Inside the containment room of the underground Hive, surrounded by glass walls on all sides, Mark leaned tiredly against the narrow single bed.
His face was slightly pale.
Processing the massive *Nether Blood Sea Manual*, combined with decades of memories from two lives, had placed an immense strain on his mind.
Even though Mark’s spirit had grown exceptionally powerful after receiving that “gift from nature,” the sheer volume of information was still difficult to stomach all at once.
Fortunately, absorbing these memories brought tangible benefits.
The vast store of knowledge and the fragmented cosmic law seeds lingering in his soul were quickly organized and condensed, forming a Lotus Dharma Seed inside his mind.
The moment the seed took shape, the chaotic spiritual energy in Mark’s sea of consciousness settled down.
His mental consciousness sea overlapped with the blood sea described in the *Nether Blood Sea Visualization*, where the faint, translucent Lotus Dharma Seed bobbed gently atop the waves.
The *Nether Blood Sea Manual* was the foundational, premier heritage of a top demonic sect in the Yanfu World.
Apart from its core—the *Nether Blood Sea Visualization*—the Blood Fiend Demonic Sect’s heritage contained twelve distinct fundamental paths capable of reaching the heavens.
These were the World Path, the Yin-Yang Path, the Samsara Path, the Life-Death Path, the Nether Path, the Karma Path, the Slaughter Path, the Karma-Fire Path, the Demonic Fiend Path, the Spirit-Purification Path, the Blood God Path, and the Asura Path.
Each of these twelve lineages of the Blood Fiend Demonic Sect led straight to the apex of immortal cultivation.
If this were the Yanfu World, even the lowest-ranked path—the Asura Path—would never be lightly bestowed upon anyone without thousands of tribulations and monumental contributions to the sect.
And if this were Marvel under normal circumstances—assuming the system possessed an active consciousness—Mark would never have been granted these twelve paths unless he destroyed a few dimensional realms first.
Yet now, Mark offered another deeply sincere prayer of thanks for the gifts of nature.
He was already the Holy Son of the Blood Fiend Demonic Sect and held the highest authority in the system.
Without hesitation, Mark chose the path ranked first among the twelve heavenly methods: the World Path.
The World Path involved turning the *Nether Blood Sea Visualization* inside one’s mind from illusion into absolute reality through cultivation.
Once the Nether Blood Sea was fully materialized, the World Path would be achieved.
Even a low-tier universe would be enough to rival the dimensional lords of the Marvel cosmos.
At the same time, the World Path was Mark’s only viable option.
The moment his latent memories awakened, Mark had clearly realized that every cosmic law in this Marvel universe already had an owner.
The laws of Yin and Yang had been divided.
The laws of Yin, Nether, and portions of Samsara, Karma, Slaughter, Karma-Fire, Demonic Fiend, Blood God, and Asura were controlled by the Abyss and Hell.
The laws of Yang, Life, Death, and portions of Samsara, Karma, and Spirit-Purification were carved up by various pantheons of gods.
If Mark cultivated those other paths, it wouldn’t matter while he was weak.
But once he grew powerful enough, the gods and demon lords would sense his presence.
With a mere thought, those entities could use their authority over cosmic laws to completely cut off his access to energy throughout the universe.
Unless he became their vassal god, minion, slave, or puppet, any sign of disobedience from Mark would draw swift, catastrophic destruction.
Only the World Path was different.
Every world formed its own self-contained law.
Even if Mark cultivated other laws, as long as he kept them contained within his personal world, no outside entity could sense them or cut off his supply at the source.
Because of this, Mark silently mocked the gods and demon lords of the Marvel universe.
The higher-order fantasy worlds really were dark and predatory.
Of course, the cultivation realms weren’t much better, with their Dao Ancestors and Demonic Overlords doing much the same.
Thank goodness he had his system!
Once again, he thanked nature for its generous bounty!
With his path chosen, Mark relied on the residual system gift to form the initial Dharma Seed in his sea of consciousness.
Then, he shifted his focus back to his precarious real-world situation.
With the World Path technique in hand, his road to cultivation was clear and unobstructed.
By contrast, his immediate situation was far more troublesome.
Before the system’s AI died, it had anchored him into a highborn family, but the problem was that Mark had awakened far too late.
The Raccoon City biohazard incident two years ago had already plunged the Umbrella Corporation into unprecedented scandal and ruin.
Externally, various international factions and financial conglomerates eyed the company like vultures.
Internally, all three co-founders were dead, and the executive board was in open revolt.
The core of the conglomerate in America—White Umbrella—had completely fallen.
Red Umbrella, which controlled global private military forces, was half-paralyzed.
If not for the Ashford family possessing a loyal lieutenant like Sergei, Mark might have died long ago during the internal purge.
Even so, Mark was currently trapped behind bars.
Sergei likely hadn’t anticipated that Blue Umbrella—traditionally the personal domain of the three founding families—would also “betray” its masters.
Or perhaps Blue Umbrella hadn’t betrayed them so much as declared “independence”?
Mark steadily sorted through his memories, trying to find relevant details.
In his groggy, eighteen-year stupor, Mark had been exposed to many of Umbrella’s core secrets.
After all, nobody bothered guarding secrets against a puppet and an idiot—especially one who legally held the highest clearance level in the company.
Now that Mark was fully lucid, everything he had observed over those eighteen years had transformed into valuable intelligence for his escape, his counterattack, and his eventual retaking of the corporation.
In his memory, Umbrella’s core structure was divided into three main pillars:
White Umbrella controlled research and development, holding executive power over oversight, intelligence, and internal purges.
Red Umbrella managed operations, coordinating global logistics, development, and armed security.
Blue Umbrella controlled commercial channels, product manufacturing, monetization, and political networking, serving as the financial hub.
Because of this, Blue Umbrella had always been the private sanctuary of the founding families.
Among them, the Marcus family had dominated European operations for decades…
Wait.
The Marcus family?
Vampires?
*Underworld*?
Mark quickly picked up on a vital detail in his memories.
As it turned out, James Marcus—one of the three co-founders—was actually a descendant of the vampire progenitor from *Underworld*!
Even the Progenitor Virus that started Umbrella’s rise was directly tied to the Marcus family.
It made complete sense.
The entire storyline of *Underworld* originated from the Progenitor Virus.
That explained why the T-Virus, derived from the Progenitor Virus and developed by Umbrella, caused a biohazard outbreak.
The zombies’ extreme vitality and bloodthirsty instincts were simply inherited traits from vampires and lycans.
The Progenitor Virus, vampires, lycans, Umbrella, the T-Virus, zombies…
Everything clicked together.
Mark twitched his lips, a strange expression on his face.
This really was a mashed-up Marvel universe where anything could be woven together.