It wasn't only Chu Xuanfeng who was stunned; the man who had just broken through to the Heavenly Venerable realm stood there in blank disbelief as well.
The newly joined believers nearby exchanged worried looks. Some thought the divine method might be flawed, and so they hurried to ask questions.
"Han Ming, how do you feel?" one of them blurted. "Did you eat something strange before? Or is it this cultivation method—"
He heard himself halfway through and slammed on the brakes, cutting off his own words. But everyone understood what he'd meant.
Han Ming Tianzun, freshly restored to a head of black hair, swung around in fury.
"Cut the crap! How could anything be wrong with a divine method? I feel great—better than I've ever felt."
People blinked at that. If it wasn't the fault of the method, then the problem was much bigger than they'd thought.
Han Ming Tianzun elaborated, face creased in bafflement. "I'm surprised as well. I never felt anything wrong in my body before. I only felt… stuck, unable to break through. Could there be a reason after all?"
At that moment Chu Xuanfeng stepped in and checked him over from head to toe.
"I think all your old techniques have issues," Chu said at last. "But you can't see it from inside. If you don't believe me, try practicing Eternal Meditation."
If the people of the Netherworld had problems, then a similar catastrophe in the Yang Realm was only to be expected.
The new believers sat down at once and entered meditation.
One after another, black fumes seeped from their bodies—reeky, soul-stained exhalations that gathered into columns and drifted upward.
Shinobu Kocho intercepted a swirl of the black smoke and began to examine it, slow and careful.
After a while, she looked up, startled. "This isn't poison, and it isn't a wound!"
"How odd…" Bai Suzhen murmured, drifting closer. She peered at the writhing smoke, her brow furrowing in puzzlement.
"Yes," Shinobu said quietly. "It's probably a creature."
She infused her own power into the captured smoke.
Sure enough, in just a short time there came a thin, creaking sound—something like a chitinous shell being pressed and made to give way.
The nearby believers—those who hadn't yet left—felt a sheen of cold sweat break across their backs when they heard it.
Did this exist inside everyone's body?
Who had planted it?
And how had it taken root?
Chu Xuanfeng strode to the goddess robed in butterfly-patterned silk and spoke loudly, so all could hear: "We beg Goddess Shinobu to investigate. Otherwise, the Yang Realm will fall into chaos."
"Please, Goddess Shinobu, show your mastery!"
"Please, Goddess Shinobu, show your mastery!"
Everyone had friends and families. No one wanted to become a puppet, parasitized by some hidden thing that fed on the ties of their own lives.
Shinobu Kocho's smile was gentle. "Do not worry. I am a healing goddess—I will investigate. But I will need examples of the cultivation methods of this world, and samples of the foods people commonly eat."
Within moments, a hundred different techniques were stacked in front of her.
Others who had just awakened from meditation—having heard Shinobu's diagnosis—stared with lingering shock, as though they had seen a ghost.
So the black smoke in their bodies was not a hidden illness, but a kind of organism.
"Unbelievable… Before this, there were people mocking us for joining a 'cult.' Now? If those holdouts learn about this, they'll be lining up on their knees to get in."
"Of course. A servant of God sees right through our flaws—and the things inside our bodies are no exception."
"That's right. Sometimes luck grabs you by the collar, and you'd be a fool not to hold on!"
A ripple of relief passed over the believers' faces. At the same time, a deep comfort settled into their limbs: their bodies felt extraordinarily at ease, as if they had slipped into a hot spring that washed away centuries of weight. It was like shedding a burden multiplied countless times—a feeling beyond easy words.
In a chamber near the altar, Shinobu laid the techniques out on a table and sighed. "It's the methods themselves."
"The… cultivation method?" someone echoed.
"Yes."
Yao Yao stepped over. "Why do you say so?"
She had initially assumed that people were infected with these things from birth. To learn it came from cultivation itself was strange indeed.
Shinobu nodded. "This world does possess remarkable talents. No wonder it's among those where gods begin plane wars. The highest path of cultivation likely peaks at a level where one can contend with your sister."
She tapped a handful of manuscripts. "And at the source of all these paths, there are many unknown organisms embedded in the law. As long as people practice, these things continually pollute their bodies through those very laws."
Faces darkened all around. The matter was grave. The flaw was not in this or that sect's approach, but in the origin of cultivation itself. Practicing meant gradually becoming poisoned—the classic cure-of-poison-with-poison, and death would be the bill to pay.
In time, one would become a monster for those things.
Bai Suzhen thought for a moment and exhaled. "We can't trace it back further than this. Only the two God-Sisters can intervene in a battle at that level."
Rin Tohsaka nodded. "Which explains why Eternal Meditation can expel those things—it overwrites the path. A God's method is the dharma-body that reflects the Eternal God. We've all experienced it. Forget 'weirdness'—even if their lord comes, facing the true God means perishing. That is the power of God."
Bi Yao lounged against the wall, smiling. "Why don't we announce this news? It'll… motivate the holdouts."
"An excellent tactic," Murong Fu said, smiling back.
If they dared to slander the Eternal God, let them see for themselves. Let them see how vast—how boundless—divine might truly was.
By noon that day, the major news winds had received the analysis from the Eternal Faith—complete with images of divine methods being used to purify the unknowns inside believers' bodies.
The world shook.
"There's a flaw in our cultivation?"
"By the heavens… No wonder our ancestors could never break through to the cosmic level. The path itself is corrupted!"
"So the ominous rumors were true after all!"
"Hah! Idiots—all of you. This is clearly a trick by the Eternal Faith to reel in gullible fools, and you just believe it."
"It says if you don't believe, go to Qingzhou and watch a purification yourself. You can even volunteer someone to test!"
New believers joined the Eternal Faith daily, so public purifications quickly became the norm. Within an hour of the news breaking, people had posted streams of footage showing their own spiritual cleansing.
Thousands were purified at once.
Even through the flicker of captured light, anyone could feel the terror of what was being pulled free.
"Hurry—invite the ancestors. This is bad!"
"Move—now!"
In the great forbidden lands, clans scrambled to bring forth their cosmic-level masters. The conclusion came back the same from every direction:
Yes, they had problems within themselves—
and more, the path of cultivation itself had a problem.
An elder ancestor laughed at himself in a broadcast carried by the wind.
"In truth, when we reach the cosmic tier, we all become monstrous to some degree. The more our power evolves, the stranger our bodies become. We thought our methods were imperfect. Only now do we realize the whole world's road has been occupied by a nest of stinking things."
A powerhouse at the cosmic level had spoken, and the weight of his words landed like stone.
The Yang Realm plunged into chaos.
It was fully, openly unsettled.
The factions that had slandered the Eternal Faith went suddenly, perfectly meek—sheep with their ears pinned back. Those who hours before had been calling for joint assaults on the Eternal Faith quietly vanished; fear of retaliation sealed their lips.
And then, that very day, an ancestor at the cosmic level led his followers to join the Eternal Faith.
"A cosmic-level being is joining the Eternal Faith?"
"Let's go see!"
"Go!"
Within Qingzhou, the wind ran like a tide. The thousand-meter altar shone with multicolored divinity. Across the state, palaces of the Eternal God rose one after another. Human or alien, it made no difference: devote your faith, and you could join.
"He's coming…"
Seated before the altar, Yao Yao opened her eyes.
Directly ahead, at Qingzhou's border, a cosmic-level being descended.
What surprised everyone was that upon entering Qingzhou he immediately knelt, then crawled forward.
"Believer Fantaki comes to worship…"
His voice rolled across thousands of miles. But when his true body showed itself to the world, shock went out in ripples.
He stood a hundred feet tall, a mass like rotten flesh. Gray, decaying meat fluttered with each movement.
Was this truly a person?
Or merely a living thing?
It was disgusting—and the stench it emitted carried for thousands of miles.
"Is that a cosmic-level creature? This is… this is unbelievable."
"I thought the Eternal Faith was lying. I didn't expect… the stronger you are, the worse the damage."
"So our so-called methods were just roads to an ending. My God…"
"Watch—it'll be clear soon. We'll see whether the unknown wins, or the Eternal God stands higher."
Countless eyes fixed on the coming baptism. Yao Yao even notified Liu Che, fearing that not even the Eternal Mind could fully purify what lay inside.
The answer returned was simple: Yes.
Divine law stands above all.
The rotting mountain of flesh inched forward, writhing, and finally hauled itself up onto the steps of the altar. It took three full days from first appearance to setting its vast bulk upon the platform.
By then, more than fifty million onlookers had gathered—
with the news winds writing without pause.
At that moment the five goddesses appeared together, floating above the stones.
Yao Yao addressed the cosmic being. "Rise. You have shown sincerity. I hope you will abandon what you have done before and devote yourself to spreading God's doctrine after you receive the divine method."
A violet stream of light lanced from her hand and entered the being's mind.
From that instant, the whole world seemed to hold its breath.
The results would soon be plain.
Ordinarily, when practicing a divine method, effects showed quickly—half an hour at the shortest, two hours at the longest.
Time dripped by, minute by minute.
Then—
"Oh… what are you—why are you abandoning me—no—I am—you are me—"
A shrill, rasping voice ripped across Qingzhou like thunder.
A gray shadow tore itself out of the cosmic being's body, wreathed at once in golden fire.
Then a second.
A third.
By the end, twelve weird creatures had been forced out of a single cosmic-level host.