3: Chapter 3 Natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest

Across the black Miasma Wasteland, miasma permeated the air as chilly winds howled.

The ground beneath was cracked and hard, and the pitch-black soil was mixed with tiny black crystals—these were natural miasma crystals formed by the condensation of miasma year-round.

Naked-eye-visible gray miasma particles floated in the air, biting and bone-chilling; an ordinary person could not last ten seconds here before their meridians would be corroded and ulcerated by the miasma.

This was Lin Ye's Divine Kingdom, a polluted wasteland judged by the Federation as utterly worthless and extremely dangerous.

Floating beneath the gloomy firmament, Lin Ye's cold gaze swept across the entire wasteland without a shred of pity.

The moment he connected to the Divine Kingdom, a hidden system prompt quietly emerged in the depths of his consciousness.

[Special Rule Binding: Miasma Earth Divine Kingdom]

[Time Flow Ratio: Divine Kingdom 30 Days = Reality 1 Day]

A thirty-fold time difference was an effect possessed by everyone after awakening their Divine Kingdom, intended to rapidly nurture believers and convert them into personal energy. Once ascending to a True God, the time flow ratio would be the same as the outside world!

Just a brief moment in the outside world allowed several hours to pass within the Divine Kingdom.

At this moment, within mere minutes in the outside world, a full two days had quietly passed in this Miasma Wasteland.

Over the wasteland, there was an atmosphere of deathly despair.

Three hundred Scavenger Hounds slumped listlessly in the black mud, their already decayed and shriveled bodies growing even more withered.

They panted heavily, their turbid eyeballs bloodshot, and their ulcerated flesh constantly carbonized and blackened in the high-concentration miasma.

There was no food, no water source, and no energy supplies whatsoever.

Ordinary F-tier monsters simply could not withstand the violent miasma of this Divine Kingdom for long.

Weak Scavenger Hounds continuously twitched and fell to the ground, their bodies stiffening as the miasma slowly eroded them into a pool of blackened mud, blending into this desolate earth.

At this rate, without needing three days, these three hundred Scavenger Hounds would all perish and go completely extinct.

If anyone else possessed such a troop, they would surely be frantic with anxiety, racking their brains to gently nurture and preserve every single monster.

But Lin Ye was no ordinary demigod.

He was the Ancestral Beast God who ruled over all beasts and killed without mercy.

"The weak do not deserve to survive in my Divine Kingdom."

Lin Ye whispered indifferently, his voice icy and devoid of a trace of human warmth.

Having drifted alone for two lifetimes and seeing through the warmth and coldness of human nature, he understood the cruelty of survival better than anyone else.

Since this land was hell from the outset, he would execute the laws of hell.

Natural selection, survival of the fittest.

He did not want a group of weak and decaying trash; he only wanted fierce beasts born from bloodshed that could withstand the miasma.

The next second, with a thought, Lin Ye cut off the meager natural energy supply remaining in the Divine Kingdom.

He severed the water source, severed the earth's energy, and cut off all external supplies.

At the same time, gloomy golden divine patterns covered the entire wasteland, silently activating the Ancestral Trace Nurturing ability and magnifying the bloodthirsty ferocity deep within each Scavenger Hound.

"Since there is a lack of nourishment,"

"Then feed on your own kind."

The low command resounded through the entire black wasteland.

Hum—

A fiercely oppressive aura that had reached its extreme instantly erupted.

The listless and slumped Scavenger Hounds abruptly raised their heads, their turbid eyeballs completely dyed scarlet, their rotting nostrils twitching violently, and their fangs rubbing together to emit a harsh creaking sound.

Hunger, pain, and miasma erosion—this triple torment completely tore apart their remaining sanity.

The two closest Scavenger Hounds violently lashed out first, their ugly bodies crashing heavily into each other, biting, gnawing, and tearing.

Foul-smelling black blood splashed onto the cracked earth, and rotting pieces of meat scattered everywhere.

There were no rules, no pity, and no retreat.

Three hundred Scavenger Hounds initiated a bottomless massacre of their own kind in this dead wasteland.

Bloody wails, crisp bone-fracture sounds, and the chaotic noise of torn flesh intertwined, echoing beneath the gloomy firmament.

Lin Ye's consciousness floated quietly in midair, coldly overlooking this cruel slaughter.

He did not interfere, did not stop them, and showed no favoritism.

Even when watching weak Scavenger Hounds being devoured by several of their peers, there was not the slightest ripple in the depths of his eyes.

Only the strong who survived were qualified to be tainted by miasma and evolve their bloodlines.

This was the survival rule he set, and also the most primitive evolution path of primordial fierce beasts.

...

Within the Divine Kingdom, time flowed on.

One day, two days, three days...

In just a few hours in the outside world, a long ten days had passed within the Divine Kingdom.

The bloody slaughter never stopped; the wasteland had long been soaked by black-red blood, decaying skeletons piled layer upon layer, and miasma mixed with a heavy stench of blood, turning into a suffocating, terrifying field.

The weak continuously fell, becoming rations for their own kind; the strong continuously devoured flesh and blood, shedding their rotting skins.

Out of three hundred Scavenger Hounds, through extremely cruel elimination, their numbers plummeted drastically.

Three hundred, two hundred, one hundred...

Until the end of the tenth day, the slaughter finally came to an end.

Over the bloody wasteland, dead silence prevailed.

Skeletons were everywhere, and residual meat covered the ground.

Originally numbering a full three hundred ugly and decaying Scavenger Hounds, in the end, only nineteen survived.

But these nineteen monsters no longer possessed their once rotting and disgusting appearance.

They had shed their loose and rotting dead skin, and dense, hard ink-black scales grew all over their bodies. The patterns on the scales were ferocious, emitting an icy metallic cold light.

Their originally short and blunt fangs had elongated and curved, resembling sharp hooks that gleamed coldly, capable of easily tearing flesh.

Their limbs were thick and powerful, and their pitch-black, sharp claws were deeply embedded in the hard black stone ground, leaving deep claw marks with every movement.

Scarlet vertical pupils replaced turbid white eyes, cold, bloodthirsty, and violent, filled with the most primitive fierce beast malevolence.

Most eye-catching was the leader located at the very front of the nineteen fierce beasts.

Its body was twice as robust as the rest of its peers, with a row of sharp bone spurs growing along its spine, and pitch-black miasma winding around its body, billowing back and forth.

Inside its chest, the Taotie pattern was bright and dazzling, and its bloodline purity far exceeded that of the other fierce beasts.

[Mutant: Shagu Devouring Hounds × 18 (Incomplete)]

[Strength: 12, Agility: 9, Constitution: 15, Spirit: 15, Intelligence: 3 (Note: Spirit is continuously declining due to the influence of the special environment.)]

[Tier: E-tier]

[Traits: Bloodthirsty, Miasma Resistance, Bone Armor]

[Leader: Shagu Devouring Hound (Incomplete)]

[Strength: 18, Agility: 12, Constitution: 20, Spirit: 20, Intelligence: 4]

[Tier: D-tier (Cross-tier Evolution)]

[Traits: Devouring, Bloodline Suppression, Miasma Respiration]

A simple data stream emerged in Lin Ye's consciousness.

An extreme, brutal massacre had forcefully filtered a group of the lowest-tier F-tier loser monsters into a group of ferocious war beasts.

Especially the leader Shagu Devouring Hound, which directly crossed the tier shackles and evolved from an F-tier to a D-tier against the odds.

If placed in the hands of ordinary newborn divine beings, this single D-tier monster alone would be enough to crush all troops of the same tier.

"Natural selection, truly correct."

Lin Ye murmured softly, a trace of icy satisfaction flashing across his pitch-black eyes.

The nineteen fierce beasts prostrated neatly upon the black-blooded soil, their heads lowered and spines taut, generating an absolute surrender originating from the depths of their souls towards Lin Ye above the firmament.

Stained with the blood of their kind, wrapped in miasma, and brimming with monstrous ferocity, they were no longer the trash waste dogs that could be trampled upon at will back then.

Furthermore, he clearly perceived that this Miasma Wasteland spurned by the world was slowly breeding brand-new black crystals every single moment.

Those were miasma crystals.

They were special minerals formed by the condensation of miasma.

In the original owner's memories, Federal textbooks judged that miasma crystals could temper the physical strength of living beings. It could be considered a special material, and its value was quite good.

The corners of Lin Ye's mouth curled into an icy arc.

No money?

Then refine miasma crystals and cash them out on the black market.

Lacking materials?

Then tame fierce beasts and roam low-level different realms to plunder resources.

So what if he started with a trash talent?

He held prehistoric myths in his hands and wielded the divine authority of ancestral beasts.

One day, the roar of fierce beasts would surely echo throughout this vast Source Realm.

Right at this moment, a clear burst of crowd noise from the outside pierced through the barriers of consciousness and reached his ears.

The lingering echoes of the crisp end-of-class bell faded away, the awakening ceremony completely concluded, and the crowd in the plaza began to disperse in succession.

Outside time had barely passed two hours.

Yet within his Divine Kingdom, a bloody purgatory of ten days had already been experienced.

Lin Ye snapped back to his senses, his consciousness instantly breaking away from the Divine Kingdom and returning to his real physical body.

He slowly opened his eyes, and deep within his slender pupils, a faint bloody malevolence brought by the slaughter in the Divine Kingdom still lingered.

Autumn wind blew desolately, and parasol tree leaves fell.

He stood alone in the shadows, the surrounding crowd intentionally giving him a wide berth, and whispers never ceased.

"Still daydreaming? I think he's truly gone mad."

"Such a good genius, beaten down raw by an F-tier rating. What a pity."

The discussions were harsh; everyone thought he was mentally deranged and crushed beyond recovery.

No one knew that at this moment, this seemingly down-and-out, crazy youth had already birthed nineteen bloodthirsty fierce beasts within his Divine Kingdom.

No one knew that the spurned miasma hell was currently gestating a primordial storm.

Lin Ye lowered his head, looking at his slightly cool palms.

A wisp of pitch-black miasma flowed quietly, mixed with a faint, indistinct growl of a fierce beast.

He raised his eyes, his gaze piercing through the noisy crowd and precisely locking onto Ye Feng, who was chatting and laughing with his lackeys not far away.

The corners of his lips curved into a morbid, icy smile.

"A-tier Thunderstorm Berserk Rhino?"

"Don't rush."

"Next time we meet, I'll let you all see what true slaughter is."

The youth stood alone in the shadows, a cold gleam suddenly flashing in the depths of his eyes.

The first trace of a fierce beast's fangs had already pierced the darkness.