Zhou Huai found a large chair and sat down with an air of authority.

The Dawn Elites kneeling on the ground watched him walk and stop, sometimes sneer and sometimes ponder, their scalps tingling with unease.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

Zhou Huai leaned back in his chair and spoke slowly in his mind.

“You are playing a game with Mr. Duan, and I am merely a tool in your game with him.”

"Mr. Duan wants to overthrow you and establish a new era. But you want to eliminate him and maintain your rule."

"Whichever of you wins."

"It doesn't seem to do me any good."

“Mr. Duan has won. This world will be destroyed, and I will die.”

"You've won, Mr. Duan is dead, but who can guarantee that your cold, hard Heavenly Dao system won't erase me as an uncontrollable variable afterward?"

Zhou Huai squinted.

"So, I've actually been waiting for an opportunity."

"An opportunity to sit down and negotiate with you."

"Now, I feel like it's time."

What do you think?

In the Obsidian Plaza of the underground base, thousands of elites from the Dawn Guild still knelt on the ground.

Zhou Huai leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the armrest, quietly waiting for the answer from the being in his mind.

Now that things have been made clear, he's no longer in a hurry.

The one who should be worried now is the self-directed and self-acted Heavenly Dao.

As time went by.

Finally, a sigh came from the depths of my mind.

"well......"

Chun's voice was no longer clear and urgent, but revealed a hint of fatigue.

"Actually, you don't need to be so hostile towards me."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Huai immediately rejected the idea in his mind.

I have no hostility towards anyone.

"But whether it's you or Mr. Duan, I don't care who's right or wrong, who's good or evil, or even if you fight to the death."

Zhou Huai's eyes turned cold.

“But you all want to destabilize my life, destabilize my family. Now you even want to treat the whole world as a chessboard for your games, ready to destroy it at any time.”

"I don't have such a grand savior complex."

"I'm just trying to protect myself. If anyone makes my life unbearable, I'll flip their table."

In her mind, Chun fell into a brief silence.

After a long while, her voice rang out again, her tone calm.

"In that case, let me tell you a story."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Huai felt a jolt in his mind.

The surrounding dark underground base and the kneeling thugs quickly faded from my perception.

His consciousness was drawn into a grand mental projection.

All that met my eyes was emptiness; there was no light, no sound, and no sense of space.

"The beginning of the world is not the first world as you know it."

The sound of the camellia echoed in the void.

"At that time, there was nothing in the world, no heaven and earth, no laws."

There is only one tree.

As the story unfolded, a shimmering, glassy light emanated from the center of nothingness.

It was a towering tree. Its roots penetrated into nothingness, its canopy stretched out from chaos, and its leaves were covered with primordial inscriptions.

That is the sacred tree of origin.

"I don't know how many years have passed."

"The first fruit has finally appeared on this tree."

Zhou Huai saw a fruit emitting green light hanging on a thick branch of the Origin Tree.

"That fruit is me."

"Back then, I spent countless years with the Origin Tree in this void where there was nothing."

"Time has no meaning here. The long years have given me a feeling called 'boredom'."

"So I tried to start creating the world."

"This is the prototype of the First World."

In the image, the green fruit radiates primal power.

The void was cleaved open, the earth solidified, mountains rose from the ground, and lakes and seas filled the ravines.

"I created all sorts of mythical creatures, in mountains, forests, lakes, and oceans, so they could roam freely in this world. Watching them multiply and thrive, I experienced the joy of creation for the first time."

Zhou Huai watched as the enormous ancient beasts ran and roared across the land, and felt a chill run down his spine.

"It was around that time..."

"The Tree of Origin has borne its second fruit."

In the scene, on another branch of the Origin Tree, a fruit emitting a black halo slowly takes shape.

Zhou Huai's heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously interjected, "Mr. Duan?!"

"That's right, it's Duan."

Chun's voice was complex.

"At first, I was overjoyed. In this endless loneliness, I finally had a companion to communicate with and to keep me company."

"Duan showed extreme intelligence from the beginning; unlike me, he didn't like creating beasts that only follow their instincts."

"He always sat under the sacred tree to contemplate, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of years."

In the image, the black fruit transforms into a blurry human figure, sitting cross-legged at the base of a tree, gazing up at the sky.

"Later, he said he wanted to create an intelligent creature, much smarter than those beasts that only knew how to kill."

"And so, humankind was gradually born under his guidance."

Hearing this, Zhou Huai's heart was stirred.

Mr. Duan was actually an ancestor of the human race.

The transcendent being who always wanted to destroy the present world was actually the creator who created humanity.

This overturned his understanding.

Chun ignored Zhou Huai's shock and continued speaking.

"Although humans possess intelligence, they can make fire, create tools, and build simple houses."

"But they are mortals with weak bodies, and ultimately no match for those powerful beasts."

The scene shifts to a brutal massacre unfolding on the land of the First World.

Human tools were like paper in the face of the enormous beasts, and their settlements were trampled flat.

"Soon, those humans suffered a devastating blow. Under the claws and fangs of the alien beasts, only a small number of humans survived, hiding in dark caves and trembling with fear."

"This incident was a great blow to Duan."

He returned to the giant tree and pondered for a very long time.

"Ultimately, he came up with a way to enhance human strength."

Chun's voice became solemn.

"Mr. Duan, you call it—an attribute."

Zhou Huai's mind went blank.

property?

Strength, agility, physical strength, mental strength... the things that constitute the underlying logic of modern professionals were actually invented by Mr. Duan?

"With the boost from these attributes, humanity has indeed begun to grow stronger. They can shatter boulders with a single punch, move as fast as lightning, and manipulate the elements."

"He could even gradually evolve various professions based on the different weapons used by humans."

"Warrior, Mage, Assassin..."

The current job-change system and the data panels for professionals were actually created by Mr. Duan to save humanity.

He was not only an ancestor of humankind, but also the creator of the professional system.

The sound of the camellia continued to echo.

"After nearly a thousand years, with the help of attributes and professions, the strange beasts I created gradually disappeared from the world and were slaughtered to death."

"Humans are everywhere; they occupy the entire world."

"At that time, I gradually felt that something was wrong."