"Here you go."
Kelān's words fell into the wind, and only the corners of Gu Changqing's white robe were left shaking on Dharma Platform.
Nezha opened his mouth, but did not spit out a complete sentence. He was still thinking about the meaning of those three words in his mind. Wind-Fire Wheels under his feet turned twice and sent him to Gu Changqing's side.
"Master, what did she mean when she said she would open the door for you? People in that city want to invite you over for tea?"
Gu Changqing didn't answer him, and his eyes moved away from Kelān's face and fell further to Clear Firmament Plains.
Tongtian shuttled through the crowd with Heavenly Soldier. The progress of soul mark recovery was visible to the naked eye. White silk threads flew out from the container in Heavenly Soldier's hand and pierced the believers' eyebrows again. Every time it pierced a person, that person came back to life from the sluggish state. First he was confused, then fearful.
Fear comes faster than wakefulness.
They remembered, and remembered that they had given away the most deadly thing in their hands, to a group of gray-skinned lizards hiding in the bellies of the fake Divine Statue.
The first one to cry was a middle-aged man. He knelt under Dharma Platform, his knees smashed into the mud, and he kowtowed seven or eight times. The skin on his forehead was opened, and the blood on his face was not wiped off.
"I'm guilty, Master Patriarch. I reported all the imprints of my family of five. My mother-in-law is still at home waiting for news. I told her to go and ask for Immortal Destiny. Please ask for Immortal Destiny."
Next to her, a young woman was holding a child of seven or eight years old. The child's brows were still glowing with white light, which was the afterglow of the soul imprint that had just returned to its position and was not yet stable.
The woman didn't cry, the expression on her face was even uglier than crying.
"My daughter is only eight years old. When I brought her up, she said, "Mom, I'm scared." I said, "What are you afraid of? God bless you."
Her voice was broken, and the second half of the words was stuck in her throat.
The recovery speed of believers is very fast. Tongtian is never vague in doing things and has paid back more than 90% within half a quarter of an hour.
But it's not just the soul mark that's returned.
And memory.
A complete memory, from the first step they took on Dharma Platform, to the touch of their palms pressing on the black pillar, to the tearing feeling of their souls being pulled from the center of their eyebrows when the mark was pulled away.
Remember it all.
The cries in the crowd grew louder and louder, spreading out from around Dharma Platform, like ripples from a stone thrown into water.
More and more people are kneeling.
No one made them kneel, their knees bent on their own.
The knees of more than 400 million people smashed into the Clear Firmament Plains mud one after another within a quarter of an hour.
Nezha stood on the top of the mountain and looked down, swallowing all the words in his mouth.
He has seen large battles and scenes of fifty million troops arrayed in formation, but fifty million soldiers standing and more than four hundred million people kneeling are not the same thing.
The soldiers stood because someone gave the order.
These people are kneeling because no one can hold them back.
The system's voice rang in Gu Changqing's head.
"Ding, large-scale spontaneous deep confessional mood swings detected."
"Ding, this emotional fluctuation is triggering the resonance effect of Faith, and the purity of Vow Power has reached SSS level."
"Ding, SSS level Vow Power appears for the first time, and the system is updating the evaluation model."
Nezha tilted his head and glanced at Gu Changqing.
"What is the concept of SSS level?"
"The previous highest record was S-class."
Nezha's mouth closed for two breaths and then opened again.
"Master, did you do it on purpose?"
"What's the purpose?"
"Deliberately smash the statue in front of them, let them see the contents of the fake Divine Statue with their own eyes, and then return the soul mark in front of them."
Nezha's finger scratched the barrel of the gun.
"If you handle the matter behind the scenes, they will at most be grateful to you for saving their lives, but if you let them see how stupid they are before taking action, they will not be able to overcome the hurdle in their hearts, and the guilt and gratitude will be mixed together, and the Vow Power that emerges will not be ordinary."
Gu Changqing looked back at him.
"Nezha."
"Huh?"
"When did you become smarter?"
Nezha's face turned dark.
"I've always been pretty smart, but just too lazy to use it."
Kelān stood a few steps away, her silver-grey pupils staring at the white light spots steaming from the believers on the plain.
The density of light spots was one layer thicker than before, floating upward from the ground, like a falling snow, forming a curtain of light visible to the naked eye in the sky of Wangyue Star.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched under her cloak.
"The purity of these Vow Powers is something I have never seen in any Star Domains."
Gu Changqing didn't reply to her words and walked to the trodden dirt road in the middle of the plain.
When the believers kneeling on both sides of the road saw him, their cries became quieter, and they lowered their heads one by one. Even when they looked up at him, they felt that he didn't have that face.
An old man with all white hair crawled out from the crowd, holding a wooden box in his hand. The paint on the box was worn off, and it was an old object.
"Master Patriarch, I offered you a stick of incense in the ancient temple of the Firmament Realm Main Star three hundred years ago. It was the most right thing I ever did in my life."
His hands were shaking, the lid of the box was opened, and there was a layer of yellow cloth inside, with a dried incense head placed on top of the yellow cloth.
"It's been three hundred years. I've kept Incense Ash. Today I saw those people pretending to be your name. I wanted to dig out my own eyes."
Gu Changqing looked down at the incense stick.
The three-hundred-year-old Incense Ash was carefully preserved, and even the broken parts were wrapped with thin threads.
He reached out and closed the box, pressing it back into the old man's hand.
"Keep it."
The old man froze on the spot.
"Don't trust people casually in the future." Gu Changqing walked past him with a low voice, "Whoever told you that he was immune to all disasters was most likely lying to you."
The old man's tears fell into the box, and the wood made a soft sound after eating the water.
The system sound came again.
"Ding, Vow Power cumulative increase exceeded 30 billion points."
"Ding, SSS-level Vow Power accounts for 41% of the total increase."
"Ding, the host's current total reserve of Vow Power has entered the top three of the known records of Myriad Worlds."
Nezha followed behind, listening to these numbers in his ears, and Fire-Tipped Spear's gun tail drew a ditch on the ground.
"Top three, Master, where did you rank before?"
"Seventh."
"Jumped four places."
"It's not about jumping." Gu Changqing said without looking back, "It's because they retreated."
Kelān followed behind, the hem of his gray cloak trailing mud.
Her lips moved, and her voice was buried in the wind, so even she couldn't hear it clearly.
"The Faith of these people was not forced out or magnified by Formation. It grew out of their own hearts."
She touched her chest with her fingers. The red Runes Chip hidden under the cloak had turned dark, like a dead seed.
"Thief Race got something he hadn't saved for three thousand years in just one trip."
The light curtain in the distance became brighter and brighter, and the white light spots gathered into a wide river of light in the sky, spanning the entire Wangyue Star skyline from above Clear Firmament Plains.
The end of the river of light is connected to an invisible direction deep in the void, like a road being paved.
Kelān looked up at the river of light, and the miniature Star Map in his pupils stopped.
"Mr. Gu."
The person walking in front did not look back.
"The direction of the river of light is consistent with the direction of the city Savage Star Domain."
Gu Changqing's footsteps stopped for half a beat.
Nezha turned around, pointing the gun at Kelān.
"Where are you from?"
Kelān looked at him, and for the first time something different from fatigue appeared in his silver-gray eyes.
"Third Prince, if I were the person on the opposite side, I would have had three chances to run."
Nezha's gun tip was confiscated.
"Just because you didn't run away doesn't mean you're not on the opposite side."
"Yes." Kelān lowered the corner of his mouth, "But if I were the person on the other side, I wouldn't tell you that the city is demolishing the barrier."
Communication Array came on, interrupting the conversation.
Yang Jian's voice leaked out from inside, and there was only one sentence.
"Master, the city gate is open a crack."