158: Agent Appears

Demon Suppression Division, underground secret chamber.

Li Dong was woken up by thirst; his throat felt as dry as if it had been stuffed with a handful of sand, aching with a burning sensation.

His eyelids twitched, and it took a great deal of effort to pry them open just a slit. It wasn't blindingly bright; the light in the secret chamber was quite soft. However, the emptiness coming from within his body felt as if someone had used a spoon to scoop out his bone marrow, one spoonful at a time.

“Awake?”

A low voice sounded from beside him.

Li Dong rolled his eyes and saw Wei Zheng’s face, which was etched with exhaustion. He was unshaven with sunken eye sockets, looking even more like he had just returned from the gates of hell than Li Dong himself.

Standing next to him was another person, Seventh Princess Li Qingxuan.

She was neatly groomed, but her small face was tightly drawn, and there was an indescribable expression in her eyes, as if she were scrutinizing or assessing him.

Li Dong opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but only managed to emit a wheezing, airy sound.

“Don't rush to speak,” Wei Zheng said, handing over a waterskin. “Moisten your throat first.”

Li Dong didn't stand on ceremony and took several large gulps from the hand holding it. A stream of cool, sweet spring water flowed down his throat, and he finally felt like he had come back to life.

“How long... have I slept?” His voice was extremely hoarse.

“A day and a night,” Li Qingxuan replied, her tone flat, revealing no emotion.

A day and a night, huh...

Li Dong didn't say anything more; he closed his eyes and began to examine his body.

His Meridians were completely empty, with not a drop of spiritual power left, but the Source of Purification in his Sea of Consciousness was like a well-fed glutton, lazily floating and emitting a warm, gentle golden light.

Deep within his Divine Soul, the vengeful mark left by the God Lord was like a cold nail, firmly embedded there, radiating wisps of chill. It reminded him every moment that this feud was massive, a matter of life and death.

However, there was also good news.

The cultivation Bottleneck of the Golden Core Late Stage had loosened.

It was like an iron door that had been rusted shut, now pried open a crack from the outside with a crowbar. Although it hadn't been pushed open yet, the door was no longer the same door it had been.

“This deal...” Li Dong muttered to himself, “doesn't seem too bad, right?”

“What's the situation in the city?” He recovered his strength and looked at Wei Zheng.

Wei Zheng's expression turned heavy: “You destroyed the altar core, cutting off the source of the divine contamination. The fanatics in the city lost their power support, and most of them have been purged. Although the losses were heavy, the capital has finally been saved.”

“Just saved?” Li Dong caught the subtext in his words.

Li Qingxuan took over: “Although the collapse of the Jing City Dragon Vein has temporarily stabilized, but...”

Before she could finish her sentence, the entire secret chamber—no, the entire capital—began to tremble slightly.

It wasn't the violent shaking of an earthquake, but a higher-frequency resonance originating from deep underground.

The teacup on the table hummed, and the surface of the water inside rippled with fine, dense waves.

Wei Zheng's expression changed drastically, and he pressed his hand onto the sword at his waist. Li Qingxuan also subconsciously clenched her fists, her eyes filled with vigilance as she looked at the ground.

A brand new, more condensed, and more overbearing evil fluctuation than the previous projection of the God Lord's will was rising from beneath their feet, from the depths of the destroyed altar ruins!

This power was no longer an ethereal pressure, but carried a tangible, crystal-clear suppression of Realm.

Golden Core... Peak...

Then, without any obstruction, with a “crack,” it seemed to break through some invisible barrier.

Nascent Soul Stage!

Boom!

Above the capital, the sky, which had just regained a hint of clarity, instantly changed color. Dark clouds, like boiling ink, gathered crazily to form a huge vortex. In the center of the vortex, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, but it wasn't the majestic heavenly might of the Purple Firmament Divine Lightning, but rather dark red lightning filled with evil and ominousness.

A terrifying pressure, enough to make every Golden Core Cultivator in the city tremble in fear, descended from the sky, shrouding the entire capital!

Under this pressure, countless survivors who had just breathed a sigh of relief knelt on the ground once again, shivering, their faces filled with despair.

“Nascent Soul... this is a Nascent Soul old monster...” Wei Zheng's voice was a bit dry, his hand gripping the sword hilt so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Seventh Princess Li Qingxuan's face also turned pale. Feeling that power, she muttered to herself: “How can this be... wasn't the altar already destroyed...”

Li Dong saw all of their reactions.

But he didn't move.

Although his Spiritual Domain couldn't be deployed due to exhaustion, his extremely keen perception spread out like an invisible net, instantly covering the entire capital.

At the center of that terrifying pressure, above the ruins deep underground, a blurry figure was slowly rising from the rubble.

The figure was entirely condensed from pure divine power. Its outline constantly shifted, sometimes resembling Qiankun Zi's Daoist robe, sometimes Ying Mei's black veil. Finally, it settled into a majestic form with an indistinct face, exuding an inhuman aura.

A cold, arrogant, emotionless voice resounded in every corner of the capital and also exploded directly in Li Dong's mind.

“Humble ants, your resistance is meaningless.”

“The descent of the God Lord cannot be stopped.”

“I am the will of the God Lord walking in the world, the God's Envoy.”

“Kneel and submit, or perish.”

God's Envoy?

Li Dong lay on the bed, but his brows furrowed.

Something is wrong.

This thing... is not right.

His perception traced back along the source of that power, clearly discovering that a large part of this so-called “God's Envoy's” power came precisely from the three altar core fragments he had shattered.

It seems the previous victory only interrupted the casting and did not completely destroy the casting Materials.

“We're in trouble now,” Wei Zheng's expression was ugly to the extreme. “A true Nascent Soul Stage... what can we use to stop it?”

Li Qingxuan didn't speak, but her tightly bitten lips revealed her inner turmoil. The Old Ancestor of the Great Tang imperial family was already at the end of his rope; the entire capital could no longer find anyone capable of confronting a Nascent Soul Stage existence head-on.

The hope that had just been ignited seemed about to be completely crushed at this moment.

“No, it's not a true Nascent Soul Stage.”

Just as the two were in a state of agitation, Li Dong's hoarse voice suddenly rang out.

“What?” Wei Zheng and Li Qingxuan turned to look at him simultaneously.

Li Dong braced himself against the edge of the bed and slowly sat up. There was no fear in his eyes; instead, there was a kind of... anatomical scrutiny.

“After all that, it's just a stitched-up monster,” he said to himself.

In his Spiritual perception, the essence of this so-called “God's Envoy” was seen clearly.

It was not a descent of the God Lord, nor was it a pure divine creature.

Its core was the Soul of either Qiankun Zi or Ying Mei, or perhaps even a Fusion of both their Souls. They had sacrificed everything of theirs, including their Physical Body, cultivation, and Divine Soul, turning themselves into a “vessel.”

Then, the God Lord's will, via a descent, was forcibly injected into this “vessel,” and using the remaining altar fragments as an energy relay station, it forcibly birthed a monster possessing Nascent Soul Stage power.

An Agent possessing a Mortal thought pattern but capable of channeling a portion of the God Lord's power.

This was much more troublesome than a pure Nascent Soul old monster or a pure God Lord projection.

Because it had both the flexibility of fighting on home turf and the destructive power to challenge those of a higher level.

The God Lord's descent plan had not been stopped; instead, because of his destruction, it had been forced onto another, more bizarre and dangerous path.

“Great, now the God Lord has legs and can run around everywhere,” Li Dong sighed internally.

And at the very moment this thought arose.

In his Sea of Consciousness, that black crystal stone which had always been very quiet, and that ancient stone slab imprinted with countless pieces of information, suddenly and without warning, simultaneously emitted a humming resonance!

The intensity of this resonance was more than ten times stronger than when he had sensed the God Lord's projection earlier!

They were like sharks that had smelled blood, showing an unprecedented... craving for that so-called “God's Envoy.”

Li Dong's pupils constricted slightly.

This stitched-up monster... has something I need?

Or rather, does the appearance of this thing have some deeper connection to my black crystal stone and ancient stone slab?