But all these people. Without exception, they all failed. It was a one-sided slaughter without any suspense.

On the screen, the young man sat on the glacier playing Minesweeper on his phone. Even though facing him were batches of the world’s top power users, he never once lifted his head.

Just like God, mocking everyone from above.

In the end, the Restricted-level Superpower User merely deployed a single machine body, which advanced alone. The black and white halos flowed over its body, transforming into an unprecedentedly large chessboard.

On the chessboard stood thousands of troops, as if a giant kingdom, with Kings, Knights, Soldiers, and Empresses. Every piece visible was as magnificent as the giants from ancient Greek mythology. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the clouds, and from afar, they appeared like towering mountains.

On the opposite side of these grand shadows, in the sky, a figure wore golden armor, with a sharp beak and monkey cheeks, stepping on a multicolored auspicious cloud. Another figure was enveloped entirely in thunderbolts, wings of light spreading from its back.

On the glacier stood a towering tree reaching up to the clouds, its endless branches stretching into the sky.

At this moment, the white-haired boy was racing across the icy dome on a sled. Beside him was a Red Dragon soaring with wings, and atop the dragon’s shadow stood the Royal Court Team, led by a figure in a suit with a ponytail on top.

In another part of the sky, a gigantic dragon boat flew in, with a blue and white metallic humanoid figure suspended below, towering at fifty meters.

Atop the dragon boat stood ten figures. Some were draped in red robes, sitting cross-legged on the shoulders of a golden six-handed Buddha statue, while others stood gracefully on the surface of a small moon...

And below the earth, someone wearing a red Lion Shadow broke through the ice; another, wearing a Nuo Mask, transformed into a strange beast; someone else held a Compass to summon a giant cauldron; and yet another waved a folded fan to call forth a celestial anomaly.

Despite the multitude of arrivals, the chessboard became a battlefield of ancient demon gods, but it was nothing but futile struggle. They struggled and clung to life, but the god-like chess pieces still, with supreme might, swept away everything in the world.

Before long, the challengers within the chessboard were utterly vanquished.

The machine body, with the whole body flowing with black and white halos, retracted the chessboard, leaving only their heads as a mock.

By this point, the Restricted-level Superpower User finally lifted his eyes from his phone.

He looked around the glacier scene, bored. At this moment, neatly cut heads were placed on the glacier, just like fish heads on a chopping board.

In the audience seats of the cinema, Ji Minghuan took a deep breath, his right hand supporting his chin trembled slightly, and the scene on the screen was reflected in his pupils.

Dozens of heads fluttered in the swirling wind and snow, appearing and disappearing, with red dripping from their necks, forming a bloody storm. This scene was so brutal it was appalling, yet inexorably pleasing to the eye.

Afterward, the Restricted-level Superpower User withdrew his gaze and summoned another one of his machines, this one a shadow wrapped entirely in black bandages. The black restraint belts danced in the wind, lifting each head on the glacier up towards the sky.

As if it were a grand ritual.

In the screening room, the movie paused at this moment, and Ji Minghuan, sitting in the audience, sank into silence, while the Prophet also did not speak, merely turning his head to glimpse at Ji Minghuan’s expression.

A moment later, Ji Minghuan spoke, "If according to your theory, in that timeline, the Black Cocoon doesn’t exist, why does such a thing as a restraint belt appear?"

"The Black Cocoon doesn’t not exist, it’s just that the background of the machine body changed. He was no longer Gu Wenyu, nor a member of that family," the Prophet said slowly. "The Restricted-level Superpower Users, each machine body they create is also Restricted-level. Simultaneously, the moment each machine body is created, it’s endowed with a unique meaning—you used the Black Cocoon to steal all the superpowers in the world, used Yaguba to devour all the Anecdote Fragments, destroyed all the Celestial Drivers in the world with the Chess Player, and... turned all Demons and Exorcists into your pawns."

He paused, "And all of this was to find a way to save Kong Youling."

Ji Minghuan was silent; indeed, this was something he would have done.

After a brief silence, the Prophet lowered his voice, "In the end, even if you searched the world for powers and slaughtered all the power users, until only ordinary people remained, you still did not find a way to revive someone."

He looked up at the screen, "Because the only Power User who could pull a soul back from Hell, you killed from the very start... So you never managed to steal his superpower, and that was the one ability you had inadvertently missed."

An overlooked ability? A person killed at the beginning?

Ji Minghuan lowered his head, pondered briefly, then let out a long sigh and spoke the answer, "The Father of Puppets?"

The Restricted-level 1001 nodded.

"Yes, his ability could turn the dead into puppets, granting them consciousness and memory. But because he killed Kong Youling, you slew him at the awakening of your superpower rather than choose to have the Black Cocoon harvest his superpower."

Ji Minghuan was silent for a long time.

"And then... what happened afterward?"

"What happened after is very apparent; the final outcome is exactly like the scene we just witnessed." The Prophet spoke in a low voice, "Earth disappeared... and you sat alone on the Moon, watching everything fall apart. Your restraint belts would continue to fly to other celestial bodies to help you find a way to revive Kong Youling, but it was ultimately futile."