor was stunned, and a look of horror appeared in his eyes.

Yes, in fact, the greatest contributor to his successful unification of all the tribes on the continent and the establishment of the empire was his former spirit, the Shadow Lady. She was a very talented and resourceful spirit who was like his teacher, teaching him countless things and unifying the entire empire.

Especially with the help of her clone, she successfully completed the basic framework and planning of the entire empire, which led to a booming population.

When he died, the population of the entire continent had recovered from tens of thousands to nearly a million, and now it has even reached a billion.

Just as the Mad Viscount said, he was a completely unqualified politician, let alone a qualified emperor. To be an emperor, one must achieve far beyond the ordinary, and one must have a great will and a very high vision, seeing the future that ordinary people cannot see.

Does this guy, who could only eat tree roots in the mud when he was a child and treated finding a nest of small insects as if it were a delicacy, really have such vision and political acumen to survive in that hellish environment of the demon realm, where just getting enough to eat was a struggle?

No, the initial structure of the entire empire was basically handled entirely by the Shadow Lady. She single-handedly completed all the work required by the highest-ranking rulers. And by the time she grew old, the Shadow Lady had successfully cultivated a large number of truly talented individuals as her successors.

Moreover, the Shadow Lady is not only her teacher, but also her...

lovers!

Could it be that……

"You mean that the Shadow Lady's clone, like the pet summoned by this barbarian, is being secretly controlled by some kind of monster? Or perhaps, the Shadow Lady herself is one of these monsters?" the Golden Emperor immediately asked.

He even felt that his success, the establishment of his empire, and his entire life were all born from the manipulation of something behind the scenes, and that everything about him was the result of their deliberate guidance.

I felt like a puppet on strings, as if I had become their tool.

Xue Dinglu did not reply. He silently took out the pseudo-Heart of the World and handed it to the Golden Emperor.

"Let's see if your spirit is among them," Xue Dinglu asked casually.

The Golden Emperor was completely stunned. He stared blankly as he carefully examined this inferior treasure, which resembled a small world, and saw nearly ten twisted and terrifying soul shadows within it. These were the sources of contamination hidden in the Heroic Spirit Contract.

The Mad Viscount smuggled these sources of pollution into a small snake and then sealed it away, while Xue Luding was even more ruthless, imprisoning them all in this inferior artifact as if he were a centralized command.

He didn't find anything unusual on the first scan, but when he scanned it a second time, he was shocked to find a familiar figure among them. It was one of the many clones of his former Heroic Spirit, the Shadow Lady!

In other words, just as he suspected, his former heroic spirit, as well as the shadow of his teacher, comrade-in-arms, minister, and lover... was actually just a twisted monster...

She even descended upon this great expedition of summoning heroic spirits more than once, and on more than one occasion, she influenced the course of the entire world from behind the scenes...

It's even possible that it wasn't a woman; it might have played any gender.

As for becoming one's teacher and lover, it may just be one of millions of games.

Thinking of this, the Golden Emperor lowered his head silently, his whole body trembling for no reason.

They are like a hidden hand, controlling everything in the world. The victory of the Great Expedition, the establishment of the Empire, and the Empire where everyone can live smoothly under the sky and the sun are all just a game for them!

The Golden Emperor trembled at the thought, his whole being filled with inexplicable... rage!

He was furious, furious beyond measure. After learning part of the truth about the world, he was even angrier than if he had heard that all people in the world have the same genes or that everyone is infertile.

This shows that everything he has done so far in his life has been useless; his entire life has been nothing more than being someone else's toy.

Xue Dinglu retrieved the pseudo-Heart of the World, and he already knew that the Golden Emperor had discovered an acquaintance within it.

These twisted souls they have always ignored may be the true kin of the Ninth Apostle, and this great expedition may be a kind of amusement for them to study, or it may be a reasonable means for them to feed different corpses to the Divine Tree.

Or perhaps it was just a game they were playing.

Those ghosts, those twisted ghosts capable of corrupting anyone, seemed to always float above the world, influencing the world's major processes every hundred years.

Or perhaps, every century they have parasitized and possessed the souls of the victors, thus quietly infiltrating the empire and advancing it for another century.

In the distance, the figure with the wild beast gradually drew closer.

Xue Ludao tossed aside the pseudo-Heart of the World in his hand and smiled as he looked at the near-5th tier enemy.

If only the real Noble Phantasm [Heart of the World] in the young general's hands were here, Xue Dinglu could absorb all the people on the other side without even having to lift a finger.

This Noble Phantasm was originally intended to deal with Mind Flayers, but it has been used in this battle inexplicably, and it seems to be particularly effective.

The speed of the opposing force increased, and the raptor circling overhead seemed to attack. At near-Tier 5, it instantly reached Xue Dinglu, unleashing a multi-layered sonic boom cloud that completely exceeded everyone's expectations. This speed…

"Whoosh!" A giant hand suddenly appeared from the void, grabbing the raptor that had fallen from the sky.

The sonic boom cloud finally crashed down on their heads. The weakest of them, the Mad Viscount, felt his head buzzing. The air vibrations caused by the sonic boom were unbearable for his body.

Even this near-Tier 5 raptor showed human-like fear and confusion at this moment, wondering why it could be caught even at its speed...

Why would someone possess Apostle-level power?

"Annihilate!"

A cold voice rang out from the space emanating from the massive hand. For some reason, the raptor's pupils suddenly revealed unparalleled fear. It was pulled into that unknown and terrifying space, and there was no more sound.

Only a few feathers remained, indicating that this monster, who had reached the pinnacle of power in the world, had inexplicably vanished into thin air.

At this moment, everyone—from the barbarian opposite them, to the mad viscount and the weasel beside them, and even the people watching through the magic—was horrified by what they saw.

A demigod-level raptor was instantly killed?

No, they weren't instantly killed, but rather dragged into an unknown space by that giant hand. They didn't know what terrifying things were happening in that unknown space, and they just swallowed hard.

"Who exactly are you?" the weasel asked for the first time.

“Guang, you can call me Guang!” Xue Dinglu said with a smile.

……

Upon hearing the name, the person observing this extraordinary expedition from afar suddenly felt that the name sounded very familiar.

It didn't know where it had heard the name before, nor did it know why it had such a bad feeling after hearing it.

Where exactly have I heard this name before? Where? Where exactly?

The old man, whose entire mouth and chin were covered in tentacles, wandered around frantically, driven mad by sudden anxiety and fear.

"No, there's a problem, there's a problem, that person is the problem... Divine Tree, fruit, finish the ritual quickly, I need the fruit, I need the fruit..." He stared hysterically at the progress, and also at...

At this moment, the divine tree supports this entire world, which is like a divine realm!

On the divine tree, a green fruit slowly formed, as if it only needed a little bit of nourishment to ripen smoothly.

Just one more thing, just one more thing, and I will be able to eat the fruit and become the next one...

The Ninth Apostle!

……

A ferocious beast attacked.

Clearly, the barbarian on the other side couldn't sit still. His giant deer suddenly charged forward, its momentum accelerating in a very short time. Not only that, the barbarian began to rapidly set up spells.

His blood dripped onto the earth, and the original volcanic ash gradually transformed into real beasts through the erosion of his blood. Each of these beasts possessed near-level 5 power, or was infinitely close to level 5, and they no longer bothered to act.

It's as if they're saying right on their faces, "We're the ones who are cheating, we're the masters of this world!"

And there was also a faint sense of unease among them.

The source of the unease lay with Xue Dinglu; at this moment, they stirred.

A horde of wild beasts surged forth, and the raging giant deer seemed poised to crush Xue Dinglu with its antlers over a speed bump. But suddenly, the giant hand struck again, this time with its right hand.

"Annihilate!"

The giant deer was instantly controlled by the giant hand and then pulled into the consciousness space.

Xue's law loosened a certain seal on Zeus, which was Zeus's great hand.

As for what will happen to these two beasts, which seem to be controlled by unknown souls, once they fall into Zeus's hands?

Xue Dalu dared not look; he probably needed to play a classic old song, "YMCA," in his consciousness space to make it seem more formal.

Then, more wild beasts attacked him, but Xue remained silent, the large hand behind him accepting all comers.