329: Chapter 264: The Decisive Battle - A Clash Between the Hundred Divine Kingdoms and the Demon Kingdom

Under the backlash of the "Civilization Pure Land," the projection of Malasa the Flayer had black flames—symbolizing the collapse of its Origin—erupting from its seven orifices. Its aura withered to the extreme, and its massive body, covered in tattoos of pain, convulsed violently, appearing on the verge of losing its physical form. The whispers of pollution from the Abyss were forcibly reversed and purified, then channeled back into itself through the mental link. This strike against its original will caused damage far exceeding a simple reduction in attributes.

In the shadows, Shadow Killer's aura also became extremely chaotic and terrified. His contractual connection with Malasa suffered a backlash due to the heavy damage to the projection. The [Shadow Assassins] within his Divine Kingdom, who relied on the dual empowerment of Shadow and Abyss, saw the dark luster on their bodies flicker unsteadily; some even briefly "manifested" or showed signs of unstable power. His greatest trump card and tactical core had been completely dismantled and heavily damaged by Lin Zhou in a manner he could not comprehend at all.

The initiative on the battlefield changed hands in an instant!

Lin Zhou stood in the center of the Pure Land surrounded by the Fire of Civilization, his expression calm but his gaze sharp as a blade, locking onto the source of the fluctuations at the core of Shadow Killer's Divine Kingdom that could no longer be perfectly hidden due to the backlash.

"Your 'Shadow' and your 'Abyss' don't seem as infallible as you imagined." Lin Zhou's voice transmitted through the rules, echoing clearly throughout the entire [Shadowy Corridor]. "Relying on external power eventually leads to being consumed by it. Now, it's my 'Civilization's' turn to visit your kingdom."

He did not choose a conventional step-by-step advance, nor did he dispatch his follower legions for a ground assault. After completely purifying the Abyssal whispers, heavily damaging the opponent's strongest combatant, and locking onto their core location, Lin Zhou decided to employ a more direct, oppressive tactic that better showcased the characteristics of Way of Civilization—Divine Kingdom collision and rule coverage!

"Hundred Schools Divine Kingdom, rise!" Lin Zhou shouted low. Divine Power surged within his Godhead, resonating with the river of civilization.

Rumble—!

The Hundred Schools Divine Kingdom, which had previously been stably deployed with a focus on defense and purification, suddenly "came alive"! The phantom of the surrounding river of civilization erupted with unprecedented light, transforming from an illusory image into a semi-substantial torrent of rules! The entire Divine Kingdom, along with its temples, academies, workshops, farmlands, Temple of Law, and other structures—as well as the three major follower races: the Literary Heart Elves, Tiangong Dwarves, and Law Fishmen—seemed to be lifted by this surging river. Leaving the floating platform where it was rooted, it began to move slowly and resolutely toward the shadow area where the core of Shadow Killer's Divine Kingdom was located!

This was not a simple physical displacement, but a holistic erosion and coverage of the Divine Kingdom's rules driven by the river of civilization! Wherever the Divine Kingdom moved, the dense shadows of the [Shadowy Corridor] laden with Abyssal pollution were forcibly dispersed and purified, like snow meeting a scorching sun. The space touched by the Fire of Civilization left behind a faint, warm trail of civilization's glow, like a path of light pointing straight into the depths of darkness.

"What... what is he trying to do?" Shadow Killer watched in horror as the "Kingdom of Light," emitting a radiance that made even his Soul sting, slowly ground toward him. His voice trembled. He could clearly feel that as the opponent's Divine Kingdom moved, it emitted not just energy fluctuations, but an overwhelming presence of rules—a will of "Manifest Order" and "Civilization Expansion" that was the complete opposite of Abyssal chaos and Shadow concealment!

"He wants to crash his Divine Kingdom directly into mine? Madman!" Shadow Killer was both shocked and enraged, but he had no way to retreat. His Divine Kingdom's traits leaned toward concealment and infiltration; a head-on collision was not his strength, especially with his core assassin units unstable from the backlash and his strongest summon on the brink of collapse. But he couldn't retreat; if he did, the rules of his Divine Kingdom would loosen, making it easier for the opponent to seize a weakness.

"Lord Malasa! Block it!" Shadow Killer frantically mobilized his Divine Power, attempting to stabilize his Divine Kingdom and repair the contractual link with the Abyssal Lord, while ordering all Shadow Assassins to enter maximum alert, prepared to launch suicide attacks on weak nodes when the opponent's Divine Kingdom drew near.

However, the projection of Malasa, on the verge of collapse, could barely protect itself now. It glanced fearfully at the Divine Kingdom flowing with the Fire of Civilization that made its very Origin burn with pain. Letting out an unwilling and weak low roar, it actually began to withdraw its power, attempting to retreat back into the Abyssal rift, even going so far as to cut part of its contractual link with Shadow Killer to reduce the backlash! The selfishness and survival instinct of Abyssal creatures were fully exposed at this moment.

"No! You treacherous demon!" Shadow Killer was anxious and furious, but helpless.

In this brief moment of chaos, Lin Zhou's Hundred Schools Divine Kingdom had already advanced to an extremely close distance from Shadow Killer's Divine Kingdom, which was shrouded in the [Shadow Curtain]. Between the two, the boundary between light and darkness became blurred, and rules began to rub and collide violently, producing ear-piercing sizzles and spatial tremors.

"Strike!" Lin Zhou's eyes narrowed. Without further hesitation, he urged the river of civilization, providing the final push!

In an instant, the Hundred Schools Divine Kingdom—radiating a warm glow of civilization and possessing an orderly interior—and the Shadow Divine Kingdom—permeated with the murky aura of the Abyss and hiding countless killing intents—slammed into each other like two stars of different attributes!

There was no earth-shattering explosion or flying material debris as expected. The collision of Divine Kingdoms was first and foremost a clash and fusion on the level of rules!

Buzz—!!!

An invisible shockwave of rules, which all spectators could clearly perceive, burst outward from the point of impact! The translucent energy pipes within the [Shadowy Corridor] vibrated violently, and many floating platforms even developed cracks!

The scene at the core of the collision was even more bizarre. The civilization glow of the Hundred Schools Divine Kingdom and the Abyssal darkness of the Shadow Divine Kingdom were like two incompatible paints, frantically penetrating, eroding, annihilating, and transforming each other!

At the front line of this rule collision, the semi-substantial torrent manifested by the river of civilization played a crucial role. It did not strike the darkness crudely; instead, like the most patient sculptor or the wisest solvent, it washed over, saturated, and analyzed the rule structure on the surface of the Shadow Divine Kingdom.

The core rules of the Shadow Divine Kingdom were "Concealment," "Assassination," and "Chaos" (with Abyssal empowerment). These rules usually granted it extreme survival and lethality, but now, facing the impact of the river of civilization—which contained countless positive, inclusive, and constructive rules like "Manifestation," "Enlightenment," "Order," "Logic," and "Benevolence"—its internal fragility and contradictions began to be exposed.

As the waves of the river of civilization slapped against the Shadow Curtain, the first to disintegrate was the outermost rule of "Concealment." The waves contained informational turbulence of concepts such as "A gentleman is open and aboveboard," "A bright mirror hung high," and "Nothing is unfit for public view." This caused the concealment rules, which relied on shadows and secrets, to melt rapidly like frost under the sun. Scenes within Shadow Killer's Divine Kingdom were forced into view—distorted assassin halls, poison-steeping pools bubbling with toxic gas, and mountains of assassination mission scrolls...

Next, the river began to wash away the deeper rules of "Assassination" and "Abyssal Chaos." Here, Lin Zhou utilized a more diverse array of ideological weapons:

The waves of the School of Law (with the phantoms of Shang Yang and Han Feizi faintly appearing): "Orders must be followed, rewards and punishments must be clear. The trade of assassination is nameless and statusless, a source of legal chaos!" Under the impact of this rule power, a faint doubt about "legality" and "legitimacy" was forcibly implanted into the action logic of the Shadow Assassins—who originally obeyed Shadow Killer's commands absolutely and existed solely to complete assassinations. Why assassinate? Who granted the authority? Was the target of the assassination "guilty"? For assassin units accustomed to the simple logic of "Accept command-Execute kill," this was extremely disruptive.

The waves of the School of Mohism (with the phantom of Mozi holding a compass and square): "To kill one person is called unrighteousness and must carry one death penalty. To kill a hundred people is a hundredfold unrighteousness and must carry a hundred death penalties." The power of logical reasoning began to erode them. Some Shadow Assassins experienced brief stutters and confusion in their simple mission logic circuits when processing the fundamental question of "Why can one existence be killed for the sake of a certain goal?"

The waves of the School of Confucianism (the light of benevolence from the phantoms of Confucius and Mencius): "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. The benevolent man loves others." Though faint, this ripple of thought advocating "empathy" and "benevolence" clashed directly with the Abyssal power's veneration of "law of the jungle" and "extreme egoism." Some Shadow Assassins with higher spirituality (meaning they were more susceptible to ideological influence) showed a momentary flash of bewilderment in their cold, murderous eyes upon contact with this thought.

The washing of the river of civilization, formed by the Hundred Schools of Thought, was not a destructive ruin but rather a high-dimensional "information injection" and "rule assimilation." It did not attempt to immediately eliminate the Shadow and Abyssal rules; instead, it constantly injected rule information such as "Order," "Logic," "Morality," and "Benevolence"—which were contrary to or at a higher level than the existing rules—making the originally pure and extreme "Chaos" and "Evil" rules begin to... no longer be pure.

Consequently, within Shadow Killer's horrified perception, all sorts of anomalies that made his skin crawl began to appear inside his Divine Kingdom:

A group of [Shadow Assassins (LV40)] who were in stealth, preparing to launch a suicide attack, suddenly stopped their movements. Hiding in the shadows, they engaged in an extremely low-level but definitely existent "argument" via mental fluctuations:

"That information stream just now... 'Orders must be followed'... Does the assassination Order we received comply with the 'Law'?"

"The will of the Abyss is the Law! Survival of the fittest!"

"But another piece of information said 'killing is unrighteous'... We have killed many..."

"That was for survival! To become stronger!"

"But... what happens after becoming stronger? Keep killing? Until we are killed? This seems... to be an unsolvable loop? It contradicts the 'freedom in eternal shadow' we seek..."

"Freedom? What is freedom? Is absolute chaos freedom? That 'benevolence' information seemed to imply that true freedom requires some kind of... harmony under Order?"

These discussions were faint and chaotic, yet they truly shook the most fundamental behavioral logic and existential meaning of these assassin units. They were no longer thoughtless killing tools but began to show the sprouts of "thought," even if those thoughts were still extremely immature and contradictory.

Deeper down, some [Lesser Creeping Demons (LV25-LV30)]—who were directly shaped by Abyssal power and responsible for maintaining the basic operations of the Divine Kingdom—actually developed "weariness" and "doubt" regarding their daily work of pointlessly crawling and transporting foul materials after coming into contact with snippets of information from the School of Miscellaneous and School of Agriculture regarding "each performing their duty," "social division of labor," and "labor creates value":

"Why do we crawl around like this every day, moving these disgusting things?"

"For the operation of the Divine Kingdom? But what is the Divine Kingdom's operation for? For more assassinations? To please the Abyss?"

"That information said 'plowing fields and weaving cloth, nurturing all living things, is the Foundation'... That sounds more 'meaningful' than moving filth?"

"The Abyss tells us that meaning is obedience and destruction..."

"But what comes after obedience and destruction? A void? That information about 'endless life' seemed to point to something different..."

These "ideological sprouts" of the low-level demons, while impossible to trigger an immediate rebellion, severely interfered with the operational efficiency of the Divine Kingdom's basic functions, causing energy transmission to stagnate and filth processing to slow down.

Shadow Killer's Divine Kingdom was like an originally stable "chaos" compound into which various "ideological catalysts" had been thrown. Countless tiny, self-contradictory reaction bubbles began to form inside; the overall structure became unstable, and the resistance to rule operation increased sharply. His rule, which relied on absolute commands and Abyssal pressure, showed subtle but unmistakable cracks.

This was the horror of the washing of the river of civilization—it did not directly destroy your kingdom, but changed your "people's intelligence" and "rule Foundation" from within, causing your kingdom to slide from "Chaotic Evil" toward "Ordered Chaos" or even "Lawful Neutral," eventually leading to the collapse of the Foundation of your rule!

"No! Stop! You devil! What have you done to my Divine Kingdom?!" Shadow Killer finally broke down. He felt his control over the Divine Kingdom slipping away rapidly. Those familiar followers and rules that he once commanded as easily as his own limbs were becoming strange and filled with "noise." He tried to mobilize his Divine Power to forcibly suppress them, only to find that his Divine Power circulation had also become sluggish due to the rule conflicts.

"I did nothing." Lin Zhou's voice came through the roar of the rule collision, terrifyingly calm. "I simply let them hear a different voice and see a different possibility. Civilization, after all, lies in Enlightenment and choice."

Just then, the main current of the river of civilization finally washed into the most core area of Shadow Killer's Divine Kingdom—that distorted assassin hall. Within the river, the rule waves belonging to the School of Law's "No Exemption from Punishment" and the School of Military's "Capture the leader to catch the bandits" rose high. They transformed into the phantoms of a sword of judgment and a chain to bind the enemy, carrying a solemn and inviolable majesty as they fiercely slashed and locked onto Shadow Killer's true body, which had been exposed due to backlash and terror!

Beset by internal and external troubles, rules in disarray, and the core exposed.

Shadow Killer's defeat was certain.

"The third match is over! Winner: Xinghai University, Lin Zhou!"

When the System's judgment voice rang out, the entire arena fell into a brief, dead silence, followed by an explosion of noise far more intense and prolonged than any before!

The supporters of Xinghai University cheered and shouted frantically, many with the shock of disbelief still on their faces. On the War God Academy's side, there was a deathly silence. Chief Lei Hao, in particular, had a face of iron blue, his eyes burning with a rage and humiliation that almost seemed physical.

2:1! Xinghai University was the first to reach match point!

And Lin Zhou, with a textbook-level victory of dismantling a powerful enemy through ideology and rules, announced to everyone the horror of the "civilization warlord" and the "Game of Civilizations."