Shepherding Humanity

These four inborn abilities were several times more amazing than the Phoenix’s, which only had one truly impressive ability. All four of these creature’s abilities were amazing.

Next to it, Slime genes, Evil Eye genes, and other genes on that level were not even worth mentioning.

Xu Zhi carefully read through the description of its four inborn abilities.

Gene Number One: Unspeakable horror.

Its entire body is composed of countless sentient creatures.

Their disorderly thoughts intermingle into a violently distorted, chaotic, and evil whole that emits an oppressive mental pressure.

It’s an existence beyond human understanding that cannot be directly looked at and whose voice must never be heard.

Any ordinary person that hears it or looks at it will have their brain break down and instantly go mad.

Xu Zhi: "……"

Any living creature that attempts to understand it or look at it will go mad from the unspeakable horror and run away in confusion, only to perish in the end?

Evil Gods cannot be directly looked at?

Xu Zhi remembered that the Old Gods from the Cthulhu mythos had such a setting.

Right now, this chaotic and evil creature was being controlled by the players. Its horrifying potential was still untapped and it could be considered somewhat “normal”.

However, when the 173 players log out or are forced to leave, it’ll gain independence and become an extremely distorted and chaotic existence, with 173 layers of thoughts, endlessly screaming in 173 different chaotic voices.

It’s a collection of chaotic and evil thoughts, from which a unifying intellect cannot possibly be born.

Gene Number Two: Transformation.

The creature is formless and shapeless; it can transform into any shape, with limitless possibilities.

Xu Zhi was a little surprised, and took a bite of his apple. "This means that, as a life-form, its nature is akin to a pile of Lego, which can be assembled into any combination, with infinite possibilities? The tidal giant before me right now is just one of its forms?"

He looked at the next ability.

Gene Number Three: Ability to regenerate from a drop of blood.

This creature is not a true living thing, and is composed of 173 different kinds of “Evil God’s Cells”.

If there is even one piece of flesh, or one drop of its blood left behind, then the creature cannot truly be killed. As long as the 173 “Evil God’s Cells” that are its basic components still exist, then even if they’re scattered throughout the world, they’ll multiply and call out to one another to reunite, rebuilding its body.

"Like in that scene just now, when those loons reassembled it"

Xu Zhi was stunned.

It cannot be killed, and is an existence beyond human understanding. Such a life-form that surpasses all human knowledge was really just like those in the Cthulhu mythos.

Gene Number Four: Eternal life.

This creature has an eternal lifespan that surpasses those of planets. Entire worlds would go through the cycle of destruction and rebirth, entire eras would come and go as it marches on, eternal and ageless.

Xu Zhi was silent for a while.

"That’s somewhat true, I guess. It’s a synthetic creature composed of 173 different kinds of “Evil God’s Cells”; as long as these 173 different species coexist and multiply from generation to generation, constantly recreating its body, it would indeed live forever. This is equivalent to the body’s cellular replacement over time."

Although its thoughts would be extremely chaotic, leaving it little more than a mindless creature, its vitality was truly terrifying.

"These bastards have created a truly terrifying forbidden existence. The moment it was born, it was already an Epic Seventh-Level creature with the combat power of a demigod. And this is when it’s still in its most primitive state and hasn’t taken in any new genes."

If it could practice magic like these players said, then after each player had taken in their first gene, it would become a true demigod.

If they could take in a second gene and keep training together, then it would become a Mythic Eighth-Level creature.

Moreover, each of its cells would be able to train on its own.

It could grow without limit.

From what the Hive Mind had told him, Xu Zhi understood well how great the difference between an Epic Seventh-Level and a Mythic Eight-Level mage truly was.

In fact, there was an intermediary stage in the middle, that of the demigod.

The demigod stage was when you’ve gathered enough power and reached the absolute limit as a human being.

After this, there was only one final step: igniting your divine spark (which is integrating a third gene and becoming a higher-level life-form), and you’d enter the realm of the gods.

Genetic Levels were not the same as Power Levels, but as long as you were at the same level, then the one with more genes would be the stronger, higher-level life-form.

Moreover, life forms with low Genetic-Levels cannot advance to the higher Power-Levels, meanwhile, those with high Genetic-Levels will have no such problems.

"In fact, Grantham already has the divine spark, that is, the third gene, and should not have any bottleneck at the demigod stage, but he’s not talented enough as a magic-practitioner, and cannot break through the Epic Seventh-Level." Xu Zhi frowned.

"Hive Mind, can I take in this gene?" Xu Zhi suddenly asked.

"I do not recommend it."

The Hive Mind replied. "This kind of creature cannot be considered a true living creature. It only has such unique characteristics because it’s an odd kind of synthetic life-form."

"That is to say, unless I’m OK with losing my consciousness and intellect, getting such godlike inborn abilities is impossible… As expected, it’s very difficult to get rich overnight and receive such amazing forbidden power without sacrifice."

After a moment of silence, Xu Zhi laughed. "However, each of these creature’s four inborn abilities are so amazing, it should be comparable to the legendary five-genes Tyranis heroes who can freely adjust their genetic structure, right?"

"Originally, I expected it to only be a pseudo Tyranis hero, but it has far surpassed my expectations. It’s far beyond the average Tyranis hero with five genes!" The Hive Mind immediately replied. "However, it would be very difficult to make such a chaotic and mindless creature into your subordinate. "

Xu Zhi was not surprised.

These four genes were simply too amazing, so it was only to be expected that it would beat the average five-genes Tyranis hero.

"In other words, I’ve created a terrifying existence with higher potential for growth than the average Tyranis hero! It’s no wonder that you previously said that this is a revolutionary idea that’s far ahead of the times. Even the previous Creator and Tyranis Queen could not evolve such a forbidden life-form… After all, she had focused on science and technology, and would not think of this kind of aggregated life-form."

Xu Zhi calmly took the credit for the players’ hard work. He already considered the powerful creature that they’ve made his.

 —Yes, let them go bald from overwork, all that they make is mine!

Although he couldn't control such a terrifying evil god that was capable of ending the world, as long as it exists, it would instantly raise the level in the otherworld.

While Xu Zhi was thinking on his chair, at this moment, the loony players some distance away were super excited.

"We’ve succeeded, but why isn’t the system saying that we’ve gained an achievement award for creating a species with potential?"

"No way! Such an amazing creature would definitely get an achievement award, but could it be that we can’t receive it as a group? This loophole that’ll allow all of us to enter the otherworld is not permitted?"

"No way?"

Everyone was worried.

They’ve successfully evolved, but nothing was happening.

"Could it be that the system does not consider us to be truly mature yet? After all, we cannot even walk properly, and will need more practice. We keep swaying and twisting as we walk, and there are always trouble-makers running away and making us break apart."

"Yes! We have to practice!"

"Let’s practice a little more! Everyone must cooperate and control the creature together. And idiots, please stop causing trouble! We must become proficient with our combination skills of walking and jumping, and also be able to quickly split up and reassemble the body! Otherwise, even if we enter the Magic World, we’ll only get beaten up!"

"We, the players, are the fourth calamity! (Translator’s Note: Refers to the world-ending armies that usually show up in MMO games: 1-Zombies. 2-Demons. 3-Zerg/Tyranids/Insect Swarms. 4-The Players themselves, lol.) We’re going to the otherworld because we want to cause trouble! We’ll conquer the natives of the otherworld!"

….

With that declaration, countless people began to passionately work together so that the creature could properly move around.

Xu Zhi indifferently looked on. He’ll wait until they’ve practiced for a while before letting them into the sandbox.

Suddenly, he frowned a little. "The synthetic giant god that I was most looking forward to is now complete, then how’s that “Rubik's Cube” creature coming along?"

7 out of 180 players did not participate, and the big boss with the thesis proposing the Rubik's Cube was among them.

At this moment, she was silently experimenting and evolving her Rubik’s Cube creature.

"It looks like that on this side, the iron bar creature is also coming along well and should be complete soon." Xu Zhi saw her progress and laughed happily. This third beta had two creatures with amazing potential. He was very happy and expected great things from them!

Meanwhile, in the larger sandbox, as Xu Zhi watched the players create the giant god over the past two days, Grantham had peacefully lived through two centuries and was nearing the end of his life.

His era, the era of the Emperor of Alchemy, was finally coming to an end.