Chapter 337: Primordial Fire, Cosmic Will Descends! Qin Feng is Furious

Chapter 337: The Primordial Fire, the Descent of Cosmic Will! Qin Feng’s Fury, the Plan of Feigned Death!

After bidding farewell to the Marquis of Fierce Martial, Qin Feng did not linger in the Tianyan Universe City.

He had gleaned enough critical intelligence from this old acquaintance to confirm just how perilous his path ahead would be.

The Seven Heavens Abyss and the Eternal Mountain, two newly manifested sites of cosmic-level opportunity, acted like massive magnets, turning the 239,781st War Zone into an eye of a storm teeming with countless powerhouses.

Marquises were as common as rain, Kings as dense as a forest, and even the Emperor-level entities, usually elusive as dragons, had cast more than one gaze upon this sector.

Qin Feng knew well that the Marquis of Fierce Martial’s warning of being "unable to take a single step" was no exaggeration.

The bounty on his head, worth several Emperor-level secret treasures, was a temptation for which any powerhouse would gladly wager their life.

Having just revealed his tracks to rescue the Marquis, he knew this news had likely already spread through the Crystal Clan’s intelligence network across the entire war zone.

At this very moment, countless eyes were greedily scouring the void for his trail.

"King Tianyan is a close friend of my master, the Heaven-Swallowing King... Tianyan Universe City, hmph, I had best not bring disaster upon them."

Qin Feng understood that pinning his hopes on the protection of others had never been his way of doing things.

A true path to survival is always carved out by one's own hands.

"Acting high-profile, 'perishing' under the gaze of the masses, and then using the [Twin Mask] to be reborn—a cicada shedding its golden shell—that is the superior strategy."

Qin Feng’s eyes were cold and resolute.

He had already scripted the play.

He would cast himself as the most conspicuous target, drawing in every hunter who caught wind of his presence.

He would display unparalleled strength and speed, throwing this grand hunt into total chaos, and finally, at the most opportune moment, choose the most tragic and convincing way to "die" at the hands of a top-tier enemy, such as... the Golden Emperor.

Once he was "dead," the storm surrounding the bounty on the "Fierce God Qin Feng" would naturally subside.

And he, reborn, could silently make his way to the "Furnace Homeland" to claim the "Primordial Fire" that was vital to him, without a soul being the wiser.

The plan was near-perfect; the only variable was the risk inherent in its execution.

But for Qin Feng, who had walked the edge of life and death countless times, this was nothing new.

He departed the bustling Tianyan Universe City, eschewing any starship to traverse the vast cosmos by his own power.

The surface of his [Extreme Power Armor] shimmered with dark gold, blending into the deep cosmic background and providing perfect concealment.

His speed had long surpassed the conventional speed of light; every low rumble of his engines was accompanied by a long-distance interstellar jump.

However, to conserve spiritual energy and avoid potential wide-area detection arrays, he opted for a more perilous mode of travel—subspace jumping.

Driving the [Black Sky Wings], he tore through space, leaping into that bizarre, chaotic, and dangerous subspace, enduring storms capable of shredding the soul, before jumping out at a predetermined coordinate.

Once, twice, thrice...

Qin Feng was like a seasoned deep-sea diver, precisely controlling the rhythm of every descent and ascent, steadily closing in on the coordinates of the "Furnace Homeland."

His plan was advancing steadily.

He could feel the net woven by countless hunters slowly tightening behind him, but that mattered not; everything remained within his grasp.

Before he reached the "Furnace Homeland," he had every confidence that no one would capture his exact trail.

The advantage was still his.

Just as Qin Feng leaped out from the nauseating chaos of subspace once more, in the brief interval before his next jump, the very moment the cosmic background before his eyes shifted from mottled colors back to pinpricks of starlight—

A sudden change occurred.

The entire world seemed to have been pressed into a pause by an invisible hand.

Time stood still.

It was not a slowing of time caused by some divine ability or law, but an absolute, thorough, and literal cessation.

In the distance, a star undergoing a supernova explosion had its surging torrents of light frozen abruptly in space, like a magnificent yet eerie three-dimensional oil painting.

The cosmic dust floating around him remained fixed in its previous trajectory, motionless, like specimens sealed in eternal amber.

Qin Feng himself was utterly imprisoned by this force.

He remained in the posture of having just jumped from subspace, unable to move a muscle, unable to bend a single finger. The spiritual energy within him ceased its flow, his heart stopped beating, and his blood ceased its surge.

Even his thoughts slowed to a crawl, as if mired in deep mud; a single simple idea required the duration of a century to form.

Then, a pressure beyond all description descended.

This pressure was vast, ancient, cold, and impartial.

It carried no emotion—no joy, no anger, nor pity or malice.

It was like the cosmos itself, like the rules governing all things, like the manifestation of the very concept of "existence."

It enveloped this frozen space-time, and it enveloped Qin Feng’s soul.

Before this will, Qin Feng felt himself smaller than a speck of dust.

His "Pure Black" quality mental power, of which he was so proud, was like a firefly before the bright moon, unworthy of even being compared.

All his secrets, from the [Primordial Singularity] to the [Twin Mask], from the "Ten-Perfect Hands" to the "Nine Tribulations War Canon," were laid bare under the gaze of this will, seen clearly and plainly.

He knew what this was.

The Cosmic Will.

An extremely ominous premonition, like a cold tide, instantly drowned his sluggish core of thought.

"Damn it..."

Qin Feng wanted to curse, to use the foulest language to revile this wretched situation, but he could not utter even a single simple syllable.

His soul trembled, not from fear, but from a deep, experiential... disgust.

Every time the Cosmic Will took the initiative to find him, it never brought anything good!

From the initial [End Singularity] death mission to the later [Road to the End] cosmic-level hunt, this supreme existence seemed to treat him as a useful "pawn" or "catfish," forcing hellish difficulty upon him whenever he thought the situation was manageable, pushing him toward an abyss of no return.

What did it want this time?

Just as Qin Feng was mentally "greeting" the Cosmic Will, lines of golden divine script, composed of supreme laws, emerged from thin air within his sea of consciousness.

Each character seemed forged from the cores of countless stars, containing the ultimate truths of the Heavenly Dao, radiating an unquestionable, irresistible supreme authority.

They were not "seen" through vision, but branded directly onto the origin of his soul.

The mission content appeared, line by line:

[Main Mission: The Primordial Fire]

Seeing this line, Qin Feng’s nearly stagnant thoughts stirred slightly.

Indeed... it was about this.

The ominous premonition in his heart grew even more intense.

[Mission Objective: Within the 'Furnace Homeland', successfully obtain the cosmic wonder 'Primordial Fire—Void Black Flame', and refine it completely, integrating it into your own being.]

"Void Black Flame..."

Qin Feng memorized this true name.

The mission objective aligned perfectly with his own plans, a coincidence that struck him as deeply unsettling.

Could the Will of the Universe truly be so benevolent, merely "confirming" a target for him? Impossible.

[Mission Reward: A complete map of the Seven Heavens Abyss Temple.]

The Seven Heavens Abyss Temple!

It was the innermost sanctum of the seven forbidden divine realms, rumored to hold the ultimate secret to that complete divine art.

The value of such a map was beyond measure, enough to drive any Emperor-level powerhouse to madness.

Yet, Qin Feng did not see an opportunity; he saw a conspiracy so thick it could not be unraveled.

A reward of such earth-shattering magnitude for a mission that was already part of his own itinerary?

It defied all logic.

This was no reward; it was a lure! A bait laid out in plain sight, forcing countless souls into a desperate, inevitable struggle.

His heart sank into the abyss.

[Mission Failure: No penalty.]

Upon reading this final line, Qin Feng almost let out a hollow laugh.

No penalty?

In the task system of the Universe’s Will, those three words represented the most extreme form of malice and terror.

It meant the process itself was the cruelest of filters; the failed needed no additional punishment, for their end was certain death—a total annihilation of soul and spirit, leaving not even the ghost of a chance for reincarnation.

Just as Qin Feng thought the mission content had been fully revealed, the final, most lethal lines of golden text emerged in his sea of consciousness like the final judgment of a god.

Each character struck his heart like a hammer forged from the weight of the cosmos, merciless and cold.

[Notice: Hostile mission is currently generating...]

[Number of hostile mission takers increasing... Current count: 3,200...]

[Notice: This mission is public; all beings meeting the basic criteria have a probability of acceptance.]

[Estimated final number of takers will rise to approximately 64,000...]

"..."

The supreme pressure that had enveloped everything receded like a tide.

Time and space, once frozen, resumed their flow in the same instant.

In the distance, the supernova continued its magnificent destruction, and the surrounding cosmic dust resumed its eternal, aimless drift.

Everything seemed as if nothing had ever happened.

Only Qin Feng remained, suspended in the cold, dead void, maintaining his rigid posture, stunned for a full ten seconds.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he exhaled a breath of stale air.

In the absolute zero of space, the breath instantly crystallized into ice, then shattered and dissipated.

His face was etched with a helplessness and bitterness beyond words.

"..."

What had been Qin Feng’s greatest advantage?

Information asymmetry!

He was the only one in the entire universe who knew the coordinates of "Furnace Village," the only one who knew of the "Primordial Fire," and the only one who held the "Contract" left behind by the Ancient Luo King!

But now?

The Universe’s Will, that ultimate "spoiler" of the cosmos, that "mastermind" who never respected a non-disclosure agreement, had laid his cards bare before the entire universe, even adding detailed annotations and staggering rewards to ensure the world would descend into chaos!

After a brief system crash, his mind began to race at an unprecedented speed.

"Sixty-four thousand 'hostile mission takers'..."

He chewed on the number, each syllable tasting of blood.

What kind of creatures would these sixty-four thousand be?

Certainly not common rabble!

How stringent was the screening mechanism of the Universe’s Will?

Those qualified to accept this mission were undoubtedly the elite recognized by the Will—the top-tier geniuses, monsters, and ancient horrors from every race and civilization.

Any one of them, taken alone, could be a terrifying figure like Yan Sheng, the Stone Buddha, Golden Wing, Black Jade, or Wild—beings capable of leaving their names in the annals of an era.

And now, there were sixty-four thousand of them!

"Hostile mission..."

Qin Feng’s eyes grew profoundly dark. "This means their objective is likely to 'seize the Primordial Fire,' or perhaps... 'slay Qin Feng and claim the Primordial Fire'!"

Given the current bounty, the Universe’s Will had likely set him up as the final boss of this grand game.

"They will swarm toward War Zone 239781 and 'Furnace Village' like sharks smelling blood from every corner of the galaxy."

Qin Feng could clearly foresee the scene to come.

The entire war zone would boil over; the powerhouses already gathered for the Seven Heavens Abyss and the Eternal Mountain, combined with these sixty-four thousand "chosen ones"...

This star field would, in the shortest time possible, transform into a bloody, cruel, lawless meat grinder!

And he was the largest, fattest, and most tempting piece of meat thrown into the center of it all.

Qin Feng’s gaze seemed to pierce the endless void, landing on that ethereal "mission reward." "A complete map of the Seven Heavens Abyss Temple?"

"Go to hell!"

Qin Feng spat the words in his heart.

"I would rather not have this damn reward! The price of this 'reward' is turning my covert infiltration into a hell-difficulty, live-streamed, public treasure hunt for the entire universe!"

The Universe’s Will had used the "Primordial Fire" as the core bait and the "Seven Heavens Abyss map" as the grand prize, using him as the fuse to ignite an unprecedented "genius-cultivation" tournament.

Behind this lay the cold, heartless malice of a supreme entity.

It did not care for Qin Feng’s plans or his survival.

It only sought to use this brutal method to filter out the one, the most powerful "unique" being.

How similar this was to the cruel laws of the "Golden Age" and the "Sole Path to Divinity."

Perhaps this was merely a rehearsal before the true "Golden Age" began!

Qin Feng floated alone in the cold, silent cosmos.

The surroundings were vast and dead, yet he seemed to hear the deafening cries of battle from all directions, feeling the sixty-four thousand greedy, burning gazes fixed upon him.

The nature of his treasure hunt had fundamentally changed; it had shifted from a carefully orchestrated infiltration into a desperate, life-or-death public competition.

His situation had instantly escalated from "being hunted by a few enemies" to "being besieged by over sixty thousand of the universe’s top geniuses."

...

In the void, Qin Feng’s figure remained motionless for a moment. In those eyes, which could shatter the courage of an Emperor-level powerhouse, a profound sense of helplessness flickered for the very first time.

He would have bartered his very soul if only the Will of the Universe would rescind this accursed mandate, allowing him to quietly claim what was rightfully his.

But that was impossible.

The Will of the Universe possessed no sentiment; it did not bargain. It merely authored the laws and watched with cold indifference as all things struggled and evolved beneath their weight.

In the deathly silence of the void, Qin Feng slowly closed his eyes, letting the chilling numbers climb within his soul.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

When he opened his eyes again, all helplessness, fury, and indignation had been ground into dust, settling into a deep, desperate madness at the bottom of his gaze.

It was the towering battle-will of a man backed into a corner, finding life in the jaws of death.

He was a man accustomed to dancing on the edge of a blade, a madman who had clawed his way through countless brushes with extinction, only to trample those dead ends beneath his feet.

The more impossible the situation, the more it ignited the primal, ferocious fighting spirit in his marrow.

"Hoo..."

He exhaled a long, stale breath, as if purging the final remnants of hesitation from his heart.

His mind began to race at an unprecedented speed, forcing himself to find that sliver of survival within the shifting chaos of the crisis.

A storm was raging within him.

"The plan has been completely upended... but that does not mean total defeat."

"The grand strategy must remain unchanged. 'Feigning death to escape' is still my ultimate and only goal. My mechanical avatar, newly forged and lying dormant in Qin Feng Universe City, is my future—the trump card for my steady growth in this 'Golden Age.' This card must never be exposed."

Qin Feng’s eyes grew sharp as blades, as if piercing through layers of void to behold the bloody battlefield of the future.

"The 'Primordial Fire' is the foundation for perfecting my 'Path of Extremity,' the ladder to the 'Godly Path.' At any cost, it must be mine! This is the core of the plan, and it is immovable!"

"Therefore, the first step remains: I must reach the Hearth Village faster than anyone else, seizing it before they arrive! This is my only, and final, advantage—my proximity."

His gaze swept across the star map, confirming the distance to the coordinates of the Hearth Village.

Yes, he was the closest.

Those enemies who had received the mission, no matter how fast, would need time to process the information, understand the objective, adjust their trajectories, and reach full speed.

That time gap was his only window.

"And the second step? Once I have the 'Primordial Fire,' I will be pinned down in the Hearth Village by sixty-four thousand powerhouses, with no path to the heavens and no door to the earth."

A cold, thin arc touched the corner of Qin Feng’s mouth.

"If I can win, I will slaughter them all! Then I will go find the Golden Emperor to die!"

"If I cannot win, then this place shall be the best, the most perfect stage for my 'feigned death' performance!"

"I will stage the most magnificent curtain call under the eyes of all."

"I want them to see with their own eyes how the 'Fierce God' Qin Feng fought to the last breath under heavy siege, only to be blasted into smithereens."

"I want them to believe that the hard-won 'Primordial Fire' was, in that earth-shattering explosion, swept away along with my 'death' into the spatial turbulence, vanishing into nothingness, returning to the void."

"Only such a grand, 'witnessed' death will convince the entire universe that I am truly gone."

"The Holy Light Clan, the Mechanical Clan, the Crystal Clan... all those who placed a bounty on my head will withdraw it."

"Only then will potential threats like the Golden Emperor strike me from their hit lists."

"And only then can my mechanical avatar, acting as the 'vanguard,' truly slip into the darkness, shedding all the karma and trouble associated with the name 'Qin Feng,' to grow in peace until I possess the power to overturn the chessboard."

The plan became crystalline in his mind, every link and detail saturated with blood and madness.

This was no longer just a cicada shedding its skin; it was a phoenix rising from the ashes, trading a shocking "death" for a true "rebirth."

Yet, even with such a meticulous plan, one uncontrollable variable remained—the greatest of them all.

His gaze grew heavy as he stared into the deep cosmos.

"My only concern is... among these sixty-four thousand enemies, could there be... monster-level prodigies from other races who have already stepped onto the 'Godly Path'?"

The thought tightened his heart.

He knew better than anyone the power of the "Godly Path."

But if he encountered a prodigy who had also chosen the path of "Proving the Dao through Strength," it would be an entirely different concept.

"If I truly meet such an opponent... then the 'feigned death' plan might well become a 'real death'."

"It would no longer be a performance, but a true, life-or-death final battle."

At this thought, Qin Feng drew a deep breath, burying this final worry in the depths of his heart.

It was too late for doubt; further anxiety would serve no purpose.

All he could do was push the parts he could control to the absolute limit!

"Time!"

"Now, the only thing I can control is time!"

"I must arrive first while those sixty-four thousand wolves are still on the road! I must seize the treasure first!"

At this moment, Qin Feng detonated every ounce of power within him without reservation.

"Hum—!"

A pure, absolute darkness erupted from his body, expanding in all directions. It was not a mere absence of light, but a "void" of a higher dimension, as if it intended to devour all surrounding matter and laws.

His "Pure Black" quality mental energy was no longer a trickling stream, but a bursting black river, pouring recklessly and without restraint into the two core artifacts he carried.

"Boom!"

There was no sound, yet it was louder than any roar.

Qin Feng transformed into a black meteor tearing through the darkness, a scar upon the universe itself.

His speed instantly shattered the fifteen-thousand-fold light speed he had displayed against the Crystal Clan, and it continued to climb!

Sixteen thousand times!

Eighteen thousand times!

Twenty thousand times!

This was a sprint of true desperation, heedless of cost or consequence!

The sight of his flight defied all reason.

From afar, it was a thin, absolute black trajectory, as if an invisible giant had dipped a brush in the thickest ink and slashed it across the canvas of the stars.

Along this path, everything lost its form.

A derelict mineral planet, thousands of kilometers in diameter, drifted silently in his wake.

As Qin Feng approached, it did not even have time to undergo structural collapse.

The terrifying kinetic energy, coupled with distorted spatial laws, acted like an invisible needle, piercing one side of the planet and exiting the other in an instant.

A second later, the planet seemed to "realize" what had happened; from the point of penetration, it silently and from the inside out transmuted into scorching plasma, before exploding into a brilliant, radiant nebula.

A chaotic belt of meteorites, drifting through the cosmos for hundreds of millions of years.

Qin Feng’s figure, like a searing branding iron, brazenly tore into this frigid expanse.

There was no collision, no explosion. Those meteorites, hard as alloy, were disintegrated and vaporized within a hundred miles of him by the violent psionic field and spatial ripples, carving out a path of absolute purity.

This was a grand race against time, pitted against over sixty thousand of the universe’s supreme powerhouses.

He did not know how much time he could snatch away.

It might be a day, perhaps a few hours, or even merely a few dozen minutes.

Yet the boundary between victory and defeat might hinge upon these fleeting moments.

Like a solitary messenger bearing the sole intelligence that would dictate the course of the war, he launched the most heroic and resolute charge of his life toward the isolated city known as "Hearthland," before the enemy’s encirclement could seal shut.

...

Meanwhile, in every corner of War Zone 239781, and even in the far-flung star sectors beyond.

A Marquis of the Crystal race, his body composed entirely of radiant crystal, sat upon his throne, listening to the reports of his subordinates.

Suddenly, his massive frame shuddered, and a tremor from the depths of his soul flickered within his crystalline eyes.

The mandate of the Universal Will manifested clearly in his mind.

"Hearthland... Primordial Fire... Qin Feng?"

He murmured these words, his eyes gleaming with profound interest. "Issue the command: mobilize the Third, Seventh, and Ninth Crystal Fleets to blockade the star sector at those coordinates. Furthermore, notify all kin who have received the 'guidance'—the target is Qin Feng!"

Within a virtual world constructed of infinite data streams, a Marquis-level lord of the Machine race received the mission in an instant.

Its vast computational power began to churn with frantic intensity.

[Target: Qin Feng.]

[Mission: Seize the 'Primordial Fire'.]

[Threat Level: Extreme.]

[Bounty: Sovereign-tier treasures x2 (added by our race).]

[Optimal Strategy: Construct a containment net; utilize spatial blockade technology for saturation strikes.]

[Orders dispatched to all combat units.]

In a magnificent temple filled with holy light, an ascetic of the Holy Light race, having reached the peak of the Marquis rank, felt the will of "God" during his prayers.

"He dares to lay his hands upon the sacred 'Primordial Fire'!"

He rose abruptly, his eyes burning with fanatical flames. "All Holy Light warriors, follow me to war and slay this wretch!"

Similar scenes were unfolding simultaneously in thousands of places.

A storm of epic proportions, centering on "Hearthland" and the "Primordial Fire," was brewing and taking shape at a speed beyond imagination.

Countless powerhouses and innumerable fleets were converging from all directions toward a single coordinate.

And at the very heart of this impending bloodbath that would sweep across the entire war zone, deep in the distant starry void, an ancient, desolate, and silent star sector—Hearthland—hung quietly, as if unchanged since the dawn of time.

It awaited its rightful heir, and it awaited the sixty-four thousand greedy, bloodthirsty gazes that followed in his wake.

(End of chapter)