Atop the altar, a river of stars poured down.
Pulled by Chu Bai’s formidable Magical Power, over a hundred Cyan Nether Pearls were no longer a scattered string of beads. Instead, they transformed into rings of burning, cyan-gold comets that spun rapidly around the massive Divine Body of the Mountain God.
These pearls were formed from the Divine Dao Fragments of this very realm. Now, answering a call from a kindred energy, a resonance like the roar of a dragon echoed from the Void.
"Decree!"
Chu Bai’s voice boomed like spring thunder as he slammed his hands together.
The river of stars instantly exploded, transforming into an utterly pure, cyan-gold mist as thick as slurry, which poured frantically into the Lingma Mountain God from all sides.
Visibly, the Mountain God’s tattered armor, which was covered in black and red stains of evil, began to flake away layer by layer with a crisp sound like cracking ice.
Its skin, once as dry as rotted wood, was nourished by the immense Spirituality. As the Evil Qi receded, it began to reveal a metallic sheen like cast bronze, as if it could endure myriad tribulations.
The demonic aura, potent enough to devour living creatures, was suppressed and forced back into the deepest recesses of the Divine Body under the relentless scouring of the countless Divine Dao Fragments.
However, instead of relaxing, Chu Bai’s brow knitted even tighter.
To his senses, although this physical shell was rapidly growing stronger, it was like an exquisite piece of porcelain devoid of a soul.
No matter how much energy from the Cyan Nether Pearls poured in, its hollow eyes remained as still as a deep, stagnant pool, without a single spark of true Spiritual Light.
"Its Spirituality... it’s been scattered for too long... After ten thousand years of solitude, can his Divine Soul truly not be summoned back?"
The diminutive, elderly Land God knelt below, his voice trembling as he looked up at the blue-robed figure on the altar with a plea bordering on despair.
"So be it. In for a penny, in for a pound. I’ll accept this burden of Cause and Effect!"
Chu Bai pressed his right hand down into the void. The Golden Seal Decree Fate Chart in his Sea of Consciousness erupted with an immense golden radiance, merging as one with his own vast Destiny.
"By the Merit gathered here, I grant Enlightenment to this True Spirit—Awaken!"
A beam of Merit Golden Light, perceptible only to those holding a divine office, shot from Chu Bai’s fingertip. It pierced through the dense fog and struck squarely upon the Divine Patterns at the center of the Mountain God’s brow.
In that instant, time seemed to freeze.
Chu Bai’s consciousness suddenly plunged, as if he had fallen into a grand dream spanning ten thousand years. Countless shattered images exploded in his mind like a chaotic torrent.
He saw the heavens collapse and the earth crack asunder—this was not any place recorded in the annals of the Great Zhou, but another Great World known as "Cyan Earth."
The sky shattered like glass as countless otherworldly Demons descended like a plague of locusts, turning flourishing cities into scorched earth.
He saw the faith of the Human Race collapse. Temples, once overflowing with the smoke of incense, were consumed by raging fires as piercing wails echoed across the cosmos.
As the final wisp of incense smoke was extinguished by the wind, this Mountain God who ruled over a thousand li lost his foundation. His Divine Power drained away like sand in an hourglass as he watched helplessly, his Divine Realm becoming a den of demons.
These memory fragments revealed to Chu Bai that the so-called "Secret Realms" of the Great Zhou were actually the surviving remnants of another, magnificent world.
The vision finally settled on a silent scene in the mountain forest. Through the long eons of extinction, this Divine Spirit had not completely perished.
The beasts, Spirit Monsters, and other surviving Spiritual Objects that had escaped the calamity cowered at the foot of the mountain.
It was he who had expended the last of his Divine Power to create a barrier, protecting the final spark of life within this fragment of a world.
Though these varied creatures did not burn incense, their primal reverence for the Earth Spirit became the final anchor that sustained him, unextinguished, for ten thousand years.
GASP—!
Chu Bai’s eyes snapped open, and he was drenched in sweat, his eyes filled with shock.
’Those memories... they told the story of another world. To think that beyond the Great Zhou, such a magnificent civilization of cultivation once existed... and now, only these fragments remain, adrift in the Void.’
In the center of the altar, the ten-foot-tall Divine Body trembled slightly.
Within its once-hollow eyes, a gleam of light finally appeared—it was clear, yet utterly vacant.
The Evil Qi had scattered, and its divine might had returned.
But these eyes held no past and no emotion, only the profound weight of the earth and the instinct to protect.
His Divine Soul, after all, had been utterly ground away during ten thousand years of silent extinction, never to be reborn. What had awoken was merely a remnant of will, an instinct called "protection."
"Commanding Officer... My Lord Commander..." the diminutive Land God choked out, crawling forward to clutch at the hem of the Divine Armor.
The Mountain God lowered his head, his eyes as clear as a mountain spring, and gazed silently at the Land God.
After a moment, he slowly raised his hand, and his broad palm gently rested upon the Land God’s head.
At that touch, the cracks covering the Land God’s body, which had formed as his Spirituality dried up, miraculously healed by more than half.
This was no blessing from a Divine Spirit; it was more like the earth instinctively mending a patch of its own soil.
Then, the ten-foot-tall Divine Body began to dissipate like smoke on the wind.
Chu Bai stood to one side, not interfering.
He had already seen the truth—the physical body could no longer be sustained. Its true form was the very Earth Vein of the Stone Palace, encompassing a radius of a thousand feet.
The Mountain God usually manifested in a Divine Body, but now that its Spirituality could no longer be made whole, it chose to return to its Origin.
The Earth Vein, which had been trembling violently from the displacement of the Earth Treasure, became completely stable at that moment.
The Mountain God turned its head and looked at Chu Bai one last time.
Its gaze held neither gratitude nor hostility, only an indifference like that of a mountain observing a passing breeze.
’Without its Spirituality, it truly can’t come back.’
Chu Bai gave a self-deprecating laugh, allowing the last traces of the Talisman Decree’s condensed aura to dissipate from his fingertips.
He could save Lord Locust and subdue the Water Uncle, but in the face of an Ancient God who had fallen ten thousand years ago, whose very Divine Soul had dissolved into the Void, he too was powerless.
The divine seat remained, but the god was gone.
Chu Bai straightened his robes, torn from the fierce battle, and gave a slight bow with clasped hands toward the empty throne.

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