The No. 1 Hunfen King in the Entire Server [Interstellar] Chapter 36

This snowfall descended from the sky, burying scorched earth, covering the dead seas, like the final curtain of a grand catastrophe.

Life had completely disappeared, and what followed was Earth’s long, desolate ice age.

The submarine’s outer shell continued to peel away, until the display screen was wiped clean of data—leaving only a window, reflecting the endless white outside.

Lin Jing sat in the co-pilot’s seat, gazing silently at the scene beyond.

Everyone in the control room had fallen into a quiet hush.

Beside him, Xu Wanzhi propped his chin on one hand, staring out the window. Then, in an unexpectedly calm voice, he said, “Look, we’ve lived through two mass extinctions together.”

Lin Jing felt an indescribable mix of emotions. He leaned back and murmured, “Yeah.”

Two times.

Two vastly different worlds—from the deep sea to the endless sky—yet the same, unexplainable feeling.

Xu Wanzhi thought for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle and shook his head. “No… not just these.”

Lin Jing frowned slightly, looking at him in confusion.

At the same time, Xu Wanzhi turned his head slightly to look over, his eyelashes lowered, the corners of his lips subtly curved.

Life had perished and been reborn in the blink of an eye. Outside, the Earth had cleared, sunlight spilling onto the tear-shaped mole at the corner of his eye, making everything feel distant yet gentle.

With a tone that carried both amusement and sincerity, he spoke slowly, enunciating each word: “From the Cambrian to the Carboniferous, from Chengjiang to Siberia. To be precise, what we’ve traveled through… are countless seas, across 150 million years.”

Lin Jing was stunned, locking eyes with him.

Xu Wanzhi’s gaze was like a deep black vortex—profound as the ocean, dark as the cosmos, tinged with laughter, beautiful and gentle.

Countless seas.

150 million years.

Lin Jing sat there in a daze for a long moment before snapping back to reality as if jolted by electricity. Every cell in his body screamed that something was off—something was strange.

“Oh.” He averted his gaze, trying to hide his discomfort. Changing the subject, he muttered, “So… what do we do next?”

Xu Wanzhi paused for a moment and said, “Let’s wait a bit.”

After destruction comes rebirth. The magma calms, the ice and snow melt. The simplest forms of life are always the first to return. But this time, the land was rich with fertile soil, and plants reclaimed the planet in a brand-new form.

They landed, took root, and tender green shoots stretched toward the sky. Streaks of green climbed over the wasteland.

From above, it was like watching Mother Earth paint—shaping the contours of mountains, tracing the veins of rivers, and filling in vast, humid rainforests.

Suddenly, Ke Lingxuan let out a startled cry. “Look at your wristbands! The time has refreshed!”

Everyone, still immersed in shock, jolted back to reality as if waking from a dream. They quickly lowered their heads.

The numbers on their wristbands had changed to 100.

Time had refreshed, meaning they had officially reached the Carboniferous period—the restrictions were lifted.

A surge of joy and relief flooded the control room.

Karl lifted his head, eyes gleaming with excitement, too overwhelmed to speak. “We… we can go outside now.”

Ke Lingxuan nodded frantically. “Yes, yes!”

“But…” A boy with a perpetually low presence spoke up hesitantly. “How exactly are we supposed to get out?”

“……”

Like a bucket of cold water poured over their heads, everyone froze in place.

Right. Outside was an unknown hundreds of meters of empty air.

How… were they supposed to get out??

Walking out now would probably mean falling to their deaths!

The “submarine” was nearing the critical point of self-destruction.

Even the control room would eventually explode.

Yet another desperate, inescapable situation.

At that moment, everyone truly realized how small and helpless they were. Their gazes instinctively turned toward the two people sitting at the control panel.

Lin Jing turned his head away, not particularly wanting to talk to Xu Wanzhi right now.

He had noticed that ever since entering this game, his emotions had been constantly swayed by Xu Wanzhi—and that was definitely not a good thing.

“It’s time to go,” Xu Wanzhi stood up from the control panel and patted Lin Jing’s shoulder.

Lin Jing froze for a moment, then followed behind him.

These four words instantly tensed up everyone’s nerves. They scrambled to their feet, holding their breath, waiting for Xu Wanzhi’s next move—even though this bigshot had never paid them any attention.

When the control cabin doors opened, there was still a layer of crystal-blue invisible shielding—the system’s mechanism controlling the players’ entry and exit from the submarine.

Both entering and exiting required pressing the button on their wristbands.

Standing at the doorway and looking down, they were met with a vast rainforest below. The fear of heights rushed at them—just one more step forward, and they’d be crushed to pieces.

Xu Wanzhi smiled, “Don’t be afraid.”

Lin Jing sighed, “I’m not afraid of heights.”

Xu Wanzhi asked, “Then are you afraid of bugs?”

Lin Jing: “?”

The next second, he understood what Xu Wanzhi meant.

From the rainforest below, a dense swarm of black shapes suddenly surged toward them.

The abundant oxygen and plant life of the Carboniferous period had given insects enormous survival advantages—so much so that insects in this era grew to immense sizes, earning it the name “Age of Giant Insects.”

As the crystal-blue shield deactivated, they were met with the high, clear sky and sweeping winds.

Leading the swarm was a giant dragonfly soaring straight upward toward them. Its body was a deep blue, its enormous black eyes bulging from its head. Its wingspan stretched about a meter, the transparent wings shimmering in the sunlight, as if golden patterns rippled through them.

“……”

Lin Jing actually felt an odd sense of “of course” in this moment.

Xu Wanzhi… always brought him so many surprises.

The dragonfly’s wings cut through the high-altitude winds, leading a whole flock of them past the control cabin.

Xu Wanzhi curved his lips, grabbed Lin Jing’s wrist, and said, “Let’s go.”

Before Lin Jing could even react, he was already being pulled along as they leaped out.

“Wait—”

Wait a second!

At least give me some time to process this!

During the freefall, Lin Jing’s mind went completely blank. The sight of the ground rushing toward him overloaded his senses—his soul felt like it was plummeting, his heart momentarily stopping. When he finally landed on the dragonfly, his legs felt weak.

Just like when they rode the jellyfish last time, his head was filled with: Can these thin wings really support my weight? Sh*t, am I going to fall?!

He had no courage to stand up, so he instinctively crouched down, gripping the edge of the dragonfly’s wing tightly, breathing heavily.

The wind carried the low sound of laughter from the person beside him.

Out of the control cabin, their view instantly broadened.

Xu Wanzhi, unfazed by the danger, casually bent his legs and sat down.

The others in the control cabin: “……”

They were completely dumbfounded, staring at the bigshot’s insane maneuver. Riding a dragonfly to fly down?

The short-haired girl’s face was pale, her lips trembling in fear. “Do we have to do that too?”

The man in the black jacket pressed the button on his wristband with a complex expression. “This place is about to explode. If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late. Either way, we’re dead—might as well take our chances.”

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone fell silent.

The short-haired girl cursed under her breath. “We should never have listened to that woman’s nonsense.”

Ke Lingxuan gave a bitter smile. “I guess this is the price of trying to take shortcuts.”

Karl shook his head and muttered, “But even without the submarine, we’d still be facing a horde of prehistoric beasts… Is this really a 34point script?”

They actually thought this was an easy mode at the start?

Who gave them that illusion?!

The man in the black jacket was the first to jump, letting out a shout as he barely caught onto a dragonfly’s wing. Ke Lingxuan and Karl exchanged glances before gritting their teeth and leaping as well.

With no way out, the others had no choice but to throw themselves into the swarm of dragonflies.

Instantly, the air filled with screams of panic.

The last to step out was Elena. She held onto the doorway, coldly gazing at the endless blue sky and rolling mountains below.

Her wine-red dress billowed in the wind. Through the clouds, she stared into the distance.

For a long while, she let out a low laugh—at first just a few short chuckles, but soon her laughter grew louder and louder, her shoulders trembling violently. Her fingers clenched into a fist.

Suddenly, Elena lifted her head.

Her eyes were a deep crimson, filled with hatred and madness.

Of course Xu Wanzhi knew everything.

But that was to be expected—wasn’t it?

A monster with 3S-tier mental power—wasn’t that how they all were?

Terrifying intelligence, unfathomable mental power, and an unimaginable level of danger.

He hadn’t killed her after learning the truth. He hadn’t even targeted her.

Why?

Was it because he never considered her a threat? Or was he afraid of exposing his true nature?

But a monster is a monster. No matter how well he hides it, it won’t change the fact that he should not exist—just like his mother.

Elena schooled her expression into something unreadable. Cold and detached, she brushed back her long hair, and stepped forward.

She landed steadily on a dragonfly’s wing.

As the dragonflies continued their descent, the submarine finally reached its final stage of self-destruction.

BOOM.

The control cabin exploded, sending debris and ash scattering through the sky.

At the sound of the explosion, Elena turned her head slightly.

Against the clear blue sky, it looked like a tiny firework.

She didn’t know what she saw through the clouds, but for a moment, her expression revealed a deep, aching sorrow.

The giant dragonflies carried them toward the rainforest.

Lin Jing had always been courageous and adaptable. After a period of steady flight, he quickly calmed down.

Looking at the approaching land, he muttered to himself, “So the Carboniferous period… our battlefield is actually the land?”

He quickly flipped through the codex. He hadn’t looked at it carefully before, but now he realized that the latter half of the Carboniferous section was almost entirely about insects.

Dragonflies, spiders, centipedes—huge in size, with appearances that sent shivers down the spine. But no matter how unsettling arthropods could be, they were still less terrifying than the creatures lurking in the deep sea.

Aside from insects, the bottom of the page featured some amphibians.

Xu Wanzhi said flatly, “After the Devonian, the ocean was basically dominated by fish, while land became the main stage for evolution.”

Lin Jing immediately flipped to the Permian section. There were still some fish at the beginning, but they quickly gave way to a variety of reptiles.

He muttered, “So if we hadn’t moved the submarine, the next seaweed forest should have appeared on land?”

Xu Wanzhi: “No, you would have to figure out how to reach land yourself.”

Lin Jing: “…”

This game was really out to get them.

He added, “By doing this, we’ve essentially abandoned all marine species that come after.”

Achieving 100% completion in the codex was now impossible.

But after everything they had just gone through, everyone was exhausted, and their expectations had likely dropped to simply not losing points.

The dragonfly flew into the rainforest, where the plants of the Giant Insect Era were astonishingly tall. Ferns and algae flourished, and towering trees blocked out the sky. Even a fallen branch was as thick as their arms. The forest floor wasn’t solid earth but scattered with pools of water. The dragonfly landed them on a black rock covered in moss.

The air was thick with the damp scent of rain.