Outside the canopy.
The sky is dark, the clouds dense.
On the dark, rugged vast mud ground.
A tall man in a moon-white robe is slowly walking step by step along the road surface.
The road is indistinct; if you don’t look carefully, you simply cannot identify that it used to be a well-built wide driveway.
The man keeps moving forward, and after walking a distance, he looks up to check the sky.
"Hopefully the clouds won’t disperse again." He mumbles softly.
The black clouds in the sky remain clustered, growing denser without dissipating.
But a blurry black silhouette is approaching right in front.
It is a strong black-winged humanoid.
Its face only has a large mouth, and its gigantic eyes grow at the center of its chest, like purple crystals.
"Living spirit...! Living spirit!!" The humanoid screams, like a wild beast.
On both sides of the road are undulating pitch-black hills.
No trees, just bare soil and black stones; it’s entirely unclear where this humanoid emerged from.
"Here we go again...." The moon-white robed man’s expression sharpens.
He is the Moon God, having just emerged from his interaction zone, carrying the accumulated power of Spirit Flying Heaven as the strongest Divine.
At first, when he came out, his mood was exceptionally joyous, but as he felt the harsh environment and saw the land void of any living being,
His blood gradually sank in his heart.
He began to doubt whether he had truly returned to the world he dreamed of.
’But the world is vast, perhaps I just happened to appear in a desolate and uninhabited place.’ The Moon God thought, starting to search for traces of humanity.
Soon, he found traces of a road that had been left for an unknown amount of time.
Thus, he began to follow the path forward.
The road connects to towns, so by following a route, he would surely find a place of human activity.
He has already encountered monsters like the one ahead more than once.
These monsters are practically everywhere here, encountering three to five every now and then.
The most troublesome, however, is not this.
But.....
The Moon God raised his hand, the vast power within him kept surging, but he couldn’t release it. He could only use it for self-enhancement.
Moreover....
There was no presence of any Grandmaster’s power here.
He could split off Yue Dewen, so he was naturally also a Grandmaster at the pinnacle of martial arts.
He has a thorough understanding of this power.
But at this moment, he could feel it.
His power spreading out had no effect on the opponent whatsoever.
And seemingly, it was not the opponent’s issue.
It wasn’t the first test, but still the Moon God felt a sinking feeling inside.
The presence of power is the foundation of Divine might.
Both originate from consciousness, evolving into an invisible spiritual attack.
Yet such spiritual attacks seem to be useless now.
Without the power, without the Divine might amplification, the only reliance he had was his martial arts realm and the comprehensive qualities of his body.
"Kill!!"
The black-winged humanoid lunged forward swiftly, crossing tens of meters in the blink of an eye, pouncing in front of him.
Its right hand opened, five fingers ejecting sharp purple blades, grabbing at the Moon God like lightning.
Swish!!
A flash of purple light.
The Moon God retreated just an inch, precisely avoiding the strike.
This was the preemptive defense of a Grandmaster; during his previous encounters with these monsters, he had already gathered their general patterns, attack habits, and continuity in their moves.
Swish swish swish!
The humanoid monster roared in rage, unable to catch the opponent, it grew even more furious, crazily swinging its arms, leaving behind purple claw marks.
But no matter how frenzied it became, it couldn’t touch the Moon God at all.
"Fix."
Suddenly, the Moon God had a short staff in his hand, striking forward like lightning.
This thrust was precisely during the gap that the humanoid monster couldn’t dodge, hitting right on the purple eye on its chest.
Bang!
The purple vertical pupil shattered.
The humanoid staggered back two steps, kneeling to the ground with a thud, silent.
The Moon God stood in place, watching the black staff in his hand, which emitted black smoke and gradually twisted and dissolved, casually discarding it.
He had picked it up casually on the roadside earlier, preparing for such situation.
Once the humanoid fell to the ground, it ceased moving and remained there.
Unlike Divine beings who would automatically explode into countless Spiritual Lines, evidently, this was a creature that hadn’t transcended its physical body.
’Is this place truly my father’s homeland?’ The Moon God raised his head looking far, seeing the endless blurred view, a thread of doubt rising in his heart.
Yet years of tempered resolve made him steadfast, and he continued to hurry forward.
Even if he couldn’t use Divine might and power, and his strength diminished greatly,
He still possessed terrifying Spiritual Lines and martial arts realm at its peak along with tactics.
Only....
A new question arose in the Moon God’s mind at this moment.
’If in this world outside the canopy, Divine’s power and presence cannot have real lethality, then why develop this aspect forcefully within the canopy?’
When he was plundering Spirit Flying Heaven’s accumulation, he carefully reviewed the system’s settings.
Spirit Flying Heaven controlled a large batch of Earth Mother Goddess and Celestial Gods, most of these Divine beings had already fallen into madness, losing themselves, similar to the Wish Girl and Blood God on Zhang Rongfang.
But many remained sober.
They were constantly drained of power in secret by the Spirit Flying Heaven system.
Under the constraints of Bright God Record, Spirit Flying Heaven had a complete disciplinary system prohibiting any Divine from daring to escape.
And outside, the Divine beings only felt that Spirit Flying Heaven was high and mighty, cold and ruthless, with immense power of the three Saint leaders, patrolling on behalf of the heavens.
Therefore, from the beginning, the purpose of the Spirit Flying Heaven system was to accumulate and gather vast amounts of Divine might.
But now.
The Moon God suddenly realized.
Divine power is unusable outside???
Then what is the meaning of Spirit Flying Heaven collecting divine power for so many years?
Could it be that the pioneers of the past were all wrong?
The Moon God could not understand.
*
*
*
Taoyuan.
Zhang Rongfang frowned as he stared at the blood wall in front of him, beaten into various protrusions.
The strange humanoid outside continued to rush back and forth at high speed, seemingly without any pattern.
Yet, among the afterimages, there was an obscure malice.
This malice... did not originate from the opponent’s attack.
Zhang Rongfang furrowed his eyebrows even tighter.
His current realm instinct had reached a high level; he could detect something amiss at the slightest hint.
At this moment, he clearly kept the opponent at bay with ease. But.....
Suddenly, Zhang Rongfang’s gaze sharpened as he opened the attribute panel.
At the bottom of the attribute panel, a line belonging to intuition alert began to glow softly.
’Intuition Alert: Some deep-seated malice is constantly eroding your consciousness.’
’Malice??’ Zhang Rongfang’s mind moved abruptly.
The blood wall that had previously blocked the opponent’s attacks suddenly dispersed, circulating to his front.
Only to find the areas that had been struck were showing a faint purple color.
He isolated the purple blood, discovering that he could no longer manipulate these parts of the blood.
The blood cells within had completely lost vitality.
"This thing...."
Zhang Rongfang reached out to grab.
Countless blood formed a giant crimson hand at his side, fiercely grasping toward the opponent.
"Kill!"
The strange humanoid opened its arms, and the purple vertical pupil on its chest suddenly brightened, shooting explosively at Zhang Rongfang.
The purple beam pierced through the blood hand, its power far surpassing the previous phantom assaults, striking Zhang Rongfang’s arm skin directly.
A faint pain came over him.
He raised his hand and looked, only to find a small piece of flesh on his hand was missing, and the wound was rapidly spreading and expanding.
He controlled the wound’s flesh to automatically isolate and fly off.
’What is this thing?’ Zhang Rongfang furrowed his brow.
He watched as the piece of wound flesh quickly turned purple, emanating an intense discomfort.
He pondered for a moment, looking at the strange humanoid still dodging within the blood hand, trying to attack here.
"Blood River."
A large amount of blood gushed out, transforming into countless crimson spikes, shooting toward the opponent like a rainstorm.
Under the barrage of hundreds of blood spikes per second, in just a few seconds,
the strange humanoid was pierced through repeatedly, finally unable to stay aloft, and plummeted downward.
Boom!!!
Suddenly, its body transformed into a purple mini-sun, violently exploding.
The dazzling light radiated outward in all directions.
Just a glance made Zhang Rongfang’s eyes ache, causing him to quickly raise a blood screen to shield himself.
Not long after, the purple light dissipated.
Everything returned to calm.
He then lowered the blood screen, glancing around.
’It seems to be over.’
The strange humanoid had disappeared.
Suspended in mid-air, Zhang Rongfang looked sternly at the slowly disappearing alert in his intuition.
And at the part of his blood that had turned purple.
These blood drops seemed to start writhing and expanding from the purple light explosion, as if trying to break free from constraints.
This phenomenon was completely beyond his blood control ability.
’What exactly is this?’
"This is an Evil Spirit."
Suddenly, a voice entered his ears from afar.
"Who is it!?" Zhang Rongfang looked toward that direction.
"An old man who has forgotten his own name."
In the dim light, a filthy old man, wearing a long gray cloth robe, with his hair and beard tangled down to his feet, slowly climbed over from a rock wall on one side.
He hung sideways on the rock wall, with fingers and toes much longer than usual, easily gripping the wall.
"Haven’t seen anyone come here for a long time. Hello, unfamiliar young man." The old man’s mouse-like eyes peered out from his dense hair and eyebrows.
"Do you know what that was just now?" Zhang Rongfang asked in a deep voice.
"Of course, I know." The old man laughed. "That thing is very common outside. It’s called the Evil Spirit Vehicle."
"Evil Spirit Vehicle?"
"Speaking of which, this interaction zone has now turned into a ghostly place. Only a little remnant time is left." The old man sighed.
"What does this mean?" Zhang Rongfang felt a stir in his heart but maintained a calm expression.
"The sky dome is starting to shrink. This means the internal cycle is close to breaking." The old man replied.
"Of course, it could also mean the outside sky light is getting worse. In any case, when I came in, the sky light wasn’t this severe. Now... tsk tsk...."
"Earlier, a Moon God wanted to leave the sky dome to explore outside, did you see him?" Zhang Rongfang asked directly.
"I saw him. I even talked to him." The old man chuckled, "He said he wanted to go back to his hometown. I told him there’s nothing outside, just a ruined and desolate world. He didn’t believe me."
"You just said you hadn’t seen anyone for a long time." Zhang Rongfang frowned.
"Ah, I was just saying that for fun, hahaha." The old man laughed. His pronunciation was very inconsistent, and his accent was somewhat unclear.
"What exactly is the world outside like?" Zhang Rongfang paused, though he felt the other was unreliable, he still asked the question.
"I told you, didn’t I? Destroyed, everything is destroyed. Everyone is hiding in the interaction zone, barely hanging on."
The old man raised a hand and with just one hand, jabbed sharply into the rock wall, creating a pit to hang onto his body.
His physical strength seemed very high, making this movement incredibly easy.
Also making Zhang Rongfang’s heart recoil.