Chapter 279: Eradication
"Thud!" After the apple hit the ground, the Spirit Art protection coating it had been completely worn away by its journey through the air, causing it to crack under the full force of a fanatic's shovel.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!" For them, merely cracking it was clearly not enough. The fanatical believers who had rushed over crushed the nearby fallen apples one by one with their shovels.
To these most devout followers of the One-Wheel Cult, this "fruit of sin" was clearly an abomination, an offense even to behold. Dragging their bodies, covered in bloody scratches from their own desperate clawing, this group nonetheless persisted, determined to destroy every apple within sight.
But not everyone in the town was truly willing to watch their hope of escaping this suffering be ruthlessly extinguished.
Perhaps they didn't know the saying "wine and meat pass through the stomach, but the Buddha remains in the heart," but they could similarly console themselves that they had only eaten the forbidden fruit out of desperation, and afterwards, they would still remain loyal believers of the One-Wheel God.
Faith, at its core, was ultimately subjective; as long as they could get past their own internal barrier, there would be no problem.
The fanatic believers' act of smashing apples, a form of spiritual coercion, was as difficult for them to accept as a sage's moral coercion of ordinary people.
At the end of the day, most commoners were just ordinary people who wanted to live simple lives. They didn't possess an iron will, and faith, to them, was more like a culture, a custom.
Ning Yan Huo's curse was, in reality, aimed at this large segment of the population. When Bai Mo formulated this plan, he never considered making a few fanatics abandon their beliefs.
Thus, while the fanatics were engrossed in destroying the apples, unnoticed by them, a ray of spiritual light would drill into their bodies with the destruction of each apple...
The actual number of fanatics who chose to smash apples was, in fact, not large. Compared to the vast rural areas, their existence was merely a small ripple.
In most other places, these scattered apples were selectively ignored by the vast majority of people.
Many people were still struggling; they possessed considerable faith, but this faith wasn't firm enough, so they chose to ignore the apples by the roadside.
No one was willing to cross the line and openly pick up an apple to eat it in broad daylight, but neither were they willing to extinguish this sliver of hope. One had to understand that in Maysuo, it was absolutely impossible to buy apples.
When night fell and silence reigned, some people who could no longer bear the endless itching began to quietly venture out.
They had memorized the apples' locations during the day. Unlike cities that remained brightly lit at night, most rural towns plunged into darkness once evening arrived.
With their faces covered by black cloth, several furtive figures appeared in the night. Each stole towards their predetermined target location, moving stealthily.
Occasionally, two people would have the same apple as their target. The two who met would exchange an awkward glance, and then one would choose to leave.
They were all neighbors and fellow townsfolk; there weren't many people in the town, so a glance was enough to know the other's identity. Yet, everyone tacitly maintained silence, pretending they hadn't seen a thing.
Unbeknownst to them, their hearts of faith were already slowly dissipating.
Whether they ate the apples or not, from the moment they memorized the apples' locations, everything was already predestined.
"Only those at the top have the right to choose?" After a long silence following Bai Mo's soliloquy, Ning Yan Huo summarized with this single sentence.
"Only by standing at the pinnacle of the power pyramid will you avoid being treated like a pawn, like yourself," Bai Mo stated bluntly, showing no regard for the other's feelings.
"Regardless of cost, by any means necessary—truly the actions of a devil," Ning Yan Huo retorted. As for being used, he didn't particularly care; both sides were merely getting what they needed, and the word "devil" carried no pejorative meaning for him.
"I'm just an ordinary person, with no illustrious background, no omnipotent system, and no memories from a decade of rebirth. There are countless people with greater talent than me. Without resorting to these roundabout methods, how could I possibly surpass those who are better off and who work just as hard, if not harder?"
"And it's only because I happened to encounter an era of such profound change that I have the opportunity to employ unscrupulous means, isn't it?"
"Anyway, I don't have many days left to live. Can you tell me what it is that even an unrivaled being like you finds powerless against?" Ning Yan Huo recalled Bai Mo's earlier words.
"In previous eras, one's birth almost entirely determined the upper limit of their potential. But I want to conduct an experiment: what would happen to this world if all background disparities were artificially erased?"
"Impossible! You can't do it! Relationships like blood ties and friendships—you can't erase those influences! As long as there are people, there will be preferences, and opportunities will always lean towards them!"
Ning Yan Huo completely disbelieved Bai Mo's words. In his view, these were problems that power couldn't solve, or at least, not the kind of power he could comprehend.
Gazing at the somewhat agitated head before him, Bai Mo said no more. He already had some ideas, but he hadn't yet amassed enough power to implement them.
This world held too many things that piqued his curiosity, but to have the freedom to explore everything, it had to be built upon unparalleled power.
It was precisely for this freedom that Bai Mo had resorted to any means necessary to grow stronger throughout his journey.
"Airdropped apples! This is a naked provocation from those faithless heathens of Huaxia! War! Send them all to fiery hell!" In the divine kingdom above Maysuo, many of Ramdo's subordinates roared in indignation, as if not going to war with Huaxia was their mortal enemy.
It wasn't because they felt their faith had been desecrated, but because over the past two days, the Huaxia Federation's airdropping of apples into Maysuo's rural areas—which lacked the sky-curtain to block the curse—had caused some tormented villagers to lose their faith.
After completely losing their faith, the curses on these individuals automatically vanished, freeing them from days of torment worse than death. This created a positive feedback loop, tempting more people to abandon their beliefs.
The drastic reduction in the source of Faith Power directly impacted the cultivation of Ramdo's subordinates, infringing upon their fundamental interests, and this was the true reason for their constant clamor for war.
"The rural population is too dispersed; they can't raise a faith-based sky-curtain to block the curse. This is a big problem. But where is that mastermind? Why haven't they made a move yet?" Ramdo ignored his subordinates' complaints, knowing full well that Huaxia absolutely could not spare enough troops to invade him.
His true concern remained the one orchestrating everything from the shadows..
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