Apocalypse: My Items Can Upgrade Infinitely

And so, after some careful thought, Lin Feng’s furrowed brow gradually relaxed. He stared at the monstrous six-legged Zerg Person before him, its skin swelling and veined with blood, and asked in a deep voice:

"So, what are the terms of the deal?"

Hearing that Lin Feng was finally showing interest, the "Mother Empress" on the ground let out a taunting cackle that echoed from the air sacs in its abdomen:

"The terms I want are very simple, and very easy to satisfy..."

"I’m not asking you to join us, nor am I asking you to betray your own kind..."

Lin Feng quietly breathed a sigh of relief. He nudged his gun up slightly, gesturing for the creature to continue.

The Mother Empress paused, its voice growing softer:

"I need you to return to that defensive line to the north and continue to halt the advance of that other Mother Empress!"

"Hold it off for at least five days or so..."

"So that I can be the first to get beneath that Great Lake."

Lin Feng froze. He never imagined this would be the condition it proposed.

In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through his mind, kicking up a mental firestorm.

A full half-minute passed before Lin Feng finally spoke:

"You High-tier Zerg... are competitors?!"

By now, the host Zerg Person on the ground had morphed into an elongated monster with over a dozen limbs. It slowly propped up its upper body, now standing over two meters tall, with a face that had human-like features...

It even clasped several pairs of its abdominal limbs together, assuming an expression that made it all seem perfectly natural.

However, seeing such a display from a monster with the body of an insect and the face of a human was indescribably bizarre.

Lin Feng frowned slightly. After using his Identification Skill to confirm the creature hadn’t undergone any other special changes, he finally relaxed his high alert.

The Mother Empress Avatar nodded, then slowly raised its limbs to the side and began its explanation:

"Your home world, this azure planet, possesses a composition perfectly suited for the development of carbon-based life. Its surface is thirty percent land and seventy percent ocean, and it has liquid water on the surface that can be directly absorbed and utilized..."

"It’s a perfect match for the needs of pioneers like us."

"So, our goal this time is not merely to claim this azure planet as our own, but also to complete the Ascension of us High-tier Mother Empresses here..."

"In human terms, you could probably call it a planet-wide battle royale, exclusively for us Mother Empresses."

"Out of nearly ten thousand Mother Empresses, only one can win the final struggle and ascend beyond this planet’s fetters to become a..."

"Cosmic Life form."

Lin Feng took a deep breath and asked in return:

"You mean Tier Four, beyond Tier Three?"

The Mother Empress nodded, and as if a switch had been flipped, it began to explain at length:

"Mm... Just as each Tier is divided into early, mid, and late stages, there’s a massive leap after every three sub-stages..."

"From the lowest-level Red-Armored Beetle, they transform into Tier One and Awaken a Superpower. This is an elevation in life form. But the limit of you humans’ potential is merely Tier One Peak. Once you try to enter Tier Two, the deficiencies in your Physique Attribute become apparent."

"But after breaking through to Tier Three, one can once again experience another evolutionary leap."

"From a pitiful creature imprisoned by its home world’s environment, to a super Life Form that shatters those shackles and roams the Cosmos alone."

"Within a planet, there is only the cycle of life and death."

"But in the Cosmos, the possibilities are infinite..."

Lin Feng’s pupils quaked. In just a few sentences, the Mother Empress had sketched for him a vast cosmic tapestry dotted with countless stars...

Countless species are born from the cradles of their home worlds, come to understand their surroundings, build civilizations, and ultimately, face extinction.

The reasons were many: self-destruction through internal wars, resource depletion from drastic environmental change, or perhaps an unexpected natural disaster like a meteor strike...

A home world is the cradle of life, but life cannot remain in the cradle forever.

In the history of Blue Star, there have been countless civilizations that rose and fell. From ancient arthropods to the rise of the reptiles, which gave birth to the diverse dynasty of the Dinosaurs, until a meteorite sixty-five million years ago brought their reign to an end.

Only then did the age of mammals begin.

Over hundreds of millions of years, only humanity, by relying on its evolved hyper-intelligence and specializing its evolutionary path, managed to use external tools to take the first tentative steps off-world.

Unfortunately, just as humanity was on the verge of making that leap, its progress was cut short by the sudden arrival of the Alien Zerg Race.

Now, to fight the Zerg Race, the only path forward was individual Upgrade and evolution.

And according to the Mother Empress, Tier Four, the stage beyond Tier Three, was a super Life Form adapted to the harsh environment of the Cosmos—a powerful being that could leave its home world and embark on adventures across space.

If a High-tier Mother Empress managed to ascend to Tier Four, its Attributes would soar into the tens of thousands, its body would swell to ten times its size, and it would no longer fear humanity’s only trump card—nuclear weapons.

That would be the day humanity’s true apocalypse would arrive.

At this thought, the worry etched between Lin Feng’s brows deepened. He aimed his gun at the Mother Empress Avatar’s human-like face and said:

"You want to beat the Hai City Mother Empress to Taihu Lake to claim its vast water supply and aquatic resources..."

"But why should I help you?"

"Whether it’s you or the one from Hai City, once either of you ascends, you’ll just exterminate all life on this planet anyway."

"Besides, while I’m fighting for my life on the Wu City front lines, you’ll be sitting back here reaping the rewards. You could even team up with the Hai City Mother Empress to form a pincer attack and trap me in the middle."

"That’s a risk that a hundred Tiger Spine Zergs can’t possibly compensate for..."

The Mother Empress Avatar’s Breaking Limit Spirit Value allowed it to keenly sense a mortal threat. It shrank back and cried out anxiously:

"No, you have to help me!"

"Because you’d also be helping yourself!"