Chapter 194: The Mobius Strip and the Human Catastrophe
"It turned out to be the legendary miraculous painting..."
Rosen exclaimed in disbelief as he looked at the painting in his hands.
[Mobius Strip: Miracle Painting]
[Level: Sequence 3]
[Range: Nine-layer infinite loop spiritual space]
[Population: None]
[Specialty: None]
[Miracle Characteristics: Dimensional Fusion, Uniqueness of Heaven and Earth, Eternal Immortality]
After refining it, Rosen discovered that he was holding not one painting but two.
The first painting was the Mobius Strip, and the second depicted the city in the spiritual realm he had previously entered.
Through the property of dimensional fusion, the Mobius Strip can merge with any spiritual painting, transforming a single spiritual space into nine layers, where time, space, and energy can circulate infinitely.
In this way, the people of that city managed to survive through countless resets spanning thousands of years.
To them, only three years had passed at most.
Rosen carefully separated the Mobius Strip from the other spiritual painting.
[Golden Fields: Spiritual Painting]
[Level: Sequence 3]
[Range: One thousand miles]
[Population: 6.19 million]
[Specialties: Population, Golden Wheat, Golden Wheat Ears]
Upon examining the inhabitants of this spiritual realm, Rosen noticed that the fields outside the city were planted with Golden Wheat.
While Golden Wheat itself is only a Sequence 9 extraordinary food ingredient with relatively low value, its growth sometimes produces Golden Wheat Ears. These rare ears can enhance the spiritual growth of demigods and provide a short-term surge in extraordinary luck.
This spiritual painting promised substantial wealth. Annual sales of Golden Wheat alone could conservatively generate tens of millions of spiritual crystals. If even a single Golden Wheat Ear appeared, its value would skyrocket to hundreds of millions of spiritual crystals, instantly becoming a rare and highly coveted commodity.
Rosen hung the painting in the Castle of Ashes and placed the entrance to the spiritual realm outside the castle.
Soon, mid-level managers from the territory would enter the Golden City in the Golden Fields to inform the inhabitants about the true nature of their world.
Rosen carefully stored the two spiritual paintings before turning his attention to the Sequence Ancient Tree beneath his feet.
Since being trapped in the Mobius Strip, he had experienced eight cycles of time and space resets.
The first reset seemed ordinary, but by accumulating experience over the next six cycles, Rosen had finally mastered five-dimensional painting by the eighth cycle.
To be honest, only someone like him could have achieved this. Any other demigod—or lesser being—trapped in the Mobius Strip would face only one outcome: death.
For outsiders, each cycle within the Mobius Strip lasts three years. After nine cycles, the trapped soul would be fully assimilated, losing all resistance, and expelled from the spiritual realm to become nourishment for the Sequence Ancient Tree.
Logically, the Sequence Ancient Tree should have dissipated long ago, as the demigod painter who created it had died ages ago.
But Rosen noticed something unusual—the Sequence Ancient Tree had been painted.
The demigod painter, fatally wounded and unwilling to die, had used five-dimensional painting to create his own Sequence Ancient Tree. Those who had betrayed and slain Misia were ultimately consumed by this ancient tree.
Even without Rosen's intervention, Misia's revenge would have been fulfilled.
Yet, because of Misia, Rosen had obtained immense benefits. He decided that when he passed through Mountain River City, he would leave a painting for Misia's family as a tribute.
Rosen calculated the time and realized that eight months had passed since he had been trapped in the Mobius Strip.
One month outside equaled three years inside, creating a 36-fold time difference.
Although five-dimensional painting could manipulate time, such a massive time disparity required an enormous consumption of spiritual crystals.
The demigod painter had orchestrated this setup to accelerate the revival of his Sequence Ancient Tree.
If Rosen had emerged two months later, the demigod painter might have been reborn through the ancient tree.
But since Rosen had escaped first, he decided to grant the demigod painter eternal rest.
Summoning his Gluttonous Beast, Rosen commanded it to devour the Sequence Ancient Tree.
The weakened tree offered little resistance and was quickly consumed. Amid the digestion process, fragments of the demigod painter's memories surfaced.
The truth behind the painter's death left Rosen uneasy.
It wasn't an ordinary enemy—the one who killed the demigod painter was a Sequence 1 painter, someone who had also escaped death through similar methods, including the Mobius Strip.
In the end, everything—the spiritual paintings, territory buildings, residents—was obliterated. Only the Mobius Environment and the Golden Fields survived, and the painter himself perished, leaving behind only a faint self-portrait clone.
His death was ultimately caused by his extraordinary talent.
For someone at Sequence 3 to have mastered something as complex as five-dimensional painting was seen as a threat. Powerful entities would stop at nothing to prevent his growth.
This realization sent chills down Rosen's spine—anyone who understood five-dimensional painting was marked for death.
The demigod painter's Divine Territory was now an empty shell. All the buildings, including the Lord's Castle, were gone. With the Sequence Ancient Tree destroyed, the Divine Territory would soon collapse.
While dismantling the remnants, Rosen activated the Divine Domain Copying Trait, replicating the territory feature of Sequence 3 Divine Domain: Space Shaping.
With Space Shaping, the spatial barrier of a Divine Territory could be molded like clay.
This was not the most powerful ability, but it caught Rosen's attention. Normally, the spatial barrier of a Divine Territory was an immutable spherical space.
But with Space Shaping, Rosen could manipulate it freely.
Over the next two days, Rosen nearly completed the disassembly, although copying the Divine Territory's traits was still in progress.
Rosen began reshaping his own Divine Territory.
The soil from the demigod's territory was revealed to be a special composite soil, enriched with precious supernatural substances.
Its superior shaping ability and high energy absorption capacity made it incredibly valuable.
Much of his original soil, previously used for agriculture, would now be transferred to the Spiritual Realm, where it would better serve his people.
Finally, Rosen used the Miracle Pocket to verify the soil's traits and started resurfacing his Divine Territory with the superior composite soil.
The first is its super strong shaping ability, and the second is its super strong ability to absorb energy.
When he fought with Kapak, a lot of soil in his divine territory was destroyed in the battle.
However, this composite soil is completely different. It can absorb energy and become extremely hard. Therefore, even if a Sequence 3 fights in the Divine Realm, the most it can do is shatter the surface. It is absolutely impossible to completely destroy the basic material that constitutes the Divine Realm.
Obviously, this divine territory made of composite soil is mainly for fighting and war.
After replacing all the soil, the space-shaping feature of the territory is also copied.
Rosen also began to think about his promotion to the nobility.
He had already met the conditions to advance from Noble Sequence to Sequence 5, but the ancient god sacrificial technique made him decide to wait a bit.
By integrating the original decrees, he successfully gave his divine territory four characteristics.
The noble sequence was upgraded to Sequence 5, which undoubtedly gave him another chance to perform the ancient god sacrifice technique.
Although after the territory is advanced, the performance of ancient god sacrificial techniques can also obtain territory characteristics.
However, if he performs the ancient god sacrificial technique simultaneously when he is promoted in the noble sequence and the divine territory, and by the way integrates his ancient god bloodline into every inch of soil and every inch of space barrier in the divine territory, he will be able to master the core skills of another ancient god sequence when he advances.
Now all the conditions are met, the only thing lacking is that there is not enough blood of the ancient gods.
Rosen has been drawing blood from himself quite a lot recently, and he is almost tired of eating golden apples and spiritual delicacies that replenish blood every day.
The current radius of the divine territory is 5,100 meters, and the circumference is more than ten kilometers.
Running ten kilometers in a straight line is already a very large distance.
If one wants to permeate such a large space with the blood of the ancient gods, one can imagine how much blood of the ancient gods will be consumed.
Rosen also considered using the blood awakening cabin, but it turned out that thing could copy and clone ordinary extraordinary blood, but it was completely unable to copy and clone the ancient god blood. The reason was that the ancient god blood was too strong, and the complexity of the internal genes exceeded the capacity limit of the blood awakening cabin.
Seeing that the Demigod's territory was only a shell, Rosen prepared to leave.
When he left, he still had some doubts in his mind.
He didn't understand why the demigod painter buried the millions of dead subjects?
He did not find this part of relevant memory among the memory fragments remaining in the ancient tree of the Demigod Painter Sequence.
It is unreasonable to say that this demigod painter had a deep bond with his subjects and that he would erect a monument for them even if the subjects were to be mutilated.
After all, the one who escaped at that time was only the self-portrait clone of the demigod painter, and this clone would not live long either.
In the precious limited time before his death, he did not plan more ways to resurrect, but instead spent a lot of energy to erect a monument for his leaders. No matter how you look at it, this is not normal. There must be a secret that he has not discovered.
Rosen was sure that there were no more resources left and prepared to leave this divine territory that was about to collapse.
However, at the moment of leaving, the sixth sense and death perception gave crazy warnings.
The God-hunting Demon Eye in Rosen's right eye instantly looked behind his head, and saw a ball of black mist suddenly appear behind him.
It seemed as if countless resentments were entangled together, then locked onto him and wanted to pollute his spirituality.
Rosen carefully sensed these resentments, and he seemed to understand why the demigod painter erected the monument.
This is a backup plan. If someone destroys the demigod painter's resurrection, these resentments will be the demigod painter's final counterattack.
Given the strength of these resentments, even a demigod might die at their hands if they encountered them.
As for why these resentments were not discovered before, it should be that these resentments were hidden in the authority rules of the demigod painter's integration into the divine territory. These resentments were not released until the divine territory completely collapsed.
It's just a pity that these resentments pose no threat to him at all.
Rosen projected a curtain of ash, and the Horror Park instantly pulled all the resentment inwards. It took a full half an hour to absorb it all, and it was one step closer to completely lighting up all the rides and advancing to Sequence 5.
In the void phase, Rosen was directly teleported back to Mountain River City.
A few hours later, he painted a Sequence 5 resource-type spiritual realm painting and sent it to the descendants of Misia.
Only then did he escape into the spirit world and prepare to go to the City of Stars, the capital of the Star Empire.
Perhaps it was due to the increase in wealth or his luck, but Rosen obtained another Sequence 6 Soul Gem on the way.
This time, the divine beast pen was strengthened because Rosen felt that the fantasy elf was about to wake up.
He stopped immediately and prepared to wait for the fantasy elf to wake up in the mysterious study.
On this day, Rosen was hunting in the spirit world as usual.
He is responsible for clearing out those spiritual beings that have reached Sequence 5. Those below Sequence 5 are escorted by the territory's troops led by Alicia. All the extraordinary beings in the territory are centered on the divine territory and spread out to the surrounding areas in search of suitable prey.
Rosen was chasing a Sequence 5 Mountain Giant when he suddenly felt the whole world shaking violently.
With a cautious mindset, he fired a Dragon King's Roaring bullet to burn the mountain giant to death, preparing to end today's hunt early.
After everyone retreated back to the divine territory, Rosen logged into the deep web of the spiritual world through the main god's computer.
He had never experienced the entire spiritual world shaking before.
At this moment, the deep web of the spiritual world was in chaos. It wasn't just the Holy Continent that felt this turbulence; the spiritual world across the entire human realm had experienced violent upheaval. Now, everyone was waiting for an explanation from the World Government.
Rosen attempted to hack into the World Government's official database, and his heart tightened as he scanned the encrypted information displayed before him.
It turned out that all the major races had joined forces to accomplish something monumental.
The core of the spiritual world resides within the main world and spreads outward from the human realm, gradually covering the territories of other races. However, the spiritual world struggles to extend into isolated realms like the Abyss.
Recently, dozens of isolated worlds, including the Abyss, collaborated to pull the spiritual world into their domains. Simultaneously, the major alien races combined their efforts to draw the spiritual world into their territories. As a result, the spiritual world now completely covers the main world and all its subsidiary realms.
On the surface, this appeared to be a good thing, given that humans maintained primary control over the spiritual world. However, in reality, the alien races had forcibly accelerated this integration.
The reason was simple: while the coverage area of the spiritual world had nearly doubled, its mass had not increased proportionally.
If the spiritual world were compared to an ocean, its sea level had now dropped by more than half.
This meant that the spatial, spiritual, and material density of the spiritual world had been significantly diluted.
These changes would lead to profound consequences:
Previously, only Sequence 7 beings could physically enter the spiritual world, but now even Sequence 9 beings could do so.
Spiritual beings, which once struggled to cross into reality, could now do so with ease.
Beings from the deep layers of the spiritual world could more easily emerge on its surface.
In some places, partial fusions between reality and the spiritual world would occur. While extraordinary individuals might survive such fusions, ordinary people caught in these areas would face almost certain death.
Even more concerning was that these fusion zones would predominantly appear in densely populated human cities.
Cities, filled with the spiritual energy of millions, acted like bait for the weakened spiritual world. The spiritual world would instinctively descend, merging parts of its space with reality. When people died in these areas, their spirits would merge into the spiritual world.
This cycle would continue until the spiritual world's equilibrium was partially restored, with its density returning to three-quarters of its original state.
Conservative estimates suggested this process would take fifty years.
During this time, the human world's population was projected to decrease by 30%.
For context:
A principality held billions of people.
A kingdom housed tens of billions.
An empire sustained hundreds of billions.
The World Government oversaw countless principalities, kingdoms, and thousands of empires.
This meant, conservatively, that hundreds of trillions of people would die over the next fifty years.
With so many alien races coordinating such a colossal event, it was inconceivable that the World Government was unaware.
This implied one thing: the World Government had condoned, or at least tolerated, this outcome.
A 30% reduction in the human population would undoubtedly have catastrophic consequences for human civilization.
Rosen couldn't fathom why the World Government would allow this.
The data he had accessed was low-level confidential information—it would likely be made public within hours. Beyond that, the deep web of the spiritual world offered no further insight.
Rosen then logged into the Main God Network, where activity was even more intense.
Discussions among highly fortunate individuals from various races revealed more details.
It was revealed that, a few years prior, the World Government had advanced to a second-level civilization and narrowly survived the Second Catastrophe. During this period, Sequence 0 had betrayed humanity.
However, no data on the spiritual deep web disclosed what specific disaster had struck the World Government or the extent of its losses.
Only now was the truth emerging, unveiled by a figure of great fortune from an alien race on the Main God Network.
It turns out that three true gods have fallen in the World Government. Many alien true gods seized this opportunity and used the spiritual world to further weaken the World Government. The chaos within the World Government in recent years is essentially linked to the fall of these three true gods.
Those Sequence 0s aspire to ascend to true godhood, while Sequence 1s strive to become Sequence 0s.
From humanity's perspective, the fall of the three true gods was a catastrophe, but for Sequence 1s and Sequence 0s, it was an opportunity to rise to power.
The World Government publicly executed the Demon God not as a show of strength, but because of its current weakness. At its peak, the World Government could capture demons alive and reduce them to mere bleeding pigs. Killing them outright now signals a significant loss.
The Demon God was not the only one. Several others escaped in recent years. Except for one who was successfully resealed, the rest were slain to minimize the cost of divine sealing.
Now, on the main god network, many alien figures of great luck are openly calling for the extermination of humanity.
However, not all alien races share this view. Some have offered rational analyses, warning others to remain cautious.
Humans are known for their internal strife during times of peace. For 20,000 years, humanity has enjoyed stability, but this peace has caused societal cohesion to weaken.
Certain alien analysts believe that the World Government is undergoing a painful but necessary purification process—a rebirth through fire. Even if it means enduring millions of casualties, external threats will force humanity to unite once again.
Furthermore, a fifty-year-long war will undoubtedly give rise to a new generation of powerful individuals.
Overthrowing the World Government now is an impossibility. Since surviving the Second Catastrophe and ascending to a second-level civilization, the World Government is destined to endure for at least another 10,000 years. If alien civilizations truly aim to destroy humanity, they must wait until the Third Catastrophe.
After digesting this information, Rosen came to a realization: humanity would not collapse. If such a collapse were to happen, it would not be his burden to bear.
On the contrary, the next fifty years represented an unprecedented opportunity for rapid growth.
While the sea level of the spiritual world will eventually drop by half, the transition period will last approximately one month. This month serves as the final preparation window for every nation and city.
Strong cities need not fear the fusion of the spiritual world with reality. However, weaker cities are better off being broken into smaller towns. This way, even if disaster strikes some areas, others might still survive.
The next month would undoubtedly be a period of immense activity across the human world.
Five days later, five days after the World Government issued a global disaster warning, the Fantasy Elf Rosen had been waiting for finally began to awaken.
He hurried to the Ancient Tree of Life, where the Fantasy Elf had transformed into fruit and hung from a branch.
Moments later, the elf fruit fell to the ground.
Two small, white hands pushed through the shell, tearing a crack wide enough for the creature inside to crawl out.
Rosen stepped forward, catching the newborn Fantasy Elf in his arms. The reborn elf looked at him with confused, innocent eyes.
This was the perfect moment to form a contract.
Rosen immediately activated the Divine Beast Seal and Nightmare Shackles to bond with the Fantasy Elf.
Because Rosen was the one who nurtured the Ancient Tree of Life, the Fantasy Elf felt an instinctual connection to him and did not resist.
The contract was successfully formed, and the Fantasy Elf became Rosen's fifth pet.
[Amy Sheila Ferreira...: Miracle Life]
Age: 12,510 years
Occupation: Sequence 5 Mechanic, Sequence 5 Visionary
Divinity: 51 points
Pseudo-Theocracy: Mechanical Theocracy, Fantasy Theocracy, Life Theocracy
Skills: Mechanical Manufacturing, Mechanical Modification, Mechanical Fusion, Mechanical Space, Fantasy Manifestation, Fantasy World...
Miracle Features: Miracle Wish, Unique in Heaven and Earth, Eternal Immortality
Rosen was slightly shocked by Amy's age. But after examining her abilities more closely, he realized she was even more formidable than Xiao Longnu.
Her sole miracle feature, Miracle Wish, allows her to fulfill wishes based on the principle of equivalent exchange. With a sufficient price, it is theoretically possible to wish for the death of a true god.
Beyond this, Amy possesses two extraordinary sequences, both of which are immensely powerful. The Mechanic sequence is the core power of the Mechanical Clan, while the Visionary sequence is unique to the Fantasy Elves.
With these two sequences combined, Amy's power is comparable to the God-Descendants and Beast Kings of the same level.
Rosen couldn't help but feel the excitement rise within him. With Amy by his side, his strength had taken another significant leap forward.
(End of Chapter)