Half a year later.
The vast void that had once held countless bubble-like mortal realms across the myriad worlds had changed beyond recognition.
Lifeless. Empty. Dim.
As far as the eye could see, not a single glimmer remained.
Only endless gray mist rolled and surged, filling every inch of the void like cosmic background radiation.
It drifted slowly, as though digesting the last scraps of matter, or perhaps waiting for its next command.
Only half a year had passed.
Before the Gray Grub Storm's exponentially expanding hunger and its ability to leap through spacetime, all 12,960,000,000,000 mortal realms had fallen.
Whatever their size, strength, or form of civilization, every last one had become nourishment for the Gray Grub race.
Meanwhile, after Contestant No. 8, several more unlucky contestants had fallen to Zhang Sanxian, one by one.
Their system treasures had also become fuel for the Little Blue Bottle's evolution.
Now only two contestants remained.
The pair were in higher realms and had yet to be found by the Gray Grub race.
And after half a year of countless evolutionary iterations,
the Gray Grub race's technology and overall strength had reached a terrifying height.
Zhang Sanxian even had a feeling.
He felt that if he released the entire Gray Grub race into the outside universe, it would be strong enough to sweep aside all opposition and establish a vast empire spanning the cosmos.
Of course, that assumed the fundamental laws of the outside universe could support the existence and operation of Gray Grub cellular automata.
According to Zhang Sanxian's research, that was probably not the case.
The laws of this secret realm, created by the ancient Imperial Palace Clan, differed greatly from those of the real universe.
The Gray Grub race was a product of those particular laws. Just as fish