Chapter 259 All living things enter the cycle of reincarnation!
The heavy bronze gate opened completely, and Gu Qing slowly walked out from the depths of the hall.
The moment Zhao Feng raised his head and met Gu Qing's gaze, an uncontrollable chill suddenly surged from the depths of his soul.
Having not seen him for a long time, the "human touch" on this Kunlun Dao Master had become extremely thin.
Gu Qing was still wearing that blue Taoist robe, his appearance unchanged, but his eyes no longer showed any emotion. Those once deep eyes were now like two ancient, still abysses, with countless cold data streams and fragmented law runes intertwining and dying in the deepest part of his pupils.
The system's existence and continuous deduction of laws are slowly but steadily stripping away his humanity. What stands before Zhao Feng now is increasingly less like a living person, and more like a perfectly functioning, absolutely rational Heavenly Dao computer.
"You did the right thing, Zhao Feng."
Gu Qing's voice was flat, devoid of praise or blame. He was simply stating an objective fact.
"The old trial procedures are indeed redundant. The Earth's population, plus the newly awakened demon race, generates a daily causal data that cannot be handled by a simple binary logic of good and evil."
Gu Qing raised his hand and casually made a sweeping motion in the air.
Stab it--!
A spatial rift was brutally torn open between the celestial aura of Kunlun and the gray mist of the netherworld.
"Let's go. Let's see what kind of quality our batch of 'new species' is."
Gu Qing stepped into the crevice. Zhao Feng's divine sense followed closely behind.
The next second, in the netherworld, above the Yellow Springs Road.
A beam of pure, azure light, radiating boundless pressure, abruptly pierced the eternally unchanging gray dome of the Netherworld, descending directly above the rioting of millions of souls.
This oppressive aura is different from Zhao Feng's simple "suppression." It is an absolute control belonging to the Creator at the lowest level.
boom!!!
The millions of remnant souls that were frantically tearing and devouring just a second ago—whether they were human hunters with bloodshot eyes or mutated wild boars with their bodies burning with violent demonic fire—were all frozen in place as if a pause button had been pressed the moment the blue light shone upon them.
Even the scattered fragments of souls hovered in mid-air.
The 100,000 black-armored Yin soldiers who formed the "Heaven-Sealing and Earth-Locking Yin-Yang Grand Array," along with the civil and military judges who rushed over, all knelt on one knee when they saw the azure figure in the sky, their expressions filled with extreme awe.
"Greetings, Lord Dao!"
Gu Qing ignored the kneeling worship below. He stood with his hands behind his back in the void, his extremely cold eyes looking down at the imprisoned Yellow Springs battlefield.
"In just half an hour, millions of souls devoured each other, and through natural selection, tens of thousands of mutated battle souls with soul power reaching the peak of the Qi Refining stage or even the early Foundation Establishment stage were born."
Gu Qing looked at the human heroes who had become solidified after devouring demon souls, and whose backs even grew illusory bone spurs, and a hint of satisfaction flashed in his eyes.
"Survival of the fittest, even in the netherworld, this law still operates perfectly."
Zhao Feng's consciousness returned to his physical body on the throne. He flew into the sky and came behind Gu Qing, reporting solemnly, "Dao Lord, they are indeed evolving, but the Mirror of Karma is locked. According to the original setting, it cannot detect this kind of killing for survival. If this continues, the Six Paths of Reincarnation will be completely blocked."
"I know. Because the rules of the Mirror of Retribution are written based on the moral values of peacetime."
Gu Qing slowly floated down from the sky and landed directly on the huge square outside the Yama Palace.
He walked to the Mirror of Evil, which had come to a standstill and whose surface was covered with chaotic snowflakes.
"All living things have the instinct to survive. Since the mortal realm has established the wasteland law of 'eating demons and cultivating demons, devouring and evolving,' the standards of judgment in the underworld must match it."
Gu Qing raised his right hand and pointed a finger at the cold bronze mirror surface of the Mirror of Karma.
Om-!
An extremely vast source of the Dao, even imbued with a touch of the system's cold logic, flowed from Gu Qing's fingertips and forcefully poured into the core of this supreme Netherworld artifact.
"Heaven is ruthless, regarding all things as straw dogs; yet Heaven is also compassionate, granting all beings liberation. Today, I hereby rewrite the ironclad laws of the underworld."
Gu Qing's voice wasn't loud, but it resonated extremely clearly in every corner of the underworld, and even in the subconscious depths of every soul.
"Change the underlying settlement logic: First, for mortals who fight fiercely to perpetuate their race and transcend social classes, their actions of killing demons and seizing cores are in accordance with the natural order of evolution. This is 'survival' and is not counted as evil karma!"
"Secondly, all demon beings that have awakened intelligence, who devour human flesh and metal armor for the sake of their race's reproduction and physical strength, are simply following the natural instinct of predation. This is 'natural law,' and they are not tainted by evil!"
The civil and military judges, listening from the rear, were terrified.
The Dao Lord has completely abolished the moral shackles of the old era, directly writing "survival of the fittest" and "evolution of species" into the operating rules of the lowest level of the underworld!
"Only those who are cowardly and avoid war, betray their people, and shamelessly slaughter their own kind for pure pleasure are truly 'extremely evil' and deserve to be punished in the eighteenth level of hell!"
As Gu Qing's final, chilling pronouncement fell...
Boom!
The ancient bronze mirror, towering tens of feet high, suddenly erupted with an extremely dazzling light. The intertwined red light of sin and golden light of merit on the mirror's surface instantly had their causal lines untangled after the new rules were injected.
The original logical paradox has been completely eliminated.
Those human hunters who bear the "sin of killing" for slaying demons, and who possess the "merit of protecting their clan" for defending their homes and country, will have their blood-red sin light instantly dissipate under the new settlement system, leaving only extremely pure golden merit.
The mutated monsters that devoured people no longer triggered extreme evil warnings and were simply categorized by the system as "natural cycles".
"The reincarnation channel has been cleared." Gu Qing withdrew her finger, her emotionless eyes looking at Zhao Feng. "The Mirror of Retribution can resume operation. As long as they are not remnants of intentional evil, they can proceed with the extradition process normally."
"Your Majesty, I understand." Zhao Feng breathed a sigh of relief, but looking at the million souls still frozen in time on the road to the underworld, he frowned again. "But these souls that devoured each other during the riot and have already mutated... if we let them reincarnate directly, the soul strength of newborns in the mortal world may get out of control."
"Who said they were going to be reincarnated as ordinary people?"
Gu Qing turned around and looked at the extremely fierce and menacing remnant souls of the "winners" on the road to the underworld.
"They proved their worth in the battles of the underworld. These top-quality materials, selected through a double physical and spiritual meat grinder, would be wasted if they were reincarnated as ordinary babies."
Gu Qing's tone was like that of an extremely shrewd resource planner examining a batch of high-value industrial raw materials. The coldness with which he treated life as data made Zhao Feng feel a little uncomfortable.
"Select the 30,000 human battle souls that grew the fastest and had the strongest fighting will during the mutual devouring, as well as the 20,000 remnant souls of high-level demonic beasts, and separate them out."
Gu Qing ruthlessly arranged the fate of these departed souls:
"Human battle spirits don't need to drink the Meng Po soup. They can be directly incorporated into the ranks of the black-armored Yin soldiers of the Netherworld, and their ghostly immortal bodies will be reshaped using Yin energy. Since the flames of war in the mortal realm are burning so fiercely, the power of the underworld must also be expanded."
"As for the remnant souls of those 20,000 high-level demonic beasts..." Gu Qing narrowed his eyes slightly, "Don't wash away their ferocity. Instead, cast them into the eye of the soon-to-be-established 'Animal Path' reincarnation array. The future Earth needs even more ferocious demonic beasts."
"All living things are subject to reincarnation. Each has its own function, and all things are used to their fullest potential."
After leaving behind an extremely cold decree, Gu Qing's figure once again transformed into a rain of azure light, slowly dissipating into the dark sky and returning to Kunlun.
Zhao Feng stood there, staring in the direction where Gu Qing had disappeared, speechless for a long time.
The problem is solved, and the deadlock of reincarnation has been broken.
But Zhao Feng felt no relief whatsoever. Looking down at the souls being systematically guided back by the Yin soldiers, and recalling Gu Qing's cold, emotionless gaze—as if from a precise machine—a bizarre and absurd feeling suddenly arose within him:
In the eyes of the Dao Lord, whether they are living humans or the souls of the dead who flood into the underworld, they all seem to have become a series of data that are constantly being tested and iterated for a certain ultimate goal.
......