Faith Is Poisonous

Though extremely unwilling, the Demon had no choice but to obey his command and turn to face the evil god's followers behind him.

"Followers of the God of Blood Moon Dreams? Consider yourselves unlucky. No, we're all unlucky together."

"So die."

As the Demon's words fell, every Blood Moon follower except the old man on the pulpit died. Their souls automatically gathered in the Demon's hand.

"A Divine Favored? What a pity. If I hadn't signed this damned contract, your soul would be mine."

With that, the Demon pointed a finger, and a hole appeared in the bald man's head. A soul left his body, seemingly about to be drawn somewhere, only for the Demon to seize it in his hand.

After tossing the soul in his hand to Yang Mu, the Demon plunged directly into the magic array and vanished, returning to the Demon Space of this world. He did not want to see Yang Mu again, not even for a second.

Although Yang Mu's contract was harsh, it still followed the principle of Equivalent Exchange. In other words, what was given and what was gained had to be at least equal. The Demon's contribution could be less than his reward, but it could never exceed it. This was one of the contract's rules.

And the Divine Kingdom Yang Mu had mentioned was real. It was located in this world, discovered by chance when he had once communicated with inert dark energy. He had left behind its coordinates.

As long as the Demon fulfilled the contract, he would truly gain a Dark Divine Kingdom, allowing him to advance easily into a Middle Demon.

Unfortunately, he would probably never have the chance to complete this contract in his life. Ten years was enough for Yang Mu. By then, he would simply slaughter him and dissect him into materials for himself.

The contract did not state that Yang Mu could not attack him. It merely stated that if Yang Mu attacked him but failed to kill him, and he returned to the Demon Space, Yang Mu would suffer the contract's backlash.

Even with Yang Mu's methods, he would have to pay a heavy price.

But he was only a Lower Demon. Yang Mu had plenty of ways to kill him. From the moment he accepted the contract, his fate had already been sealed.

Black flames ignited, and the souls in his hand let out shrill screams. Yang Mu's mental power rapidly rose, soon reaching 10 points. This was already the limit of an Apprentice Rank Mage. To increase his mental power further, he could only advance to an Official Mage.

Just as he burned the souls of the many Blood Moon Church followers, as well as the soul of that Second-Order Life who was possibly a bishop or archbishop, a gaze descended from the Infinite Void and glanced at Yang Mu.

A Blood Moon Mark appeared on his left forearm. He had been marked.

"Fourth Order. So it really is a god. It's just unclear whether its life form is unusual or if there's some other reason why it can't project much power into the material world."

Yang Mu examined the mark on his arm, with not a trace of concern on his face. It was merely a mark. At most, some followers would come looking for him.

Worship—fanatical worship—flowed toward him from the crew behind him. If Yang Mu claimed at this moment that he was a god's incarnation in the mortal world, Jack and the others might immediately become his followers, and their devotion would not be low.

However, Yang Mu had no need for the power of faith. Although Divine Power converted from this kind of energy was powerful in nature, it bound its user too deeply. Once one became entangled in it, one could only use Faith Power.

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Incense offerings were poisonous, and faith was poisonous—this was a common understanding in many worlds. If one did not want to become a god, be bound by a single type of energy, or be confined to one world, then one should not use Faith Power. Or rather, one should not let one's true body use it.

If one merely killed a god, used its Godhead, and treated its followers in the world as energy wells, that was something many Mages did.

Yang Mu did not yet possess that ability. He had done so before, using a god's Godhead to create such an energy well when he was still Fourth Order.

But after reaching Fifth Order, he had abandoned it. Not only was it troublesome to maintain and inefficient, but most importantly, it could not be moved. A Godhead could not leave its native world, because its essence was merely a world-granted aggregate of laws and Authority.

This was highly inconvenient for Mages who needed to conduct long-term expeditions. Moreover, upon reaching Fifth Order, he could also obtain certain creative powers through rules of creation, so he no longer needed so-called Divine Power.

What Mages valued about Divine Power was its inherent creativity. It could be said that Divine Power was an all-purpose force. As long as its quality and quantity were sufficient, even making words become reality would not be a problem.

But like a Godhead, once it left its native world, this miraculous effect would be greatly diminished.

As for other aspects, such as destructive power, many forms of energy used by Mages were stronger than Divine Power.

When everything was over, Yang Mu waved his hand and stored more than three thousand Walking Corpses in the Undead Space, along with the bishop's corpse with a hole in its head.

This Second-Order Life corpse was not something he could handle yet. He would need to advance to an Official Mage before he could turn it into undead.

It was not that he could not make it into undead now. As long as he had sufficient materials, he could use a magic array to search for a space containing death power, draw it out, and still transform it into undead.

But control was a problem. How could his Apprentice Rank mental power control a Second-Order Undead? The difference between them was like that between a rhinoceros and Godzilla. The former's strength was formidable to ordinary people, but to Godzilla, it could not even budge it.

For Yang Mu to control it, his power needed to reach the level of a giant beast, even if it was the weakest kind.

And an Official Mage was the threshold.

Even he needed to prepare some things before advancing to an Official Mage. Today had already been chaotic enough, so he did not continue searching for shops that sold extraordinary materials. After thoroughly looting the Blood Moon Church's church, they returned to the place Jack had found to stay.

Yang Mu found many useful items inside, all of considerable value. In particular, there was something called a Painful Umbilical Cord. It should have been the umbilical cord of some powerful creature at the time of its birth and contained dense dark power.

It also possessed a dream-like spiritual attribute. It could serve as the main ingredient for a Spirit Ascension Potion. With several supplementary materials, the refining process could begin.

There was an alchemy bench personally made by him aboard the Undead. Although crude, that was only relative. It was more than enough to refine a Mental Power Ascension Potion.

He had even gathered most of the materials needed to set up the Mind Pressure Array.

The night passed exceptionally peacefully because there was no one left where they were staying. They had either fled or become Yang Mu's Undead Servants.

Other than several powerful individuals who went to inspect the Blood Moon Church's church, no one dared enter this area again.

Not until the next morning did Pirate Island become lively once more, as many pirate ships weighed anchor and set sail.

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