The deep dream collapsed completely, and Chen Zhou returned to the dream interlayer of Lantao City.
The dreamlight woven by the great dream dharma had vanished, and the darkness in the sky was receding.
At the edge of the sky, a golden morning light tore through the dark clouds.
Lantao City welcomed the dawn.
Chen Zhou stood a thousand meters high, greeting that first ray of morning light.
The dawn projected from behind him, casting a golden edge on his blurred silhouette.
He looked down at this city that had been ravaged during the eerie night—ruined walls, corpses littering the ground, withered white grids, and dried pus and blood everywhere.
Though many people were still alive, they were still trapped within the nightmares of the white cocoons, their souls being slowly dissolved by the grid.
Chen Zhou raised his hands, his fingers splayed.
He did not need pity, nor did he need to offer comfort; he was an evil spirit.
The salvation of an evil spirit must naturally be delivered in an evil spirit's way.
With a slight shift of Chen Zhou’s thoughts, death qi poured down like a heavenly river, instantly enveloping the entire Lantao City.
Wherever the death qi passed, the rotten focuses of the disease were rapidly devoured. The half-city of rotting flesh created by the Plague-Eating Stove quickly ossified and then shattered.
The plague was contained.
Next, Chen Zhou sowed the Seeds of Resentment.
Hundreds of thousands of black light-points, invisible to the naked eye, scattered across the city.
The Seeds of Resentment were condensed from pure resentment.
They were the primer and the fuel.
When resentment filled the city, the Seeds of Resentment instantly ignited the despair belonging to the citizens within those grids.
Whoosh—!
This was Hatred Fire.
With resentment as the seed and despair as the fuel, it was a purifying fire that blazed!
Hatred Fire did not harm the soul of any living person; it only burned away the dream shackles attached to those souls.
Those people wrapped in white cocoons felt their sinking consciousness being forcibly awakened from their nightmares by the burning of the Hatred Fire, pulling them from delusion.
They regained their senses.
Then, they saw it.
In the sky above the shattered nightmare, a magnificent silhouette stood, impossible to look at directly.
He was bathed in the dawn, with ten thousand feet of golden light behind him.
He sowed fire, and at his feet, the plague perished.
Mortals could not understand what it was, but the tremor from the deepest part of their souls let them know instinctively.
That... was a god.
Inside Heart's Desire Hall, the several family heads who had struggled to survive the night were all in a wretched state.
The guards around them were all wounded, and several family servants who had been corrupted by the white cocoons and had to be killed lay on the ground.
"Is it over?" Lin Zhixue held a sword that was still dripping blood, leaning against a pillar in exhaustion as he looked blankly out the window.
The sky was bright.
"What is that?" Master Zhang was the first to notice the phenomenon in the sky, pointing toward the east with a trembling finger.
Through the gaps in the window, they could see that where the dawn was at its strongest, a silhouette that pierced through the heavens and earth was looking down at all living beings.
The sword in Lin Zhixue's hand fell to the ground with a clang. "Is that... the Lord God?"
"Silence!"
Ku Chan’s expression became solemn. He was the first to kneel toward Chen Zhou's direction, saying excitedly.
"Silence, do not offend the Lord! The Lord God pities the world and cannot bear to see all beings sink into the nightmare. He has descended personally to sweep away the demons. This is a supreme grace!"
He looked at the several family heads who were still in shock and shouted, "Why are you not kneeling to thank him for his divine grace!"
The family heads looked at each other, then at the vanishing grids across the city, the awakening people, and the divine miracle dispersing all gloom.
So, behind Heart's Desire Hall, there truly was a real god!
Lin Zhixue was the first to kneel, followed by Master Zhang, Zhao Qingtian...
All the surviving family heads, the family cultivators behind them, the lone cultivators, the servants, and even the infected who struggled to crawl up from their sickbeds.
Anyone with a breath left in them bowed and prostrated toward that golden silhouette.
"We bow in gratitude for the Lord God's salvation!"
In the square before the City Lord's Mansion, Jian Huaishuang sheathed his giant sword.
The paper people army behind him also knelt on one knee toward Chen Zhou's direction at the same time, their movements perfectly synchronized.
"We pay our respects to the Lord God."
Right in this place of purification dominated by Hatred Fire, a golden light suddenly appeared.
The light was filled with auspiciousness and vitality, completely incompatible with Chen Zhou's death qi.
The golden light swept across the remaining giant cocoons on the square. The cocoon walls shattered, revealing the people inside who still had breath.
Golden sparks fell from the sky, mending the tattered souls of everyone.
As the golden light grew stronger, more and more white cocoons shattered. The citizens whose souls had not yet completely perished escaped from the nightmare one after another, gaining a new lease on life.
They were then nourished by the golden sparks, and their souls began to stabilize.
The golden light spread toward the inner city district. The Plague-Eating Stove, which had turned into a pool of rotting flesh, bubbled once.
At this moment, everyone who was bowing, everyone who had awakened, and every living creature in the city with a breath left, regardless of where they were, heard a voice clearly in their ears.
"The dream should end."
"Reality is bitter, yet it must be faced. The joy of delusion is, in the end, a cage."
"Sukhavati is shattered."
"Those who endure this bitterness shall live."
The divine decree descended.
The entire dream interlayer constructed by Sukhavati began to disintegrate inch by inch from the edges, like glass.
Red Ling witnessed the entire process of the miracle from within her own body.
She saw with her own eyes the god slaying the demon parasitic in the dream, saw the god tear apart the false peace to save countless trapped souls.
She saw the god guide those tortured souls to take revenge on the demon personally and seek justice.
Now, she saw the god bestow power to purify the filth of a whole city, awaken all those who had sunk, and completely shatter the harmful dream.
A city of blood and lamentation was saved by a single thought of the god.
Settling the world with one hand.
Red Ling thought of herself.
She used to always think about how she could enter the god's eyes.
She was always envious of Jian Huaishuang, who could gain the god's favor and serve by his side.
In the turbid world, who wouldn't want to receive the pity of a true god, and who wouldn't want to enjoy the god's protection?
She had always thought the god sat high on his divine throne, unobservant of the curling incense smoke and unmindful of the followers' pleas.
But she was wrong; she had been obsessed with herself.
As a god, his gaze should naturally be placed upon all living beings.
The god views the entire situation. If he were preoccupied with the joys and sorrows of a single blade of grass or a single tree, how could he observe the life and death of the entire forest?
The Lord had been watching everyone all along.
As a follower of the god, she should not disgrace the god's prestige; she should not merely be greedy for the god's personal favor.
She should also place her gaze upon all living beings, just as the god did—to guard, to bless, and to give hope to all beings.
This was the best way for a believer to follow the path of the god.
At this moment, Red Ling's sea of consciousness became clearer than ever before.
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