88: Chapter 88 Spiritual Energy Polluted

Outlaw Zhang San's voice was like a pebble tossed into a stagnant pool, sending ripples through the team's suppressed hearts.

Survive.

Not long ago, those three words had been nothing more than a playful, mocking "game objective" to them.

But now, it weighed as heavily as a real mountain.

The key of the divine prison in Zhang San's palm seemed to have been injected with a faint trace of life; its deathly grey-black surface began to pulse rhythmically, like a heartbeat.

With every pulse, a subtle, imperceptible ripple pointed deeper into the Return to Ruins, like a silent compass.

"Follow me."

Outlaw Zhang San offered no superfluous words, stepping first into the chaos where even light was devoured.

Within the Return to Ruins, there was no up or down, no passage of time.

Broken laws formed bizarre and grotesque spectacles here—wreckage of palaces floating in the void, cross-sections of shattered mountain ranges resembling giant tombstones, and strips of silently twisting light that seemed like eternal scars left when the world was torn apart.

"Damn it, the 'whispers' in this godforsaken place seem even clearer now." Charge to the End tightened his grip on his blade, veins bulging on his forehead as he clearly used his sheer recklessness to resist the mental corruption. "I keep feeling like there are tens of thousands of people holding a concert in my ears, and they're singing a funeral march."

"Shut up and focus." Shield Mountain walked on the outermost flank of the team. That weather-beaten door-sized shield was, at this moment, not just a physical defense but more like a spiritual barrier, insulating his teammates from the malice coming from a certain direction. "Perception has been distorted; do not trust your intuition."

They advanced cautiously, bypassing a massive, slowly rotating fragment of a star.

Just then, Shadowless suddenly stopped, staring fixedly at a fold in space.

That fold was like a shattered mirror; what was reflected in the mirror was no longer the chaos of the Return to Ruins, but... scenes from the outside world.

A scarlet expanse.

It was as if the entire world had been submerged in a giant pool of blood.

The sky was no longer azure, but a viscous, nauseating dark red, as if an invisible giant beast were bleeding eternal pus above the firmament.

In the air, countless scarlet specks of light floated visibly; they were no longer the spiritual energy that nourished all things, but rather living, highly toxic spores.

"That is... the mountain gate of the Heavenly Origin Sect!" A player in the team who had once spent time in a Holy Land exclaimed in shock.

In the mirror, a towering immortal mountain hung in the air, its buildings intricately carved and surrounded by immortal aura.

But at this moment, that immortal mountain, which used to be shrouded by a guardian formation composed of billions of runes, was like an egg dropped into sulfuric acid, being crazily eroded by that scarlet "spiritual energy."

The light of the formation flickered, emitting groans of being unable to bear the burden.

Inside the mountain gate, countless cultivators flew into the air in terror, attempting to stabilize the formation.

An old man with white hair and beard, wearing the sect master's Taoist robe, stood atop the main peak. His aura was vast as the sea, clearly a Spirit Severing ancestor who had reached the ceiling of this realm.

"Draw upon the dragon vein, secure our mountain gate!"

The old man's voice was like a tolling bell. He formed seals with both hands and slammed them downward.

In an instant, the entire immortal mountain shook violently, and a spiritual dragon vein as thick as a mountain range, hidden deep underground, was forcibly drawn out.

A golden dragon-shaped phantom soared into the sky, carrying the Majesty to suppress everything, attempting to disperse that scarlet, filthy energy.

However, the next moment, a scene that made every onlooker's scalp tingle occurred.

The moment the golden dragon vein touched the scarlet spiritual energy, it was like clear water dripped with thick ink, being polluted and assimilated at a speed visible to the naked eye!

The gold rapidly faded, replaced by an ominous, vein-like dark red.

That originally vast and boundless spiritual energy instantly deteriorated!

"No—!"

The Spirit Severing ancestor atop the main peak let out a desperate roar.

The foundation he was most proud of, which had protected the sect for ten thousand years, had now become a blood vessel leading directly to hell, pumping the deadliest poison into the core of the guardian formation at the fastest speed!

Hum—!

The light of the guardian formation instantly turned from gold to blood red, then violently shrank inward, transforming into a huge blood cocoon, wrapping up the entire Heavenly Origin Sect, along with its tens of thousands of disciples!

On the surface of the blood cocoon, countless painfully twisted faces appeared and sank; the shrill screams were isolated within, turning into silent despair.

Outlaw Zhang San and his party watched helplessly as a top-tier sect was "poisoned" to death by its own "spiritual vein" within a few dozen breaths, turning into a huge, evil-emitting living entity.

"I... fuck..." Charge to the End's lips were trembling. He wasn't afraid, but rather shivering from a worldview being completely subverted. "This... is spiritual energy poisonous?"

This realization was more terrifying than any monster.

Meanwhile, the player forum had completely turned into an ocean of doomsday information.

[Pinned Red Post: "The Scarlet Tide Descends! Global Spiritual Energy Pollution Event Official Announcement & Survival Guide" — Posted by: Ancestor (Posted on behalf of)]

The content of the post was simple, only a few sentences:

1. The world's spiritual energy has been completely polluted and is fatal to local life forms.

2. Absorbing spiritual energy is equivalent to suicide; the higher the concentration of spiritual veins, the faster the alienation speed.

3. Players, as "visitors from outside the heavens," have high resistance to spiritual energy pollution, but will still continuously lose Sanity (SAN) points.

4. "Power of Incense" can build temporary safe zones to shelter all life.

5. Survive.

And the replies below were a spectacle of wailing mixed with dark humor.

["Coordinates Northern Snow Plains, I just accepted a mission to escort a caravan to Ice Soul City, but halfway there, the spiritual energy turned red. The entire caravan, people and horses alike, instantly froze into chunks of blood-colored ice sculptures, and they were still moving! It scared me so much I lost 10 SAN points! Mission failed, lost both people and money!"]

["The guy above is nothing! I'm in the number one city of the Central Plains, 'Divine Capital'. The city lord is a Tribulation Transcender. He just tried to purify the whole city with his natal magic treasure, but the treasure took a breath of red mist and backfired on the spot, eating him! Now the magic treasure has turned into a several-thousand-meter-tall flesh-and-blood top, dancing in the city! I'm hiding in a brothel, watching my SAN points drop like crazy!"]

["Only our Ancestor's City of Liver Emperor is perfectly fine! Although the main city self-destructed, the incense power in the wreckage radiation zone is still holding strong! A group of Holy Land cultivators was just crying and begging to run in for shelter, and we cursed them out! Damn it, they were hunting us down yesterday!"]

["Brothers! I found a BUG! The materials dropped by polluted NPCs also carry pollution attributes and can be used to make 'SAN-dropping weapons'! I just enchanted my Flying Sword with a mutant eyeball, and now I can directly attack the opponent's SAN points when I slash them! Cthulhu players are ecstatic!"]

Chaos, madness, doomsday.

The whole world was falling apart, and players were quickly adapting to this hellish new environment in their own unique ways.

Deep in the Return to Ruins.

The space mirror had shattered, but the shock it brought to everyone remained long after.

"I understand now." Outlaw Zhang San spoke slowly, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The Ancestor's plan was never for us to compete for hegemony with the Holy Lands... that's child's play."

He looked up, his gaze sweeping over every team member.

"He is cutting the firewood from under the cauldron. What he wants to abolish is the fundamental rule that has operated in this world for billions of years—the spiritual energy cultivation system."

"From today on, all local cultivators are finished. The more powerful they are, the faster they die. This world is no longer their home field."

Zhang San's words were like a scalpel, precisely dissecting the cruel reality.

"We are the only... monsters... who can walk freely on this polluted land."

Hiss—

A weird sound, not belonging to anyone, like cloth being torn, abruptly sounded behind everyone.

Shield Mountain turned around almost instinctively, holding his giant door-shield tightly in front of him!

In the chaotic mist behind, a "thing" was slowly taking shape.

That thing had no fixed form; it seemed to be condensed from the purest malice and polluted laws.

Its body was a mass of wriggling, dark red shadows. On the surface of the shadow, countless pale, pupil-less eyes were opening and closing in disorder.

It made no sound, but when its "gaze" swept over everyone, everyone's SAN points were like a floodgate opening, dropping crazily!

[Sanity (SAN): 85/100]

[Sanity (SAN): 84/100]

...

"Attack its eyes!" Zhang San shouted sharply. He judged immediately that those eyes were the organs through which this guy drained sanity.

Charge to the End had long been unable to hold back. With a roar, his long blade ignited with a faint layer of data-stream light unique to players, and he slashed down fiercely!

However, the blade passed through the shadow without any resistance, as if it had only slashed through a phantom.

"Physical attacks are ineffective!"

"Damn it! My Fireball Spell went right through it too!"

The shadow remained unharmed, and instead, because of their attacks, the eyes on its surface opened more densely.

[Sanity (SAN): 79/100]

"Don't use energy attacks! It's absorbing our power to strengthen itself!" Zhang San's brain was running at high speed. He stared fixedly at the monster, trying to find its "logic of existence."

Just then, the silent Shadowless suddenly produced a pitch-black dagger in his hand.

It was something he had swiped from a guardian puppet while stealing treasures in the Heavenly Scripture Pavilion. Its attributes were mediocre, with only one special effect—[Law Severing].

He didn't rush up, but stabbed the dagger fiercely into the... empty space in front of him at a weird angle.

Chila!

A soft sound.

That law-aberrant entity let out a silent shriek, its massive shadow body twisting violently. One of its eyes closed without warning and then dissipated into a wisp of black smoke.

It worked!

"I understand!" Zhang San's eyes lit up instantly. "It's not a physical entity! It's the manifestation of the 'incorrect laws' in this area! Attacking its main body is useless; you have to attack the 'space' beneath its feet! Destroy the 'cornerstone' of its existence!"

One word awakens the dreamer!

Everyone stopped outputting to the monster and instead poured all their attacks into the void beneath it!

Blade light, sword shadows, spells, and even wrenches and hammers with strange runes thrown by life-profession players!

Boom!

Under their concentrated fire, that space was beaten into a dense web of cracks.

And that law-aberrant entity, like a building with its foundation pulled out, let out a wail that resonated through the soul. Its massive body disintegrated with a boom, turning into scarlet specks of light in the sky, and finally dissipated into nothingness.

[Sanity (SAN): 75/100]

The crisis was resolved, but everyone felt a palpitation.

This was only the outer perimeter of the Return to Ruins.

Outlaw Zhang San ignored everyone's panting. He walked to the place where the monster dissipated, bent down, and picked up a dark red crystal from the void that was still pulsing slightly.

[Item: Polluted Law Fragment]

[Type: Special Material]

[Description: A shattered law polluted by the power of an evil god; it remembers... some things that should not be remembered.]

Zhang San gripped the fragment tightly.

He knew that this scarlet, desperate Return to Ruins, for them, might no longer be just the end of their escape.

It was more like a brand new... Novice Village, full of deadly dangers and strange opportunities.