Chapter 1 A Ten-Centimeter-Tall Evil Spirit

Although a ten-centimeter-tall evil spirit, Vivian, abruptly dropped the seriousness and danger level of the whole affair to the level of slapstick, the matter was still not to be taken lightly. Vivian’s sudden premature split made Hao Ren feel a faint sense of crisis, and he immediately headed to the God Realm with his lunchbox, wanting to seek guidance from Raven 12345.

He arrived at the God Realm right at lunchtime. Hao Ren had just teleported to the entrance of the "Temple" when he smelled a wave of meaty aroma. He raised his eyes and saw a roaring fire burning in front of the fountain in the center of the courtyard, and Raven 12345 was holding a wooden fork, roasting meat.

If you casually threw this into a script with a normal style, your first reaction to running to heaven only to find God squatting at the door roasting meat would definitely be, "Holy crap, what is this?" However, Hao Ren had developed immunity after spending so much time with this unreliable female psychopath. When he saw the goddess roasting meat in front of the temple, his first reaction was actually, "So this female psychopath can do more than just cook noodles after all..."

Raven 12345 sensed someone visiting, raised her head, and saw Hao Ren at a glance. Her second glance landed on the lunchbox in Hao Ren's hand, and the goddess was immediately shocked: "Holy crap, you kid is too arrogant! Last time doesn't count that you ate and took stuff, this time you even brought your own lunchbox to freeload?"

Hao Ren: "..."

"Let me tell you first, it's not that I won't let you eat this meat, it's just that, well, the meat of this Bahamut thing is poisonous, I'm afraid you'll get diarrhea if you eat it… Speaking of which, you're being a pretty carefree Pope, aren't you, running straight to heaven to freeload at lunchtime…"

"I'm not here to freeload," Hao Ren finally couldn't listen anymore and interrupted the goddess's nagging, "This lunchbox is a sealing container, something happened on my end."

"A sealing container? Pfft, why didn't you use an electric cooker?" Raven 12345 chuckled, but after she sensed the situation inside the lunchbox, her frivolous expression quickly turned serious. "What happened?"

"Vivian split, it happened last night," Hao Ren didn't stand on ceremony with Raven 12345. He casually grabbed a cushion from the side and sat cross-legged in front of her, then slowly opened the lunchbox. "And split out this thing."

As soon as the lunchbox lid was opened, a ball of black and red shadow shot out from inside, but because it shot out too fast, the little thing didn't see where it was at all. After coming out, it crashed straight into the bonfire not far away and immediately began to wail, causing sparks to fly and ashes to scatter everywhere. Fortunately, Raven 12345 was quick-witted and quick-handed. Seeing that the situation was not right, she immediately snapped her fingers, and the blazing flame with a certain amount of extraordinary power instantly disappeared, and even the residual heat in the ashes seemed to have never existed.

The mini evil spirit was only roasted for less than a second in total, but it was already in a terrible state. The little thing lay sprawled in the ashes, twitching weakly, and didn't even seem to have the strength to get up.

"What is this thing?" Raven 12345 casually threw a healing spell over, then pinched the mini Vivian's collar with two fingers and picked her up. "An evil thought-form? How can it be so small?"

"We discussed this problem," Hao Ren told the other party the whole story in detail. "... In short, the final discussion result was that the amulet you gave Vivian earlier worked, weakening the aftereffects of this split, and also weakening the strength of the split evil thought-form—weakening it so much that it became this little thing. We found her hiding in a mouse hole. She was probably planning some attack plan, like launching a surprise attack from the mouse hole to catch us off guard…"

"It doesn't look like it has that much intelligence. She probably just treats the mouse hole as her home," Raven 12345 said, pinching her chin and observing the mini evil spirit's reaction with interest. "I've studied the thinking ability of evil thought-forms. It's basically the same as that of wild beasts. Although they have intellect, their intellect is completely suppressed by their bestial instincts. They are pure destruction machines that can only rely on their ferocious instincts to act and can also be regarded as a highly concentrated collection of negative emotions and forces. Although this one is much smaller, it should be essentially the same."

"Then you think the reason why she became so small…"

"Yes, your guess makes sense. I also think the amulet caused this result. It seems that the effect of the amulet is trustworthy. It is indeed very effective against Vivian's symptoms," Raven 12345 said, shaking the little thing she was holding in her hand. The latter immediately struggled and made a series of meaningless roars. "Do you know what this means?"

Hao Ren came here to inquire about this matter, and immediately perked up: "What does it mean?"

Raven 12345 raised her eyes and looked at Hao Ren: "It means that the root of all these abnormal symptoms of Vivian's splitting, sleeping, amnesia, and the evil thought-form she released is inside her soul, and has nothing to do with external contamination or physical factors. The amulet I gave her at the beginning was actually a soul protector. It would only play such a big role when fighting against 'lesions' at the soul level."

When Hao Ren heard this, he naturally became nervous: "There's something in Vivian's soul?!"

"It's highly likely, but that thing must have already merged and coexisted with her soul, and may even have been part of her soul from the beginning, so no detection method can detect it. Only when this 'latent factor' induces the soul to become diseased will the amulet be activated, and we will discover clues," Raven 12345 said, nodding.

"Could this 'latent factor' be corruption?" Hao Ren instantly thought of some of the things he had recently investigated. "Like the things lurking in the souls of the Guardians of the Dream Plane."

"It's possible," Raven 12345 said cautiously.

Hao Ren pinched his chin and thought, and an idea that had been faintly generated long ago slowly took shape at this time: "You said, doesn't this look like a 'detoxification' process?"

After he finished speaking, he paused, organized his language, and poured out all his guesses: "The pollution in the soul is an external 'toxin'. It continues to grow and will threaten Vivian herself. So when the pollutant increases to a certain extent, Vivian's soul will begin to detoxify. But because the pollutant is too closely combined with the soul, the detoxification process will inevitably cause damage to the soul itself—like scraping flesh to heal wounds, it will always consume part of the normal soul. This can explain everything: sleep is because the soul is too damaged during the detoxification process and needs to recuperate, amnesia is because part of the normal soul is consumed, and the loss of power is also the same reason, and the evil spirit is the 'toxin' that is discharged."

Raven 12345 nodded lightly: "The idea is very good, you can continue to deduce... What if this detoxification process fails?"

"If the detoxification fails, it will lead to complete contamination," Hao Ren then thought of the battle deep in the heart of the Purgatory planet, the unprecedentedly powerful and huge "Demon God Vivian." "Vivian had a special split on the Purgatory Star. The two individuals she split out were both mentally normal. The one who stayed in Purgatory was even worshiped by the locals as a goddess for a long time, but when we arrived, there was only Demon God Vivian left... If I'm right, that should be the situation after the contamination exceeds the critical value."

Raven 12345 added the last sentence: "Vivian will be completely transformed into an evil god."

A long-standing doubt was finally explained:

Why was the split Vivian on the Purgatory Star completely different from all other evil thought-forms, and why were their power intensity and external forms completely different levels of existence? The reason is here: that is not a discharged pollutant, but the main body that has been completely contaminated!

"I should have thought of these things earlier..." Hao Ren patted his head, his voice full of remorse. "The splitting phenomenon is so obvious."

"But you didn't even know the existence of 'contamination' before. This is not a mistake," Raven 12345 actually comforted him with a rare sentence. "Investigating 'corruption and contamination' is still a recent matter. You've done a good job. And in terms of results, Vivian is safe and sound, isn't she? The amulet personally blessed by this goddess is hanging there. She's completely safe."

"But I won't feel at ease if this problem isn't eradicated," Hao Ren frowned. "There are still pollutants in Vivian's soul. Is there no way to completely purify that thing?"

Raven 12345 quietly looked at Hao Ren for a while. No real thoughts could be seen in those deep eyes. In the end, she shook her head: "Any form of forced separation is accompanied by great risks, and more importantly, you haven't even figured out the nature of that 'evil force' in the Dream Plane, so you don't understand what the corruption it creates is. Without knowing its true form, no one can come up with a treatment plan."

After thinking about it, Hao Ren could only helplessly agree: "So the most effective way is to find out the source of that 'evil force' in the Dream Plane as soon as possible."