Chapter 415: Feeding and Deities

Xia Naiming tried knocking on the other person's door, flattering them, but received no warmth and made no progress. Tears streamed down his face. "These idiotic players ruined me! They tricked me into being a sycophant!"

The other person always carried an umbrella and had long told him, "If you don't rise (to the occasion), the sky will remain clear." He felt like a fool for still trying to be a goddess's loyal follower, when he had clearly been rejected a long time ago. He was filled with anguish, feeling tricked once again.

Six years into the Great Cataclysm, hundreds of millions of zombies still roamed. Gradually, intelligent infected individuals began to appear, possessing "combat forms." They called themselves the Corpse Clan, a race born from corpses, also known as "New Humans."

Sakura gathered a large number of survivors. She established a camp based in Nonny City, using her mental waves to repel zombie hordes and build walls, thereby protecting humans.

"This is humanity's home!" she declared. Her words began to earn the trust of the Ishtari. Sometimes, they even forgot she was a zombie. Like the Ishtari themselves, she seemed bound by a "guilt-death mechanism," respecting human rights and laws.

Mechanical combat suits, medical advancements, and technology — various aspects of civilization rapidly recovered. Sakura's survivor camp grew significantly in strength. Under her leadership, the Ishtari piloted mechs, encircling and swiftly eliminating several Emperor-level zombies of the same rank as Sakura.

Sakura consumed their brain cores, greatly enhancing her power. Originally weak, merely a Quasi-Emperor, she now broke through to become an Emperor, making her one of the most powerful zombie entities.

"Damn it! Sakura, the Umbrella Woman, has brought those inferior food sources under her control and and is teaming up with them to hunt us down!"

Suddenly, countless zombie infected, Tyrants, Queens, and Lickers felt their own lives were at risk. Lacking subordinates, they began to emulate Sakura, establishing their own survivor camps.

"This is the way things are heading! The civilization of ancient humans still makes us covetous," Sakura stated calmly.

By the seventh year of the Great Cataclysm, the cannibalistic factions were almost extinct. Meanwhile, co-existence factions rapidly proliferated.

Higher-level zombies began to shelter the Ishtari survivors, helping them resist zombie hordes and even eliminating lower-level zombies that surrounded them. They established settlements, demanding subservience in exchange for developing technology and civilization.

However, the tyrannical rule of these higher-level zombies led to many Ishtari betraying them and stabbing them in the back. The Ishtari only recognized human rights within their own species, feeling no remorse towards outsiders.

Only Sakura's survivor camp was free from such worries. Even though Sakura could use her authority to completely enslave the Ishtari, she still granted them exceptionally high levels of human rights and freedom, becoming humanity's protector. This increasingly attracted more survivor convoys to seek refuge with her.

By the eighth year of the Great Cataclysm, most higher-level zombies were eliminated. In fact, by helping humans develop, they suffered betrayal and covert attacks, which ultimately led to the overthrow of their own rule.

After the humans in those survivor camps defeated the higher-level zombies that controlled them, they took the zombies' brain cores and began flocking to Sakura's camp!

"They're delivering manpower to the enemy!" countless higher-level zombies exclaimed, spitting blood in frustration. They were not only killed, but their brain cores and their former subjects were delivered straight to the other side!

"Shameless!""Devious!""Damn that Umbrella Woman, Sakura!"

The vast majority of them were eliminated. Only a few higher-level zombie camps, whose leaders genuinely treated humans with kindness and whose intentions were seen as friendly, managed to completely win human trust and remain established in the vast zombie-infested lands.

The world order had taken a bizarre shape: higher-level zombies established shelters to protect humans, defending them against lower-level zombies. Each higher-level zombie, along with the survivors from their camp, piloted mechs to search for vast amounts of supplies in the wastelands' supermarkets, shops, and factories, all while attacking other higher-level zombies.

It was truly strange. In this post-apocalyptic wasteland era, regardless of how humans survived, society had devolved into a primal, dog-eat-dog struggle.

By the forty-seventh year of the Great Cataclysm, powerful Emperor-level zombies rapidly emerged, causing great upheaval. These were originally the top Emperor-level corpses of the Ishtari, who, after being infected, developed consciousness.

An era of competing warlords began, and the few remaining Ishtari survivors gradually became logistical support, surviving through this role.

In the fifty-seventh year of the Great Cataclysm, the Sea Clan, who had been dormant in the ocean, quietly observing the ruins, finally saw Emperor Hailan Dong make his move. He suppressed each of the zombie Emperors across the wasteland.

The civilization of the Sea Clan overlords, the Covidias civilization, had fully commenced! This was an era of highly advanced marine civilization, and all major zombie powerhouses, despite their internal conflicts, were required to pay regular tribute.

"Caroline, do you see? Live long enough, and there will come a day when you become an era's overlord," Hailan Dong said with a smile.

By the sixty-first year of the Great Cataclysm, Xia Naiming lamented, "Brothers, I've been in this world for over sixty years, cultivating, and I've finally reached the fifth stage! I'd say I'm exceptionally gifted!" He felt miserable; this hellish dungeon was terrifying, and simply surviving was incredibly difficult.

Moreover, as the Ishtari camps began to stabilize, they resumed production of certain items, which made him silently weep.

Screenshots,Screenshots,"Get lost!""Keep hunkering down! You're just a weakling!""Develop secretly, don't rush! We can win! Earthlings will triumph!"

By the sixty-third year of the Great Cataclysm, this era fully entered a new phase due to the massive loss of Ishtari lives. Countless energies permeated the world, which were collected by the powerful, who sought to break through the solid barrier to the next realm.

At this time, thirteen supreme Emperor-level beings, whose combat power was unparalleled throughout history, still couldn't see the path forward. "Is there a path beyond the Emperor realm?" they wondered. "Dare we ask if there are deities in this world?"

Perhaps the thirteen had gathered enough energy, but they couldn't find a method to achieve godhood. In the previous Wizard World, becoming a god meant "proving oneself to heaven and earth," creating a netherworld, and dwelling there as a deity. In the later Ancient Desolate World, godhood was achieved by "entrusting a Dao Fruit to the void," where a Dao Fruit primordial spirit resided in the ethereal void, achieving immortality as a Saint.

Regardless, both methods involved using small spaces to greatly condense and intensely compress energy, causing a qualitative change to achieve divinity. However, this world seemed to lack spatial folding technology, and there were no spatial items.

Gradually, Hailan Dong, the most ancient and exceptionally brilliant Emperor, deduced a method for godhood and sensed something. "Perhaps a small space is needed for compression! The world energy in this land is too barren for godhood!"

In a daze, Hailan Dong recalled the spatial ring he had seen when he followed the ancient god to the ruins. His mind went blank. "The opportunity for godhood is right there." He only now realized what he had missed. To a god, it was merely a storage item, but to the world's strongest Emperor, it was the only priceless treasure for achieving godhood.

"Great ancient god, Hailan Dong wishes to see you!!" Over the next few years, the entire Sea Clan rapidly built altars and magnificent ocean temples, with a statue of an ancient god sitting in the ocean. They performed countless sacrifices, even offering Zhao Shirou, who had become an Emperor, but still, the god did not appear.

Hailan Dong remained silent, observing his gradually aging face, looking as withered as an old man. He turned to Zhao Shirou beside him. "I still cannot fathom the mind of the god."

With this revelation, the entire land was abuzz. The Emperor-level Corpse Clan leaders from the various ruin camps grew silent, their brows furrowed. They, too, began searching for the ancient god, hoping to obtain the spatial ring for godhood, willing to pay any price. But ultimately, it was hard to find.

"Has the path forward been cut off?" one Corpse Clan Emperor asked bitterly.

Then, someone remembered something: "The Ishtari, perhaps they can research spatial folding technology." A thought sparked in their minds, causing ripples of hope. They intended to leverage this once highly advanced civilization. The Ishtari's downfall was less than fifty years ago, and survivors still lived on this land. They wanted them to restart their technological development.

However, the remaining survivors had long lost the core cutting-edge technology. Only the top civilian mechanical scientists remained, and they had been taken away by Caroline years ago!

"It's nearly impossible for the current Ishtari to redevelop to such a level; at the very least, they would need to restore their population to hundreds of millions, as it was during their peak! We cannot wait that long, nor can we indulge them!" a tyrannical Emperor declared coldly.

"Caroline, the great Ishtari sage who left all those years ago, took with her all the core technologies that were still under research and not yet released for civilian use. Finding her might enable her to research spatial technology!"

The various Emperors began searching for the lost Ishtari civilization. The land was vast, making the search incredibly difficult, yet they continued, for there was no other choice. This was their only hope for a breakthrough. They all stood at the pinnacle of the world, with no further path ahead, and immortality was what every Emperor desired!

Soon, seven or eight years passed. Finally, someone discovered a secret research institute, an Ishtari ruin. Upon entering, they found the very people Caroline had taken with her years ago.

They were all dead. Every scientist in the entire institute had perished, without exception. Even Caroline was clearly seen lying silently on the ground, a corpse, having been dead for an unknown period. The institute had succumbed to infection.

When the news spread, the entire Ishtari survivor population collapsed. They had chosen to serve the Corpse Clan because they believed their goddess, Caroline, would lead humanity's elite to research an antidote for the virus, allowing them to return to this land and restore their former glory. But now, that hope was shattered.

They couldn't help but wail.

"Has our civilization, the glory of us Ishtari, truly vanished?""There are no more gods in this world.""Lady Caroline failed to develop an antidote for the virus even to her death. After all, the virus mutated wildly, spreading through our brains. With the combined mental processing of hundreds of millions of us, the mutation rate was too fast; it was an unprecedented, unknown program that gave birth to that incredible new race..."

Cries of despair echoed from many survivor camps.

Meanwhile, the Emperor-level Corpse Clan leaders who arrived at the institute secretly frowned, speculating: "Died from infection? Did a research error cause the virus to break out in the institute, leading to their complete annihilation?"

"Perhaps so. It's not that she couldn't escape; Caroline could still have fled, but she remained in the institute because humanity's last hope for scientific advancement was destroyed, and she chose to stand her ground." They sighed, deeply admiring the resilience and integrity of that former civilization.

Of course, there was also another theory: "Perhaps someone got ahead of us, very, very long ago, even before anyone thought about achieving godhood, they had already plotted this. They sought out the last remnants of Ishtari civilization, plundered their knowledge, infected them, and then destroyed them!"

This was a terrifying conjecture. If it were just a guess, it would be fine, but if it were true, it would be truly horrifying.

"Who could have thought so far ahead?""Logically, no one, but have you forgotten the Umbrella Woman, Sakura, who was also interested in the Ishtari much earlier?""Hush! Empress Sakura is formidable; it might not be true!"

Even Emperor Hailan Dong, the aged monarch of the ocean and the most ancient Emperor, sank into his throne upon hearing the news, his cloudy eyes growing even more opaque. "Caroline, this isn't like you. Have you forgotten our wager? Not fulfilling a promise—that's not like the proud, stubborn woman who would rather die than yield."

Her resolute gaze flashed through his mind. That parting, which seemed so ordinary back then, had, shockingly, turned into an eternal farewell.

By the seventieth year of the Great Cataclysm, Hailan Dong's strength began to wane as he aged, nearing death. A new era for the Corpse Clan had begun.

"Empress Sakura!" This title, associated with Sakura's survivor camp, which had gathered dozens of Corpse Clan powerhouses and established a shelter, gradually spread and became the largest human camp.

She unveiled a cultivation method, transforming battle forms and martial arts. "The Old Humans, the demonic beasts, those with extraordinary talents—now, with my cultivation path and their innate gifts, we can go even further," she stated. "Without the tempering and refinement of the mind, it is ultimately difficult to reach the pinnacle."

She refined the cultivation system, profoundly influencing the entire Corpse Clan.

Time flowed onward, and another ten years passed. The Ishtari across the land built shelters, and their population gradually stabilized, but they could not truly prosper, nor could their civilization return to its peak. However, mechanical combat suits still allowed them to be effective in battle.

The entire land held billions of zombies. Although many had been hunted down, their sheer numbers remained horrifying, even to the intelligent New Human zombies themselves.

"Above the Emperor realm is godhood. Breaking through to divinity seems impossible, yet..."

On this day, Empress Sakura began to deduce a path to godhood. In previous world civilizations, there were many methods to achieve godhood, usually by hiding within an inner world. But without an inner world, how could one become a god?

In the eightieth year of the Great Cataclysm, a terrifying aura emerged from the world, stirring up winds and clouds. The entire land seemed to suffocate and tremble, vast as an ocean, as if some monstrous life form had been born.

"Eighty years... I have just come of age and become a god. Perfect!"

Empress Sakura stood quietly on the mountaintop, with countless members of the Corpse Clan prostrating below. A deity had been born. She was remarkably brilliant, having pioneered an unimaginable method of achieving godhood, prying open that grand door to become the first deity in this world!

"The Sea Clan civilization should come and pledge allegiance," Empress Sakura declared, announcing the imminent establishment of the Holy Sakura Dynasty.

Immediately, the entire land erupted in upheaval.