Cultist

"I'm back—" Smelling the familiar, slightly murky air, Lin Xu's spiritual sense quietly spread out, enveloping the room.

It flooded the streets again.

It was midnight, and apart from the streetlights, everything was pitch black; the streets were deserted and there wasn't a soul in sight.

Lin Xu swept across the empty room; the ashes still couldn't conceal the dark red stains.

This was the point he chose to return to. After learning about Chen Lingfeng's style, Lin Xu became wary.

To avoid being attacked while traveling through time, he did not choose the safe spot set up by the Jiang Clan, but instead randomly selected a room in the city.

Because of the invasion from the Spirit Realm, many rooms in the city have been left vacant and uninhabited for years, making them the best places to conceal his whereabouts.

"Indeed, my connection with the Spirit Realm has deepened—" Lin Xu looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see through the concrete slabs and glimpse some truths beyond the world, "Even in reality, I can sense Azure Cloud Mountain and Xuanwei Monastery, though they are very blurry—"

What surprised him even more was that this connection was deepening. Recalling what he had vaguely sensed during his transmigration, he vaguely understood how to anchor the Spirit Realm to the real city.

"As expected, the connection between reality and the Spirit Realm is much deeper than I imagined—"

Recalling the majestic Spirit Realm Lord he had seen during his last nighttime Night Wandering, his heart was filled with fervor.

With a thought, the window opened silently, and Lin Xu rose into the air, looking down at the tranquil city.

The night breeze brushed against the hem of his clothes, and the city unfolded beneath his feet like a miniature sand table, with streetlights and moonlight intertwining to form flowing silver veins.

After quickly determining the direction, he rushed towards the Jiang Clan residence.

"Hmm? Why is there an aura of the Spirit Realm here?" Lin Xu paused, his spiritual sense probing towards the source.

A newly built residential building with a European-style dome stood silently in the darkness, with only a broken window on the third floor letting out a faint blue light, and a distorted figure could be vaguely seen moving through the gap in the curtains.

"Is it Spirit Realm invasion?" His face immediately darkened, and the Glazed Spirit Lamp in his hand shone brightly. A line of fire suddenly passed through the window frame, illuminating the entire room.

A putrid stench filled the air. Dark red blood, not yet dried, snaked across the floor. Two corpses lay sprawled in a radial pattern, their chests branded with eerie blue runes that throbbed slightly, like the heartbeats of living beings.

A young man in a blue robe was kneeling in the center of the blood array. The blade hovering in mid-air gleamed with a ghostly blue light, ready to stab the little girl who still had breath in the blood array.

He stared in astonishment at the moving fire serpent, the firelight illuminating his face and revealing tiny blue feathers on his cheeks.

"Cultists?" Lin Xu's face showed a hint of disgust. The invasion of the Spirit Realm had led to the proliferation of a large number of evil spirits, and had also given rise to a distorted belief that relied on the power of the Spirit Realm.

For ordinary people, cultists are more dangerous than evil spirits. They are secretive and cunning, knowing how to avoid the Night Watchers's sight and choosing weak targets for blood sacrifice in the shadows.

The spiritual fire, like a crimson ribbon, coiled upwards, instantly scorching through the blue-robed youth's protective aura.

The blue-robed youth made a strange gurgling sound from his throat, and instinctively slashed at the fire snake with his dagger, only to be swirled up by the spiritual fire.

"Ah~" The excruciating pain of being burned by the flames made him howl in agony. The blue feathers on the young man's face and body were charred and fell off one by one, revealing the festering flesh underneath.

He screamed hoarsely, "How... how did you find me?! This isn't the future I saw!"

Lin Xu slowly descended from the cloud, his gaze icy as he looked at the cultists struggling like vermin. "Who are you? What is your plan?"

The blue-robed youth's pupils constricted, but his festering lips twitched upwards in a strange manner: "Lord of Change —I've seen you—"

He chuckled hoarsely, his festering mouth splitting to his ears, his voice abruptly cut off, his body trembling and swelling, rapidly deforming like a malignant tumor.

Lin Xu frowned. He sensed that the chaotic demonic power growing wildly within the cultist's body was supporting the rapid expansion of this lump of rotten flesh. The flesh and blood writhed like a living thing, and within a few seconds, it lost its human form.

The fire serpent suddenly expanded, transforming into a blazing white flame that enveloped the mutated body.

Flesh and blood hissed and carbonized in the high temperature, ashes fell, leaving only a ghostly blue rune suspended in mid-air, constantly twisting and changing, seemingly in an endless process of morphological evolution.

Lin Xu frowned as he stared at the rune. Just gazing at it made him feel dizzy, as if countless whispers were echoing in his ears.

"This thing can't be left behind..."

The fire serpent suddenly tightened, enveloping the rune in its heart of flame, and instantly fell into the Glazed Spirit Lamp.

The lamp flame trembled slightly, and the flame, carrying the power of purification, stripped away, burned, and purified the wisps of evil god's power. A pure and wondrous power quietly settled, and strange patterns appeared on the lamp wall, flowing like star trails.

The spiritual fire grew increasingly pure, Lin Xu silently sensed this change. As the distorted power of the evil god was purified, the pure energy was quietly reshaping the Glazed Spirit Lamp. From the most basic material to the spiritual pattern structure contained within, everything was undergoing a fundamental transformation.

As the distorted runes were completely purified, the last wisp of energy disappeared into the Glazed Spirit Lamp, and a new rune faintly appeared, but it quickly faded away.

"Unfortunately, this amount of divine power is not enough..." Lin Xu regretfully stroked the spirit lamp in his hand.

That twisted rune was formed from the power of the evil god and was of extremely high quality. If it weren't for the constraints of the rules of reality suppressing the power's expression, someone at his level would never have been able to purify it so easily.

The purified divine power clearly possesses incredible might, even having the ability to drive the transformation of the spirit lamp.

"With one or two more cycles, the Glazed Spirit Lamp will complete its transformation." He felt a pang of regret.

Just then, a strange power quietly descended. Lin Xu subconsciously activated his Spirit Eye and saw a Source Fire quietly merging into it, making the flame that had originally condensed into the shape of a spirit lamp even more intense.

"This is... a reward from the Will of Civilization?" Some information inexplicably appeared in his mind, and he suddenly understood.

After being promoted to Spirit Realm Lord, he returned as a guardian of human civilization, gaining higher authority from the Will of Civilization.

When he performs acts of protecting humanity in reality, he will receive a reward from the Will of Civilization, which is usually distributed in the form of Source Fire.

"About 100 points of Source Fire, much more generous than the Spirit Realm..." Lin Xu's gaze fell on the blood sacrifice array. After he killed the cultist, the energy condensed in the array had disappeared. The array diagram drawn with blood quickly dried and solidified, turning into simple, hideous evil symbols.

At this moment, there are three offerings in this sacrificial array. Two of them have already lost their lives, and only the little girl remains unconscious.