Demonic Qi and the Playing-Dead Heavenly Dao

Seeing Huo Ze's brief reply and the forceful way he chopped the vegetables—seemingly venting some suppressed anger without even realizing it—Ye Hangzhi actually found it rather amusing.

He roughly understood Huo Ze's state of mind, but this matter was truly difficult to explain to him; explaining would only make it more complicated.

In truth, even Ye Hangzhi hadn't expected this world to bear traces of the Outer Realm Heavenly Demon. Moreover, this faint, hard-to-detect demonic qi was identical to the demonic qi he had encountered in the Cultivation World.

Ye Hangzhi could be certain that this was absolutely a world affected by the Outer Realm Heavenly Demon, even though he hadn't found any trace of demonic creatures in recent days. But currently, in this Dharma Ending Age, the humans of this world were as weak as lambs. Even if the Heavenly Demon had only come for a visit with no intention of harming the world... it was enough to deal a fatal blow.

After all, the emergence of a massive number of zombies, along with the mutation of flora and fauna, were closely linked to the demonic qi.

For now, the demonic qi was most concentrated and preserved within the zombie crystal cores. As long as no one absorbed the energy, it would never dissipate.

Absorbing the energy from these crystal cores could indeed make superpowers stronger, but a tiny trace of demonic qi would also enter the body along with it.

For those superpower users without talent who couldn't level up quickly in their lifetimes, this minuscule amount of demonic qi wouldn't cause any impact. However, the original work described that the human bases had many exceptionally gifted superpower users.

This meant that by the end of the apocalypse, the top superpower users of humanity would more or less have their minds affected by the demonic qi. The more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

Thinking of this, Ye Hangzhi couldn't help but sigh. From beginning to end, Huo Ze had always been a righteous male lead who never did bad deeds, harbored no jealousy toward others, and encouraged everyone to distribute crystal cores fairly and reasonably to grow stronger together... It really hadn't been easy for him.

If superpower users hadn't learned how to absorb the crystal core energy, these hundreds of millions of traces of demonic qi would have been stored long-term within the cores, perhaps leading to an even more catastrophic mutation one day.

Ye Hangzhi didn't dare draw conclusions about the future, but if the massive amount of demonic qi eventually birthed a sentient demonic creature, even if it were just the lowest-level Lesser Heavenly Demon, it could cause damage to humanity far worse than the apocalypse itself.

Therefore, Huo Ze, the first to discover how to use the crystal cores and selflessly spread this knowledge, was truly a great hero of humanity!

Though his family's hero seemed to have some unpleasant past experiences, or perhaps some psychological issues...

Ye Hangzhi glanced at Huo Ze's straight back and turned to walk out of the kitchen.

He sat cross-legged on the futon, beginning to frantically absorb spiritual energy.

He needed to level up quickly.

Because Ye Hangzhi truly couldn't help but doubt many things, such as why he had reincarnated in the wrong place, where Huo Ze's unusual experiences came from, and what that "destined wife" line was all about!

Did these matters have anything to do with the existence of the Heavenly Demon?

Ultimately, was there some unspeakable reason behind all of this?

Thinking of how the Heavenly Dao was still shamelessly playing dead, Ye Hangzhi grew even more suspicious.

Assuming the Heavenly Dao had indeed been contaminated by the Outer Realm Heavenly Demon... how could he peacefully remain in the valley to cultivate?

How troublesome. He really just wanted to sit, drink tea, and refine pills every day—oh, and eat a few more delicious dishes made by Huo Ze. One day, he would definitely swing his blade and slash that unreliable Heavenly Dao.

Must cultivate quickly!

Ye Hangzhi had a solemn expression, the spiritual energy even forming a small vortex visible to the naked eye around him.

At the same time, Huo Ze turned down the heat on the chicken soup, using a basin to soak some dried wild mushrooms bought from the supermarket. He planned to simmer it for a while before adding the mushrooms and medicinal herbs.

As for lunch, Huo Ze didn't really feel like eating much, so he only prepared three dishes for Ye Hangzhi, placing them on the warming table before carefully washing his hands.

Taking off his apron, he intended to go to the main room to ask Ye Hangzhi for a cup of tea before going for a run, but as soon as he stepped in, he noticed something off about Ye Hangzhi's expression.

Huo Ze didn't understand what Ye Hangzhi's grave expression represented.

But he felt that he had lived two lives without fully understanding things. Although he had witnessed many events with his own eyes, his understanding of the secrets behind them was probably far inferior to Ye Hangzhi's.

In fact, when he died in his past life... people still knew very little about the mysteries of the apocalypse.

Perhaps that was precisely why he had died.

Ancient memories flooded back. Huo Ze closed his eyes, quickly suppressing his chaotic emotions.

In any case, he was freer now, and also luckier than before.