The bonfire burned for over two hours. Wisps of smoke curled from its embers, still giving off a delightful fragrance.
It was a magnificent spectacle, with the momentum of a prairie fire. Even without counting the Returning Soul Incense's essence spreading for a hundred li, the visible smoke alone permeated an area more than ten li across, shrouding the sky above the city.
Many residents who had not attended the ritual assembly stopped around the city or outside the refugees' shanties to gaze into the distance. They excitedly discussed the clouds overhead, occasionally taking deep breaths to savor a fragrance they rarely had the chance to smell.
In places their naked eyes could scarcely perceive, the pestilent energy that caused disease was receding.
When it encountered the Spirit-Communing Incense essence drifting through the air, it melted and dispersed like frost and snow beneath a blazing sun. Even where it was not immediately eradicated, it weakened enough for healthy young adults to resist with their own constitutions.
The essence of the Evil-Repelling Incense, meanwhile, blocked transmission, making the pestilent energy spread with extreme slowness. Whenever it moved, it had to pass through thick clouds of incense essence, suffering another round of erosion.
The resulting chain reaction was that almost all the conditions necessary for its spread and transmission disappeared. The terrifying effect of one infecting ten and ten infecting a hundred was no more.
If it spread through ordinary addition alone, then never mind the authorities of the Mystic Xin Kingdom-even the people themselves could contain it and eliminate its harm entirely.
Just then, a commotion suddenly arose at one end of the gathering.
Someone cried out, "He's alive! He's come back to life!"
"Grandfather River God has manifested! Grandfather River God saves us from suffering and calamity!"
Li Ling was