Chapter 41 Can I kill you all first?

Listening to Fang Zheng’s account, Jiang Tingting, Jiang Yifei, and Jiang Wen all exchanged glances, feeling rather incredulous.

They all shared the same realization: this pixelated man with a blurred face and terrifying appearance was someone who still maintained his kindness.

Jiang Wen kept his expression neutral, but inwardly he could not help sighing, feeling a sudden wave of sorrow.

Once upon a time, he, Jiang Wen, had also been a passionate youth, fond of championing the oppressed and filled with a righteous hatred for evil.

Yet in this world, how much kindness could one possibly afford to squander?

Over thousands of years of cultivation, Jiang Wen had traveled across the greater part of the universe and witnessed countless things, gradually growing cold at heart and caring less and less about anything outside his own clan.

On the Big Dipper star and throughout the starry skies, the human race, the demonic race, the primordial ancient race, and those rare special life forms had, since ancient times, continuously hunted one another, treating each other as resources for survival.

Let alone the slaughter between different races, the same held true even within the human race itself.

As the saying goes, customs change every ten miles, and dialects every three.

Being of the same human race, human-versus-human conflicts were often far crueler than the pure life-or-death struggles between alien races.

Whether for territory, reputation, wealth...

Nation against nation, aristocratic family against aristocratic family, city against city, village against village...

No matter how small the unit examined, conflict was always inevitable.

Even among members of the Jiang family itself, all kinds of base and sordid struggles were happening at every moment.

Among all sentient beings, who does not carry the burdens of love, hatred, grievances, and passions?

Whether human, demon, or ancient, every race has its own heroes and villains.

Their heroes take many forms, capable of leading their clans toward prosperity and even forging cooperative states between different races.

As for their villains, killing fellow clansmen for treasures, plundering and violating others, they commit every conceivable evil; against foreign races, they hunt them down wantonly, consuming them to fuel their own growth—such things were simply too commonplace.

The myriad races of the universe had always been this way.

They had always competed and fought to the death, serving as each other's enemies and food.

This boundless starry sky was simply that cruel; if you possessed something, it meant someone else did not.

Therefore, one had to kill!

One had to plunder!

Only by slaughtering enemies to the last and extinguishing their life force could precious treasures be claimed as one's own!

Only by devouring the bones of one's enemies and plundering everything they had could one continuously grow stronger!

Even though, since ancient times, every Great Emperor and Ancient Sovereign brought an era of peace to the universe after proving their Dao, that was merely a general peace.

To the Great Emperors and Ancient Sovereigns, the entire universe was their domain.

They would actively put a stop to large-scale interstellar wars.

Yet even they would never bother with the slaughters occurring within every nation and every sect on every living planet across the universe.

They would not care about the minor conflicts happening every second across the cosmos, where a mere million trillion lives might perish in the span of a single incense stick's burning.

After all, aside from Emperor Amitabha, which Great Emperor or Ancient Sovereign had not walked a path of proving their Dao by personally slaying countless enemies, their blood filling oceans and their skulls piling into mountains?

"Umm..."

Fang Zheng looked earnestly at the few flood dragons on the table, and once again asked somewhat uneasily, "I heard your cries—they sounded a bit harsh, but I can tell you must be very angry. So, you must indeed have sentience, right? What are your thoughts on me?"

"If I let you go right now, can you live good lives and promise not to kill humans or other sentient races?"

Listening to Fang Zheng’s words, the five flood dragons on the table had stopped their struggling and simply fell silent.

After a brief moment of quiet, one of the flood dragons, its body marked with bloodstains that had yet to fully heal, opened its mouth and emitted a sound as faint as a cat's mew.

That was the Mandarin language, which Jiang Wen had just transmitted into their divine minds, enabling them to learn it instantly.
Possessing combat power at the Great Saint level merely through their innate flesh and divine souls, their cognitive speed was extremely fast. As long as they were willing, they could master an entirely new language in the blink of an eye.

The one who spoke was none other than the flood dragon Fang Zheng had initially spawned. It said, "You say you are our creator, but we don't believe it!"

Its head gazed upward at the fake sun within this miniature world. "Just a moment ago, looking at the sun in the sky, I knew I had come into existence."

"I was born knowing that I belong to the Cold Flood Dragon clan, possessing an extremely noble draconic bloodline."

"Within my bloodline lies a complete set of inherited memories from the Cold Flood Dragon lineage, allowing me to know the dragon patterns that can invoke the power of heaven and earth, letting me know the scriptures and secret techniques I am to cultivate, making me aware of my innate yin-frost divine abilities, and telling me that I must constantly cultivate and grow, and then propagate descendants."

"The inherited memories hidden in my blood tell me that I should have a pair of parents who are also flood dragons. They would unite in yin and yang, their bloodlines would conceive an egg, and then I would break out of the shell."

"Under their nurture, I should slowly cultivate, grow bit by bit, and only then leave home to venture out into the world independently."

"Yet I am confused." Recalling the painful memory of its body being crushed by a golden giant hand a dozen minutes ago, this flood dragon felt a complex mix of emotions, radiating an undisguised sense of hatred.

"I have only just awakened. I should have just broken out of my shell, enjoying a hearty meal of fresh meat hunted by my mother or father."

"Yet my body is unexpectedly huge, I am not hungry at all, and I lack the stages of growth that should exist in my bloodline's inherited memories."

"I have directly reached the absolute limit that the Cold Flood Dragon bloodline within my inherited memories can naturally achieve through bloodline alone."

It then turned its head, glaring with its small eyes at Jiang Wen beside it—looking at this wrinkled, mild-tempered entity who resembled an elderly neighbor, yet was an utterly terrifying existence in its eyes.

Without concealing its hateful tone, it said, "I have only just arrived in this world, just opened my eyes in the sky to catch a glimpse of this realm, and wagged my tail wanting to stretch my body."

"I hadn't done anything yet, I didn't even know anything, when this damned old man grabbed me and almost squeezed the life out of me."

"Therefore, you claim to be my creator? I absolutely do not believe it!"

"I should have a pair of loving parents, a joyful childhood of eating and sleeping, rather than being inexplicably 'conjured' out of thin air for no reason!"

"I should have freedom—to freely gaze at this world, roam the beautiful starry sky, constantly cultivate and grow, continually defeat strong enemies, taste delicious flesh and blood, and walk all the way to the peak to undergo nirvana and transform into a True Dragon!"

Hearing the flood dragon's angry roar, Fang Zheng felt somewhat conflicted.

After a moment of silence, Fang Zheng tried to apologize. He chose to make his blocky avatar perform a stealth action—which meant bending slightly forward to express his apology.

Then, he stammered, "Um, I am truly sorry, I really am sorry. At first, I honestly didn't know I would spawn sentient beings."

"I thought whatever I spawned would just be mindless NPCs. I never expected you guys to be born with sentience."

"I really shouldn't have brought you into existence."

"Hmph!" The flood dragon watched their 'creator' adopt such a submissive tone and let out a cold snort of dissatisfaction.

Fang Zheng offered another suggestion: "Since you don't want to have been spawned, how about I kill you now, before you've caused any casualties?"