Chapter 353: Severed
"But this world doesn't seem to welcome me."
He could feel it: a vast power, dispersed across the entire world, was rejecting his return. The moment his true body appeared on this planet, that force would strike with the might of a thunderclap.
Roughly two months ago, Bai Mo, who had been dormant for nearly a year, awoke in the Nine Netherworlds. His injuries were mostly recovered, but the hallucination problem that plagued him remained unresolved.
As the price of his overly powerful imagination, his perception would occasionally conjure things difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion, leaving him with no intention of using any of his power.
Given his current level, any improper use of even a small amount of power could lead to devastating consequences. Thus, he intentionally left behind only a trace of pure will, devoid of any power, within his contingencies.
Currently, Bai Mo's projection was entirely powered by the Dark Spirit Rice cultivated on the ground, a creation he had designed and modified by referencing the structure of the Spirit Energy Network system.
The Dark Spirit Rice's cultivation area was still small, unable to provide him with much power. However, its advantage lay in its ability to be extinguished and reborn at will; as long as the energy-providing plants weren't uprooted, this projection could not be destroyed.
"It's been over ten years; I haven't had a proper look at this new world, which has utterly transformed." He temporarily set aside the things he had left in Tianqing, opting instead to travel around the world.
Over these past few years, the wealth Bai Mo had accumulated by plundering the memories of all living beings through the virtual reality system also required more time to digest before it could be fully converted into the resources needed to continue his progress.
A tiger that has eaten its fill always appears more tolerant when gazing at the hyenas beside it, but how long this tolerance will last depends on the tiger's digestion speed.
As for the force preventing his return, Bai Mo made a rough estimate: if he were to be struck head-on, it possessed the qualification to wound him. However, because the controller's own level was insufficient, it was ultimately nothing to worry about.
"After the Nine Netherworlds were opened, the level of spirit qi dropped another notch, and the upper limit of passive evolution also decreased. It will likely be even harder for later generations to climb up."
As "innate beings" who directly faced the spirit qi outburst, they received substantial pioneer's dividends. With only a superficial understanding of various matters, they completed all stages of passive evolution at rocket speed within a year or two, directly entering the Unmelting Realm.
Even the elders like Cheng Mu, at that time, only encountered their first hurdle—the spiritualization of the brain—after pushing themselves into the mid-stage of the Unmelting Realm.
But now, ten years later, with the decline in spirit qi levels, simply entering the Unmelting Realm has itself become a threshold, trapping a large number of cultivators lingering in the Life Field Stage.
Many have already speculated that, perhaps in time, the Life Field Stage itself will become a bottleneck, making the path of cultivation increasingly arduous.
It wasn't that no one had thought of reversing this trend toward a new Age of Dharma Decline, but after countless years and immeasurable research, people still knew nothing of spirit qi's essence. It was like a piece of encrypted and encapsulated program code, with only interfaces left in the world that could be used, yet whose principles remained unresolvable.
Therefore, at this point, with no other recourse, humanity could only choose the path of plundering myriad worlds, using the spirit qi resources appearing on other planets to compensate for Earth's deficiencies and their own insatiable desires. At the very least, this solution was technically feasible.
What the Dark Spirit Rice did, however, was merely decompose mutated creatures, allowing the spirit qi they had absorbed into their bodies to return to the environment.
"It will be ready soon. There shouldn't be so many meaningless connections between people. These unnecessary threads, I shall sever them." After leaving behind this puzzling remark, the white shadow transformed into a wisp of smoke and vanished.
"Something feels off." After the white shadow vanished, the Crimson World Disciple and Gaia, trapped in the Nine Netherworlds, both felt that something was amiss.
"Could he have secretly projected his power onto Earth?" They didn't believe their sudden premonition was a delusion and each began to probe.
...
"His power in this world hasn't changed in the slightest; he shouldn't have projected any power outward." While it was difficult for them to transmit their own information externally, aside from the two layers Bai Mo had intentionally hidden, it wasn't too difficult for the two of them to sense the situation in other parts of the Nine Netherworlds.
The most helpless situation for an idealist is when their grand pronouncements fail to take effect. This group of Flame Haze warriors, trapped in the Nine Netherworlds, now found themselves in an awkward predicament.
After further modification by the Crimson World Disciple, each of them transformed into a warrior with unwavering faith in Red Radiance. With the captivating power of their words, they were undoubtedly excellent guides on Earth, finding it no trouble to recruit new members and subsequently build small teams.
However, in this world, all the monsters were plunged into irrational and illogical chaos. Any persuasion was meaningless. The premise that truth lies within the range of a cannon was also built on the condition that both sides possessed basic logic; at the very least, if the opponent didn't fear death, then cannons held no meaning.
If the people fear not death, why should death instill fear?
However, for these monsters with a strong destructive tendency, even to the point of self-destruction, killing them all would change nothing.
Facing the endless slaughter, some of the Flame Haze warriors began to question the meaning of their own existence. These monsters were simply too easy to kill; they required no tactics or skill. They didn't understand evasion, sometimes even thrusting their heads onto the blade.
"What exactly are we fighting these things for, day in and day out?"
"To live." Feng Buhui, who had grown continuously through the slaughter, spoke these words with a resolute tone, his eyes brimming with brilliance.
As a biological genius who had been frustrated and unrecognized in the laboratory, he rarely had such an opportunity to conduct on-site research on these chaotic mutated creatures.
The blueprint for their bodies was that half-vial of Abyssal Bloodline, and the Abyssal Bloodline's predecessor was the essence of countless mutated creatures' blood, truly an invaluable treasure.
Although he adhered to the philosophy of Red Radiance, at heart he remained the genius who loved research. For him, a world like this, akin to hell, was perhaps far more comfortable than one where he had to constantly navigate interpersonal relationships.
"No matter how many we kill, new demons will crawl out of that river, whose length is unknown, the very next day." The warriors called these utterly irrational beings 'demons.'
"Where exactly is the source of the river?" Someone else posed the question.
"Three groups of people have been curious about that question before, but without exception, none of them have found the answer they sought since leaving the team."
PS: Recommending a book, 'Infinite Movie Planes,' whose protagonist is Feng Buhui 2333.
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