metaverse evolution.

What appeared before the spaceship were corpses stretching for light-years, shattered continents, large and small broken magical artifacts, and many more indistinguishable fragments tumbling in the void, among which the wreckage of the spaceship was the most conspicuous.

Wang Guowen maneuvered the spaceship through the wreckage, silently investigating everything.

Occasionally, one can see the corpses of the Yanhuang people themselves, silently tumbling in the cold void.

But the spaceship didn't stop; it continued forward. There was still a signal ahead! Those who were alive were more important than those who had died.

As they got closer, more signals were detected, mostly communication and command signals between spacecraft.

The war continues, and there are still living descendants of the Yellow Emperor here. This time the distance is much closer, the location is locked at about one light-year.

The spaceship accelerated forward. The powerful vessel smashed through the corpses in its path. Upon reaching its destination, the entire route was littered with corpses.

What exactly does war bring to life?
Inside the spaceship, Wang Guowen silently watched the corpses flashing by outside, his mind filled with what he had recently been learning from Tianzui Zhenzai.

Harvesting through war is just one of the methods used by the strongest; more importantly... it's about reducing the number of lives. To be precise, these two goals are the same.

The more lives one has, the more information one creates. The total amount of information a person creates in their lifetime might be equivalent to that of an entire planet. For example, the conditions on some desolate planets could be documented in a few hundred-page report. But a life produces far more than that much information.

With a large amount of information, it will gradually transform into an information field, which will then lead to creation and ultimately cause the current world to expand continuously.

As the world expands, even the most powerful beings will feel the effects of inflation. Despite their diligent cultivation, they cannot keep up with the pace of global expansion and are unable to ascend to immortality no matter what.

But the biggest problem is that these powerful beings are not beasts of burden; they can overturn the table. Those countless eons are proof of this. During these eons, the powerful beings simultaneously harvest souls and the fortunes of all beings while restricting the increase of humankind.

There is an important balance to be struck here. The amount of information generated by all living beings must be just enough to keep the world stable with a slight increase, while ensuring that the world's growth rate is lower than the growth rate of the powerful.

The world needs to maintain a slight growth rate to sustain global stability. A global recession would trigger a host of strange and unsettling problems.

However, this is only in theory. In reality, the methods of these powerful beings have clearly failed, and the entire universe is still in the process of rapid creation. But for countless beings in the world, their desires, their repeated failed attempts, are a true catastrophe.

The endless calamities, the repeated clashes and crushing defeats between the two factions, reduced countless lives to dust. All of this was merely for a few powerful beings seeking to ascend once more!

Wang Guowen silently gazed into the void, combining his powerful perception with the spaceship's exploration technology to scan the space. Suddenly, he detected a moving warship. The warship was half-damaged, but its stern engine was still spewing flames. However, the warship seemed to be fleeing in panic, with powerful beings riding divine beasts in pursuit.

Wang Guowen immediately ordered: "Save him and find out what happened."

…………

Wang Mingye was already somewhat desperate and exhausted. For almost a thousand years, the war had not yet ended.

As an elite member of the Tongtian Palace, he had already reached the 19.0 level of cultivation a thousand years ago. However, his cultivation technique was not very good at that time. Just when Wang Mingye was considering which research school to join, he received some exciting news—the War God Palace had brought a brand-new cultivation technique that could be cultivated to the 20.0 level, and the technique was shared for free.

That was the first time Wang Mingye learned about the Ascending Dragon Palace, Chu Fei, Shangguan Qinghong, and other information.

But Wang Mingye never expected that cultivation techniques would iterate so rapidly.

Just after Wang Mingye reached level 20.0 in his cultivation, news arrived that the cultivation method had been iterated, and a new method for "level 20.0 Tribulation Transcending Realm" had appeared. However, before the method could be widely adopted, the first large-scale "forced conscription" occurred.

Wang Mingye formatted his cultivation level from 20.0 to 19.0, effectively concealing it before entering the front lines. The Yanhuang civilization achieved considerable success in the early stages of the war by relying on this method of concealment, primarily due to a very high survival rate for its troops. However, this strategy was quickly exploited and targeted.

Of the first batch of elites forcibly conscripted, over 95% perished in a mere century. This was followed by a second and a third forced conscription, with war raging on.

Fortunately, the Big Data Cultivation Technique also began to iterate rapidly at this time, updating almost every month. Wang Mingye practiced frantically, struggling to make progress.

But the war grew increasingly frenzied and brutal. The Yanhuang civilization was constantly drained of its lifeblood. Over the long course of several hundred years, Wang Mingye also lost too many comrades-in-arms, his heart burning with rage, yet powerless to do anything about it.

Now, he has finally cultivated to the level 23.0. However, in today's war, even if a cultivation level of 23.0 is comparable to a Grand Luo Golden Immortal, he is still cannon fodder, just a slightly higher level. Under the sage's scythe, all living beings are ants.

What infuriates everyone is that everyone knows the sage is harvesting the韭菜 (a metaphor for exploiting the weak), and the leaders of both camps are probably laughing and joking, but everyone is helpless and has no choice but to go to the battlefield.

As for the rewards given by the sages, it can only be said that the money comes from the people themselves, and traditional rewards are not very meaningful for big data cultivation.

The only meaningful aspect was the "luck reward," which could improve the survival rate and bring better fortune to the people of the Yanhuang civilization. But it was utterly useless. Fewer deaths didn't mean they were immortal; in the hundreds of years of war, the Yanhuang civilization was continuously drained of its lifeblood.

This all-out war has now lasted for a thousand years, but a thousand years is but a fleeting moment to a sage. The Yanhuang civilization inquired everywhere about the past, and based on past experience, the duration of each catastrophe must be calculated in the hundreds of thousands of years!

It could take anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million years or even longer. Only a thousand years have passed so far; the hard times are yet to come.

Of course, although the Yanhuang civilization was in dire straits, it was still relatively better than its contemporaries. At least it could continue to develop and progress despite this constant drain on its resources, and it could also use industrial products to replace some of its cannon fodder.

As far as Wang Mingye knew, more than a dozen civilizations around the Yanhuang civilization had already retreated to the surface world. But even retreating to the surface world did not mean safety; there were still strange beasts descending and ghostly spirits invading, among other things.

The entire universe is under the control of the powerful. In the past, the powerful avoided the surface world because it lacked resources. However, the surface world still possesses one greatest resource—countless lives. Now, it's time to reap the rewards.

Natural disasters similar to the extinction of the dinosaurs have occurred on countless planets.

"I wonder how the surface world of the Yanhuang civilization is doing?" Wang Mingye sighed as he looked at the wreckage outside the porthole.

Wang Mingye felt his life was coming to an end; this time, he probably couldn't escape. Was he unwilling? Absolutely. Big data cultivation is quite unique; basically, after breaking through to 20.0, one can control their own life—virtually achieving immortality.

Without war, every elite in big data cultivation could roam the universe freely. But now, they're just cannon fodder. It's not that no one has thought of running away; there's never a shortage of cowards. But running away only leads to an even faster demise.

The two factions have a clear reward for meritorious service: kills!

Here, you can surrender, you can betray, but you can't escape the fate of becoming cannon fodder on the battlefield. But if you become a deserter, both factions will hunt you down together, and you'll die even faster.

This time, it seems I'm the one getting credit for someone else's ambush. The ambush failed, and I was the one ambushed instead; it's highly likely there's a traitor within my own ranks.

As Wang Mingye was pondering, a warning sound suddenly came from the spaceship, and another engine shut down.

At this point, only three engines of the warship were still running, and its speed was no longer enough to shake off the pursuers.

Wang Mingye took a deep breath and gave the order: "Gentlemen, prepare for the final battle!"

The spaceship began to turn around, its engines shut down, and all energy was concentrated in its weapon systems. The spaceship continued to move forward in the void due to inertia.

The remaining personnel on the spaceship immediately went into battle mode, and some strangely packaged medicines with skulls on them were stuffed into their pockets.

Behind them, a group of powerful individuals riding divine beasts rapidly approached. These divine beasts were special; they could easily traverse the void and pursue the warships. Now that the warships had shut down, the distance between them closed quickly.

However, these powerful beings who rode divine beasts did not charge straight ahead. As they approached the warship, their figures flickered and became unpredictable, all thanks to the experience they gained from battles.

On the warship, weapons were ready. Suddenly, a weapon erupted, a blinding beam of light piercing through the void, striking a figure that flashed into view!

This seemed to be a signal, and more pursuers erupted. The warship only launched a few dozen powerful attacks, hitting about ten targets, before being overwhelmed by more enemies.

The decisive battle is about to break out.

Wang Mingye tightened his grip on the "magic weapon longsword" made of strong particle material, staring intently ahead.

While liquid gold nanotechnology offers numerous variations, the resulting materials, including the modified versions, still fall short of the strength and hardness of finished hadron materials. Consequently, in today's extreme battlefield environment, liquid gold nanotechnology has been rendered obsolete.

But at that moment, Wang Mingye suddenly realized that the surrounding environment had changed, and there seemed to be some kind of strange power flashing through the space.

Then they saw the pursuing enemy vanguard suddenly turn to ashes.

In the blink of an eye, a person appeared before me, a fellow countryman.

Wang Mingye blinked, a little confused. How did he get out? What happened? Why had he never seen him before?
The newcomer spoke up: "My name is Wang Guowen, what's your name?"

"Wang Mingye. Hey, where did you guys come from? There shouldn't be any branches of the Yanhuang civilization around here, right? We're the only ones left. Even if there's a rescue team, it should be from another civilization of the same faction."

Wang Guowen laughed: "Ha, we're from the same clan. We come from the Rising Dragon Palace. I don't know if you've heard of us, but I think you should, because the cultivation method you're practicing now is a version of something we passed down in the past... um... an early version."

Wang Mingye was a little dumbfounded: "The Ascending Dragon Palace? You come from the Ascending Dragon Palace? I heard that the Ascending Dragon Palace seems to have lost contact, or that the Ascending Dragon Palace took the initiative to close the immortal-mortal passage."

Wang Guowen nodded, a look of emotion flashing across his face. "It's a long story. We clashed with the sage of Changqingtian. In order to prevent the war from spreading to our territory, we had no choice but to cut off our retreat."

The result was pretty good, though. What's the situation here?

Wang Mingye's face turned grim. Many things had happened over the years, but they could be summarized in a simple way: being forcibly conscripted by blood, being fought, being hunted down, being ambushed, being attacked on the initiative, being... everything.

Currently, the highest cultivation level in the Temple of War is only at the peak of 23.0, with the most being half-step 24.0. There isn't even a quasi-saint. One can imagine the immense pressure they face. And the price of such immense pressure is death—countless deaths.

Over these thousands of years, there's not much to say; it's all about struggling to survive.

After understanding the general situation, Wang Guowen focused on inquiring about Shangguan Qinghong's condition. He found that her situation was fairly good. Although Shangguan Qinghong had participated in the campaign, the higher-ups of the final camp had ultimately ordered her to return early.

To put it simply, Shangguan Qinghong is now the "ruler," and the higher-ups in her faction need to be taken care of. If something were to happen to Shangguan Qinghong or a few other high-ranking members, it would cause problems for the entire management system. With the current pressure of war, the safety of the leadership truly needs to be ensured.

This answer relieved Wang Guowen. After all, Shangguan Qinghong was Chu Fei's woman, even though they hadn't seen each other for nearly a thousand years. He wondered if Shangguan Qinghong had hired other 'gunmen' during these years.

Strictly speaking, the relationship between Chu Fei and Shangguan Qinghong was more like that of a gunman and a target; there wasn't much emotional connection. It was probably just that, after spending so much time in the Qinglian world, they found a partner to seduce. Although feelings may develop over time, those feelings were always somewhat flawed.

Chu Fei had a wedding with Wei Qingyu and with Lilia. His relationship with Shangguan Qinghong was a complete mess.

However, it was inconvenient for Wang Guowen to ask these questions; he only needed to confirm that Shangguan Qinghong was not dead.

Wang Mingye, on the other hand, inquired about the situation on Wang Guowen's side, especially the situation of the pursuers outside. Then he witnessed a shocking scene: the powerful pursuers were being swept away like eggs by a sledgehammer under the attack of Wang Guowen and his group of about three hundred people. They were already running away frantically, but they couldn't escape at all.

This is what is meant by utterly devastating.

After receiving Wang Guowen's reply, Wang Mingye remained silent for a long time, his mind echoing with Wang Guowen's words: "We currently have more than 20 million beings at the 25.0 level. If needed, we can unleash a burst of 30 million in a short time."

The 25.0 level corresponds to a true saint; considering the special nature of big data cultivation, which mainly relies on a solid foundation, everyone's actual combat power is half a level higher than that of others at the same level.

Twenty million saints!
Wang Mingye was so shocked by the news that he was unable to think straight.

Looking at the devastated battlefield ahead, and recalling the suffering of the War God Temple, the Tongtian Temple, and other branches of the Yanhuang civilization over the years, Wang Mingye suddenly wanted to burst into tears.

However, Wang Guowen had no time to rest. After rescuing Wang Mingye and his group, he took Wang Mingye away and restarted the spaceship. Under Wang Mingye's guidance, he rescued more branches of the Yanhuang civilization.

Behind them, Chu Fei led his large fleet "slowly" towards the battlefield. Although it was described as slow, the actual speed was still as high as five hundred times the speed of light.

More than two months later, Chu Fei met the remaining people on Wang Mingye's spaceship and obtained detailed information from them.

The battlefield currently in which the entire Yanhuang civilization is involved is the "Heavenly Demon Realm Battlefield," which spans thousands of light-years and is distributed in a fan shape.

The apparent cause of the war is the expansion of the Demon World, and it does indeed appear that the Demons are going mad and encroaching on the surrounding world. But everyone knows the real situation: the Demons are likely just cannon fodder.

There's no point in dwelling on what kind of battlefield this is. Chu Fei and the Rising Dragon Fleet have already made their decision—the current Yanhuang civilization is qualified to say "no" to this kind of reaping war!
The fleet advanced in a grand and imposing manner, a sight that naturally attracted the attention of the high command on both sides of the war. (End of Chapter)