These specks shot across the Multiverse. Some landed on ordinary planets, some in powerful sects, and some just stopped in space, slowly moving around as if searching for something.
Some of them found a person and latched on. These were Systems, creations of the original System. It had become something akin to a queen bee.
All of these new systems were its minions, and a portion of everything they earned returned to it. It could also completely control any of them at any time and could even see their memories.
Naturally, it could still integrate itself with a host as long as their talent was enough. It wouldn't leave the truly good stuff to its minions.
However, finding someone that talented was difficult. Mostly because it had to be in the right place at the right time, or integration would be impossible. Additionally, most of the most talented beings were protected by extremely powerful people. Pan, as an example, had actually been born in the System's range of detection, but with the Buddha right there, it was impossible for the System to do anything.
Otherwise, it would be killed. Despite its incredible abilities, direct combat was not something it was good at. Only if it had a host powerful enough could it directly fight these ancient beings unimaginably more ancient than itself.
Zhou Fan had been bored for a while now. He was either cultivating or looking at the few talented beings worth noting.
Every now and then, he would take Leaf around the Universes in order to collect more of the green power.
The green power was still unimaginably powerful, in no way inferior to the pure power of the Power of Cultivation.
But Leaf didn't show the slightest arrogance or intent to showcase its power. To him, there was not much that was important in the Universe. Leaf only knew Zhou Fan, and everybody else was just an extra.
After a while, Zhou Fan picked up a piece of news.
There was a silent uproar among the Multiverse's most powerful Path Creators.
According to rumors, there was an assassin going around and killing powerful beings. The most powerful person to die was an Immortal Lord realm Path Creator, someone who could be considered at the peak of the current Multiverse.
Yet one day, he simply disappeared.
This wasn't a big deal until Ying Xiong investigated it. When he announced he could not find so much as a single piece of evidence on the man's disappearance, the silent uproar began.
If even Ying Xiong could not find any traces, who could? Perhaps Ye Li, but he had disappeared years ago and had never shown himself again.
Eventually, Lord Lu was drawn out.
He spent a long time investigating, but the only thing he was able to learn was that the man was most likely indeed killed.
He couldn't even so much as completely confirm the Immortal Lord's death.
At this point, even Zhou Fan was interested, but when he tried to look, he too could not find much. He could only confirm that the man was no longer alive. His life had been extinguished, but he could not tell by what method.
Zhou Fan looked for the Hidden Being and quickly found him. He was only in the Immortal King realm, so Zhou Fan didn't have as much trouble as he used to.
He had suspected that the Hidden Being could be involved in some way, but that didn't appear to be the case.
Though Zhou Fan suspected he would not be able to find out regardless.
Whoever this was had an incredible ability to hide themselves.
Meanwhile, in a room hidden among the stars, a man was tied down to a table.
He was unable to move an inch as a man paced around the room.
"It seems that even Zhou Fan has gotten involved, but he won't be able to find anything. For now at least. In other words, nobody will be able to save you." The man spoke while holding a knife. He wore the outfit of a butcher.
That was because he was a butcher. In the daytime at least. When night came, he was a killer.
It wasn't his fault, he was born this way. He couldn't feel anything. His emotions were numbed down to near non-existence. Everything he did was a cover. Besides this, the act of killing. To make someone understand that their life was completely out of their control.
He also, of course, enjoyed the light leaving their eyes.
He was born with the urge to kill. It would slowly build up until it exploded out. If he didn't release it like this, he would slowly go mad until he found a random person on the street and slaughtered them.
At least this way, he could maintain his secret life.
There were two reasons nobody could find him.
One, his path, the path of erasure. He could erase anything, including any traces of his existence.
The second was his surface life. Even if anybody directly found him, all they would see was a family man. A man who worked a normal job, had a wife and kids, and even participated in charity.
Nobody could sense anything about this life.
After a moment, he began his ritual.
He took his knife and dragged it along the man's body. Although he did not put any force into it, the knife was sharp enough to leave bloody cuts wherever he dragged it.
Eventually, he had formed an art piece from the cuts.
It looked like a painting of a war.
"Not bad."
Without hesitation, he plunged the knife into the man's heart, stopping it.
"Now for phase two."
He had done this every time he killed someone, but nobody had found it yet. Perhaps this time.
Years passed before someone finally found one of the killer's rooms.
Inside was a painting of blood.
It looked exactly like what had been carved on the man's body, but was now made using his blood and plastered on the walls.
This would have been ignored in most situations, but the blood was from an Immortal Lord realm cultivator.