The other team had a larger roster; while their overall strength didn't match the first squad, they were still packed with powerhouses, possessing experts in various fields. Led by Xiao Honglv, the second-greatest strategist of the Central Continent team, this group existed purely as a shock troop—ready to burst forth at the slightest opportunity and bite down hard... the kind of bite that leaves bone showing.

Per Chu Xuan’s original specifications, this contingent only needed to secure a single missile base. Occupying all of them would have been entirely unnecessary. Although Chu Xuan possessed a significant quantity of the super-virus, its physical volume was not excessive; a few cargo missiles would suffice to disseminate it across all of Lacon City. Assigning such a team, led by a strategist, to launch missiles was an egregious waste of talent. Yet, there was no alternative. Within the entire Central Continent team, the only individuals capable of skillfully operating modern instrumentation and launching missiles, besides Chu Xuan himself, was Xiao Honglv. Furthermore, to prevent this sub-squad from being too weak to even bother the Demon Team, thereby drawing Clone Chu Xuan’s focus onto Zheng Zha and the others, this unit ended up in its current configuration: powerful, yet not overwhelmingly dominant; capable of launching a surprise attack, but unable to pose a fatal threat to the Demon Team or the Angel Alliance...

“What an awkward position... Are we going to end up as mere logistics workers in this final battle?” Xiao Honglv muttered, pouting.

This was the launch platform of a certain missile base.

During his long tenure in the Reincarnation World, Xiao Honglv enjoyed reading various types of literature in his spare time—a habit befitting his reputation as a prodigy, or more accurately, a prodigy whose nervous system was excessively developed. While he hadn't reached Chu Xuan’s echelon, he remained a top-tier strategist in any other team.

After Xiao Honglv uttered those words.

Everyone instinctively turned to look at him. The young boy’s face flushed, and he quickly said, “Alright, alright, I was just complaining a little bit. You don’t all have to look at me like that... Relax, I will carefully consider Chu Xuan’s intentions for this layout, and I won’t say things like ‘I don’t understand’ again.”

Frankly, Xiao Honglv did not approve of splitting into two teams, but under the circumstances, there was almost no useful intelligence or clues available.

His disapproval was immaterial because he couldn't propose an alternative viable plan. With the exact same intelligence and clues, he was simply no match for the supreme strategist, Chu Xuan.

Thus, he reluctantly agreed to the squad split.

(But... is this split by Chu Xuan really just for launching the virus and distracting the Demon Team, as he claimed?) Xiao Honglv couldn't decipher Chu Xuan’s grand design and plan. What was deeply hidden in the man’s mind was something no one could fathom... unless it was Chu Xuan himself. After tugging out several handfuls of hair, he finally told the assembled squad, in a fit of pique, that he didn't know—an outburst that perfectly displayed the genuine temperament of his age... a childish tantrum.

It wasn't until Xiao Honglv entered the missile base and began manipulating the buttons on the missile platform that he felt embarrassed and apologized to the others. After all, at a moment like this, the mission of this detached squad was certainly not a stage for him to vent childish frustrations.

What he needed to do was guess Chu Xuan’s intent and, just like in The Day the Earth Stood Still: Earth Counterattack, help set the stage for this final battle! (But I simply cannot grasp what Chu Xuan is thinking! If this squad's function is merely to confuse the Demon Team’s vision, it makes absolutely no sense. The initial assumption required for this logic is that the Demon Team possesses some form of omniscience. Only then would they know we’ve split up. But if they are omniscient, then Clone Chu Xuan would certainly not be confused by such a petty trick, given they are both Chu Xuan—operating on an equal intellectual plane—and the Demon Team has additional omniscience...) Xiao Honglv agonized, pulling at his hair. He watched a missile soar into the sky, moving farther and farther toward Lacon City, and his own sense of certainty diminished rapidly as he ceaselessly tried to divine Chu Xuan’s thoughts.

Xiao Honglv took a deep breath and suddenly turned to Zhan Lan, who was standing nearby. “Sister Zhan Lan, let me ask you a few questions... If there were a pair of eyes that could watch you at all times, knowing everything you do, and moreover, those eyes could also observe another person, but only know everything that person does when they are being watched—not when they are not—how would you secretly convey something you didn't want those eyes to know to that other person?” This analogy closely mirrored the current situation of the Central Continent team, split into one strong and one weak contingent. Logically, Zhan Lan paused. She touched her forehead; the beauty’s brow protruded slightly more than the average person’s, giving her an air of unusual quiet charm. She thought carefully for a long time before replying, “If these eyes can know everything about me? Does that mean from the moment they start watching me, or can one glance reveal everything about me from birth until my future death?”

Xiao Honglv, in turn, was momentarily stunned by her question. He frowned and said, “If it can know everything about the past and future, that is undoubtedly the realm of a god. The Demon Team shouldn't have reached that level yet, otherwise, they would have already crushed our team and the Celestial Team completely. I suspect the effect of this omniscience is more like... why don’t you consider it a mental scan capable of ignoring distance and dimensional barriers?”

“If that’s the case, when did these eyes start watching me? If they started watching me at a specific moment, I just need to find something that happened before that moment—something only I know—and transmit it to the other person using a code. Whether he understands it is then a matter of his own intelligence,” Zhan Lan mused.

“That being the case...” Xiao Honglv suddenly shouted at Zero Point, “Zero Point, meticulously check every virus container Chu Xuan gave us. Without damaging the seals or exposing the virus, look inside for any message Chu Xuan left for us!” A moment later, everyone indeed found the slip of paper Chu Xuan had left tucked into the packaging of one of the containers. However, it was covered entirely in inexplicable numbers that showed absolutely no discernible pattern of combination. Xiao Honglv, whether using Morse code or any other cipher, couldn't decipher them at all. In fact, the numbers looked as if they were scribbled randomly, utterly meaningless.

“What does ‘X’ mean? It’s the only letter on the entire slip; the rest is just a string of meaningless digits. Damn it. Forget me trying to guess it, I really want to see how the Demon Team’s Chu Xuan tries to decipher this!” Xiao Honglv flipped the paper over and over. He even dipped a small part of the paper in water out of sheer disbelief, but reality confirmed it: it was just an utterly ordinary piece of white paper. It had to be that the letter and numbers hid some secret, but without the rulebook, even a god couldn't guess the secret of these characters. This wasn't a plot from a novel; who could easily decipher the random, disordered numbers someone merely sketched? “X? Damn it, I might as well call it the X-Files!”

“The X-Files? That’s not impossible...”

The Demon Team’s location...

As soon as the Demon Team split into their two sub-squads and began operations, Chu Xuan had ordered Zhang Xiaoxue to fully activate the function of the Investiture of the Gods list—or, more accurately, to activate it fully using their current Karma Points. This meant that any change sufficient to alter the course of the battle would trigger a notification from the list, thereby monitoring which team was involved. This sustained surveillance could last for about forty-eight hours. This was a desperate gamble for the Demon Team; they had to endure increasingly severe spacetime backflow while draining nearly all their Karma Points—a move that meant total success or total annihilation.

The Investiture of the Gods list was like opium; it was an absolute pity not to use it, captivating the soul, for it represented the pinnacle of ancient runic technology, the ultimate philosophical weapon, also known as a weapon of Causality—and the most potent one. It was the final weapon forged by the Yellow-Skinned Saints and Cultivators, standing in stark contrast to the path emphasized by the White-Skinned Saints and Cultivators: the Genetic Lock, biotechnology, and natural science—an entirely different technological track, and this was its zenith... Causality Technology.

“...The Central Continent team obtained relics from the Yellow-Skinned faction. Judging by the artifacts listed on the Investiture of the Gods list and the items manufactured by my main body, they must possess cultivation techniques there... and the complete version of cultivation techniques.” Chu Xuan addressed the people before him. “Do you know what this signifies? If we speak purely of cultivation technology, we gained something once in Shushan, and you, [pointing to a man], even reached the Nascent Soul level, correct?”

Chu Xuan pointed to a middle-aged East Asian man. This man was rather amusing; he wore glasses, yet donned an ancient-style traditional Chinese Hanfu, with a sharp Qingfeng sword strapped to his back. Whichever way you looked at him, he was an anomalous figure.

“However, your strength doesn't even measure up to one-tenth of Luo Yinglong’s. That is a fact. It's not that your cultivation standard is far inferior to his, but rather that apart from your flying sword attacks, you possess no other offensive methods. Only your physical capacity is much stronger than an ordinary person, plus some means of utilizing True Essence power. But this advantage isn't significant when compared to other enhancements, such as the energy possessed by the Blood Race, internal martial arts training, or demonic power... Looking purely at our current situation, cultivation, which is praised to the skies, seems to be nothing more than a slightly more potent set of techniques. But is that the reality?”

Chu Xuan gazed at the Investiture of the Gods list as he spoke. “In fact, Luo Yinglong demonstrated the immense power of cultivation, and my main body is currently studying that power. If he had a few more years, it’s highly probable that every member of the Central Continent team we face would possess Luo Yinglong’s power, or even surpass it. That is the true cultivation method... not a simple secret to enhance oneself, but a technology, a technological method as rigorous and powerful as natural science.”

Having said this, Chu Xuan looked up at everyone. “From the messages left by the Yellow-Skinned Saints in the relics we obtained, this Investiture of the Gods list is the ultimate Causality Weapon created through the joint effort of the Saints and Cultivators. In other words, apart from the Saints’ profound knowledge and control over energy, the Cultivators’ rune technology was absolutely indispensable... Ah, perhaps the Saints also possessed similar technology, but in any case, it is the culmination of both fields that produced this list. I believe everyone here who has read the classical Chinese novel Fengshen Yanyi should be familiar with this legendary artifact, right?”

“Precisely. Legend says that by writing a person's name on it, that person will die, and they will die in a manner that seems natural, as if they were destined to die from the start. That is causality: first, it determines that the person will die, and then it decides how they will die... In reality, the function of the Investiture of the Gods list goes far beyond that. The information we gathered from the relic indicates it can even achieve omniscience—just as that person from the Central Continent team mentioned: one glance reveals everything about her. Furthermore, since it was developed as a weapon, it shouldn't result in a situation like ours, where one injury means everyone is injured. That’s not a weapon; it’s a technique or a method. Therefore, I fully believe the relic’s statement that this weapon is incomplete.”

Chu Xuan suddenly opened his palm toward everyone and pressed down on one finger: “Let us speculate on the situation back then. The Saints and the Cultivators were once enemies, engaging in a great primordial war that swept across the entire Earth, even causing the shattering of Heaven and Earth. The result of this event nearly led to the collapse and decline of the glorious ancient civilization. Although both sides gradually developed again afterward, and even technology progressed due to the catalyst of war, the population numbers never recovered, leading to the birth of various quasi-fifth-tier or quasi-cultivation beings. Simultaneously, they perceived the truth of the Box and found a certain knack to break through the Box. Next, they created the Main God and left their proudest technological pinnacle—their creation—within the Main God ruins, resulting in the existence of several major ruins, such as what Adam obtained, and what we obtained. This is the 'second' point: from the process of obtaining the items in the ruins until the ruins suddenly collapsed, the three factions were clearly not harmonious; in fact, they were mortal enemies. Between them, the Saints and Cultivators were constantly wary of the other, terrified that the other side might become overwhelmingly powerful. That is why the White-Skinned faction’s plan was never completed, and why the Investiture of the Gods list we obtained is the incomplete version... In other words, both creators of this weapon must have feared the other side gaining complete mastery of it. Most likely—no, certainly—they divided the list into two parts, with each party holding one piece, which is the only logical conclusion... If I haven't guessed wrong, my main body must possess the other half of the Investiture of the Gods list. There is a seventy percent chance it is that item called the Creation Jade Disc. While I still cannot fully ascertain the function of this item, inferring from the name—Creation, Creation—it is another expression of Karma. And my main body possesses the complete cultivation technique, or rather, the rune technology, and should also have the method for combining these two components...”

“You want to survive, right?” Chu Xuan sneered, looking at everyone present, even signaling a mental controller to relay his words, verbatim, to all the Demon Squad members present.

“Then destroy the Central Continent team and take the relic items they possess. Otherwise, we are all doomed... We all know that spacetime backflow can be eliminated by shifting spacetime—meaning the spacetime backflow in this world won’t pursue me when I return to the Main God Space, nor will it accumulate because I spend Karma Points in another world. But have you considered how many Karma Points we have expended in this horror movie world? How many days remain until the final battle ends? Once we deplete our Karma Points, with only eighty or ninety days left and time constantly moving forward, only one possibility awaits us... A Grim Reaper coming specifically for the Demon Squad, and it will grow more intense with every passing moment...”

Chu Xuan watched the complexions of those around him gradually turn ashen. He coldly swept his gaze over them. “I know some of you harbor ulterior motives—planning to transfer to the victorious team via contract after the final decision is made, or intending to betray from the start? It doesn’t matter now; everything is set. Not only can the Central Continent team achieve ultimate unity through a desperate final stand, but we are now too... Do you want to live? Then fight desperately!”

Everyone looked at each other with complex expressions. After a long silence, Zhang Xiaoxue tentatively asked, “Chu Xuan, what exactly does that slip of paper mean? The Investiture of the Gods list can only display the characters on the paper completely, but it cannot translate the meaning.”

“...It is an incomplete version, after all. It certainly cannot convey things that we do not understand. Earlier, I mentioned it could possibly refer to the X-Files space film; that is just one interpretation of 'X,' but we cannot definitively deduce it. No one can. However, I can roughly guess the meaning of that slip, and that is the true intent behind everything I just said... The me from the Central Continent team shares my decision. If I were in his position, I could only make this same choice.”

“Burn the boats, fight to the last man!”

“...What kind of clue could it be? It can’t really be the X-Files, can it?” Xiao Honglv remained seated in a daze. All around his feet lay shed strands of hair—hairs he’d unconsciously pulled out while thinking. In just this short while, his thick hair looked noticeably thinner, yet the little boy paid no mind, continuing to pluck at it.

“X? X-Files? A function? Or something else? Damn it, Chu Xuan, you idiot! Next time, I’ll write a string of codes for you to guess and see who ends up the idiot...” Xiao Honglv roared, his voice still carrying a childish tone, sounding rather like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and then stomped upon several times. The little boy was on the verge of homicidal rage, even his eyes bloodshot, but in the end, he could do nothing else. He simply began muttering every Chinese character that began with the letter X.

(Xiǎng, Xiè, Xiē, Xīng... Xīng, Starship Troopers?) Xiao Honglv’s crude method was, in fact, a viable approach. He began cross-referencing each character against the horror movie worlds the Central Continent team had previously experienced, trying to find the origin of this letter 'X.' Although this would take time and considerable mental effort, a sliver of hope emerged, especially when he muttered the character Xīng (star), and the title Starship Troopers flashed in his mind.

The Central Continent team entered that particular horror movie world before he had been resurrected. It was the first time the Central Continent team encountered a three-way battle, and it was the battle where Chu Xuan’s perfect layout completely reversed the tide of war. As a boy desperate to surpass Chu Xuan, he certainly wouldn't pass up studying the details of that battle. Shortly after his resurrection, he had badgered the rest of his team to explain the battle sequence of that horror world in detail. While deep down he admired the perfection of Chu Xuan’s strategy at that time, the boy inevitably maintained a stubborn facade of dissatisfaction. Xiao Honglv had secretly studied the layout of that movie multiple times afterward, admitting to himself that he absolutely could not have executed it so flawlessly. Perhaps he could have won under his own strategy, but he wasn't confident about achieving a narrow victory or a hard-won success; certain deaths were inevitable, especially since the opposing team also had an extremely powerful strategist. From that perspective... he was truly just the 'Wisdom of Mortals.'

“Damn it, the Wisdom of Mortals can still decipher these codes!” Xiao Honglv roared, suddenly pointing a finger directly above his head, chanting some spell as he did so. A cold ray shot toward the ceiling, followed immediately by a water ball. When the water ball descended, it had already mixed with ice shards, completely drenching the little boy into a drowned rat.

“If X refers to the 'star' character from Starship Troopers, does Chu Xuan want me to imitate his layout from that horror movie? Impossible. There are no external forces in this final battle that can be borrowed, and these numbers don't match up at all—unless...”

“I know! This is how the code is cracked!” He jumped up—