When the sound of the call rang throughout the world, nearly everyone on Canxing wore a blank, stunned look.
"Why is my phone suddenly forcing an audio clip to play?"
"I'm filing a complaint! I bought this computer only the day before yesterday. It cost me over ten thousand yuan, and it's already broken?"
"Huang Tian, the Lord on High? What kind of new internet virus is this? Damn it, the stuff on my phone isn't going to be lost, is it?"
"Holy crap. Every phone around me is playing the same audio. This virus is insane. Which big shot cooked it up?"
"Can human technology even do this? Could it be black tech from aliens?"
"Believe aliens exist, and you've got it made this life."
"Like hell! Can you talk like a normal person?"
"Heh. Aliens? You might as well say spiritual qi has suddenly revived, immortals have returned from ages past, and new arts are contending with old ones."
"Buddy, read too many novels? What new arts and old arts? And immortals—pfft. If gods and immortals exist in this world, I'll livestream myself eating three jin of shit!"
"And here comes another one angling for a free meal—"
While the populace buzzed with talk, the official and civilian oddity organizations of every country, after a brief daze, all grew tense.
"This is... a meme-type oddity?!"
"What kind of meme is it, exactly? What effects does it have? What are its properties? Trouble! This audio has spread far too widely. It seems every electronic device in the whole world that can make a sound has been taken over."
"I hope it isn't the worst case—for instance, that hearing this audio makes people want to kill themselves, or that it twists their wills and makes them worship that god without reservation."
"The latter would be a bit better. We could use oddities to erase the world's memory of that existence. That way, the faith ought to disappear."
"Sigh. The world grows more chaotic by the day. Who knows when it will end?"
"Unless we can find the legendary root of oddities—the one we have named Oddity No. 000—we will be walking a tightrope forever."
"Does Oddity No. 000 really exist?"
Longjiang City. Jiuguang Town.
The black-robed Daoist stood in the air, listening to thousands upon thousands of voices calling, his heart unsettled by shock and doubt. Zhou Dongqiang and Liu Qingqing, at whom his sword point was aimed, exchanged a glance, their eyes full of astonishment.
Some time earlier, they had tried to investigate traces of "Huang Tian, the Lord on High." Yet no matter what means they used, they had found nothing. Now this god seemed about to appear again—
"Boom!"
High in the sky, after another clash of dharma power, "Fire God" Chen Yan and Black Lotus Sect Supreme Elder Wen Ru stopped fighting at the same moment, as if by tacit agreement.
The former let out a light sigh, looked toward Wen Ru, and said with some helplessness, "Now you know why I said the waters of this world run deep, don't you? So deep you can't see the bottom!"
Wen Ru's face was grave. She released her divine sense and swept the surroundings, and found that not only in Jiuguang Town, but the phones, computers, and the like of the several million people throughout Longjiang City were all forcibly playing that audio. Beyond Longjiang City, it was the same.
"This voice... is it calling that god, praying for him to descend?" She frowned slightly, her heart uneasy, a faint urge to retreat rising in her.
She had been in this world only a moment, and already she had run into something like this. If she stayed any longer, never mind conquering Canxing—she would probably have to throw her life in as well—
No. This realm was extremely special. There had to be an opportunity here that would help her become an immortal. She could not retreat like this and return to the Ninghua Realm. Otherwise, even if she cultivated bitterly for another thousand years, she had no confidence she could pass the immortal ascension tribulation and ascend to the Upper Realm.
Her thoughts raced. She pressed down the anxiety in her heart and sent the black flower basket aloft. The basket floated above her head and shed a hazy radiance like black gauze, protecting her from head to foot. At the same time her left hand pinched a Glazed Vajra Talisman, ready to activate it at any moment.
Chen Yan glanced at her. "Cautious, at least."
Wen Ru did not answer. She only spread her divine sense as far as she could, watching everything around her at every moment, guarding against the unexpected.
Suddenly—
"The sky!"
"Look at the sky, quick! There seems to be something there. What is that?"
"It looks like... a pair of eyes?"
Hearing the screams beside her ears, Wen Ru raised her eyes. Indeed, in the sky there was a pair of incomparably enormous "eyes." The left eye blazed like the sun; the right eye shone like the moon. They stretched across the vault of heaven, looking down upon every scene and every living spirit of the mortal world!
He—that Huang Tian, the Lord on High—stood beyond the planet!
Wen Ru was terrified. She could see a little more clearly than ordinary people. Limited by their eyesight, ordinary people could see only that pair of brightest eyes, but she could see that beyond the planet there was a phantom even vaster than Canxing, looking down upon the world!
Its body was draped in roseate light, hazy and illusory, as if starlight brightened and dimmed as it flowed within. There was neither sorrow nor joy in its eyes. It only examined the world, and saw through everything.
An immortal! A god! This was absolutely a seventh-rank, even an eighth-rank existence! She screamed wildly in her heart. The Ninghua Realm she came from did not have a single True Immortal or True Demon, and the moment she arrived on Canxing she had seen an immortal god this powerful!
How could this world be so outrageous?!
Wen Ru could make out that god's outline, and Chen Yan naturally could as well. He shook his head again and again, murmuring, "A being like this, striking with full force, could probably smash Canxing to bits, couldn't it? Is it a humanoid oddity, or a cultivator? Sigh. Whatever it is, I only hope it doesn't destroy the planet—
Why can't Heaven give me a little more time to grow stronger? If I refined the godhood and my strength reached its peak, I certainly wouldn't be this passive now—"
"It's gone! The eyes are gone!" Suddenly someone pointed at the sky and shouted.
"Huh? They're really gone?" Just as Chen Yan was secretly fretting, he heard the voice, raised his head, and looked hard. Sure enough, he could no longer see the eyes or the humanoid phantom from before.
Wen Ru secretly let out a breath as well, and the fingers pinching the talisman loosened slightly.
Yet in the very next second, every one of them went rigid, fear showing in their eyes.
The void fluctuated. Ripple upon ripple spread, and a figure strode out. A faint halo radiated from all around him. His face could not be made out, and yet everyone had a powerful intuition: this person was that god from just now, Huang Tian, the Lord on High!
The air went dead silent at once.
No one dared speak, and no one dared move, afraid that the slightest motion would draw his attention—
"Black Lotus Sect?"
A faint voice sounded. The gaze of Huang Tian's spiritual-power avatar shifted and fell upon the people of the Black Lotus Sect.
Wen Ru's body went taut. Without the slightest hesitation she activated the Glazed Vajra Talisman. A layer of hazy golden light immediately protected her whole body, and the radiance shed by the black flower basket grew stronger still. Then she whirled and fled downward, meaning to escape to where the world-crossing gate stood and flee back to the Ninghua Realm.
The moment she moved, the black-robed Daoist and the others were frightened out of their wits, and all fled after her.
Seeing this, Huang Tian unhurriedly extended a finger and lightly tapped the void.
"Clang!"
A point of radiance bloomed from his fingertip and in an instant became tens of thousands of sword qi. The sword light was grim and cold, sweeping the long sky, surging and spreading like a river as it chased straight after Wen Ru and the others.
In the blink of an eye, the slower black-robed Daoist and all the Black Lotus Sect disciples were sliced to meat paste by the vast, rolling sword qi. Their terrified screams cut off abruptly.
Wen Ru looked back in horror and shouted, "Senior, spare my life! This humble woman is willing to serve as your slave and servant—"
Shhk!
Sword qi of the utmost sharpness cleaved open the dual barrier of the Glazed Vajra Talisman and the black flower basket in a single stroke and passed through her soft body. In an instant a rain of blood scattered, a mist of blood rose, and countless fragments of flesh and bone splashed down from high in the air.
After killing Wen Ru, the sword qi went even faster toward an ordinary three-story building on the ground. There was only a faint sound of cutting, and the several Black Lotus Sect disciples inside the building who had been set to guard the world-crossing gate died one after another.
Then Huang Tian took one step and instantly appeared before the world-crossing gate. Without hesitation he stepped into it, and a world rich in spiritual qi, lush with flowers and grass, appeared before his eyes.
He swiftly released his divine sense. His expression stirred. He took a step toward the northwest, and his figure appeared atop a mountain range where spiritual qi curled in wisps.
This was precisely the mountain gate of the Ninghua Realm's foremost demonic sect, the Black Lotus Sect.
"Whoosh—"
He stood above the mountain range. With a slight sweep of his sleeve, a divine wind rose!
This wind had neither form nor shape, yet it could shatter bone and scatter the soul. Where it passed, ten-thousand-year-old vines were stripped bare to root and stem, and thousand-zhang cliffs peeled away layer by layer!
Before spirit birds could beat their wings, they were already like kites with snapped strings, tumbling from the cliffs. Beasts had only just tried to hide when they were like falling leaves and drifting weeds, tossed wildly through the air. The wind grew ever fiercer. Even dormant insects hidden deep in the cracks of the rock felt their five viscera burning and their three souls growing faint. Even old trees rooted a thousand chi deep were shaken until branches snapped and roots loosened, then toppled with a crash!
The whole mountain range seemed to have become the wind's pocket. What it swallowed was vitality. What it spat out was powder.
Truly: unseen, the formless wind devours bone; in an instant, ten thousand ages turn to emptiness!
"Who dares offend our holy sect—ah!"
"What a vicious wind!"
"Sect Master, save me!"
In the mountains, at first there were still terrified cries, and some flashes of light, but in no more than three or five breaths all fell into dead silence—
Having finished off the Black Lotus Sect, Huang Tian turned and returned to Canxing.
About half an hour later, several Yang Spirit and Great Ascension cultivators who had long since caught wind of the disturbance came to this mountain range to investigate. When they found that the Black Lotus Sect, whose might had shaken the Ninghua Realm, had been slaughtered to the last, they were both shocked and delighted.
A Great Ascension cultivator of the orthodox Dao clapped his hands and praised, "Today the Divine Lord swept wide his sleeves, and a thousand mountains and ten thousand ravines all became dust! Haha! From this day, in our realm, the Dao waxes and the demons wane!"
"Gulp—"
Having seen that the people of the Black Lotus Sect, so rampant and overbearing before, could not withstand even a single move, Chen Yan, Liu Qingqing, and Zhou Dongqiang secretly swallowed, not daring to move a muscle.
Only when they saw Huang Tian enter the world-crossing gate did Zhou Dongqiang ask, carefully, "That one... has he gone to another world, to pull the weeds out by the roots?"
Chen Yan pressed his lips together and slowly nodded. "It should be so."
The few of them were silent for a moment. Liu Qingqing slowly let out a breath. "Just from the earlier Joy Paradise incident, one can see that He is not the sort to kill indiscriminately, so we needn't worry too much. As for the Black Lotus Sect, they are clearly a demonic Dao sect. Being wiped out clean is a good thing, too."
Zhou Dongqiang nodded in agreement. "Indeed. The first time Huang Tian, the Lord on High, appeared, he descended into an instance world of Joy Paradise. He saved many players. From that alone one can tell He at least has a plain, simple sense of justice. Whether He is an oddity or a cultivator, we needn't worry that He will destroy humanity, or destroy Canxing."
Chen Yan was just about to reply when the void suddenly rippled, and Huang Tian's figure manifested.
The few of them immediately shut their mouths and looked at one another, shock in every pair of eyes. How long had it been? Only a minute, and the Black Lotus Sect had been wiped out?
Huang Tian's gaze swept over them and, at last, paused on Chen Yan.
The latter's scalp went numb and his body drew taut. Did he want the godhood Chen Yan had fused with?
Zhou Dongqiang and Liu Qingqing thought of this as well. Their hearts pounded, and their throats went dry.
Facing the three tense people, Huang Tian's gaze pierced Chen Yan's body and saw a crystalline, bright Flame Godhood inside him. "Sure enough. Possession."
A flick of his finger, and a streak of flowing light shot into Chen Yan's body. At once Chen Yan's body jolted. Then violent pain came over him, contorting his face and spasming his muscles. In the next instant, that Flame Godhood flew out of his body.
The godhood stood imposing in the high air, facing Huang Tian across the distance, then burst forth with endless crimson firelight. A human figure walked out of the light.
He was tall of build, clad in crimson battle armor, an ancient, unadorned long spear in his right hand. Flames churned all around him. Pillars of fire thrust straight into the heavens and burned the vault of the sky into a boiling sea of fire!
The clouds were like flowing lava. The air warped in the scorching heat. As far as the eye could see, all was crimson!
"The Fire God! The true Fire God!" Chen Yan's face was pale as he looked at the Fire God in battle armor, a feeling in his heart he could not put into words.
He had once relied on the Flame Godhood. His strength had advanced by leaps and bounds, his momentum unmatched as he dominated a whole region. But there was no free lunch in the world. Everything had a price, and that price was precisely the worst possibility the Oddity Management Association had guessed—possession!
Fortunately, under Huang Tian's influence now, the possession seemed not to have succeeded. But though the possession had not succeeded, all of his strength had vanished. He had become an ordinary person—
"You ruined my plan!" the Fire God said coldly, spear in hand.
"So?" Huang Tian laughed lightly. "Come. Kill me!"
"You still dare provoke me? You're courting death!"
The Fire God was furious to the extreme. Divine power surged wildly through his whole body as he brandished the long spear. Flames rolled along the spear, linking a sea of fire across thousands upon thousands of li and gathering it into nine enormous fire dragons, fangs bared and claws spread. Their dragon roars shook the heavens. They burned through the void and lunged straight at Huang Tian!
Huang Tian's expression was composed. He neither dodged nor yielded. Only his eyes changed all at once.
Pure white yang qi rose in his left eye. Profound black yin qi sank in his right. Two beams of divine light shot from his eyes and intertwined in midair!
Yin and yang qi generated and restrained each other, spinning until they condensed into a huge pair of shears. Black and white flowed over the whole of them. Cold light burst from the cutting edges, as if they could shear apart every tangible and intangible thing in the world!
The shears met the nine fire dragons.
Only one shear!
The nine fire dragons froze together in midair. Dragon heads and dragon bodies separated at the same time, becoming eighteen segments of broken carcass that collapsed with a boom. A sky full of sparks fell in a shower like rain.
The Yin-Yang Shears did not slow. They tore open the sea of fire filling the sky and came before the Fire God.
"Impossible!"
The Fire God raised his spear in shock to block, but the shears sheared once more and cut the divine spear in two!
With the long spear broken, the Fire God was even more panicked. He made haste to flee, but the Yin-Yang Shears caught up.
Crack—
His head fell to the ground. His soul split in two. Body dead, soul destroyed!
Chapter 245