Who in this World Isn't Red?
However, Hou Zi was someone who had fought his way out of the Huaxia Federation, a veritable dragon's pool and tiger's den, having endured countless life-or-death battles and bathed in blood. His mental fortitude naturally couldn't be shaken so easily, and such decadent emotions were cast aside in the blink of an eye.
As an idealist who constantly sought to realize the justice within his heart, though what he had seen and heard over the years had somewhat shaken his beliefs, and he felt disappointment in the people under his governance, he still hoped to find an answer – an answer for achieving a just society, even if that answer was discovered by others.
That was why he had permitted Chen Kedi and his group to undertake bold new experiments on his "experimental field," testing the feasibility of their ideas. He had never expected things to suddenly escalate to this point.
"Are you afraid?"
Just as Hou Zi was pondering his countermeasures, he once again heard the voice of the being that called itself the Disciple of the Crimson World. Only this time, he felt the voice resonate from deep within his own heart, as if it were at zero distance from him.
"I am within your heart."
It was still that murky, composite voice, as if it possessed telepathy, creating an atmosphere of suspense and slowly eroding Hou Zi's will.
"Do you think I'll believe that?!" Hou Zi declared, firm and resolute.
As a Five Tiers powerhouse, he did not believe that any being in this world could bypass all external defenses, including his Life Field, and directly enter his body without his knowledge. Not even he could accomplish such a feat.
When in a good mood, it might exchange a few words, treating it as a small game, much like how humans sometimes speak to ants. But that didn't mean it would deign to answer an ant's questions.
Outside the red mist, the dense, numerous orbs of light began to rapidly merge with each other, silently and imperceptibly, gradually forming a complete light barrier that counter-encircled the enemy within.
Moreover, Hou Zi could clearly feel that as these orbs of light fused into one, additional red light continuously flowed out from his own red mist, converging with the outer light barrier, strengthening the red light that surrounded him.
"What's going on?"
Although the red light continuously flowed out from the red mist, he didn't feel any loss of power. For someone at his level, it was impossible to not feel even the slightest movement of power within his control.
As the counter-encirclement gradually formed, the battle situation became even more complicated and unpredictable.
The outermost layer was the gigantic light barrier, still continuously thickening. This barrier enveloped the thick red mist within, and heavily surrounded by the red mist was the original source of the red light.
The two formed a three-layered core, a state of "I in you, you in me," perfectly intertwined.
As for Hou Zi's main body, it was tightly enveloped by countless layers of red mist at the core. The red mist in this core region had gradually reverted to its solid Xuanhua form.
Yet, even such a defense brought him no sense of security, for he clearly saw wisps of red light not only emerging from the surrounding red mist but also, subsequently, appearing from within his own body.
Just like with Chen Kedi earlier, the red light slowly seeped out from various orifices on Hou Zi's body—his eyes, mouth, ears—the scene of "bleeding from seven orifices" once again reenacted.
This red light, which disregarded all defenses, left him feeling utterly powerless, with nowhere to exert his strength.
With tangible attacks, even a nuclear blast, one could at least employ the method of brute-force resistance. But the current situation was like an ordinary person suddenly dropped into the world of a suspense horror film, doomed to be toyed with and killed by utterly illogical ghosts and monsters.
No matter how hard one's fists were, or how exquisite their weapons, faced with such an unknown entity, there remained no course of action.
As the red light seeped out from within his body, Hou Zi began to feel a slight dizziness in his head. It seemed as if something was attempting to seize control of his body.
The impact of the great battle in Justice extended far beyond the local area, or rather, the plan of the being known as the Disciple of the Crimson World involved far more than just this corner of Africa.
People exhibiting the Red Radiance on their bodies, starting from Justice, began to continuously increase outwards in all directions. The speed of this increase was simply inconceivable. One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand... the numbers climbed relentlessly with every passing second.
Less than twenty minutes after the outbreak of this great battle in Justice, the major powers possessing global spy satellite systems had already received the news. After all, this was a rather sensitive nation, especially in the Huaxia Federation, where its level of attention was placed at a very high priority, second only to the person whose name could not be spoken casually.
Soon, however, even without alerts from spy satellites, everyone knew something was wrong. Whether they were the superhumans mostly hiding in deep mountains and ancient forests to escape the Spirit Devourer, or ordinary people living and working normally in cities, almost without exception, they all discovered red light appearing on their bodies.
For the vast majority, the light on their bodies was very dim, barely visible, but there were also extremely rare individuals whose emitted red light was exceptionally dazzling, capable of illuminating hundreds of meters away.
If someone were to create a real-time global distribution map of the red light at that moment, they might discover that, aside from a few extremely backward and isolated villages, the Red Radiance had illuminated every corner covered by modern civilization.
"What is this thing?" Through his divine sense, Bai Mo saw a faint red light suddenly appear on his primordial spirit. "The legendary Red Radiance?"
Something that could bypass his layers of defense, directly act upon his primordial spirit, and happened to be red light—Bai Mo couldn't think of any other reasonably plausible answer besides that mysterious power.
Leveraging the powerful perception of his divine sense, he attempted to analyze the microscopic structure of the red light, but unfortunately, he did not succeed.
However, even if he yearned to find the answer behind the Red Radiance, he first had to expel it from his primordial spirit before making any other plans. Thus, under Bai Mo's control, a white light, bearing his will, emerged, attempting to drive away this uninvited guest.
The moment the white light appeared, it began to react fiercely with this faint layer of red light.
To his surprise, his own white light was clearly at a disadvantage; the consumption ratio between the two was nearly one to fifty. That is, it took the consumption of fifty parts of white light to wear down just one part of red light.
"You are Bai Mo?" Just as a good portion of the red light on his body was being worn away, the voice from the Disciple of the Crimson World resounded.
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