Investigating the future development of humanity in the Central Region was a task Feng Qi had left to the Star City leadership before his departure.
If the Elf King proved trustworthy, humanity would gain a powerful ally for the future.
If the Elf King proved untrustworthy, then eliminating the Elf King would become a long-term objective Feng Qi needed to plan for.
Faced with Feng Qi's question, Zhang Daowen nodded and confirmed:
"History shows that the Elf King never broke the original contract signed with humanity's early pioneers in the Central Region. It never abandoned humanity, but it still failed. Facing An Mu, it couldn't claim the final victory and ultimately became nourishment for An Mu's growth."
"So An Mu really did strike down the Elf King?" Feng Qi's expression turned grave.
"I didn't witness the battle myself, but the investigation team we sent reported the full details of the struggle between the Elf King and An Mu…"
Listening to Zhang Daowen's detailed explanation, Feng Qi finally gained a clear picture of how things had played out in the Central Region.
Feng Qi had long known about the conflict between the Elf King and An Mu.
Judging by the Elf King's preparations and actions, it had long realized it wasn't a match for An Mu.
The Star City investigation team stationed in Elf City had witnessed the brutality of that final battle.
The worst-case scenario Feng Qi had predicted had indeed come to pass.
Humanity had been dragged into the war between the Elf King and An Mu, which sparked internal conflicts.
Many major events had taken place during that time.
Zhang Daowen highlighted one particular detail—the Elf King's last resort, a golden egg.
The Elf King had used the Life Furnace to create what it believed to be its strongest possible lifeform, with growth potential several levels higher than even An Mu, its previously most prized offspring.
This was a trump card the Elf King had never mentioned to Feng Qi.
According to the investigation team's report, the Elf King had never stopped pursuing the evolution of its lifeform. It had always sought to transcend its plant-based nature and obtain a true flesh-and-blood body.
That was the shortcut to advancement in the Elf King's eyes.
After An Mu's betrayal, the Elf King began making preparations.
Its greatest advantage lay in the Miracle-grade Life Furnace, which allowed it to combine the life sequences of other domain creatures and create offspring with talents far surpassing its own.
An Mu had been the Elf King's proudest creation—its masterpiece, in fact.
But the Elf King could never elevate its own life potential, nor could it control its own offspring.
An Mu's betrayal was proof of that.
The Elf King fully understood the risks of this development model. If it couldn't transcend itself, it would eventually be replaced by its offspring. Even the Life Furnace itself might one day be stolen by them.
As its offspring grew stronger, the Elf King's value would keep diminishing.
The only way to break the cycle was to complete its own life evolution and regain dominance by crushing the ambitions of its creations with superior strength.
However, the Life Furnace provided very limited benefit to the Elf King's own evolution. Its main function was to "nurture" new life by combining various domain life sequences into new offspring.
This process required gestation and couldn't directly enhance the Elf King itself.
That was how the Elf Race had originally come into being.
The "golden egg" Zhang Daowen mentioned was the Elf King's ultimate fallback plan.
After countless failed attempts, the Elf King had finally combined a life sequence with potential several levels higher than An Mu's.
To the Elf King, this golden egg represented rebirth.
It planned to transfer its own consciousness into the egg, abandoning its plant body and starting a new life in a brand-new flesh-and-blood form.
This wasn't some reincarnation myth like in human legends.
The Elf King wasn't seeking a next life—it was trying to carve out an entirely new future for itself using the power of the Life Furnace.
(Author's note: This plot point was foreshadowed in Chapters 500-501, where the Elf King's desire for a flesh-and-blood body was mentioned.)
It was trying to give birth to itself.
Though it sounded like a paradox from a human perspective, the Elf King had nearly succeeded.
But in the end, it fell just short of success.
At the critical moment when the consciousness transfer was about to begin, An Mu somehow got word of it and launched an all-out attack on Elf City.
An Mu brought the entire An Mu City with it, slowly advancing toward Elf City.
The final outcome was total defeat for the Elf King.
Its consciousness transfer was forced to a halt, and it had no choice but to personally confront An Mu.
That war dragged on for several months.
Realizing it couldn't win, the Elf King made one last choice. It used up the last of its life energy to open a safe escape route for the humans inside Elf City.
The Star City investigation team was able to escape thanks to the Elf King's protection.
By the end of the war, every plant in Elf City had withered and died.
An Mu took the Life Furnace.
It also took the golden egg from the Elf King's body.
Hearing this, Feng Qi couldn't help but let out a sigh.
Honestly, he wasn't surprised that An Mu had won.
The gap in potential between the Elf King and An Mu was huge. Even the Elf King had admitted to him in their past conversation that it might fail.
What did surprise him, though, was that the Elf King had actually left a trump card behind—and nearly succeeded.
"What happened to the Central Region afterward?" Feng Qi immediately asked.
"Uncle Qi, let me show you something."
As Zhang Daowen spoke, he raised his hand and pointed forward.
A mist of frost spread from his fingertip, forming a frosty mirror in the air.
The image blurred at first, but soon turned clear.
What appeared in the mirror was an egg wrapped in dark red flames. Strange dark red patterns were branded all over its surface.
Beneath the egg lay countless corpses, streams of blood essence being drawn from their lifeless bodies and absorbed into the dark golden egg.
"That's An Mu?"
"Exactly. The path the Elf King failed to walk, An Mu continued. Without external interference this time, An Mu spent five years completing its consciousness transfer, devouring its original darkwood body, and fully transforming into a new lifeform."
"According to the report from the returning investigation team, almost all of the humans in the Central Region became nourishment for An Mu's hatching."
"During the process of its transformation, An Mu saw no further value in humanity. Many domain forces in the Central Region were wiped out by An Mu during that period."
Feng Qi stared at the dark golden egg in the image, feeling like he had seen it somewhere before.
And then it hit him.
He remembered it from one of the future dream timelines, the one where he had met the peak Old Mist.
Back then, Old Mist had told him about three lifeforms with terrifying potential.
Among them was this very dark golden egg.
Old Mist had said that many races had already been wiped out by this egg. Every bit of flesh, every remnant of consciousness from its victims, was completely devoured. Old Mist had even mentioned that this egg seemed to be nurturing some kind of super lifeform that, once hatched, would be extremely terrifying.
Old Mist had speculated that this strange egg might be the offspring left behind by some ancient powerhouse.
Now, all the fragmented pieces in Feng Qi's mind began to connect, forming a clear historical thread.
It had started when the Elf King, realizing it couldn't defeat An Mu, tried to create a new version of itself to fight back and continue ruling over the Elf Race.
That's how the golden egg had come to be.
But just when the Elf King was about to complete its consciousness transfer, perhaps due to some intelligence leak, An Mu had launched a war on Elf City.
The Elf King was defeated.
An Mu took over the Life Furnace—and the new life the Elf King had prepared for itself, the golden egg.
Without any external threats, An Mu continued the process the Elf King had started.
Under An Mu's influence, the golden egg turned dark gold. An Mu spent five years completing the consciousness transfer, transforming into a new lifeform.
But An Mu found that even after its rebirth, it was still in a developmental stage.
So, the humans of the Central Region, along with many other domain forces, became its food for growth.
The super offspring Old Mist had mentioned in the future was, in fact, the reborn An Mu.
(Author's note: This plot thread was foreshadowed in Chapter 405, mentioning the offspring of a super lifeform, the dark golden egg.)
The truth of history left Feng Qi deep in thought.
From the information he had so far, An Mu was undoubtedly the culprit behind the destruction of humanity in the Central Region.
In his heart, An Mu had already been marked as a target that must be eliminated.
But he had one lingering doubt.
If the Elf King had successfully completed the consciousness transfer and then found itself unable to hatch fully, would it have made the same choice as An Mu and turned on humanity?
After all, in its final moments, the Elf King had chosen to protect the humans of Elf City, which seemed to prove that it was trustworthy.
But there was always the fear of what might have been.
When facing certain death, the Elf King had nothing left to lose, so sparing humanity was easy. But if it had succeeded in transforming into a new lifeform, its mindset could have changed completely.
Analyzing all the current intel, Feng Qi leaned toward trusting the Elf King.
Choosing to protect humanity in its final moments showed that the Elf King had genuine feelings toward humanity, unlike An Mu, who had only seen them as tools.
Still, caution was necessary.
Until he could fully confirm the Elf King's trustworthiness, Feng Qi knew he couldn't let his guard down.
Thanks to Zhang Daowen's explanation, Feng Qi's uncertainty about the Elf King had begun to clear up.
Helping the Elf King defeat An Mu had become a direction he would seriously consider next.
If all went well, the Elf Race could become an ally to humanity, just like the Mist Race.
At that moment, Feng Qi looked up at Zhang Daowen and asked:
"Xiao Wen, do you know where An Mu went after that?"
"It passed through the Wasteland once, but it just passed by and left quickly. As for where it is now, I have no idea… I've sensed its presence before. Its power is terrifying."
Hearing this, Feng Qi nodded.
After completing the consciousness transfer, there was no doubt An Mu had grown even stronger.
The lifeform it had become was the result of all the Elf King's countless failed experiments.
From the fact that it had absorbed so much blood and life energy yet still hadn't hatched, it was clear that when An Mu finally did, it would transform into a monstrous, terrifying new lifeform—calling it a super lifeform wouldn't be an exaggeration.
Its current egg form was merely the starting point. It was easy to imagine how far An Mu could go as long as it didn't die prematurely.
What the Elf King had prepared as a personal breakthrough had ended up paving the way for An Mu's future.
Just then, the Narrator's voice rang out in Feng Qi's mind, interrupting his thoughts:
"Tsk tsk, looking at it now, the Elf King was the ultimate sucker. It spent decades preparing, failing over and over again, only to create its greatest future enemy, An Mu. Then it wasted even more time and effort building a superior new body for An Mu. All its hard work only helped An Mu rise."
Hearing this, Feng Qi felt embarrassed.
That really was the truth.
Creating An Mu, building An Mu City and letting An Mu slip from its control, sending elite warriors to guard An Mu City… Looking back, every decision the Elf King made out of trust for An Mu now looked like self-destruction.
Every step it took had been down the path of its own demise.
Its own potential had never matched An Mu's to begin with. And yet, during An Mu's growth, it had handed over resources and upgrades at every turn. No wonder An Mu had won so easily.
"Jealous?" the Narrator teased. "Wouldn't it be nice if the villains you faced were like the Elf King, showering you with resources and experience as you grew stronger, just waiting for you to beat them in the end?"
Feng Qi couldn't help but roll his eyes.
Sure, that sounded great if he imagined himself in An Mu's shoes.
But the enemies he'd faced weren't that kind. Whether it was Old Mist at the start or Mo in the future, every one of them had been shrewd, calculating, and meticulous.
It was already lucky if they didn't scheme him to death—expecting them to hand him freebies was pure fantasy.
And besides, An Mu's situation was a rare exception.
The real problem had been the Elf King's blind trust in its own creation, treating An Mu as the next great hope of the Elf Race.
If it had been any other species, the Elf King never would have trusted them so completely.
So it wasn't fair to call the Elf King foolish. It had just placed too much faith in An Mu without considering the risks.
With the topic of the Elves wrapped up, Feng Qi moved on to ask about other intelligence.
Their conversation shifted from city development to the challenges of growth, then to Mo's victory over Mu Qing, and much more.
Time flew by as they talked.
Feng Qi knew there was no way he could fully understand everything in such limited time. He could only focus on the most critical information.
He still needed to reserve plenty of time to study the data Dawn City had prepared for him.
They talked for most of the day.
After finishing their discussion on humanity's current enemies, Zhang Daowen looked at Feng Qi with a smile:
"By the way, Uncle Qi, we've prepared a few gifts for you. Let's go check them out while we talk."
"What kind of gifts?" Feng Qi asked, immediately curious.
"Come with me. You'll see when we get there."
Saying that, Zhang Daowen stood and headed toward the gate. Feng Qi followed.
Several hours later, Feng Qi, led by Zhang Daowen, descended a metallic staircase into an underground base.
The walls of the underground base glowed with a cold black metallic sheen, emanating a faint chill. Armed soldiers stood guard along the way.
When Zhang Daowen appeared, the soldiers respectfully greeted him, addressing him as "Ancestor."
Feng Qi felt that Zhang Daowen fully deserved that title.
Though Zhang Daowen was no longer human, his dedication and contributions to humanity earned him that respect.
Without Zhang Daowen holding the line, humanity would have fallen apart after the collapse of the cultivation system.
They continued down the metallic corridor until they reached a massive door.
Zhang Daowen pushed the heavy metal door open, and Feng Qi followed him into the room.
What he saw stunned him.
Roars echoed through the space.
Before them was a vast underground arena. Dozens of strange and powerful domain creatures were locked in reinforced metal cages.
Feng Qi gave a quick glance and counted at least two hundred different domain creatures.
Zhang Daowen pointed to the caged beasts ahead and smiled:
"Uncle Qi, there are two hundred seventy-eight different domain creatures held here."
Feng Qi was just about to speak, but Zhang Daowen's next words left him speechless:
"We've built six of these breeding facilities, all prepared to provide you with talent seeds for your faith-based growth system."