Starforce Warriors-Chapter 1019: The God Of Evolution

As they spoke, Li Xiaofei emerged once again. When he saw the man, surprise appeared on his face, "Old Wei?"

The man who had suddenly appeared was none other than Wei Xiaotian. He was once the leader of the Exploding Star Gang in the city of Chongque, a high-ranking member of Eden, and now a newly ascended king of the Death God's Eye bloodline within the Reaper race.

Wei Xiaotian had become one of the new kings of the Reaper world. Many held high hopes for him. Originally, he had been human, but Li Xiaofei sensed something wrong with just one glance.

Old Wei’s body radiated an overwhelming Reaper aura.

Could this guy have suffered cultivation deviation while training in the Realm of Ruins? Did he truly transform himself from a human into a Reaper? His cultivation realm has indeed improved... Damn. He improved so fast. He’s nearly caught up to me. Something feels off.

A torrent of thoughts flooded Li Xiaofei’s mind. Once someone reached the Emperor Realm, they gained the ability to perceive many illusions and falsehoods. Li Xiaofei could now tell that Wei Xiaotian was no longer human.

"We meet again." Wei Xiaotian nodded at Li Xiaofei. "I told you, the two of us are bound by fate."

A flicker of gold and silver light flashed in Li Xiaofei’s eyes as he asked, "What exactly are you?"

He had actually sensed the aura of the Ancestor of Strength coming from Wei Xiaotian. That was absurd. But Wei Xiaotian’s expression remained utterly calm. He looked at Li Xiaofei, and a hint of emotion flashed in his eyes.

"Tell me, do you believe that beasts truly lack intelligence?" Wei Xiaotian’s response was an entirely unrelated question.

Li Xiaofei thought for a moment and said, "I’d say instinct outweighs intelligence."

Wei Xiaotian asked again, "But isn’t instinct also a form of intelligence?"

Li Xiaofei shook his head. His definition of intelligence was the same as that held by Great Xia back on Earth. A beast’s instinct did not count as wisdom.

"Alright then. But since you said instinct outweighs intelligence, doesn’t that imply that beasts still possess some wisdom, even just a little, right?" Wei Xiaotian pressed on.

Li Xiaofei did not answer. The question was meaningless, but it was clear that Wei Xiaotian was deeply attached to the answer.

Smiling, Wei Xiaotian asked, "If beasts truly have no intelligence, then what am I?"

Li Xiaofei and Lin Beichen both turned to look at him, their hearts stirring slightly.

"Figured it out?" Wei Xiaotian’s smile suddenly became eerie as he said, "Tell me, do you think I possess intelligence?"

Lin Beichen looked him up and down, then clicked his tongue. "Interesting. I was wrong about you, huh? I guess I need to revise my previous judgment. Turns out beasts can be intelligent, very intelligent, in fact."

He had already seen through it, and so had Li Xiaofei. If Li Xiaofei would still have failed to discern Wei Xiaotian’s identity before today, then after fighting the Ancestor of Strength for so long, he could now confirm it almost instantly. And it was an identity that Li Xiaofei had never imagined.

"You’re the Ancestor of Strength?" He asked, "When did you escape from the seal?"

Yes. The man before them, Wei Xiaotian, was the Ancestor of Strength. Though the reason why there seemed to be two versions of the Ancestor of Strength remained unclear, the aura emanating from Wei Xiaotian was identical to that of the beast he had fought.

However, the Ancestor of Strength inside the sealed domain was clearly stronger than Wei Xiaotian.

Wei Xiaotian smiled faintly as he asked, "Isn’t it possible... that I was never sealed here to begin with?"

Lin Beichen raised his middle finger and rubbed the space between his brows. It was his signature gesture. He quietly reviewed everything that had happened. Then, as if realizing something, his expression shifted.

Li Xiaofei, unaware of the details behind the ancient sealing of the Ancestor of Strength, began to form a guess. He asked, "You mean... as the intelligent aspect of the Ancestor of Strength, you fled before the sealing took place?"

Wei Xiaotian replied, "You once said that sometimes a beast’s instinct can be more terrifying than its intelligence. If that instinct sensed danger, then why wouldn’t intelligence act accordingly?"

"So... you split in two?" Lin Beichen asked curiously.

Sensing danger, the intelligent half of the Ancestor of Strength had separated from its body and escaped. What was sealed within the domain was merely the beast half. Who could have imagined that a pure-blooded beast could even do something like this?

Perhaps that was why neither Lin Beichen nor the Ancestor of Wisdom ever thought to investigate further. They truly believed the Ancestor of Strength had been fully sealed and never considered the need for pursuit.

"Living alongside savagery is a painful thing," Wei Xiaotian sighed. "Especially when the wild instincts take complete control. I don’t even know when I was born. Maybe... maybe I came into being after being used, deceived, and manipulated for countless years by the Ancestor of Wisdom. When he finally made a move against the Ancestor of Strength... I sensed it. And that was truly a great opportunity."

At this point, he couldn’t help but laugh with genuine joy. For the first time, Li Xiaofei realized that even a cosmic pinnacle-level entity like the Ancestor of Strength could suffer from a split psyche. It had developed a second personality.

He was incredibly curious about what, exactly, the Ancestor of Wisdom had done back then to push the Ancestor of Strength so far that it fractured and gave rise to a second self.

"Then how did you end up transforming into a human?" Li Xiaofei pressed curiously.

At this point, he no longer felt the same urgency to rush into the sealed domain and beat up the Ancestor of Strength.

Wei Xiaotian, in turn, seemed more than willing to talk. "Naturally, it was in pursuit of the secret of ultimate evolution."

"Hmm?" Li Xiaofei blinked in surprise. "And what does that have to do with humans?"

Wei Xiaotian said, "Isn't perfect evolution... humanity itself?"

Li Xiaofei was stunned. Humans are the result of perfect evolution?

In that instant, it felt as though something within his mind cracked open and emerged.

Perfect evolution was humanity? The legendary King-clan among the Reapers, the one said to have achieved perfect evolution in the Realm of Ruins and ascended as a people, was the human race?

But that couldn’t be right. If humans were the perfectly evolved species, then why had they become slaves to the Reapers?

In the Ancestor Court star system, where humans made up the overwhelming majority of the population, they were treated as slaves, oppressed, exploited, and humiliated. If humanity truly represented perfect evolution, why had their status plummeted after ascending? What secret was hidden within all this?

Then, Li Xiaofei remembered the humanization campaign that the Ancestor of Wisdom had championed. The Ancestor of Wisdom had sought to transform high-level Reapers into humans through cultivation. Why would Reapers abandon their own powerful identity, just to become human?

Even though this had led to greed among the species, dulled ambitions, and spiritual decay, the Ancestor of Wisdom never ceased promoting the humanization campaign. So even the Ancestor of Wisdom believed that humanity was the next step in Reaper evolution?

Seen from this angle, it started to make sense. Li Xiaofei recalled his time in the Evolution Temple. He had witnessed countless ruined sites left by failed King-ranked race evolution attempts. He had seen relics of their civilizations and heard of the gods they once worshipped.

Unfortunately, those divine statues had long vanished, or had been smashed to pieces. No one could determine exactly what kind of god those evolution-seeking Reaper clans had worshipped.

It was only within the ruins of top clans like the Ruò Iron Clan that he had seen a few remnants of broken idols. At the time, they had merely seemed vaguely humanoid. But now, thinking back...

Could it be that the gods those ancient, long-buried Reapers had worshipped as the pinnacle of evolution had been humans all along?