On their stat panels, [Morality Points] vanished, as if they had never existed at all. This sudden change caused the five imperial dharmakayas to violently fluctuate, nearly shattering their Dao hearts.
Ever since the Spirit Realm came into being, batch after batch of Spirit Realm walkers had emerged. Yet human order had remained stable, and mortal governments had retained control—not because the orthodox faction was inherently all-powerful.
Admittedly, official organizations acting on behalf of the orthodox faction had cracked down on evil classes, effectively curbing crime among Spirit Realm walkers.
However, what truly kept the evil classes in check was not official organizations, but Morality Points!
Morality Points were the blade suspended above the head of every Spirit Realm walker, the very bedrock of social order and stability.
Without Morality Points, the evil faction could murder, commit arson, pillage, and plunder without the slightest compunction. Meanwhile, orthodox classes could oppress the populace and exploit commoners with utter impunity.
Now that this blade was gone, the entire world would plunge into chaos.
Ling Tuo’s laughter grew increasingly brazen.
“That item is called the ‘Merit Roster,’ one of the core artifacts comprising the Spirit Realm. It is a one-of-a-kind causality-type item that records the good and evil deeds of every single Spirit Realm walker, manifesting them as ‘Merit Points.’
“For an entire century, the freedom faction was held hostage by Morality Points, forced to endure in silence. Dominators and demigods dared not wage war lightly. Even when the Covenant of Freedom toppled the Holy See, we could only surrender the fruits of our victory and helplessly watch you rule the world—all because of the existence of Morality Points.
“Do you know why the Night Wanderer class is so critical? Because the Merit Roster is an artifact of the Night Wanderer class, governed by the Sun. But the Sun has no master. By using Taiyin to shroud the Merit Roster and erase the Morality Points of all Spirit Realm walkers, no one can keep me in check.
“Casting out the Compass of Light back then to accelerate the development of the Night Wanderer class, painstakingly grooming me to embody the power of Taiyin—all of those schemes were for this very day.
“Great chaos is upon us! Order shall collapse, and freedom shall reign supreme!”
*Ring, ring, ring!*
In the study at Fujia Bay, a landline phone rang piercingly, interrupting Fu Qingyang’s work.
He set down the documents he was reading and picked up the receiver. High Deacon Gaoshan Liushui’s frantic voice came through the line:
“Elder Fu, something terrible has happened! The World Financial Tower, Tai’an Shopping Mall, Songhe Tower, and police stations across every district have all come under attack by evil classes!
“Those madmen have lost their minds! They’re slaughtering anyone in sight, spreading poison and releasing venomous insects over massive areas, unleashing Mental Strikes in crowded spaces—they’ve gone completely insane, every single one of them...”
By the end, his voice was trembling.
Fu Qingyang froze momentarily. Even with his sharp intellect, such sudden news was difficult to process. Yet his demeanor remained composed. “How many rioters are there? Are there signs that they are being controlled? Has there been an initial casualty estimate for the civilian population?”
“There are huge numbers of rioters, roaming in packs to commit violence. It’s impossible to determine right now whether they are being mind-controlled. As for civilian casualties...” Gaoshan Liushui gritted his teeth. “It’s a massacre. Dead bodies everywhere.”
A massacre meant the victims were too numerous to count.
Hearing this, Fu Qingyang immediately suspected that Gaoshan Liushui might be the one being manipulated. Rather than believing such an illogical fairy tale, he was more inclined to believe that Gaoshan Liushui had fallen under the evil faction's control and was calling to taunt him.
The evil faction daring to stage a civilian massacre? No amount of Morality Points would suffice to squander like that. Furthermore, mortals were no better than pigs and dogs in the eyes of the evil faction; no one would zero out their Morality Points just to slaughter ordinary people.
Nor had he received any wanted notices from the Spirit Realm.
With that thought, Fu Qingyang opened his stat panel. Suddenly, he froze.
Morality Points... were gone.
The young Money Prince, who remained unflinching even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, was struck dumb. He sat there in a daze until a *ding-dong* notification chimed from his inbox.
An urgent email from the Five Elements Alliance headquarters had arrived:
# Spirit Realm Malfunction: Morality Points Vanished. All Personnel Enter Level 1 Combat Readiness. #
***
[Ding! You have entered the third floor of the museum. Awarded 30 points.]
[Ding! Main Quest: Proceed to the Hall of the Gods as quickly as possible to initiate the Battle of the Gods. Destroy the opposing faction’s deities or survive for three hours.]
Reaching the end of the long staircase, Zhang Yuanqing and his companions heard the chime of the Spirit Realm prompt.
Unlike the modern aesthetic of the first and second floors, the layout of the third floor was rugged and primitive. The walls and floors were constructed from massive stone blocks, resembling an ancient fortress.
They found themselves in a wide corridor over ten meters across, with a ceiling soaring more than fifty meters high, like a dwelling built for giants.
On both sides of the walls stood statues of knights clad in armor and clutching spears.
Beside each statue hung a mounted torch, its dancing flames casting a warm glow.
“The Battle of the Gods?” Alicia knitted her brows. In the Spirit Realm, “god” was an exceedingly sensitive term. The ultimate pinnacle of a Spirit Realm walker was merely a demigod.
Phrases like “Hall of the Gods” and “Battle of the Gods” alone were enough to evoke a suffocating sense of pressure.
*Proceed to the Hall of the Gods as quickly as possible...* Zhang Yuanqing felt the acute urgency conveyed by the quest description.
The five hastened forward, weaving through the stone knight statues. After walking for a short while, Beast King Qingzhu twitched his nostrils and spoke in a deep voice:
“The scent of blood!”
The group slowed their pace, advancing with utmost vigilance. After turning two corners, they spotted the source of the bloody stench.
Ahead along the corridor lay a “corpse.” His body below the waist had been brutally torn apart as though severed in two, and blood had pooled into a lake beneath him.
Zhang Yuanqing looked closely and gasped in shock:
“Osmond?!”
Alicia shrieked as well. “Osmond?!”
The man was none other than the peak Saint of Heaven’s Punishment, the Siren Osmond whom Zhang Yuanqing had once beaten.
Hearing their voices, Osmond, who had shown no signs of life, twitched his eyelids and opened his eyes, struggling to look over.
“Alicia...” Osmond’s pale, cracked lips moved.
Alicia rushed over and crouched beside him. Pulling out an injector of Life Source Fluid, she asked frantically:
“What happened to you? Who did this?”
Osmond possessed a fragment of the Heart of the Ocean, making him like a walking sea; wherever he was became his home turf. Even among peak Saints, he was an elite powerhouse.
A figure like him should have been a top contender for the Dominator advancement quota, yet here he lay, completely broken.
Zhang Yuanqing had long run out of Life Source Fluid, so he brought out the Mountain God Scepter, causing the gem at its tip to radiate a verdant emerald light that stimulated Osmond’s cellular vitality.
Alicia injected two vials of Life Source Fluid in succession, yet they still failed to fully heal him.
Seeing her pull out a third vial, Osmond waved his hand weakly. “Save it... It’s useless, Alicia... In this killing trial, the orthodox classes have no hope of winning. Reviving me will only buy me a short, miserable delay before death.”
Qingzhu glanced at Yuanshi Tianzun beside him, then asked indignantly:
“Why?”
The arrogant Siren ignored him. Alicia asked gently, “Osmond, what on earth happened?”
“It was the Sleeping Dragon Lord!” Osmond said haltingly. “I encountered him in the Hall of the Gods, and then I fled here... He’s too powerful. Despairingly powerful.”
The flickering torchlight reflected off his face, revealing unmasked terror and despair in the eyes of this once-arrogant Siren.
“How could that be!” Alicia couldn't accept it. “No matter how strong the Sleeping Dragon Lord is, he’s still at the Saint stage! He’s on the same level as Fu Qingyang, and weaker than Yuanshi Tianzun. You refused to bow down even to Yuanshi Tianzun, so how could you fear him like this?”
It was understandable that someone could defeat Osmond. What Alicia found impossible to swallow was that he could strike such utter terror into this prideful Siren.
Osmond let out a miserable laugh.
“You haven’t been to the Hall of the Gods yet, so you don’t know the mechanics of this killing trial. There are two core mechanics to the museum dungeon: first, collect as many cultural relics as possible; second, clear the first and second floors as fast as you can to reach the Hall of the Gods.”
Panting for breath, he explained:
“The Hall of the Gods contains the divine dharmakayas of all the gods, each corresponding to a class. Whoever reaches the hall first to integrate with their dharmakaya can destroy the divine dharmakayas of other classes. That is why clearing speed is a core mechanic.
“The more relics you’ve collected, the stronger your divine dharmakaya will be—that’s the second core mechanic. By the time I reached the Hall of the Gods, the Sleeping Dragon Lord had already destroyed every single orthodox divine dharmakaya, except for the Scholar class.
“My clear speed was already fast, but I never expected the Sleeping Dragon Lord to be even faster. He was the very first to arrive.”
At this, even Zhang Yuanqing’s expression shifted.
The Sleeping Dragon Lord had not only been the first to reach the Hall of the Gods, but he had also gathered the most relics.
He had secured an absolute monopoly over both core mechanics of the museum dungeon.
Catching his breath for a few moments, Osmond gritted his teeth.
“I refused to accept it. Something felt off to me. The Sleeping Dragon Lord’s performance doesn't match his past capabilities at all. He’s just a lucky bastard who happened to obtain the *Classic of the Night God* and practiced the arts left behind by ancient superpowered beings. Sure, he’s stronger than me in direct combat, but he has never been superior at dungeon-clearing... Yet the facts are right before my eyes, and I have no choice but to swallow it.”
At this point, he looked up at his colleague. “Alicia, you arrived too late.”
Alicia’s face filled with despair. “We wasted too much time on the second floor...”
*A complete disaster of a start!* In the first-floor exhibition hall, out of worry for Xiao Yuan and the others, they hadn't taken the time to scavenge low-tier relics. On the second floor, they had inadvertently triggered hell mode, squandering massive amounts of time.
Yet even if they had spent time collecting relics on the first floor, it would have been pointless. Doing so would have cost too much time, and by the time they reached the third floor, their divine dharmakayas would have already been destroyed. *It truly leaves a bitter taste...*
The sudden merger of the First District and Second District dungeons, combined with the Sleeping Dragon Lord emerging as overwhelmingly dominant—none of this made sense.
As an exceptional Stargazer, Zhang Yuanqing smelled a conspiracy.
*Was the merger of the First and Second Districts orchestrated just to kill me? Does the Sleeping Dragon Lord possess some unique trait that gave him a decisive advantage in this dungeon? If so, Ling Tuo must have known the contents of this killing trial in advance... But killing trials are generated randomly by the Spirit Realm. Could he have predicted even that?*
*He is the Lord of Taiyin, not the Lord of the Stars.*
With countless thoughts racing through his mind, Zhang Yuanqing said:
“If the Sleeping Dragon Lord were already so powerful that he couldn't be stopped, you wouldn't be lying here waiting for death.”
Only then did the arrogant Siren turn his gaze toward Zhang Yuanqing and the others, having previously ignored the walkers from the Second District entirely.
“An obscure Scholar happened to integrate with his dharmakaya in time, but he’s no match for the Sleeping Dragon Lord. Right now, he’s in the Hall of the Gods, joining forces with Jiang Ju and the others in a desperate last stand,” Osmond said.
That obscure Scholar was undoubtedly Xiahou Aotian. *As expected of the self-proclaimed protagonist—stepping up to carry the burden at the critical moment!* Zhang Yuanqing felt a mix of relief and intense dread.
He had no idea what level of power the Sleeping Dragon Lord had attained, nor whether there remained any chance of turning the tables. All of that would have to be assessed upon reaching the Hall of the Gods.
With that in mind, a sense of urgency seized him, and he urged his companions:
“Don’t waste any more time. Let’s head to the Hall of the Gods first.”
Chapter 794