There is only one Evil God, and only one!
The Evil Gods present in this world are not in their complete forms, or rather, they are merely fragments of the original Evil God.
This secret is indeed monumental!
Fang You was truly surprised. However, perhaps because the Evil Gods have always been an insurmountable mountain looming above them, he didn't feel much fear even as this mountain grew taller.
Ultimately, he had to face them!
Sensing his thoughts, the Moon Lord sighed inwardly but offered no dissuasion.
After all, wasn't she the same in the past? Without truly facing an Evil God, no one could comprehend the despairing terror they evoked.
She simply said, "Several years ago, we directly clashed with the Twisted Black River, and only then did we discover this great secret. But why the Evil Gods exist in this form, and their true relationship with the complete original Evil God, we still do not know."
This was also the fundamental reason they were enveloped in despair after the battle and no longer considered confronting the Evil Gods.
The Evil Gods were invincible!
But after hearing this, Fang You had a different perspective.
Indeed, a single Evil God could easily defeat the Great Sun God, the Moon Lord, and the Lord of Stars, three great wielders of immense power. And such terrifying existences were merely parts of the 'true Evil God's' body.
Anyone hearing this would despair.
But if one considered it from another angle...
"The Evil Gods came from beyond the universe and sowed filth and mystery, fundamentally altering the environment of the entire Ghost Realm and its cultivation system... Such a status is undoubtedly far higher than the tenth realm."
The Ghost Realm was not originally called the Ghost Realm.
No one knew what its specific name was. The term 'Ghost Realm' seemed to be an ingrained common knowledge concept in the minds of every being in this universe.
And now, the entire Ghost Realm, including the ancient gods, practiced a mystical system whose origin traced back to these unnamable Evil Gods.
To walk their path and then surpass them, how could that be easy?
"We can assume that the original Evil God was a being of higher status, unnameable, indescribable, and unfathomable, whose arrival directly altered the fundamental rules of the world."
"But for some reason, the original Evil God perished and split into these 'ordinary Evil Gods' that we see now."
"The Twisted Black River, the Scarlet Moon, and other such Evil Gods are indeed terrifying and seemingly insurmountable. But at least, between us and these Evil Gods, there is no insurmountable gap in status, which means we have a possibility of defeating them."
The Moon Lord opened her mouth, intending to refute, but upon careful consideration of this Beacon of Hope mentor's theory, it seemed rather plausible?
No, the problem was that even a single ordinary Evil God was something they lacked the ability to defeat.
Do you understand that they lacked this ability?
Wait, it seemed she had been drawn into a roundabout argument, daring to prefix 'ordinary' to the unnamable Evil Gods.
However, the firm belief contained within Fang You's calm words still touched her slightly.
She took a deep breath, "If you wish to directly confront the Evil Gods, you must be cautious, cautious of their filth."
"The Evil Gods are the source of filth. Fighting them, whether directly or indirectly, even just clashing in terms of laws or authority, will lead to contaminating oneself with their filth."
"This filth is extremely powerful and very difficult to remove."
"In fact, some ancient beings joined the ranks of the Evil Gods in the past, wholeheartedly believing in them... At the time, we couldn't understand it, but now we realize these ancient beings did not willingly believe but were forced to."
"When one's body becomes excessively contaminated with the Evil God's filth, irreversible corruption will occur. And if this corruption reaches a certain level, then... then one will become a servant of the Evil God."
Fang You hadn't experienced the feeling of being polluted for a long time.
While a God-myth realm cultivator might need to tread carefully in the Sea of Filth, once one ascended to the High Realm, they were giants within the mystical system. High-level beings, as long as they didn't court disaster, would never experience pollution or loss of control.
Filth was a great threat to ordinary people and mid-to-low tier awakened individuals, but for the strong, it wasn't even considered a debuff.
On his status panel, for him and others, the 'Pollution Level' had always been 0%.
Occasionally, when fighting Evil God servants or high-tier anomalous beings, it would rise slightly, to 0.3%, 0.5%, but would drop back to 0% after a short rest.
Uh, however...
"Apostle Dormitory Lv8: Recovery speed +5000%, can also reduce own pollution level at a moderate speed, until the best state for the current realm."
Perhaps, maybe, it was their Beacon of Hope's excellent recovery abilities.
Or maybe the Apostle Dormitory was too inconspicuous, and he had overlooked it.
'Wait, does this mean the Moon Lord still has a considerable amount of filth deeply ingrained within her?'
The Moon Lord hadn't hidden her injuries.
Because she couldn't hide them anyway.
When migrating the oases, the Moon Lord requested a significant amount of Life Crystals. However, while Life Crystals could replenish vitality and smooth over law-based wounds, their effect on removing filth was not as immediate.
His assessment was that they were inferior to the Apostle Dormitory.
And the bonus effect of the Apostle Dormitory, well, he remembered it was permanently affixed to the City of Burning Flames, in a place he had named 'The Sanatorium'.
"Actually, we in the Beacon of Hope have a unique technique for removing filth and have established treatment and rehabilitation facilities such as the Beacon of Hope Sanatorium."
"Since Lord Moon Lord is suffering greatly from filth, perhaps you would consider moving to the Sanatorium for a period of time."
"How could the Evil Gods' filth be so easily removed? It is an inauspicious substance more difficult to eradicate than law-based injuries..."
The Moon Lord stated directly, but she couldn't resist the Beacon of Hope mentor's enthusiastic invitation.
More importantly, she was already residing within the City of Burning Flames and had no immediate plans to leave. Since that was the case, why not try? Trying cost nothing.
Perhaps, it might be of some use?
...
The migration of oases across various regions and the upgrade and reinforcement plan for oasis city walls were gradually nearing completion.
It wasn't that their Beacon of Hope had moved all the oases; rather, most of the remaining oases had been submerged by the tide of disaster.
This was disaster!
Human strength was incredibly insignificant.
Even if this 'person' was a tenth-realm origin existence, they couldn't stop the momentum of disaster.
As oases in the great regions collapsed one by one, their life force extinguished, the environments of these great regions also began to change.
—Becoming increasingly desolate, dim, and dangerous.
It seemed that without the restraining power of the oases' life force, the great regions were further polluted, followed by the general submersion of the southern, western, and northern Ghost Realms, showing a trend towards becoming like the Central Ghost Realm.
"As expected, the 'life' force of the oases is extremely important."
"Without the power of life, the great regions would completely sink. Conversely, if enough of the oases' life force could be accumulated, would it be possible to reanimate the entire great region with new life?"
"If all the great regions in the four Ghost Realms were revitalized, could we achieve the encirclement of the core from the outside, gradually greenifying the Central Ghost Realm, and then, using the power of life to suppress the unnamable Evil Gods, perhaps even sealing the Evil Gods?"
Fang You believed this possibility was very high.
If the oasis city walls were vast enough to stretch across all the great regions of the four Ghost Realms, then it would be the Central Ghost Realm's polluted zone being surrounded, not their oasis district.
Unfortunately,
They lacked the ability to do so.
If he hadn't migrated, the other three Ghost Realms would have been annihilated and submerged. Now, at least in the Eastern Ghost Realm, the life force had strengthened in some great regions.
In some great regions where many oases had been relocated, the environment had even shown some changes—occasionally, a touch of green could be seen in the wilderness, and many new, small oases had been born, with a frequency of birth significantly exceeding the past.
This also proved that the idea of oases surrounding the gray fog was feasible.
However, it was still useless.
"No, it won't be entirely useless."
"Relying on the power of the oases to inhibit the Evil Gods is naturally far from enough, but this is, after all, a clear, defined, and genuinely viable path to confront the Evil Gods. At a critical moment, it might become a significant chip in defeating them."
He still felt some regret.
If the Evil Gods had awakened a few thousand years later, he could have changed the Ghost Realm's environment through his strategy of constantly planting trees and oases. He might have even planted oases right at the Evil Gods' doorstep, sealing away those unnamable beings.
This approach was reliable, stable, and didn't require risking his life against the Evil Gods.
But he didn't have that option.
The only option was to confront them, head-on.
Fang You gazed towards the Central Ghost Realm, and he could vaguely see several areas divided within it. Perhaps the red moon hung high, or the black river roared, or pink mist permeated, or the deep night was devoid of light...
These scenes, like monstrous beasts baring their fangs, were gradually revealing their true nature.
However, it seemed some were stronger, some weaker, some faster, some slower.
"These Evil Gods are all vying to awaken as soon as possible."
"Perhaps their awakening times are similar, but if the secret revealed by the Moon Lord is accurate, then the Evil Gods who awaken even slightly earlier will have a significant advantage... They can devour those who have not yet awakened."
"We must pay close attention to the moment the Evil Gods truly awaken."
"However..."
The fundamental basis of everything was power.
The oasis city walls were also power, but it was external power, applicable only for defense, not for offense.
...
The oasis migration work had temporarily come to an end. Although the entire Ghost Realm was becoming increasingly perilous, and even God-myth realm cultivators had to tread carefully outside the city walls,
There was a temporary period of calm.
—Apart from the increasingly rapid giant waves of gray fog and the ceaseless tides of anomalous beings impacting the outer perimeter of the city walls, acting as 'reef' oases, nothing else significant occurred.
The Evil God factions were relatively quiet.
Not only were they not attacking the oasis city walls, but a subtle balance was maintained among the various factions.
Beneath the surging gray fog lay a suffocating, stifled calm.
Mentor Fang returned to his peaceful cultivation routine.
He sat in his small Apostle Dormitory, yet his pupils reflected myriad worlds and strands of intersecting, different temporal fragments.
"The power of time is too vast, too profound. One could easily become lost within it if not careful."
Mentor Fang comprehended the Stele of Time, the Pavilion of Time, the Silhouettes of Time, and also...
*Hummm—*
His status panel unfolded before his eyes, and he flipped to the [Instance Traversal] interface.
This interface was very simple, with gray imprints scattered across its depths.
There were few words, with some phrases inscribed on the surface like "Transcend space-time, exert full effort," but upon gazing at them for a long time, one could see extremely subtle and profound law patterns within the gaps of these words.
Billions of law runes formed these characters.
Deeper within, there was something he still couldn't comprehend.
"Is this the principle of instance traversal?"
He still didn't understand, but his use of instance traversal was no longer simple and crude.
"Searching for instances..."
"Prompt: No enterable instances found."
"Searching for instances, search failed... @3￥%#... Instance search altered, proceeding with manual search..."
"Ding!"
"Prompt: Discovered instance 'Ancient Holy Court'; Discovered instance 'The Founding of Winterless'; Discovered instance 'The First Heavenly Pillar'; Discovered instance 'The Birth of the Human Federation'; Discovered instance..."
He discovered over ten instances in a row, and bright imprints appeared on the Instance Traversal interface.
However, temporal traversal still required a price, either in established treasures or in time.
And,
"These instances are merely temporal nodes that I can discover, but their significance is minimal." DaFeng Novel Network
To this day, he was no longer interested in the rewards obtained from clearing instances.
At least, the rewards from these instances held no meaning for him.
Furthermore, his actions within the instance space were extremely limited, and a single mistake could lead to unpredictable disasters.
After all, it was a manually operated instance, and he dared not take risks.
The main reason was that these temporal nodes did not contain the hidden secrets he wished to acquire.
He examined the traversal interface, pondering, and occasionally gazing at the river of time.
Within the Realm of Years, clouds swirled, and the sun rose and set.
Time, like wisps of clear wind, flowed by countless numbers unnoticed.
On this day,
Fang You, sitting motionless like a statue, suddenly opened his eyes. A flicker of silver light shone between his brows, outlining an extremely profound mark.
Fragments of brilliant gems slowly materialized.
They were tiny, yet also immense, like a grand vessel sailing through the river of time.
Within it, scattered fragments of the past and future were reflected.
"The authority of time has finally surpassed 1%."
In fact, if he hadn't been busy with the oasis city wall project during this period, his authority of time would have broken through much earlier. However, it wasn't slow now; as long as the real time did not exceed one year, the difference between entering the Realm of Years earlier or later was not significant.
"1% authority of time is already not weak, and..."
He could faintly sense that within this universe, no one's authority of time surpassed his.
He was the supreme wielder of time authority!
Just as the three combined wielders of the Moon Lord could amplify most light-based powers, with abundant idle time authority, he could similarly leverage more power.
He looked forward, extending his right hand to eye level.
Gently...
He snapped his fingers.
"Snap!"
Time froze.
"Snap!"
Time accelerated.
"Snap!"
Time reversed.
"Manipulating time requires paying a huge price, but as long as I hold the supreme treasure Pavilion of Time and shrink the coverage area, even freezing a top-tier ancient being should allow for a considerable duration of freezing."
Moreover,
He lowered his head.
"Ding!"
"Prompt: The third ability of the supreme treasure Pavilion of Time, 'Time Patrol,' has been unlocked."