Chapter 1732: Chapter 1732

1732: Chapter 1728: Dark Age 1732: Chapter 1728: Dark Age In the dark multiverse, slaughter is not a sin—weakness is.

The Great Summon, which took place fifty years ago, forcefully elevated an almost magic-free world, bringing endless calamities and sacrifices…

Yet without that day, perhaps the disasters of this year would have been an insurmountable catastrophe.

The invasion of the Octopus Tribe could have occurred even without the Great Summon or the Nirvana Plan…

And even if it weren’t that disaster, there would surely have been some other world-ending calamity.

To use an imperfect analogy, the world’s immune system was activated by the Great Summon, while the Nirvana Plan introduced external vaccines, viruses, and medicine… Whether or not there are hidden risks in this remains to be seen, but without undergoing these trials to build an immune system, a single major illness could have been the end—death might not have been avoided this time or the next.

The contributions and risks taken by the predecessors, Lu Ping’an had no intention of judging.

Born in an era that benefited from their achievements, Lu Ping’an felt he had no position to comment on the choices of those who came before him.

In his view, regarding the past, understanding and acceptance were enough.

The key had never been what happened in the past or why it happened… but what to do as modern individuals when the era reaches you—respond to the present and lay long-term plans for the future.

“…This societal upheaval will likely rival the Great Summon.

What will people of the future call it?

Or perhaps the Dark Age?”

Now, it was already the fourteenth day of the trap taking effect.

Two weeks had passed, yet the war showed no signs of coming to an end.

Quite the contrary—it only grew fiercer on all fronts.

“I think it might end up being called the Great Calamity or the Great Cataclysm…”

Lu Ping’an sighed as he set down the communicator.

Everywhere, it was bad news.

Was ascending dimensions truly a good thing?

Perhaps for humanity’s future new era, but for the present, the disasters stirred up by those “New Gods” were unbearably painful.

Since that day, the sea level had never calmed.

The power of the God Above Gods embedded itself into this world, also bringing the Exotic Realm’s rules to envelop everything.

To put it bluntly, the Fishmen, Naga, and Sea Beasts had truly become native inhabitants, and in astonishing numbers.

Should this be considered a catastrophe…

“…At least our country is faring decently.

The various island nations in the Pacific—there might not even be any survivors left.”

No one expected that the “dissolution” at such a scale would persist for so long under the will of the God Above Gods.

Too many New Gods and Magic Monsters were birthed.

Even if this planet were indeed the “Country of Ten Thousand Gods,” it still couldn’t fend off all the “fragments.”

But the issue wasn’t just with New Gods…

Those New Gods who had fused with Exotic Realm Creatures, and deserters from the Exotic Realms, were wreaking havoc constantly.

And amidst the catastrophes brought by one of the Octopus Tribe, its power seeped into the world’s reality.

For humanity, it manifested as erosion; for the Octopus Tribe descendants, though it was an opportunity, it was also a nightmare.

another Exotic Realm God.”

The first Naga Quasi-God had suddenly succeeded in ascension to godhood, leaving everyone stunned.

When the third Giant God Soldier Quasi-God ascended, people had grown numb.

However, when its “God Statue” was revealed, the observant understood the implications.

A typical Naga is nothing like the beautified versions in games; it has a serpentine face, six limbs, and a long tail—it’s a terrifying alien abomination that could ruin societies in some universes before reconciliation was even considered.

But now, with her snake body and human torso fully encased in armor and scales, all her limbs had transformed into slender human-like hands.

The once horrific lizard-serpent visage had also morphed into one resembling a beautiful East Asian woman.

To use another less-than-perfect analogy, it was as if this transformation had been photoshopped, with a result comparable to a modded character design.

In this form, she resembled a low-tier, heavily downgraded version of Nuwa, yet aligned with Eastern Country’s aesthetic preferences.

This could be explained as coincidence, but the image of the Giant God Soldier—a silver-armored heavy-giant wielding twin hammers—was unmistakably the Immortal of Colossal Spirit from Eastern mythology.

This wasn’t merely about allegiance or choice; it was about “transformation.”

A poison called the “concept of humanity” had already seeped into this world entirely.

“…This looks like forced submission.”

Lu Ping’an was stunned; it wasn’t only the New Gods undergoing “transformation.”

For the world, converting ordinary mortals, compared to reshaping divine beings at a monumental cost, was hardly an expense at all.

The rule named “humanization” filled the world, suffusing every human and Human God, causing Fishmen and Naga to gradually resemble Mermaids and Serpent People.

“Perhaps Earth will eventually see the emergence of more subhuman species as well…”

The “humanization” module was proliferating across the world, yet combined totals of subhumans and pure humans still amounted to less than a third of what they were twenty years ago.

From reports everywhere, populations across continents were rapidly declining.

In the face of these disasters, mortals were simply too fragile.

Starting from the calamity of the God Above Gods, countless changes rippled outward.

Beyond natural disasters were human, beast, and even divine calamities, all wreaking havoc upon the world.

The weak would survive; the strong…

even those strong enough to defy fate, would also fall without extraordinary luck.

Islands were submerged, coastal cities transformed into underwater ruins, and the mere aftershocks of the God Above Gods’ struggle unleashed boundless flooding.

As the world trembled, mortals could only struggle to survive.

The most excruciating and desperate consequences were always borne from various “divine calamities.” The infant spawn of gluttonous deities caused devastation wherever they went.

Despite global attempts to stave off these threats, the best that could be done was mitigating damage, not halting it.

Yet hope wasn’t entirely absent.

The newly born deities, having undergone humanization, naturally integrated into local human races, becoming a nascent source of new bloodlines and profession modules.

In fact, with the participation of one top-tier New God after another, those inherently powerful beings carved out a second Extraordinary Path for Earth.

“Bloodline-based godhood, evolution-based godhood…”

This path wasn’t unusual—it was the mainstream in the multiverse, a primary evolutionary pathway among the Octopus Tribe’s extraordinary bloodlines.

However, humanity, originally a mere mortal-descendant race…

With no wealth among their ancestors, what meaning would returning to a primal ancestral form hold—transforming into hulking gorillas?

Now, the forms of those New Gods, each unique, had become evolutionary templates; they had become the “source.”

With a modicum of their blood combined with Magic Potion, one could trigger a bloodline evolution tuned to their influence.

Thus, even the Outer Realm Evil Gods had become modules of evolutionary pathways.

Faced with this reality, Lu Ping’an wasn’t sure what to think.

Eastern Country’s “racial evolution” initiative had been realized unwittingly—enforced by the world itself in the harshest, most natural way possible—leaving space for the weak while favoring the survival of the evolved and fit.

Among humanity’s descendants, it was inevitable that more subhuman species would emerge, bringing countless societal issues.

But for Lu Ping’an, who had witnessed the harshness and darkness of the multiverse, these were minor concerns.

“…Living is good enough, and ensuring the continuation of a species is a miracle.

What’s the point in overthinking it?”

Lu Ping’an kept such thoughts to himself.

In the face of rampant death, any talk of “thinking long-term” would come across as overly callous and cold-blooded.

He simply prayed—prayed that, after this natural selection that would halve the population yet again, future generations would adopt a more positive name for this event.

Anything but “The Great Purge” or “The Great Extinction.”

But his prayers went unanswered.

Future historians, often as rational as they were ruthless, would record this period—where humanity’s population once dropped below two billion—with two contradictory yet apt names.

“The Great Demise” and “The Great Evolution.”