I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

What Lu Ban found strange was that his suona was also completely undamaged.

How could such a cheap supernatural item remain intact despite being corrupted by the Great Old Ones?

Even Lu Ban didn't know if it was because he had already been transformed, but when he touched the suona, he felt that the bone patterns were clearly visible on it, and it also emitted a slight coolness.

Thinking of this, Lu Ban suddenly had an inspiration.

Before me stands the Great Old One, a great being, and the suona horn connects to that great being as well.

Could some wonderful chemical reaction occur when we use this great being to fight against another great being?

Thinking of this, and looking at the aggressive insect queen, Lu Ban decisively prepared to blow the suona.

But then he realized that he seemed to have lost his mouth.

After searching for a while, he finally found one.

At this moment, the Queen Insect had arrived beside Lu Ban, surrounded by countless insects.

The insects rustled and whispered, their countless large eyes fixed on Lu Ban as if he were a delicious meal.

Lu Ban knew very well that although the insect queen seemed to want him to have insect offspring, it wasn't some kind of golden husband offer. Once she had drained Lu Ban dry, the rest could be given to the insect offspring to supplement their protein intake.

So Lu Ban didn't stand on ceremony and started playing the suona.

A high-pitched suona horn sound pierced through the thin air.

The voice was chilling, made you tremble, and instilled a deep-seated fear.

The sound of the suona quickly stirred up the swarm of insects.

The queen insect paused, and then Lu Ban saw a clear sense of fear in its eyes.

The sound of the suona seemed to rise from the depths of the soul, echoing across this planet and reaching into the boundless universe.

Lu Ban could feel that, with his playing, a strange connection was forming between his soul and some being in the distant future.

The brilliant star that bound the great being dimmed, and the sky was filled with the brilliance of countless stars.

The next moment, Lu Ban saw that the bound, blind, foolish, and motionless Great Old One seemed to have some kind of reaction.

With just that slight tremor, the orbits of the many planets surrounding Him were disrupted, causing them to collide and destroying billions of mud monsters.

Lu Ban then truly realized how magnificent His existence was.

If this monster were located in the solar system, even the sun would probably be nothing more than a ping-pong ball in front of it, and what stretches across most of the sky would be nothing more than a tentacle of this great being.

Its tentacles extend from the brilliant star, while its body is firmly sealed inside the star.

Through the movement of his tentacles, Lu Ban clearly saw that the star's shape resembled a black sphere encased in a halo, with light particles bursting forth on one of its cross-sections, bringing forth its radiance.

But the true interior of a star is perpetual darkness.

This is a black hole.

Moreover, it's the largest black hole ever.

Even if the entire Milky Way were placed here, this black hole would be enough to devour more than one-tenth of its mass. Its mass exceeds that of hundreds of billions of suns, and the spacetime distortions it creates even alter the fundamental laws that Lu Ban is familiar with.

Such a black hole was simply meant to bind the body of this Great Old One, whose body was rendered immobile by its blind and foolish consciousness.

The extended tentacles are far longer than the radius of a black hole. If humans were fortunate enough to be able to glimpse this region of stars with a telescope, they would see a colossal object covered in tentacles perched among the nebulae.

Lu Ban didn't know what such a being would look like when it regained its consciousness and truly awakened.

In the distant past, when these great beings traversed different lands, what was the state of civilization like?

Accompanied by the sound of the suona, Lu Ban saw that among the distant stars, one of them responded to his call.

The light from those distant stars traveled billions of years to reach this place.

In an instant, all the insects froze in their movements.

The whole world seemed to have stopped time, and silence enveloped everything.

The next moment, a mind-blowing murmur rang in Lu Ban's ears.

Unfortunately, he has several ears.

Lu Ban's body began to twist and dissolve, like an ice pop that had fallen onto the asphalt road on the hottest day of summer.

It flows everywhere.

At the same time, the colossal object seemed to respond to the murmurs, and a sound that could be transmitted even in a vacuum spread out toward that star.

If, along this path, in this alien realm, there exists a civilization that has entered the cosmic age and is capable of receiving cosmic signals, then at this moment, billions of light-years away, they will receive this wave peak that surpasses all cosmic background radiation in the future. While those researchers are still worrying whether this is a problem with the instruments, their star will change because of this roar, experiencing several helium flashes, completely destroying the civilization.

This is nothing more than a minor action by those ancient rulers.

In an instant, all the surrounding insect swarms turned into the most basic particles, and all the wormholes began to collapse and close.

The flowing landmass drifted back towards the wormhole from which it had come, not caring whether its entire body was still stuck together.

However, the wormhole collapsed much faster than Lu Ban could move.

As he watched his way back being blocked, he realized he would be left behind as a sacrifice to the two Great Old Ones locked in a silent battle.

A golden die appeared before Lu Ban's eyes.

Without hesitation, he threw it.

[Launching a desperate gamble]

[Lucky Determination]

[Result of the throw: Luck: 100/20]

[Major Failure]

Chapter 509 The Great Failure

Lu Ban had never imagined what a major failure would look like.

Based on his previous great success, Lu Ban survived by sheer luck when he faced those two great beings. Although he lost his mind, he did not die; on the contrary, he felt more energetic.

What would happen if there were such a huge failure?

In everyday life, major failures could mean choking to death while drinking water, being electrocuted while taking a shower, or even accidentally causing bronchial problems and sudden death while breathing.

If great success is a good miracle, then great failure is a bad miracle.

Lu Ban felt his whole body boiling. The scorching heat turned his liquid body into gas, the plants withered, and his life force began to completely drain away.

The wormhole in front of us has completely disappeared, severing the connection between this place and the wasteland. Not only that, all the wormholes connecting other alien realms that some unknown being had set up nearby have been destroyed. Centered on that great being, everything within a star system was annihilated in an instant.

Planets, monsters, everything that exists is reduced to the most basic particles and sucked into the black hole.

Lu Ban was no exception.

just.

Death is not a tragic end.

When facing the Great Old Ones, death can even be considered a mercy.

Lu Ban was already doomed to die if he stayed here, so, under the influence of the Great Failure, Lu Ban is now in a situation even more terrifying than death.

He felt his spirit being kneaded and tormented, like placing the most delicate skin on the roughest sandpaper and rubbing it hard. Even if his will could withstand it, this direct mental whipping still made him instinctively tremble.

His body was almost destroyed, but Lu Ban did not die.

To be precise, his spirit, consciousness, soul—basically, the thing that Lu Ban was called Lu Ban—merged with the remnants of his body.

To Lu Ban's surprise, even in this situation, the Silent Land's system was still functioning normally.

[Item Obtained: Twisted Heart of the Swarm]

"???"

Lu Ban didn't know where he got the [Twisted Heart of the Swarm] from. After thinking about it, he figured it probably mixed with the powder from when he exploded and the Queen of the Swarm was blown up, and thus became one with it.

[Mission Objective: Find Queen Bee 1/1]

Mission Objective: Survive 0/1

Incidentally, Lu Ban also saw this explanatory text.

He found it somewhat amusing to see the 0/1 displayed under "Survived".

Soon, Lu Ban sensed the insights of the ancient sages of human civilization into the laws of the universe. In the universe, mass is the cause of gravity. Therefore, Lu Ban, floating in the vacuum of the universe, was drifting towards that huge, ugly, writhing ancient ruler.

If he were devoured by this creature, he would gain eternal life but also be completely transformed into a monster, becoming part of this indescribable and great being, and losing his right to be human.

"So, the meaning of 'sublimation' literally means that a person will turn into gas?"

Lu Ban could not stop himself from moving toward the Great Old Ones, just as humans cannot resist gravity.

Its writhing, mud-like appearance, its numerous eyeballs and gaping maw, and its outstretched, waving tentacles drew ever closer, filling the entire space of Lu Ban's consciousness.

Suddenly, Lu Ban heard a strange sound.

From the perspective of the soul, Lu Ban has already lost his hearing. Sound may just be a simple signal to him. Even if he can receive the signal, he cannot distinguish its specific meaning.

But Lu Ban could hear that it was a piece of music.

It's like a piano piece, melodious and lingering, seemingly from ancient times, yet also seemingly right before your eyes.

On a warm autumn afternoon, sunlight streamed into the room through the light curtains. You sat on the soft sofa, idly reading a book about the beauty of youth, and turned to the page where the heroine confessed her love to the hero. At that moment, a melody began to play in your ears.

Lu Ban felt much calmer.

He drifted toward that direction, and soon, a small patch of light entered the radiation range of his soul.

It was like shards of glass, nothing special.

But in this space where even planets have turned to dust, these shards of glass are the greatest anomaly.

Lu Ban touched the shard of glass.

In an instant, his soul was completely purified, as if he were reborn.

[Item Obtained: Fragment of Du Danping's Melody]

Lu Ban now feels much more at ease with the system's cold and indifferent words.

As he listened to Du Danping's melody, he felt as if he were in another world.