The stage is yours now, to those who come after! Please keep following the story!
Waterdrop.
Stellar Annihilation Cannon.
Two-dimensional foil...
Lu Chen had always believed that humanity's ultimate weapons would be conceptual marvels of that sort—dazzling, apocalyptic, and awe-inspiring. Yet, reality proved to be far more mundane and utterly shocking: humanity’s world-ending weapon was nothing more than a small, black medicine vial.
Inside the vial was a high-concentration anti-demon serum, an advanced pharmaceutical developed in America. The method was simple: launch it via missile onto a planet’s surface, where it would automatically burst open, releasing the serum. The anti-demon agent would cause all non-human intelligent species to gradually reveal their demonic forms, infecting each other step by step until all were transformed.
Demons would devour one another until only a single, colossal ultimate demon remained on the planet. At last, humanity would strike with a soul-infused anti-demon cannon, blasting apart the creature and leaving behind a massive, black demon core.
Humans, possessing kind hearts, could not bear to let the demon core lie exposed beneath the stars. So, they graciously collected it, recited prayers, and performed rites for its passage...
It must be said, the demonstration animation for humanity’s ultimate weapon was exceedingly beautiful and benevolent, almost healing in its saintliness.
Notably, the demon core could be extracted for high-grade specialized spiritual energy, and its shell served as an important industrial material for spiritual machinery.
Lu Chen finally understood why a certain disgruntled great nation had cast an abstention vote all those years ago. He also grasped the true meaning behind humanity’s so-called “extraterrestrial demons”—that all outsiders were deemed demonic. And, at last, he realized why the local stellar system’s demons had mutated...
His feelings were complex.
“In this light, the anti-demon serum is quite similar to the current spectral toxin. The difference is, the spectral toxin infects only prodigies, whereas the anti-demon serum spreads indiscriminately from person to person.”
At present, the extraterrestrial demons of the local stellar system had not fully transformed into monsters according to plan, nor merged into a single entity. Even if Lu Chen started his ship and left the forbidden zone, a single anti-demon cannon blast would not eradicate the millions of demons.
He doubted he could become a savior.
Instead of immediately igniting the engines of his Dragon Fighter, Lu Chen opened the ship’s navigation log. He wanted to see why humans, upon arriving at the True Spirit Continent, had not destroyed the extraterrestrial demons. Why had the demons here only mildly mutated, maintaining their reason instead of becoming true monsters?
He opened the log and scrolled the timeline back to the very beginning.
This Dragon Battlecruiser was called the Angel, built within the Star Dragon Mothership Forward, not on humanity’s home planet. By then, over three centuries had passed since humanity first set foot among the stars.
All crew aboard the Angel had been born in space. They considered themselves new humans, with minds quite different from those of the homeworld. The warp engines then were slow; even after three years of nonstop travel, the Angel had neither found any habitable planet nor encountered any intelligent life.
The Angel planned to return, but then received terrible news—Forward, the Star Dragon Mothership, had unexpectedly fallen into a black hole.
At that time, there was no broad spiritual network, nor any planetary array capable of transforming planets into habitable environments. Thus, the Angel could only drift through the cosmos, searching for a new home or a signal from other Star Dragon motherships.
Fortunately, the spiritual energy concentration in the Milky Way was extremely high then. In areas of abundant spiritual energy, one could replenish the spiritual pools, find enough water and food... But alas, such places were harsh and unsuitable for long-term human habitation.
The Angel sailed on for another ten years, yet failed to contact other Star Dragon motherships or Wyvern cruisers, nor did it find a suitable planet for human life.
The galaxy was vast beyond imagining.
The Angel was like a lone, fragile boat adrift in the void. Its three hundred crew members could no longer bear the endless, aimless journey through the stars.
Over the years, they divided into three factions:
The “continue sailing” faction.
The “return to homeworld” faction.
The “settle and reproduce” faction: advocating settling on any planet with barely adequate spiritual energy, and starting anew to propagate the new humanity.
None could convince the others; they took turns fighting for control of the ship, even resorting to bloodshed. The population was nearly halved, and even the captain was assassinated.
Just as the microcosm of the ship teetered on collapse, they discovered a blue-eyed stellar system shrouded in a storm, with twelve habitable planets.
Within, they found a civilization near stellar-level: the flying lizard people.
The lizardfolk on the twelve planets were themselves divided into three factions, waging endless wars, rivers of blood, none able to defeat the others.
After thirty years of flight, the Angel’s crew were ecstatic. Without hesitation, they launched twelve anti-demon vials toward the twelve planets.
All they had to do was wait half a year outside the system to harvest twelve demon monsters.
Yet, after half a year, the lizardfolk ceased their wars and instead united, using various means to halt the spread of the demon poison, displaying extraordinary solidarity.
Though the demon toxin eventually spread to all, the staggered infections allowed uninfected lizardfolk to try to control the monsters, extract the poison, and develop vaccine-like medicines, granting new victims immunity...
The Angel’s democratic council realized the danger.
According to the prescribed extinction protocol, in such cases, they were to immediately increase the dosage, release all serum, and preemptively activate the anti-demon cannon to eliminate the lizardfolk leaders.
However, the council president, Laura, who had assassinated the Angel’s captain, felt shame.
She witnessed the lizardfolk’s unity in catastrophe, and the crew’s division aboard the ship.
At that time, not only the Angel but humanity’s interstellar fleet was fractured, verging on civil war.
As for Forward’s fall into the black hole, conspiracy theorists still claimed it was destroyed in a war over a habitable system with another Star Dragon mothership.
“The lizardfolk seem more angelic than us. In the face of disaster, they resisted the true demons.”
“Civilization needs a mortal enemy to unite. Without one, humanity will swiftly populate the universe, then fall into endless internal strife.”
“Perhaps we, too, need an evenly matched adversary to maintain unity.”
“Every crew member here is level fifty or above, far stronger than the demonized lizardfolk. We could descend and conquer one planet, observe their evolution, and propagate humans in solidarity.”
Lu Chen never expected such benevolent yet arrogant proposals to pass by council vote...
Clearly, prolonged cosmic travel and internal conflict had deeply warped the crew’s mindset.
What followed was predictable.
The Angel’s crew spared the lizardfolk, settling on the best planet in the blue-eyed system.
And thus began the protracted war between humans and lizardfolk.
Humans retained absolute advantage, harvesting demon cores for their own use, even achieving sustainable development.
To maintain their self-proclaimed righteousness, they transformed human society into a cultivation world, rewrote history, declared themselves the natives of the True Spirit Continent, and branded the lizardfolk as extraterrestrial demons...
To avoid detection and accountability from other human fleets, the humans on the first planet constructed a forbidden zone, sealing away the Angel battlecruiser, which might be located by advanced technology.
The ship’s navigation log should have ended there.
The automatic records indeed stopped.
Yet, a hundred thousand years later, the ship’s control system was reactivated, and a new log was handwritten.
“Strange. After a hundred thousand years, the earlier generations of the ship’s crew are long dead. Few even know of its existence, let alone how to open the forbidden zone.”
Lu Chen double-checked the dates.
Twenty years ago...
A former disciple of Master Lantern?
That woman?
That itinerant adventurer?
The author of Universal Commentary, half a teacher to Lu Chen?
Lu Chen kept reading.
Through years of investigation, the woman used words to reconstruct the story of the True Spirit Continent’s later history.
To isolate themselves completely, the continent’s humans manipulated the outer storms of the blue-eyed system, gradually shrouding the entire star with black mist, blocking signals and preventing external ships.
By accident, they created a functional spiritual Dyson sphere.
Within a short time, both humans and lizardfolk saw their cultivation soar!
Despite humanity’s higher levels, the lizardfolk held the advantage in numbers.
Without cultivation technology, humans could not suppress the lizardfolk’s rise, even with the Angel’s anti-demon cannon, and the concentrated spiritual energy of the Dyson sphere would not last...
Facing extinction, five human cultivators at the ascendant stage disguised themselves as lizardfolk, infiltrating the cores of the remaining eleven planets, each planting a star-exploding array and a detonator charm.
Thus, eleven blasts lit up the night sky.
Lizardfolk were nearly wiped out.
Yet, on the shattered fragments of the planets, a few lizardfolk survived, continuing their lineage on the outer debris.
Afterwards, the Dyson sphere’s effects backfired, and spiritual energy in the blue-eyed system plummeted.
Both humans and lizardfolk were forced to withdraw, seek change, and search for survival, coexisting in peace for tens of thousands of years.
Humans found a way to open the forbidden zone and restart the ship.
The lizardfolk, unable to progress in cultivation, shifted their society toward an insectoid structure and gradually mastered the technology of flying boulders...
Now, the tide had turned; the good days of the True Spirit Continent, spanning tens of thousands of years, were drawing to a close.
The woman’s record ended with a final sentence:
“As a member of humanity—at least once was—I could have ended all this. But after witnessing the lizardfolk’s epic survival over a hundred thousand years, I chose to let go.
Perhaps this is why I cannot be a true child of destiny.
It’s yours now, successor!”
The record ended.
The navigation log suddenly went dark.
A signature appeared.
It was a black travel hat, somewhat resembling a cowboy hat, but with a more stylish brim.
Atop the hat stood a gray crow...
Lu Chen’s mind buzzed, his gaze fixed.
“Lady Fariel!”