On the other side.
Through the joint efforts of more than seven thousand gods, a new human-type brain had indeed appeared.
After conquering various projects, they established the "Human Forbidden Book Catalog" and began continuously perfecting and integrating the skeleton, skin, bloodline, and hair color that went with the human brain.
Before long, the living beings on the ground discovered a species-built structure countless times smaller than the Elven Ancient Tree—the human castle, which was responsible for reproducing humans.
From Li Qing's perspective, it was about the size of a kennel.
This was an alternative Tower of Babel. Seven towers of different heights rose into the sky, forming a fairytale castle.
It towered within the lush forest, hidden among the flowers. It was sturdy and square, standing majestically upright.
Its building materials were bones and pearly white enamel. Cans were used to decorate the exterior with golden carved patterns, while mineral-water bottles were cut into windows.
It was practically a work of art so beautiful it reached the extreme, infused with an enormous amount of painstaking effort.
You could doubt the strength of their creations, but you absolutely could not doubt their aesthetics.
Inside the Tower of Babel, humans were being gestated one after another.
These humans likewise had no gender. In fact, even the living beings across the entire land still had no gender, because in the eyes of the gods, gender-based reproduction was far too inefficient.
Several days passed.
The human race began multiplying on the ground and struggling to survive in the wilderness. This period became known as the Primitive Age of Humanity.
"Praise Herodotus!"
"Praise the God of Life!"
The barbarians on the ground were extremely ambitious. They worshiped the Elf Gods in the heavens, built temples for them, and yearned for that inconceivable might.
The gods watched all of this from the sky.
"His Majesty Herodotus, humans really are an interesting animal."
Minis suddenly laughed. "The elves, and even the other lifeforms we created, only build our temples and worship us occasionally. They are nothing like humans. Humans worship and make offerings every day. Even when they cannot eat their fill and are starving, they first worship the gods and pray for our protection."
"Humans are the most devout race," one god said.
"No, that isn't it."
God-King Herodotus suddenly smiled. "Our other creations all use elf-type brains. They have no desires and lean toward peace, so they respect us, but do not worship us fervently."
"Then humans are..." A god was puzzled.
Herodotus looked down over the entire land and smiled. "That's right. They are greedy and ambitious, but lack the corresponding strength for now. That is why they like to build temples. They are not worshiping gods in those temples—they are worshiping their own desires."
"They resemble us in the past—the Atabians who vanished into history."
Time passed.
The human race gradually put down roots on the ground.
During this period, the failed Old Emperor, Minis, began to fear the humans they had created.
Humans and the Elven Race were different.
They had discovered completely that humans were ambitious, with sound brains and fully developed wisdom and creativity. In humans, Minis saw the shadow of the ancient Atabians.
Given enough time, these believers who appeared to worship the gods most diligently might instead attempt to resist the gods in the heavens!
Once again unable to restrain himself, he said to Herodotus, "The human race should never have appeared in this world! We should destroy them!"
"Just like before, when you wanted to destroy an entire divine system of more than two thousand gods?"
Herodotus stood atop the tree, looking down over the land, and said calmly, "Fear has filled your heart with awe."
"You should understand that when one of us gods dies, there is permanently one fewer of us. Only intelligent, greedy, and wild lifeforms created like us can surge forth endlessly like living water. Only then can civilization reach its ultimate limits!"
Old Emperor Minis said furiously, "Herodotus, you will regret this!"
"No. You should understand one more thing."
Herodotus suddenly opened his eyes wide. "Greedy people will not destroy us. Instead, they are the hope that we gods will live into the future!"
Whoosh!
His pupils rotated once, and in an instant, they blossomed with glazed colors.
Herodotus's eyeballs were like diamonds, with more than a dozen facets that shone with dazzling glazed radiance.
After activating those eyes, Herodotus's entire body seemed to have accelerated tenfold. Moving as swiftly as a fading afterimage, he suddenly patted Minis on the shoulder.
"What are you...?" For the first time, Minis felt an oppressive force from this mysterious man comparable to that of Atabia in those days—the terror of something eternally beyond his reach.
"It is a technology obtained from the Compound-eyed Flying Beast. It has finally succeeded," Herodotus said.
It had absorbed the compound-eye structure and neural reflexes of flies.
A fly's reaction speed was more than ten times that of a human. In a fly's eyes, humans were slow-motion giants, which was why it was so difficult for humans to hit flies.
But what about Herodotus now?
His brain reacted ten times faster, and his movements were ten times faster as well.
In other words, while one second passed for everyone else, ten seconds had already passed in his eyes.
In this world, speed broke all techniques. That was precisely how it worked.
Perhaps the first development of biological-technology civilization should be adjusting and optimizing neural reflex speed, allowing the entire biological civilization to enter a "high-time-flow" state!
Half a day later.
Minis also experienced the tenfold-speed world.
Yet he was shocked to discover that his consciousness was aging.
They had previously thought that after building brains for themselves, their consciousnesses would also become immortal. They had never expected that under acceleration, he would once again feel himself aging.
"Yes, we will still die. In this tenfold-speed state, we can sense it very clearly."
Herodotus said, "We built a house for consciousness to shelter it from wind and dust, but consciousness inside the house will still continue to age. Consciousness is not immortal."
"Unless the bodies we build can produce the power of souls and replenish our consciousness, only then can we truly live forever! The subject of immortality is even more difficult than we imagined!"
"I see."
Minis said, "Even we gods will eventually die of old age in consciousness. You want to cultivate the human race, creating a vast force of living beings to research the technology of survival for us and serve as test subjects."
"Not only that. I also want to replace the eyes of the entire world with this divine eye and enter a tenfold-speed world."
Herodotus spoke calmly. "Let the people on the ground deduce the future for us! I will even secretly kill some gods and let the humans on the ground find them and obtain the gods' authorities!"
"But..."
Minis was somewhat flustered. "It is good to have them research technology for us, but this is also giving them the blade with which to kill us. It creates the possibility that they could overthrow us!"
Herodotus sat on the divine throne and said coldly, "What prevents immortality is not greed and desire, but your fear of death!"
"If the humans on the ground want to overthrow me, then let them come!"
Glazed colors bloomed in his eyes, reflecting the sunlight in the heavens. An awe-inspiring majesty that made it hard to breathe radiated from him as he looked down over the mountains, rivers, forests, and tribes beneath the World Tree.
To fear death and enemies, to pour one's heart into such laughable matters instead of pursuing this vast universe, contending with the world for life, and witnessing more distant scenery—that was true foolishness!
Minis looked at the man on the throne with a complicated expression. He was like a great mountain pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe. At last, he knelt on one knee and submitted.
He had thought that after Atabia died, fear would disappear.
Yet now, that unfathomable might had appeared before him once again.
Herodotus and Atabia—living in the same era as these two strongest men was both fortunate and unfortunate.
"Praise the great King of the World Tree, God of Gods! His Majesty Herodotus!"
At that moment, he submitted completely.
A new era began.
Herodotus led the gods in working together to build the God of Elves.
He possessed great talent and vision and would not allow a single wise being to be wasted without reason. He made the greatest possible use of every scrap of wisdom, perfected the divine-art system, and prepared to simplify the process of casting divine arts, imprinting the formulas into genes and giving them to the Elven Race.
He wanted the Elven Race to possess the ability to release divine arts rapidly by nature!
Divine arts had been born completely!
"Vine Entanglement!"
"Wood Shield!"
The elves entered a new domain, and the entire land would remember it.
That man seemed determined to lead civilization toward longevity and immortality!
Even some ambitious gods did not dare act rashly. They fell silent and followed him in exploring the unknown path ahead, plucking the flowers of truth, abandoning all internal strife and intrigue, pure in heart and devoted to the Way.
The gods felt as though they had returned to the ancient era when they had been free of worldly contention, pursuing what they loved together and enjoying a long-lost peace.
At the same time.
"Ah!"
"Why are we so weak?"
The weak humans were attacked by beasts on the ground and lived in extreme hardship.
"Poor children."
A handsome male elf came along the river.
Herodotus wore a broad white divine robe, held a scepter, and wore a crown. Glazed radiance flickered in his eyes as he said gently, "You have suffered."
The human chieftain looked over in terror. "You are... the god from the tree?"
His steps were unbelievably fast.
He seemed like a lifeform from another dimension, brilliant as a phantom.
It was as though separated by a layer of air, radiating divine light.
Herodotus merely smiled. "Poor children, I have brought you fire to resist the beasts. I will grant you the eyes of a god and let you enter the kingdom of the gods."
"Continue worshiping us. Build more temples for us. Let us see your devotion, and we will grant you more."
Soon, the humans on the ground became ten times faster, and the entire world slowed down.
"Praise the Almighty God, His Majesty Herodotus!"
The humans shouted fanatically. In an instant, their speed increased tenfold. Like a dimensional strike, they became the apex lifeform of the food chain.
Several more days passed.
Herodotus even joined forces with Minis to secretly kill ten gods and hand their divine cores over to the humans!
He granted ten tribal kings the great power to create life. This became known as the Ten Saints!
Unlike the peace-loving Elven Race, the humans began frantically hunting the living beings of the land, purging those low-speed creatures from the earth.
The gods deliberately turned a blind eye.
They merely let the Elven Race live in the trees. So long as the humans on the ground did not cross the boundary or attempt to climb into the sky above the God Tree, they ignored them.
"Ah!"
"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"
Countless living beings screamed across the land.
Above them, the gods looked coldly down at the rising human race.
"This era belongs to the gods' creation of humanity, and to the rise of the human race." Herodotus spoke slowly from the divine throne. "They will rapidly experience birth, aging, illness, and death, deducing the future of civilization for us gods of the high heavens."
The other gods looked at the man and became increasingly obedient, bowing their heads in submission.
He possessed absolute strength and absolute majesty. From the era of the Great Flood disaster, he had been hailed as the legendary "Imperial Hero Herodotus." He was fully capable of leading the gods down the correct path and helping them survive!
Bathed in the radiance of the rising sun, they gazed at the God-King whose eyes shone with glazed colors. A trace of fanaticism began to fill their own eyes.
On the ground.
The human race was rising, cleansing the land of beasts.
Looking at those terrifying new humans, Ilis was terrified inside:
"Damn it! Damn it! The gods in the sky want to use human hands to begin a great extinction of civilization! They want to purge all low-speed lifeforms! Then they will create high-speed beasts and bring the entire ground into a terrifying age of acceleration!"
What terrifying scheming.
The gods were laying out their design for the entire world from the heavens.
Ilis felt the terror of death coil around its entire body.
"I cannot wait like this any longer." It immediately ambushed a lone human, stole the other party's genetic structure, and forcibly entered the advanced tenfold-speed state.
Although it knew how sinister the gods were, tenfold speed also meant ten times the acceleration toward death. But it had no choice.
"The Outer God was right. I cannot even stop the people on the ground. If they discover me, I will certainly die." Facing this great purge, it finally made up its mind to submit to that unseen Outer God.
It began to pray:
"The gods in the heavens are extremely brutal. Ancient God, please grant me the power to contend with the gods!"
Before you continue