Chapter 502: The Whole Universe Is Feverish—I

Qin Hao's action of scooping up a nebula jerked to a halt; the chill rising from deep within his soul pulled him out of the joy of harvest.

This feeling was completely different from when he previously faced the Lord of Apocalypse.

This was an hostility emanating from the environment itself—undiscriminating and unavoidable.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!"

Qin Hao's retinal system interface popped up a blood-red exclamation mark.

Alert! Regular turbulence detected across the entire universe!

The universe's fundamental constants are undergoing a drastic shift!

The speed of light is increasing by 0.01% per second...

The gravitational constant is decreasing by 0.03% per second...

The Planck constant is fluctuating...

The vacuum is boiling...

Qin Hao jerked his head up, his pupils contracting.

All he saw was the cosmic backdrop—a deep, velvety black woven from countless distant galaxies—now being slowly pressed by an invisible branding iron,

starting at the edges, a strange, ominous dark red began to spread.

Like a red-hot iron plate.

"What's happening? My battle armor… my battle armor is melting!"

"Hold steady! Don't panic! Activate the rule-stabilizing anchor! Uh-oh, the anchor's parameters are going out of control!"

"Report! The attached fleet of the G-37 Branch is undergoing large-scale structural disintegration! They… they're turning into liquid! No! It's some kind of fluid between energy and matter!"

The massive fleet that had just surrendered and been reorganized was now as if thrown into an invisible furnace.

Warship after warship began to soften and elongate at a visible speed, their surfaces flowing with an odd luster, about to completely evaporate the next second.

Panic spread across the communication channels.

"Even the Lord of Apocalypse, who had just surrendered, jerked his head up,"

those eye sockets that had just glimmered with a hint of starlight were refilled with shock and a deeper fear.

He felt the rejection and malice emanating from the cosmic source, his voice dry: "It's Him… He's awakened……"

"Him?"

Qin Hao flickered and appeared beside the Lord of Apocalypse, his brows furrowed.

"The universe's instinctive will. Or rather, it's the universe's final flicker before total brain death."

The Lord of Apocalypse's voice trembled.

"All my actions, including the Great Purge, were merely routine operations of the immune system while He slept; now we've roused Him completely."

"Routine operation is cleaning viruses; now it's formatting the hard drive?"

Qin Hao understood instantly.

"No."

The Lord of Apocalypse shook his head, voice despairing: "It's smashing the mainframe."

Qin Hao narrowed his eyes, gazing at the starry sky growing ever redder.

As someone who claimed to be a divine doctor, he was all too familiar with this reaction.

"I understand."

His white coat snapped in the rule-heat wave, yet his expression oddly calmed.

"When immune cells can't beat the virus, they start a indiscriminate fever, trying to burn out the virus by raising body temperature—a classic cytokine storm, the immune system running amok."

His plainspoken medical explanation left the nearby Wo Xi Ling and others, who were on the verge of being driven mad by fear, stunned.

"What time is it now, and you're still doing a condition analysis?"

"Qin Hao……"

The Lord of Apocalypse forced out: "This isn't a metaphor; the universe itself is committing suicide. No being can survive this catastrophe… we… we have angered God."

"God?"

Qin Hao snorted, glanced around at the panicked fleets, then at his own few children, and finally his gaze returned to the Lord of Apocalypse.

"In my eyes there's nothing but the patient."

"A patient with a high fever, delirious, flailing his arms wildly, about to fall off the sickbed!"

Qin Hao's aura shifted abruptly.

If before he was a somewhat roguish, irreverent rascal divine doctor,

now he is the top-tier expert about to perform as chief surgeon an unprecedented surgery.

Calm, focused, and endowed with absolute authority.

"Since there's a fever, we can't just let it run its course."

Qin Hao grasped at the void, and the golden steel pen forged from the Xuanyuan Sword reappeared.

He didn't use it to inscribe any rules; instead, like a true doctor, he casually clipped it to the breast pocket of his white coat.

This action was like a signal.

"Fuxi!"

"Immediately halt all unnecessary energy output and switch the Miracle Garden's defense system to internal circulation mode!

"Inject all the nebulae we just collected into the Energy Conversion Matrix! The patient has a fever—we can't burn along with him; we need to cool ourselves physically first!

【Command received.】

"Qin Zheng!"

"You are to coordinate all fleets, including the newly recruited Cosmic Greening Brigade. Have them contract their defenses, forming a Tree of Life Formation with the Miracle Garden as the core.

Tell them, those who don't want to be burned to death should obediently follow orders and be good leaves of our tree!

"Understood!" Qin Zheng's eyes filled with fighting spirit.

"Qin Yue, Qian Yin!"

"Your Science Academy shall immediately form a Universal Fundamental Constants Research Team, monitor all rule changes in real time, and I want a complete universal thermodynamics report in the shortest time possible! Figure out exactly how it caught fire!"

"Guarantee mission completion!"

Orders were issued clearly and swiftly, one after another.

Originally chaotic scene, under Qin Hao's coordination, miraculously stabilized.

The Yanhuang Civilization's terrifying execution and cohesion were fully displayed at this moment.

Finally, Qin Hao looked toward the End Lord.

"And you, Old End."

The End Lord froze for a moment, obviously not used to this title.

"Don't space out, you former Immune System Director, now you are my Chief Advisor.

I want you to immediately compile all the information you know about this universe's innate will, including its behavior patterns, historical outbreak records, and possible weaknesses, put it together, make a PPT, to be used in the meeting later.

End Lord: "... P... PT?"

"It's just a medical record! Do you understand medical records?"

Qin Hao snapped angrily, "Don't tell me you've been an official for hundreds of millions of years and can't even write a work report!"

The End Lord remained silent for a moment before replying, "Understood."

At this moment, he truly understood the meaning of Qin Hao's plea, "Please save this universe."

Not just empty words.

It truly means treating this universe, which is heading toward destruction, as a patient to be saved.

After everyone got busy, Qin Hao alone hovered in the starry sky, looking up at the ever-spreading dark red.

His gaze was immeasurably deep.

"Since the diagnosis is clear, it's a malignant high fever caused by an immune storm..."

"So next, we need to write a prescription."

"To deal with such a virulent disease, we must use potent medicine."

He called up the system interface and issued a command that made the entire universe tremble.

"System, pull up the rule virus and concept vaccine technology from the Level 9 Technology Sequence. I want to use the Miracle Garden as a culture dish, and the freshly captured Level 9 Origin as material..."

"Give this messed-up burning universe a shot of antipyretic!"