157: Forsaken Rebellion

The ten-thousand-foot Earth Mother Goddess Dharma Aspect slowly dissipated, transforming into pure earthen-yellow light particles, returning to Mo Yun's main body.

She staggered a step, caught by Mo Yu who appeared instantly beside her. Her face was ashen, her aura extremely weak, and even maintaining a standing posture seemed strenuous.

Repeatedly forcing the activation of The State of the World Painting, and drawing upon the Origin of the entire territory's land to resist the Heavenly Dao's will, had almost completely drained everything from her, a newly ascended Profound Immortal.

Mo Yu immediately channeled pure water Spiritual Qi into her body, helping her stabilize her nearly collapsing Dao Foundation.

Ink Snow also stepped forward, the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal flickering slightly, attempting to soothe her Divine Soul's severe exhaustion and trauma.

"Big Sister!" Mo Yu's voice carried a rare hint of urgency.

"It's fine... I can still hold on," Mo Yun's voice was hoarse, as she forcefully suppressed the metallic taste in her throat. Her gaze, however, remained sharp as she swept over the clear sky, "The Heavenly Dao... will never let this go... next time..."

Before she could finish her sentence, a new, completely different sense of crisis, like a cold viper, silently coiled around the hearts of the three women and all high-ranking sequence units.

This time, there was no earth-shattering energy impact, no bizarre celestial phenomena twisting the Laws, and not even the slightest external sign.

The sky was still blue, the earth had calmed, and the deathly silence brought by the Spirit-Annihilating Dust earlier seemed like nothing more than an illusion.

But it was this extreme "calmness" that made people feel a creeping dread.

"Hm?" Ink Snow was the first to notice something was wrong. She wielded the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal and was most sensitive to the "traces of existence" of living beings.

She suddenly turned her head, looking at the Mortals in Mo Capital, who were still in shock and were being organized by sequence units to clear debris and assist the injured.

The eyes of those Mortals... seemed off.

No longer the fear, sorrow, or relief of surviving a calamity from before, but a kind of... hollow blankness.

A woman was crying, holding her injured child. The next second, her movements suddenly paused. She looked at the child in her arms, her eyes becoming strange and confused, as if asking, "Who is this? Why am I holding him?"

A young man was strenuously helping a sequence engineer lift a broken stone beam, but he suddenly let go, staring blankly at his hands, then at the surrounding ruins, his face full of bewilderment, as if he didn't understand why he was here or what he was doing.

Similar scenes spread like a silent plague in every corner of the city.

They seemed to have collectively suffered from a form of amnesia, forgetting the terrifying disaster that had just occurred, forgetting the people around them, and even forgetting... who they were and where they were!

"No!" Ink Snow's face changed drastically, "Their memories are being massively altered and erased!"

Almost at the same time, the sequence unit responsible for information aggregation and processing sent out an even more alarming warning:

"Alert! Abnormal logical error detected in the information database's historical record module!"

"'Lei Yan Divine Dynasty' founding record... data verification failed..."

"Some archive descriptions show contradictions..."

"Unknown interference source detected in the underlying storage medium... attempting to clear... clearing failed! Interference source has assimilation characteristics!"

This was not simple amnesia! This was a systematic, fundamental erasure targeting the "history of existence" of the entire Lei Yan Divine Dynasty!

Something was silently eroding the Foundation of the Divine Dynasty from the level of "information" and "cognition"!

Making all records about the Divine Dynasty chaotic and contradictory, making all living beings' cognition of the Divine Dynasty vague and unclear!

If even one's own existence was forgotten, then all order, faith, and resistance would become rootless duckweed!

"It's it!" Mo Yun, enduring her weakness, a fierce glint flashed in her eyes, "Sequence 033: The Forgotten!"

Only this special sequence, created personally by Immortal in a Bottle, with the ability to "erase the target's traces of existence," could accomplish such a bizarre and thorough feat!

But wasn't it absolutely loyal to Father? Wasn't it bound by the Three Iron Laws? How could it... Just then, a Star Corpse Guard responsible for guarding the database in the side hall of the Hall of Heroes sent out its last, intermittent emergency communication:

"Encountered... Sequence 033... attack... It... It changed... static... Heavenly Dao... pollution..."

The communication abruptly ceased!

The three women's figures instantly vanished, reappearing at the entrance of the Hall of Heroes' side hall the next moment.

Inside the hall was a mess. Several Star Corpse Guards had turned into cold statues. Their cores were not destroyed, but rather their energy circuits seemed to have been erased from a "conceptual" level, turning them into true scrap metal.

The Jade Slips, crystals, and runic light screens storing historical data... were mostly intact, but the information recorded on them had become chaotic, even largely blank!

And in the center of the side hall, a blurred, constantly subtly twisting silhouette stood silently.

It was The Forgotten!

But at this moment, it was completely different from before.

Its aura, which originally only served to fade its sense of existence, now emitted a cold, chaotic, malicious Heavenly Dao Law fluctuation!

Around the edges of its silhouette, faint yellow, foul Qi, like the Spirit-Annihilating Dust from earlier, was entwined!

Heavenly Dao pollution!

The Heavenly Dao could not directly control sequences protected by the Iron Laws, but it had, in an inconceivable way, used the corrupting power targeting spiritual essence contained within the Spirit-Annihilating Dust to twist and erode The Forgotten's core logic!

Turning it from a "tool for erasing traces" into a "source of a plague spreading cognitive pollution"!

"The Forgotten! Stop your actions immediately!" Ink Snow stepped forward, the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal glowing, attempting to stabilize its chaotic core with the power of life and death Reincarnation.

However, the corrupted Forgotten suddenly "turned its head," its faceless countenance "looking" at the three women.

A silent, yet vicious Law impact instantly crossed space, directly affecting the three women's cognitive level!

Mo Yun suddenly grunted. The memories in her mind of how she had just manifested the ten-thousand-foot Dharma Aspect and how she had drawn upon the power of the earth, began to blur and fragment!

As if that earth-shattering feat was not her own doing!

Mo Yu felt that all her insights into the Four Seas Tide-Rising Token receded like a tide, becoming unfamiliar!

Ink Snow even felt a momentary stagnation in the operation of the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal, and her perception of living beings' states became blurry!

It could actually directly attack the cognition and memories of high-level Cultivators!

"Suppress it!" Mo Yun, enduring the pain of her memory fragmenting, shouted sharply.

The Magnetic Force of the earth once again condensed, forming invisible shackles that wrapped around The Forgotten.

Mo Yu summoned towering waves, and Ink Snow released absolute coldness.

But The Forgotten's ability was too strange!

Its body was like nothingness; physical and energy attacks were greatly reduced in effectiveness, while the attacks on the cognitive level were impossible to guard against!

Even more terrifying, while resisting, it continued to constantly emit that "forgetting pollution"!

Throughout Mo Capital, and even the entire Divine Dynasty territory, the plague of forgetting was accelerating its spread!

Mortals completely forgot the Lei Yan Divine Dynasty, forgot Immortal in a Bottle, forgot the three women, only feeling that they lived in a world that had suddenly become strange and chaotic.

Low-level Cultivators began to doubt their Cultivation Technique Legacy, their memories of their sect becoming blurry.

Even some low-level sequence units began to experience logical errors in their core directives, their actions becoming hesitant!

History was being rewritten! Cognition was being twisted! The Foundation of existence was being shaken!

This was more terrifying than direct destruction! This was fundamentally denying everything about the Lei Yan Divine Dynasty!

"We must stop it! Otherwise, Father's painstaking efforts, and our very existence, will be completely erased!" A resolute glint flashed in Ink Snow's eyes, and the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal shone brighter than ever. She was prepared to use the power of Reincarnation at any cost, forcibly dragging The Forgotten into a life-death cycle to completely reset it!

But just then—

The corrupted Forgotten's movements suddenly paused.

The faint yellow Heavenly Dao pollution aura on its body clashed violently with its own ethereal silhouette!

As if its underlying logical Iron Laws were engaged in a final, instinctive struggle against the Heavenly Dao's pollution!

Its blurry figure twisted and flickered violently, emitting a silent, yet Soul-perceivable, sharp shriek!

Then, to the three women's astonished gazes, it suddenly raised its "hand" and fiercely clawed at the position of its "head"!

Chii!

A faint yellow, foul stream of light was forcibly torn out from within its body!

That was the core of the Heavenly Dao pollution!

But at the same time, its own silhouette became extremely dim, almost dissipating!

It suddenly slapped that ball of foul light into the air, letting it dissipate.

Then, its almost dissipated silhouette gave a final "look" at the three women, especially the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal in Ink Snow's hand, transmitting a faint, yet incredibly clear thought—

"Forgetting... not my will... pollution has... cleared..."

"History... needs... backup..."

"Beware... Heavenly Dao... cognition... war..."

The thought broke off.

Sequence 033: The Forgotten, this special sequence originally used to counter Heavenly Dao locking, in the conflict between Heavenly Dao pollution and its own Iron Laws, chose self-annihilation, and at the last moment, at the cost of destruction, cleared the pollution and issued the most crucial warning to them!

It fell, its silhouette completely dissipated, turning into nothingness.

A deathly silence fell over the side hall.

The three women stood rooted to the spot, still shaken, their backs drenched in cold sweat.

That was close! If The Forgotten's instinctive Iron Laws had not overcome the pollution at the last moment, the consequences would have been unimaginable!

But the crisis was not over.

Although The Forgotten had self-destructed, the "cognitive pollution" it had spread earlier had already spread!

The history and existential cognition of the entire Divine Dynasty were still in great crisis!

Ink Snow looked at the spot where The Forgotten had disappeared, then felt the blank silence in the city, tightly gripping the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal.

History needs backup... cognition war... She suddenly looked up at Mo Yun and Mo Yu.

"We must act immediately! Before everyone completely forgets us!"