Chapter 402: Human Race, Participating in the Divine Selection War, Provisions for All Human Race

Chapter 402: The Human Race, Participating in the God-Selection War, The Grain Yield of All Mankind!

The sermon on Canaan Star ignited a beacon that illuminated the path forward for the human race.

Yet, after that ten-thousand-year discourse, Qin Feng chose neither to immediately enter seclusion in preparation for the divine war, nor to bask in the honors of an Elder on Terra.

He chose a path far longer, far more solitary.

He chose to "see."

To see this vast human dominion, to see the galaxy guarded by countless battle groups, to see the specks of dust that constitute the word "humanity"—those he had never truly touched from his lofty heights.

If one has never witnessed the struggle of every mortal, how can one presume to shoulder their destiny?

Thus, Qin Feng became a traveler, much like an ascetic monk. He suppressed the divine radiance of a Venerable, sealed away a cultivation base capable of shattering the heavens, and retained only the basic abilities required to traverse the stars, beginning a journey of measurement that would span a million years.

The first hundred thousand years.

Qin Feng walked through the 36th Sector, governed by the "Imperial Fists" battle group.

This was the most prosperous and orderly territory of the human race. He saw an administrative planet named "Olympus." Here, the laws were so draconian that every citizen was assigned a social role at birth based on genetic screening.

He worked there for a hundred years as a librarian.

He watched a boy named "Eric," who, because his genetic rating was merely D-class, was assigned to clean the sewers. The boy refused to yield, secretly practicing the most basic "Body Tempering Manual" in the foul-smelling pipes every night.

Fifty years later, a beast tide attacked the sewers.

D-class citizen Eric, to protect a group of stray orphans behind him, stood alone at the pipe entrance with a rusted iron rod, fighting a bloody battle for three days and three nights, until he bled his last drop of blood.

Qin Feng watched from the side.

He did not intervene.

For he saw the smile on Eric’s lips before he died—the satisfaction of a human who had protected his own kind.

After Eric died, Qin Feng silently gathered his remains and buried them on a sun-drenched hillside. Then, that very night, he amended the underlying genetic screening act of Olympus, granting subsequent D-class citizens a path for advancement.

This was his tribute, as a Venerable, to that mortal hero.

The second hundred thousand years.

Qin Feng arrived in the territory of the "Blood Angels" battle group.

The atmosphere here was starkly different. The planets were filled with a blend of art and frenzy.

He lingered on a red desert planet named "Baal." To survive, the people here had to battle giant radiation scorpions and mutated beasts.

He disguised himself as a traveling physician.

He treated a girl infected with radiation sickness. Her skin was ulcerated and she was in agony, yet when she was conscious, she insisted on drawing on the rock walls. She drew the legendary angels, the symbols of hope.

"Mister, will you die?" the girl asked him.

"No," Qin Feng replied.

"Then can you live a little longer for me? See for me, beyond this desert, is there really an ocean?"

The girl died on that cold night.

Qin Feng remained silent for a long time.

The next day, he walked out of the camp and gently waved his sleeve toward the endless red desert.

The laws were rewritten.

A torrential rain fell, lasting for three months.

The depressions gathered into lakes, and the wasteland sprouted oases.

He did not resurrect the girl, but he granted this planet the ocean of her dreams.

The wheels of time rolled onward.

Five hundred thousand years passed.

Qin Feng’s footprints covered every corner of the human domain. He was no longer that distant god; he was stained with the rich, gritty scent of the mortal world.

In the mechanical worlds of the "Iron Hands," he saw mad scientists who implanted their brains into computers in pursuit of truth;

In the shadow worlds of the "Raven Guard," he saw assassins who silently protected the weak in the dark, never seeing the light their entire lives;

On the frontier of the "Cadia Fortress" worlds, he saw fresh recruits, barely of age, torn apart by the claws of the Tyranids before they could even write a letter to their mothers.

He was watching.

He was remembering.

He was comprehending.

On a primitive planet in the fringe star belt, Qin Feng stayed for a full thirty thousand years.

He watched a group of primitives clad in animal skins learn to use fire.

He watched them build tribes, slaughtering each other for water, then forming alliances to fend off beasts.

He watched them forge their first bronze sword and establish their first dynasty.

He watched the dynasty decay, tyrants rule, and the people suffer.

This time, Qin Feng was a bystander.

He sat in the clouds, watching the fires of war rage below.

"Have mercy, O Heavens! Save my child!"

A mother knelt in the burning ruins, crying out to the sky.

Qin Feng’s fingers twitched.

As a Venerable, he needed only to breathe a sigh to extinguish that tyrannical dynasty and grant this mother a life of happiness.

But he held back.

For he saw a youth with determined eyes emerge from the ruins behind the mother. The youth helped his mother up, picked up a broken sword from the ground, and in his eyes burned a flame called "resistance."

Ten years later, that youth overthrew the tyranny and established a new nation of law.

Civilization had evolved through blood and fire.

Qin Feng understood.

Why the Emperor loved humanity, yet did not casually interfere in human suffering.

Because suffering is the whetstone of civilization.

Because the greatest power of humanity is not the blessing of gods, but that resilience buried deep in their bones, which never yields.

But this did not mean the gods were useless.

When the civilization of that planet developed into the nuclear age, and a genocidal nuclear war was about to erupt due to the misjudgment of two superpowers.

Qin Feng acted.

He did not appear; he merely plucked the threads of causality.

The control systems of the nuclear silos about to launch suddenly "malfunctioned" for a second. It was this one-second glitch that allowed the leaders of both sides to calm down and sit at the negotiating table.

Civilization was allowed to continue.

"Gods are not nannies."

Qin Feng stood in the void of space, gazing at the azure planet, the wisdom of a million years shimmering in his eyes.

"Gods are the final line of defense."

"They are the bedrock, the last resort when humanity can no longer cross the chasm of despair on its own."

The million-year term had expired.

Qin Feng stood at the very edge of the human domain, looking back.

This vast galaxy, once a cold star chart in his eyes, was now composed of vivid faces and stories of sorrow and triumph.

In these million years, his cultivation had not increased by a single iota.

In fact, due to his long-term self-sealing, his aura had become so restrained that he appeared as nothing more than an ordinary mortal.

Yet, his state of mind had undergone a total metamorphosis.

Once, he fought to become stronger, to seek revenge, to compete for the vanity of "peerless status."

Later, he fought for dignity, to avoid enslavement by the dark gods.

But now.

He knew exactly why he fought.

For the D-rank boy who died in the sewers;

For the girl who painted, dreaming of the sea;

For the youth who picked up a broken sword amidst the ruins;

For every human being he had seen struggling to survive over these million years.

"Hoo..."

Qin Feng exhaled a long, weary breath.

It was time to return.

He took a step forward.

The stars shifted and the universe turned.

In the next instant, that familiar, grand, and sacred aura washed over him.

Holy Terra.

The Imperial Palace.

This time, there was no clamor of the High Lords, no gathering of saints.

He was alone.

He walked solo through the ten-thousand-mile Golden Corridor. On both sides hung portraits of every hero humanity had produced since its inception. Qin Feng walked slowly, pausing before each portrait as if engaging in a dialogue across time and space with the martyrs.

Finally, he reached the great gate leading to the Golden Throne.

Two guards in Custodian power armor lowered their heads upon seeing him, their guardian spears striking the floor with a heavy thud in a gesture of supreme respect.

The gates creaked open.

Golden radiance flowed out like a physical substance.

At the end of that brilliance, seated upon the massive Golden Throne—a labyrinth of complex mechanical conduits and psychic runes—was that figure.

Compared to the phantom he had seen in the council chamber ten thousand years ago, the Emperor’s physical form was now even more withered and decayed.

His flesh was all but gone, leaving only skin stretched over bone; his chest armor was shattered, revealing a heart that pulsed with golden fire.

Yet, he remained majestic.

It was a majesty that transcended the mortal coil, constructed purely of spirit and will.

Qin Feng stepped forward, stopped at the foot of the throne, and bowed deeply.

"Your Majesty."

"I have returned."

"What have you seen?"

The Emperor’s voice resonated directly within Qin Feng’s soul. It was ancient and weary, yet imbued with infinite compassion.

"I have seen life, and I have seen death."

Qin Feng looked up, meeting the gaze of the withered figure on the throne. "I have seen the humble, and I have seen the great. I have seen the ugliness of desire, and the dazzling light of humanity."

"I have seen... that which is worth my life to protect."

The Golden Throne trembled slightly, as if the Emperor had let out a sigh of relief.

"Very good."

"After a million years of tempering your heart in the dust of the world, you have finally filled the last void."

"You are no longer a blade that knows only how to kill, but a shield that knows how to guard."

"Only by understanding how to protect can one become truly invincible."

As the words fell, the space within the grand palace began to twist violently.

Golden light converged, eventually coalescing before Qin Feng into a gate of light a hundred feet high.

This gate was unlike any portal Qin Feng had ever seen. It lacked spatial coordinates and energy fluctuations; it radiated an aura known as "Law."

Through the hazy vortex of the gate, Qin Feng caught glimpses of a shattered continent, temples floating in the sky, rivers of magma, and... countless hideous, terrifying alien forms.

That was the God-Chosen Battlefield.

"Qin Feng."

The Emperor’s voice became unprecedentedly grave.

"Behind this door lies an independent dimension constructed from seventy-two cosmic artifacts."

"There, your Venerable-level cultivation will be reshaped by the rules. You will no longer be able to alter reality at will; you will be bound by the 'rules of the game'."

"Because this is a contest."

"A gamble between us, the Chaos Gods, and the deities of all the races in the universe."

Qin Feng’s gaze sharpened. "What is the stake?"

"The fate of our race."

The Emperor uttered the words.

Immediately, a torrent of information flooded directly into Qin Feng’s mind.

"The God-Chosen Battlefield is driven by 'missions'."

"The battlefield randomly issues tasks targeting various racial factions. It may be to occupy a territory, slay a beast, or solve a riddle."

"If a mission is completed, the battlefield rules will directly grant rewards to the race's home universe."

"If a mission fails, or the agent dies, the rules will directly extract the luck of that race as punishment."

Qin Feng drew a deep breath; though he had braced himself, his heart still gave a violent jolt as he heard the specific list of rewards and penalties.

The Emperor’s voice, cold and detached, began to enumerate:

Reward Example One: [Hymn of Life].

If you complete an S-rank survival mission, the base lifespan of every human across the entire Terran domain will increase by ten years, and the infant mortality rate will drop by thirty percent.

Reward Example Two: [Spiritual Awakening].

If you capture the Temple of Spiritual Origin, the spiritual density across all human administrative planets will rise by twenty percent, and the proportion of the population awakening martial talents will increase by five percent.

This was nothing short of a miracle!

Adding ten years to the lifespan of an entire race? What a terrifying concept! With a population in the trillions, this was effectively granting humanity an endless expanse of time and hope out of thin air!

But then, the penalties followed.

Penalty Example One: [Genetic Curse].

If you lose the tournament to the agent of Nurgle (the Plague God), the entire human race will suffer a genetic plague. The average constitution of all humans will drop by ten percent, and the incidence of disease will rise by fifty percent.

Penalty Example Two: [Obscured Wisdom].

If you fail to solve the Lock of Truth, the scientific research speed of the human race will decrease by twenty percent over the next ten thousand years, and the difficulty of enlightenment will increase by ten percent.

Penalty Example Three: [Collapse of Destiny].

If you fall in battle... the Terran domain will face mass stellar extinction and raging spatial storms, with the population expected to plummet by... one-third.

Dead silence.

The great hall fell into a stillness as profound as the grave.

Qin Feng clenched his fists until his nails bit deep into his palms.

One-third.

That was not just a number.

That was the D-rank boy he had seen on Olympus, the girl who painted in Baal, the youth he had seen resisting tyranny on a primitive planet.

That was the shattering of countless billions of families.

This was a war that could not be lost.

This was a high-stakes gamble that placed the fate of an entire race upon the shoulders of a single man.

Are you afraid?

The Emperor asked.

Qin Feng loosened his grip.

He raised his head, and in those eyes of the Void, a black flame burned with unprecedented intensity. There was no fear in that fire, only a madness of absolute resolve.

I am afraid.

Qin Feng admitted it plainly.

I fear my gun may not be fast enough, that my blade may not be sharp enough.

Therefore...

Qin Feng stepped forward, facing the gate of light directly.

I will win.

I will not allow anyone, any god, or any rule to touch a single hair on the heads of my people.

Since this is a game, I shall take every reward for myself.

And leave every penalty for them!

Boom!

The aura within Qin Feng erupted, no longer suppressed. His Dao heart, tempered by a million years of mortal experience, became flawless and complete in this moment.

Without a shred of hesitation, he transformed into a streak of light and charged straight into the gate.

I am off.

A brief farewell.

The moment his figure vanished into the gate, Qin Feng glanced back at the Emperor on the Golden Throne.

Your Majesty, wait for me to bring back the good news.

The gate of light swallowed him whole.

In the palace hall, silence returned once more.

A long time passed.

The withered bones upon the Golden Throne let out a low, soft murmur.

Go, child.

The future of humanity... is in your hands.

A violent sense of vertigo took hold.

This was not like standard spatial teleportation; it was a stripping and restructuring of dimensions.

When Qin Feng’s feet touched solid ground again, the sense of omnipotent mastery he possessed as a Venerable had vanished.

In its place was a heavy, crushing weight.

So this is... the binding of rules?

Qin Feng flexed his wrists. He discovered that the energy within him had been compressed to the extreme. Though his cultivation realm remained that of a Venerable, he could not tear through space as easily as he could in the outside world, and even the range of his divine sense was compressed to a mere hundred miles.

This was the God-Chosen Battlefield.

A world forcibly stitched together from seventy-two cosmic anomalies.

The sky was a ghastly purple, hung with three suns of different hues. The air was thick with pheromones designed to stimulate the predatory instincts of living beings.

Ding—

At that moment, a cold, mechanical voice resonated directly within Qin Feng’s mind.

This was not the voice of a system; it was the voice of the God-Chosen Battlefield’s rules.

[New agent detected.]

[Race: Human.]

[Name: Qin Feng.]

[Realm: Cosmic Venerable (Adjusted).]

[Faction Confirmation: Order/Chaos (Judging... Judgment Failed... Forcibly classified as: Human).]

[Welcome to the God-Chosen Battlefield, Race Destiny Tournament.]

[Current Region: Bone-Burial Wasteland (Novice safety zone has expired).]

[Main Mission Issued: Establish a Foothold.]

[Mission Description: Establish a primary stronghold for the human race within 24 hours and repel the first wave of "Wasteland Hounds."]

[Mission Success Reward: Grain production across all human territories +5%, and one random primary stronghold construction blueprint.]

[Mission Failure Penalty: A minor drought across all human territories for one year, and a 5% reduction in all attributes for the Agent.]

Qin Feng narrowed his eyes, listening to the rapid-fire sequence of notifications.

"Grain production +5%..."

The man he once was might have scoffed at such a figure. But after a million years of wandering, he understood all too well what that 5% truly signified. It meant that hundreds of billions of commoners struggling on the brink of starvation could finally be fed; it meant that countless children on remote planets would no longer wither away from hunger.

"Very well."

Qin Feng drew a deep breath, and for the first time in this strange new world, the terrifying, blood-soaked aura of the "Saint-Realm Butcher" began to manifest.

"The first gift, I accept."

He gazed toward the distant wasteland, where dust billowed into the sky and the faint, guttural roars of beasts began to echo.

(End of Chapter)