Chain Reaction

When the first spark of fire emerged, what it triggered was a nightmarish chain reaction—shattered consciousness, festering desires, insatiable thirst, and boundless greed converged into one. Fallen self-nature, aberrated order, endless indulgence, murderous intent and madness suppressed over vast stretches of time, never-satisfied desires, illusions forged of piety and lies, and even this stagnant, twisted world that had long since lost all capacity for development—all were endowed with substance and power! When the emblems of Sovereign Virtue faded from the heavens, totems of Great Sin manifested one after another in relentless succession! Behind the light of Sovereign Virtue, the shadows of Great Sin gushed from the void, converging and taking shape! Swallowing up boundless corruption and aberration, they appeared here. The cycling, blending, colliding, spurring, and branching of light and shadow established their dual structure, allowing this originally isolated system to be mirrored across another dimension. Linked to one another, mutually repelling yet mutually fulfilling. Virtue and Sin—split in twain right here! Even though he had intended this all along, the myriad variations and details took even Ji Jue, the instigator, by surprise. In fact, he profited immensely! Even within the Tower of Myriad Transformations, what Tianlu would never have permitted Ji Jue to do—what Ji Jue back then wouldn't have even dared imagine—was accomplished inside this runaway dream! Building the framework of Sovereign Virtue from scratch, using it as a reflection and projection to gather the shadows of Great Sin—who could ever possess such an invaluable experience?! Even if this was fundamentally nothing more than flowers in a mirror or the moon on water, didn't the reflection of flowers in a mirror and the moon on water stem from reality too?! "What a sin! A literal sin!" Beneath the Tower of Babel, squatting on the ground and smoking a cigarette, the Qitan old codger grimaced, sighing and scratching his head until he was nearly bald. This time, it was quite literally a sin in the making! Even though he had lowered his bottom line as far, far, far as it could go to gauge Ji Jue, that bastard was simply too deranged. The old codger was completely losing his composure. Is this something you can play with?! If word got out—fuck, besides himself, who had indirectly participated in the process, no one else seemed capable of penetrating the surface and understanding the essence to spread word of Ji Jue's madness. But even if he spread it himself, would anyone actually believe him?! What a joke—Nirvana calling someone antisocial would be the joke of the year! It might even backfire and sculpt a Golden Body for that dog Ji Jue. Besides, Ji Jue did it, but didn't he have a hand in it too?! If one of them died, they both died! From the very beginning, this bastard had completely hedged him out! Now, Virtue and Sin rotated, diffusing with terrifying speed. The empowerment of Sovereign Virtue and the aberration of Great Sin swept across the world like a deluge, engulfing everyone in their wake. When the sins they had once committed turned into reality and bit back at them, who could escape? All the users linked to Limbo still had the Pure Land system to shoulder the pressure and isolate the impact. But what about beyond Limbo? What about Tiancheng? What did it have?! That Holy God who had stood by coldly to this moment, paying you no heed whatsoever?! Sovereign Virtue reigned here supreme. Great Sin followed close behind! As the world was overlaid with brand-new frameworks and standards, amidst the earth-shattering upheaval—"All value shall be reweighed." Before the Age of Chaos, among the fragments of ancient history, such an adage had once circulated. And before it, there was actually another line: "God is dead!" Amidst Ji Jue's laughter, Tiancheng's final defenses shattered into pieces. Bolstered by Sovereign Virtue, the iron demons drove straight in, sweeping through with unrestrained fury, crushing everything in their path. Be they wailing angels or aberrated Saints! Flames—flames continued to spread. Plazas, sanctuaries, armories—crimson or pale flames rose and crept without ceasing, permeating everywhere. Tangible fire gradually set Tiancheng ablaze, while intangible flames had long since engulfed the entire world! As Sovereign Virtue and Great Sin snowballed at breakneck speed, everything once forged by the Order disintegrated in rapid collapse, turning to ash and smoke! It didn't even leave behind the courtesy of a snap. Boom!!! The towering, solemn walls tore like tissue paper. Fractures spread and collapsed; amidst the dust and smoke, squirming flesh gushed forth like a cataract! A mountain of flesh rose swiftly, continuously swelling, swelling, swelling! Countless angels shrieked and took flight, desperate to escape, only to be seized in giant, pudgy hands and stuffed into gaping maws within the flesh. Hundreds and thousands of faces and mouths crawled across its surface, drooling hungrily and spitting acid, crazily gnawing on one another. Wailing or cackling, groaning or calling out, they shouted in all directions: "Come a little closer! Just a little closer!" "Nearer, oh, nearer still—" "You must be hungry, aren't you? Eat something, eat more!" Beneath the erosion of corruption, the Saint of Mercy finally revealed his true form! Amidst the ruins, right at the center of that mountain of flesh, a bloated, obese figure scarcely resembling a human was still clutching a wailing angel, ceaselessly biting, chewing, and devouring in utter oblivion, sucking the flesh and blood, refusing to let even a crumb clinging to his fingers go to waste. He had long forgotten where he was. Immersed in a sweet dream, helpless to pull himself out. "Eat! Eat!! Everyone—haha, hahaha—let's all eat together!" Generously scooping up chunks of flesh and fat bristling with fangs, he scattered them in all directions, dancing with wild abandon. "Feast your fill, everyone! Have no fear, have no worry—the true meaning of Ultimate Bliss lies right here!" "Ekonzo!!!!!" A roar rang out from within the flames. Blazing light erupted as the bloodstained White Knight soared into the sky, iron wings unfurling, swooping down like a comet! Amidst the roaring detonation, a giant hole blasted open at the center of the mountain of flesh, raining down blood. The humming spear impaled Ekonzo's chest, piercing deep into the marrow. Yet immediately after, it was pulled free. He opened his mouth and bit down into it as if it were a meal delivered straight to his door. Bite after bite, heedless of his lips tearing and gushing blood, he swallowed the twisted spear into his belly, completely absorbed in feeding. He had even forgotten the enemy right before his eyes. Only when he noticed that face, twisted almost beyond recognition in pure fury, did he freeze in place. Then, he understood. "Ah, I see. Are you hungry too?" Across that swollen face surfaced a generous smile. He scooped up his own fat and flesh and generously offered it forward: "Come, don't be shy, eat up!" Yan Fei was silent, uttering not a single word. Only the great axe in his grip tightened, sparks spraying forth, on the verge of shattering. It tore through the air! The axe blade cleaved into that smiling face, splitting it in two from top to bottom! In a geyser of blood, the squirming flesh transformed into a giant mouth bristling with fangs. Snapping shut, it crushed the axe blade and hungrily gnawed on his arm, chewing the steel! From within the flesh, that bloated face resurfaced, as though finally shocked awake by pain, or perhaps merely experiencing a flash of clarity in its stupor! "Haha, hahaha, I get it now—you must be starving—" Across Ekonzo's face, deformed eyes opened one after another, laughing in realization. "You came to eat me, didn't you?" Boom!!! Enraged, Yan Fei plunged his ruined arm into Ekonzo's maw, and then— Detonation! Flames surged, incinerating that face to ash along with half of Yan Fei's body. Yet in the charred flesh, Ekonzo's faces surfaced one after another in crowded layers, scrambling over one another to gnaw on their own flesh and even the steel fragments, babbling in mad gibberish: "So fragrant, so fragrant, what a waste—why won't you take a single bite—" "Eat?" Yan Fei ground his teeth together. "Just to eat—" "Huh? Why not eat?" Ekonzo looked at him blankly. "Isn't everyone eating? Everyone eats—if you don't eat others, how can you survive?" To live in this world is to be eaten. If you don't want to be eaten, you have to eat others! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Isn't that simply the law of heaven and earth?! And so, Yan Fei had nothing left to say. He had wanted to interrogate this madman, to ask if he remembered what he had done, how monstrous a sin he had committed. But by now, none of it mattered anymore. Accusations were unnecessary, and judgment was pointless. The fire was already lit. There was only one thing left to do. "Ekonzo, people like you—no—" Amidst the pain of his soul burning, bloody flames erupted from Yan Fei's eyes. "Monsters like you should be burned to ashes in Hell!!!" In the deepest depths of the steel, the final shackle was completely unbound! Across his shattered half-body, metallic light surged, reconstructing the lost form once more. In the end, those empty five fingers tightened around an invisible hilt. [Virtual blessing loading initiated. Blessing chain activation complete.] —[Simulated Pan Ying], deploy! Boundless scarlet erupted like a geyser, piercing the heavens and transforming into a blaze of light connecting sky and earth. Gripped firmly in Yan Fei's hand, it slashed down at the monster and demon before him! Bloody fire engulfed everything like a tidal surge. The bloated mountain of flesh, the endless meat, and every wailing face disintegrated like grains of sand washed away by the tide, turning to dust and smoke. In the end, amidst countless picked-clean bones, only a shriveled figure remained—covered in sores and scars, emaciated and withered, curled up and breathing its last. In the burning bloody flames, it struggled to open its eyes. It was as if it had awakened from an endless dream of gluttony, or plunged back into the nightmare of the past—it could hardly tell. Hungry... so hungry, so hungry... Too hungry, maddeningly hungry. Want to eat... anything is fine, feces, mud, leaves, dry grass, even rotting corpses, it doesn't matter, please let me eat something, I beg you... It groaned and wailed, its mangled body squirming with difficulty, chasing after that faint, fleeting fragrance, crawling with all its might. In the ruins, beneath a broken table, lying in a shattered fruit platter was half an apple, caked in dust and long since rotten. Its eyes lit up. Opening its mouth, squirming, it strained to get closer. Using the last of its strength, it reached out a hand— Snap! The sound of fracturing rang out. A blood-red blade pierced through the skull. Flames spread, and the rotten apple, amidst shrill wailing, was incinerated to ash. Yan Fei looked down coldly, gazing upon the monster's final disgrace without wavering, until its last vestige of soul dispersed into the wind. Nothing remained. And so, tightening his grip on the sword, he turned and walked toward the battlefield. There were still more demons; there were still more monsters... They had to be burned away. They had to be slaughtered. They all had to be ruthlessly exterminated to the very last!