The Battle God was furious. As a Heavenly Mandate Bearer who had spent years in the Rule Arrow Realm, he had imagined how he might die.
He might die exploring a land of treasure!
He might be surrounded and killed by enemies!
Or he might be cut down by an enemy on the battlefield!
He was also somewhat prepared for his enemies' sinister, unpredictable schemes.
Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep at night, he would think about how he might die someday.
He had imagined dozens of deaths, all manner of ways to go. In truth, he was already prepared to die.
After all, Heavenly Mandate Bearers lived on a knife's edge. Dying was normal; expecting to die peacefully of old age was what made no sense.
But being stabbed in the back by a friend...
In all honesty, he had never imagined dying that way.
Granted, in all sorts of stories, friends betrayed one another, and even blood brothers could turn their blades on each other.
But he didn't think anything like that could happen to him. He believed he was still a good judge of character.
How could his friends be the sort of petty men who cared only for profit and betrayed their trust?
Besides, the Weili Clan and the Flower Calamity Clan had left him with a particularly good impression. From their leaders down to the common people, everyone had been especially welcoming once they learned he was a Heavenly Mandate Bearer.
Of course, he wasn't stupid. The class, talents, divine abilities, and so on that he had revealed were all fake.
When away from home, it never hurt to keep a few cards up one's sleeve.
But the Flower Calamity Clan had already made an alliance with Huaxia, and they had even established diplomatic relations. Everything was moving in a good direction, so how had a Mental Gu Seed been planted inside him?
And in the future, they would even stab him in the back and get him killed!
He didn't dare imagine how much damage it would do to Huaxia if, in some future war, the Flower Calamity Clan and the Weili Clan joined the fighting as allies, only to suddenly turn on them in the midst of battle.
Perhaps... losing the war would be the best possible outcome!
"My advice is to maintain your relationships with the Flower Calamity Clan and the Weili Clan."
The Star God looked at the furious Battle God and spoke softly.
"?"
The Battle God's face was full of question marks. After what they had done, he was supposed to keep playing along?
Just how broad would his heart have to be?
Was he worried they hadn't planted enough Gu inside him?
"I think so too."
The Theater God said, "You're no weakling, so the Mental Gu Seed inside you can't have much effect on you."
The Battle God froze at that, then asked, "What does the Mental Gu Seed do, then?"
"It uses you as the center from which it radiates, changing the way ordinary people around you think."
"..."
"It's precisely because the fluctuations given off by this Mental Gu Seed are so faint, and because even its effect on ordinary people's minds takes years to accumulate, that you couldn't detect it."
"..."
After a moment of silence, the Battle God asked with difficulty, "So if there are moles among us, they were also forced to change the way they think under the Mental Gu Seed's influence, turning from patriots into spies?"
The Theater God nodded slightly. From the moment the Mental Gu Seed was discovered, he had understood that there would be no small number of "moles" around them!
"There's something else. Because it's so well hidden, even those who have been changed can't detect it themselves."
The Star God said, "Even you couldn't detect it, so how could they detect the state of their own minds?"
"Perhaps only when something happens in the future and the Flower Calamity Clan uses some method to awaken them... will those who have been changed become nails planted inside our ranks!"
The Battle God said bitterly, "But they were patriots to begin with..."
At that moment, guilt swept through the Battle God's heart.
If they were enemies, he would never show the slightest mercy, even in a massacre.
As for moles?
They were the people he hated most!
In any country or region, anyone who caught a spy hidden in their ranks would probably show no mercy.
But what if those spies were loyal people to begin with, who had believed from start to finish that they loved their country and were loyal to their people, and had never entertained a single thought or taken a single action of betrayal?
It was purely because of him that their minds had been corrupted and they had become enemy spies.
In a situation like that, how could he bring himself to do it?
All of it was evil of his own making!
"That's why I advise you not to fall out with the Flower Calamity Clan and the Weili Clan."
The Star God said, "Don't let them notice that we're on guard. Then we'll find those who have been changed."
"And see whether there's some way to help them purge the mental corruption."
The Battle God took a deep breath. "What if it's already set in stone, and it can't be purged?"
He already knew the answer to that question.
But he still wanted to ask, clinging to a one-in-ten-thousand chance that he might get a different answer from the Star God.
"Why ask when you already know?"
The Star God sighed and spoke despondently.
He didn't want to say those words either.
If it couldn't be changed, it would end in tragedy.
But in a life-or-death war between races, sacrifice was unavoidable!
What happened today had sounded a warning bell for them.
"Actually, we could..."
The Battle God's mouth was dry. He opened it to speak, but the words died on his lips.
Actually, from a humanitarian perspective, once they found those who had been changed, they could remove them from their posts and keep them from accessing confidential information.
But if war broke out, those people would definitely be the first to be eliminated.
When their very survival was at stake, how could they knowingly leave the enemy's hidden pieces in their ranks without eliminating them?
"So now we can only hope the Mental Gu Seed hasn't been inside you for long, and that it hasn't affected many people."
Listening to the Star God and the Battle God, Su Wen fell silent as well.
So that was how the spies inside the organization came about?
Had those who had been changed passed on information about the five God-Prefixed Heavenly Mandate Bearers, the Star Grand Array, and even his own whereabouts?
So... had he really wronged the Wind God?
Had the Wind God never betrayed the organization, and had there been another reason he killed Li Dong and tried to take Su Wen back by force last time?
At that thought, Su Wen felt very guilty too.
If there was nothing wrong with the Wind God, then the guilt the Battle God's lingering remnant had felt in the future timeline had been real!
Because of some things he had said, the Wind God had been killed.
And as a result, Huaxia had nearly fallen!
"Sigh!"
"Sigh!"
At the same moment, Su Wen and the Battle God both heaved a heavy sigh.
The next moment, the two looked at each other.
Su Wen knew the whole story behind the Battle God's sigh, so he could understand it.
But when Su Wen sighed at the same time as he did, the Battle God's pupils shook, and he felt a little uneasy.
Things were already this serious. Could it be that the God of Wealth still had something he hadn't made clear?
"Brother God of Wealth!"
The Wind God suddenly stopped writing and looked up. "The breeze tells me your emotions are fluctuating wildly."
"It seems you're full of... guilt toward me?"
As soon as those words fell, the Star God and the Theater God turned to look at Su Wen in unison.
What did that mean?
Why had the God of Wealth's feelings suddenly shifted for no apparent reason, leaving him guilty toward the Wind God?
What had he done to the Wind God?
At a time like this, shouldn't the Battle God be the one full of guilt?
Why was the God of Wealth joining in?