Chapter 31: Flood of Souls… and the Algorithm of Mass Annihilation
The sky above the Tian Long Continent was no longer visible to the naked eye.
It had been completely obscured by dense clouds of flying warships, winged beasts, and cultivators soaring atop swords or riding spiritual clouds.
One million cultivators.
One million killing wills.
They had gathered from the four corners of the world under the banner of the Dao Preservation Alliance. The combined spiritual pressure of this army was so overwhelming that the surrounding oceans receded hundreds of miles, as if the water itself were fleeing from the sheer weight of the approaching existence.
At the forefront stood the masters of the six great sects, each enveloped in halos of lightning, fire, radiance, and law.
They believed this formation to be the final word in the history of the world.
"Zhou Fan!"
The voice of the Blue Lightning Sect Master thundered across the heavens as he raised his lightning hammer, sparks stretching for miles.
"Look at the sky! Every star you see is the soul of a cultivator who has come to erase your cursed existence. Your array cannot withstand a million simultaneous attacks. Surrender, and we will grant you a swift death!"
Below, at the very heart of Tian Long City, Zhou Fan stood atop the towering Spiritual Elevator.
He wore no armor.
He carried no weapon.
The Lost Ledger of Calculations revolved around him at blinding speed, its pages forming a ring of violet light.
"One million cultivators…" Zhou Fan murmured.
His voice was amplified by the Spiritual Elevator itself, echoing clearly into the ears of every member of the invading army.
"You see yourselves as a mighty force.
I see you as Data Overflow.
You believe numbers can overwhelm logic.
But you forget that a million multiplied by zero… will always remain zero."
Zhou Fan raised his right hand toward the sky and slowly opened his palm.
"Activating the Second Volume: Final Chapter —
Algorithm of Mass Annihilation."
The Algorithm Descends
In an instant, waves of translucent black light erupted from the Spiritual Elevator, spreading across the heavens like a colossal spiderweb. Within fractions of a second, it enveloped the entire million-strong army.
It was not an explosive wave.
It was a resonance wave.
"What is this?!"
One commander screamed as he attempted to move his sword—only to watch it dissolve, transforming into floating numerical symbols.
"My spiritual energy… it's turning into numbers!"
This was Zhou Fan's true terror.
He did not kill cultivators in the conventional sense.
He decrypted their biological existence.
Every cultivator possessed a unique spiritual frequency. Through the city-wide array, Zhou Fan calculated all those frequencies in a single instant and released a counter-frequency that nullified them entirely.
Battlefield: Ordered Collapse
The great army began to collapse in a horrifyingly silent manner.
There were no screams.
No bloodshed.
No explosions.
Cultivators vanished from the edges inward, dissolving into nothingness. Massive flying warships melted in midair, transforming into streams of blue data that were absorbed by the Spiritual Elevator as fuel.
"Attack! Release everything!"
The Heavenly Sword Sect Master roared in madness, unleashing a sword strike capable of splitting a moon in half.
A million attacks were launched simultaneously—flames, lightning, flying swords, spiritual seals. The released energy was enough to destroy an entire planet.
Yet before any of it could reach the continent's surface, the Phantom Number Armies appeared.
Thousands of faceless black statues surged upward.
They did not block the attacks.
They absorbed them.
Each statue was a computational black hole, programmed to consume a specific type of energy and convert it into executable code to strengthen the defensive array.
Absorbed Energy: 500,000 Units
Converting to: Absolute Truth Barrier
The cultivators watched their attacks vanish.
They watched their comrades dissolve like dust beneath moonlight.
What filled their hearts was not fear—
It was existential despair.
They were not being fought.
They were being deleted.
Final Confrontation Above the Clouds
Zhou Fan ascended into the heavens until he stood face to face with the remaining six sect masters, who were desperately sheltering within a Shared Soul Barrier.
"How… how is this possible?!"
The Lightning Sect Master cried, blood streaming from his eyes.
"We are a million strong! We are the power of the Dao!"
"The Dao you understand," Zhou Fan replied calmly as he walked toward them through the air, each step causing cracks to spread across their barrier,
"is nothing more than a primitive user interface.
You were programmed to believe power comes from emotion and effort.
I understand that power comes from system comprehension.
I have just absorbed the energy of four hundred thousand of your soldiers…
and converted it into an execution command targeting your Nascent Souls."
He extended a finger and touched the barrier.
"Command: Exit."
The barrier shattered like fragile glass.
In an instant, the sect masters felt their souls forcibly ripped from their bodies. Resistance was meaningless—the equation had already been solved. Their deaths were the only valid result.
As the sect masters faded from existence, Zhou Fan looked downward.
The army of one million had been reduced to only a few thousand survivors, kneeling in absolute terror.
"Ling'er," Zhou Fan transmitted through spiritual communication.
"Open the Storage Gate. Convert the remaining units into Memory Modules for the Spiritual Elevator. They will not die—but they will never be human again. They will become part of the system that will govern this world forever."
The sky slowly cleared.
Yet it was no longer blue.
It shimmered with faint golden lines, as though the planet itself had been wrapped in a thin membrane of computational energy.
Zhou Fan descended and seated himself upon a throne at the core of the Spiritual Elevator. His body now radiated pure white light.
Second Volume Completion: 99%.
"The world is stable now," Zhou Fan murmured as he watched the Imperial City expand and evolve like a living intelligent organism.
"No war. No chaos. No uncalculated variables.
Only… absolute logic."
But in that moment of perfect stillness—
The Lost Ledger of Calculations trembled violently.
A page appeared—
completely black.
No numbers.
No symbols.
Only one thing:
An Eye, observing from the Fifth Dimension.
Zhou Fan froze.
He understood then—the true programmers of this universe had finally noticed him.
The battle against a million cultivators had been nothing more than a child's game.
The war against the Lords of Higher Dimensions
had only just begun.