The tedious days of the redeemers continued as usual. On Miracle's end, it increased its monitoring of the Church of the Holy Mother according to Chen Xu's instructions.
However, the situation did not seem to unfold as Chen Xu had anticipated. The Church of the Holy Mother remained as incompetent as ever.
The church was still made up of a large group of ordinary people who gathered every day, either to vent their grievances or to curse the oppression of the transcendent lords.
But the Church of the Holy Mother was not entirely without progress. Under the desperate pleas of a highly persuasive believer, a new transcendent joined this run-down church.
The high-end combat power of the Church of the Holy Mother expanded from three to four, instantly increasing by a third.
The Church of the Holy Mother had spread across more than forty worlds. On average, each world had about 0.1 transcendents. It was simply too powerful, too threatening.
It was so powerful that the official organizations of many civilizations had begun to contemplate whether they should remove the Church of the Holy Mother from their blacklist of cults to save on unnecessary expenditures.
After all, the members of the official tactical squads were all scrambling to monitor the Church of the Holy Mother, treating the task as a publicly funded vacation.
Some had even come to blows over it, nearly causing casualties.
Under this bizarre tranquility, the myriad worlds enjoyed another rare period of peace.
During this time, Chen Xu made a trip to the Universe Daoist Academy. This was mainly because his avatar had reached the mythic-tier and was preparing to break through to the Eternal Rank, which required a vast amount of resources.
To this end, Chen Xu shared his method of purging corruption with Li Taiji, the Yin-Yang Dao Lord.
First, use necrotic Dao principles to expel the Corruption Dao principles, and then use 【Reincarnation of the Dead】 to resurrect the target from the undead back into a living person.
However, the price was that their strength would never progress further; whatever realm they possessed before would be locked in place upon resurrection.
Upon hearing this, Li Taiji contemplated for a long time but ultimately chose not to adopt Chen Xu's method. Still, he thanked Chen Xu for his goodwill and handed him a large quantity of advancement materials.
Seeing Li Taiji's refusal, Chen Xu took the advancement materials and departed.
Before leaving, he also briefed Li Taiji on the current situation of the myriad worlds, particularly the schemes of the Mother of Hell, as well as his plan to invade Hell alongside the Lord of Heaven.
Li Taiji furrowed his brows in deep thought, offering no response for a long time.
Only as Chen Xu turned to leave did he slowly speak.
“Daoist Chen, if you truly intend to charge into Hell, count me in.”
“Hahaha, no problem, Daoist Li!”
After returning to the Undead Dao Court, Chen Xu watched his avatar consume the resources to ascend to the Eternal Rank, while constantly monitoring the physical conditions of the Nephalem.
Although the Nephalem had not responded to the call of the Mother of Hell and no connection had been established, the demon bloodline within them was sourced from the Hell Demon Kings and was of extremely high quality.
Now that it had been forcibly awakened, it began to gradually rouse.
The Nephalem were developing well and naturally felt no discomfort. They only noticed that their appetites had grown significantly of late, and they were growing rapidly.
They had to change their clothes daily, forcing several skeleton tailors to work in twenty-four-hour shifts to frantically craft new garments.
“Big Brother, take my palm strike descending from the heavens!”
Chen Yinian flapped the nearly ten-meter-long demon wings on her back. High in the sky, carrying the momentum of a howling gale, she compressed a violent storm into the palm of her hand and dived sharply, launching an attack on Chen Xing below.
Chen Xing did not dodge. He simply raised his head, a sharp light flashing in his eyes.
In the next instant, a mental barrier enveloped him.
Just as Chen Yinian closed in, about to detonate the storm in her hand, the corners of Chen Xing's mouth curled up. The mental barrier suddenly reversed its trajectory, wrapping around Chen Yinian and tossing her, along with her storm, high into the sky.
Aside from the duel between Chen Yinian and Chen Xing, the other Nephalem were also battling one another.
The demon bloodlines in their bodies had completely awakened. Some obtained powerful demon transformation abilities, some awakened magical constitutions, and others simply had their mental strength doubled.
While the Nephalem were using combat to adapt to their new power, a battle was simultaneously breaking out in a subordinate world of the Heavenly Pantheon, right upon the farmlands where the redeemers usually tilled.
Compared to the battles of the Nephalem, the intensity of the clash here was not as high, but it was far more gruesome.
“Roar!!! Tear them apart! Slaughter them!”
Leoric roared. The demon blood surged rapidly through his veins, causing his body to swell. He shot up from his original height of over six feet to a small giant of over twenty-five feet.
The hoe he usually tilled the fields with now looked like a toothpick in his hands.
With a gentle flick, the toothpick pierced through the chest of the nearest monitoring priest. The priest's upper and lower body were left connected by only a shred of flesh, his breath instantly extinguished.
“Roar!!! Mother, grant me even greater power!”
Leoric bellowed toward the heavens. In the next second, his skin suddenly ruptured, and blood gushed out continuously. This crimson, foul, and viscous corrupting blood seeped into the ground, boring deep into the earth. It merged with the groundwater and rapidly spread throughout the entire world.
Around Leoric, the crops he had tilled so meticulously began to bloom under the influence of the demonic aura, opening into one gorgeous, seductive flower after another.
These flowers constantly emitted a corrupting aura, polluting the soil, the air, and the fundamental Dao principles of the world.
The surrounding heavenly believers only had to take one look before their eyes bled, their teeth began to grow uncontrollably, and the flesh on their faces rotted, causing them to let out agonizing wails.
“Ah... Ah... Ah! Great Lord, please save me! Redeem the sins within my body!”
However, their prayers were in vain. The corruption forcibly expelled the Holy Light from the believers' bodies, transforming the hosts into fallen ones. It then controlled them to spit out corrupting aura, completely annihilating the Holy Light that had been purged.
The old priest who had previously led the sermon in the cafeteria noticed the anomaly in the fields. A single distant glance left him pale with terror.
With lightning speed, he whipped out his holy scripture. In less than a second, he cast multiple divine spells, bolstering himself.
Then, he bolted in the opposite direction, fleeing as fast as he could from the fields.
But before he could run very far, a shadow loomed over him from above.
“Hehehe! Old priest, aren't your legs usually stiff? Don't you always walk so slowly? Why are you running so fast now?”
Leoric spat out a glob of Hellfire, blocking the old priest's path.
The old priest immediately turned around, only to find another former redeemer, now a fallen one, blocking his path.
“Hehehe, old priest, why are you running? It's almost lunchtime. If you leave, how are we supposed to eat?”
Half of this fallen one's face had rotted away, and a foul stench continuously spewed from his mouth, forcing the old priest to stumble backward repeatedly.
“Bang!”
However, another fallen one had already positioned himself behind the old priest, halting his retreat.
This fallen one extended a long demonic tail that pierced straight up through the old priest's foot. Blood splattered, and a miserable shriek echoed.
As the old priest screamed in agony, the fallen one's tail thrashed inside his flesh, completely destroying his sturdy old legs.
With that done, the fallen one withdrew his tail, wrapped it around the old priest's neck, and dragged him toward the fields.
“Let's go, old priest. Everyone is waiting to eat. If you're not there, we'll all go hungry.”
“Heh! Heh! Heh!”
Leoric and the other rotten-faced fallen one laughed maniacally. They stared at the old priest being dragged along the ground as if looking at a fresh piece of meat.
“Ah! Ah! Holy Light! Lord! Please! Redeem me!”
Inside the field's cafeteria, the old priest let out a horrific scream. Beneath his cries, there was the sound of flesh being violently torn and chewed.
Outside, the corrupting flowers bloomed brilliantly, swaying continuously in the rancid wind blowing from the cafeteria.
This exact scene was playing out across dozens of worlds under the jurisdiction of the Heavenly Pantheon.
Corruption was spreading through the territory of the Heavenly Pantheon at an unprecedented and terrifying speed.
Soon, the Lord of Heaven noticed something was amiss. The faith produced in the last hour had decreased by one ten-thousandth.
His divine sense instantly descended upon every single church. When he witnessed those corrupting flowers with his own eyes, and saw his believers being devoured by the fallen ones—leaving only a few leg bones behind to be used as toothpicks—this world ruler of Heaven, the supreme god-king of the Myriad Worlds' number-one pantheon, flew into a violent rage.
His fury was ignited. Holy Light erupted from his body, engulfing the entirety of Heaven, including those few Holy Cities.
“Hell!”
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