Theater of Domination. Pure White Great Hall.
"What a strange coincidence."
Ling ke, sitting alone on the magnificent throne, narrowed his eyes slightly, a faint smile curving his lips. Before him, countless light screens symbolizing "Omniscience" floated silently. Three of them were specially enlarged, like the cold, giant eyes of a god looking down on the mortal realm.
The first screen clearly showed the movements of Seele, the Fourth Herrscher.
The second screen showed Kevin, Elysia, and Fu Hua surrounded by enemies.
As for the third...
It was a cold, dilapidated, and abandoned warehouse. Desolate moonlight streamed down from the cracks in the roof, falling on the five people sitting around a fire pit: Otto, Rita, Durandal, Li Sushang, and Theresa, whose eyes were lifeless, like a puppet on strings.
Not far from them, the Second Divine Key, Cosmic Juggernaut, crouched silently in the shadows, its heavy metal shell reflecting a cold silver light.
Buzz.
Accompanied by an unsettling low hum, a golden-orange spatial gate tore open out of thin air. Otto calmly reached out his right hand, and a silver-white briefcase landed precisely in his palm.
Click.
Click.
The metal latch popped open with a crisp sound. Inside the briefcase, seven Phantasm Butterfly Specimens, each emitting an eerie rainbow light, were displayed silently.
"Excellent."
Otto, not wearing his white clown mask, pulled his lips into a pleased and dangerous curve.
"The Seeds of Immortality have been obtained. All the chips are ready. The plan can now enter the next phase."
He slowly lifted his head, his gaze passing through the dilapidated roof and looking toward a certain direction in the void.
'Things are going much smoother than I imagined. It seems I really am being blessed.'
However.
Inside the Theater of Domination, the smile on Ling ke's lips instantly froze.
Looking at Otto on the screen, who looked so pious as if he were having a soulful conversation with some transcendent being, Ling ke felt a strong sense of speechlessness. Although the Overseer of Schicksal's expression was fully committed, the direction he was facing...
...was completely wrong.
He clearly lacked the talent to break the fourth wall and couldn't find the "camera angle" meant for the god.
"You scared me. I thought you could actually sense the fluctuations of Omniscience."
Ling ke sighed helplessly. He even felt an impulse to send down a divine revelation to remind this drama king: "The camera is on the other side. The godforsaken place you are staring at so intently has no image. I can only see your overdramatically raised chin from here."
Whoosh.
With a flick of his finger, Ling ke coldly changed the light screen's angle and moved the charlatan clown out of the center of his vision.
"But to be honest," Ling ke commented softly, "you really did have good luck this time. And you were quite sharp."
Why was Otto able to connect with Seele, the Fourth Herrscher? The answer was extremely simple.
After using the Second Divine Key to escape the chaos in Dharavi, India, Otto chose to hide in the Republic of the White Eagle in central Europe. That was exactly the location of the Gloomy Church where his Avatar had just completed the transaction with Seele.
In this powerful era of the current civilization, Seele, whom Ling ke had not deliberately suppressed, had an energy level as the Fourth Herrscher that was frighteningly high. When she fully released her authority and created the "Serene Miniature Garden" large enough to envelop the entire republic, Otto and his group, who were deep in its heartland, were naturally swept up in it.
Anyone else's first reaction would undoubtedly be to activate the "Cosmic Juggernaut" and flee for their lives. Otto was a man with a dozen escape routes, and his safe houses were scattered everywhere, some even hidden outside the Proper World. If he wanted to abandon everyone and escape alone, it would be as easy as flipping his hand.
In fact, his main body had indeed evacuated the danger zone immediately.
But Otto Apocalypse was always a greedy gambler.
Five hundred years of scheming and countless painful lessons had given him the precise instincts of a predator. Taking advantage of the moment when Durandal was fighting the enhanced Authority of Death, he moved everyone out of the Serene Miniature Garden's killing range. Then.
"He" decisively returned to the dead zone.
Having unknowingly stepped onto the Path of Elation, Otto had already gained a new trump card. The first card was the deep psychological suggestion he used to control Theresa. And the second card.
"Avatar."
The one facing Seele's morbid killing intent in the church just now was merely a perfect shell. After losing his spare Soulium body, he would never let his main body be exposed to any lethal threat. Even the silver briefcase containing the trophy was transferred between multiple World Bubble bases in a leapfrog fashion. Only after undergoing countless extreme tests and being completely confirmed harmless was it allowed to appear in Otto's hands.
After these elaborate purification procedures, the Phantasm Butterflies had already become sealed specimens.
Trades always came with traps. Otto keenly sensed the hidden poison Seele had buried. First, the backdoor to the Authority of Decay that could detonate at any time. Second, any immortal species that had undergone reconstruction would become Seele's absolute slave.
Using the Sixth Divine Key, the Key of Creation Abyss Flower, he ruthlessly stripped away the first lethal hidden danger. He perfectly preserved its pure reconstruction effect and that irreversible slavery contract.
Schicksal had analyzed the Abyss Flower for centuries. It was essentially a degraded, same-source version of Seele's current power. Limited by the structure of a Divine Key, it couldn't draw energy from Imaginary Space without limit like a true Herrscher. What's more, this weapon's power could only affect living beings.
But that was enough. Because the Seeds of Immortality Otto needed were precisely meant for living beings.
Using it on himself. Such a foolish idea had never crossed his mind for even a second.
Handing over his life to others and becoming a toy in their hands? Unless faced with an inescapable death, he would never consider it. In Otto's cold eyes, these Phantasm Butterfly Specimens were no miracles at all. They were merely chips. Bait used to extract even more valuable "special resources."
Since they were only meant to be thrown to those ignorant ants who craved eternal life, he had no need to waste energy researching their use on inorganic matter. Any extra research would be a complete waste of effort.
With these chips and trump cards, Otto's chessboard expanded with even more audacity.
Over the past few months, the Newborn World Serpent under Kevin's command was not the only one secretly gathering power.
Otto knew very well. In this Proper World reset by time, he could not face the monsters of this era in a direct confrontation. If he showed even the slightest weakness, Kevin, that terrifying Returnee, would follow the trail and utterly crush him. The Honkai Cult branch in India, used to draw fire, was the most brutal proof of this.
A direct confrontation would only lead to his own destruction. Therefore, he turned his greedy gaze toward the "World Bubbles" on the Imaginary Tree, which were like phantoms that could vanish at any moment.
This inspiration had originally come from Durandal, who was anchored within his own body to an entire World Bubble.
Before the Old World Civilization was completely destroyed, Otto had conducted countless World Bubble observation experiments. Now, returning to this era as a "Time-Reverse Descendant" and wielding the "Cosmic Juggernaut," he immediately restarted this project. He intended to relink with those fragile worlds he had once marked.
It was during this secret observation that Otto discovered a chilling fact.
The timelines within the World Bubbles he had observed remained completely unchanged. Everything was preserved at the point just before the Old Days ended in destruction.
This discovery led him to a lethal hypothesis.
"When that person successfully took their revenge, did they rewind time for the entire Proper World universe? Or did they only rewind time for Earth?"
This question was crucial. Based on the information he had, he drew a conclusion that would overturn all known knowledge: The answer was most likely the latter.
This deadly informational advantage completely ignited Otto's ambition.
Like a locust, he began to madly drain nutrients from various stable World Bubbles.
Over the past few months, he traveled through technologically advanced World Bubbles, frantically plundering cutting-edge equipment and rare materials.
Then, he poured these resources into a backward World Bubble at a medieval civilization level.
There, he built a futuristic laboratory that was like a divine miracle. He mass-produced his most perfect weapons on an assembly line: the cloned Valkyrie unit.
These clones did not use the K-series technology that emphasized consciousness awakening. Instead, they adopted the most primitive and cold A-series cloning method.
More importantly, a remotely controlled biological chip and an extremely powerful miniature self-destruct device were deeply implanted into every body.
Otto didn't need subordinates with souls. What he needed was biological hardware that could be detonated at any time.
In the pitiful cognitive range of those medieval natives, this man, who could summon celestial fire at will and create new life from thin air, had already become the supreme true God.
Combined with the convenience of his avatars, he alone could perfectly control the vast cross-world empire.
Although he had lost the Void Archives and his direct combat power had plummeted, the potential threat he posed to this era grew exponentially.
In this epoch that didn't belong to him, he climbed the technology tree recklessly without any bottom line.
Through brainwashing and deception, the golden image he had built in countless World Bubbles had already become unshakeable.
"A pity."
Inside the abandoned warehouse, Otto stroked the pure white clown mask in his hand, feeling its cold texture with his fingertips.
A pity you didn't grant me the ability to transform and disguise myself. Otherwise, many things wouldn't have to be so complicated.
Avatars. Disguises. Mental domination. All the means he now controlled carried an extremely strong sense of déjà vu. The déjà vu of the man sitting high upon the throne.
Ling Ke.
Otto couldn't deny that deep down, he had already begun to look up to, and even morbidly worship, the man who had ascended to godhood. After all, the lifelong wish he had pursued for five hundred years was nothing more than a trivial thought to that god.
He desperately craved that "blessing." But his cold rationality also knew that he would never win the other's favor in this lifetime.
In that case.
"A Fool naturally has a Fool's way of taking his final bow."
Otto raised his head again, facing the broken moonlight, and cast an incredibly fervent gaze into the empty void.
Respected God. Please, enjoy my grand performance.
Inside the Theater of Domination.
Ling Ke watched the screen expressionlessly.
This guy had indeed looked in the wrong direction.