The Decaying World

’Evil Energy... degrading?’

Lin Hui had heard Zhang Yao and the others mention it before—that something seemed off with their Evil Energy, that it seemed to be waning. But to hear it was actually degrading sent a jolt through him.

Standing in the great hall of the mountainside palace, Lin Hui surveyed the crowd.

A quick scan revealed sixteen Fog People who had joined Black Cloud City, quite a few more than before.

But right now, something was wrong with their condition.

Just as Xie Chang’an had said, their Evil Energy was significantly weaker than that of a normal Fog Person.

Lin Hui hadn’t been particularly sensitive to these things before. However, ever since forcibly taking the Tai Chi Divine Sword, he had thoroughly studied the Evil Soldier Separation Sword inside and out before its evolution.

So he did have a certain sensitivity to it now.

Looking again at Gongsun Xinlian and Zhang Yao, and recalling what the Bright Heart Association Leader had said about a "limitation," Lin Hui felt like he was starting to understand something.

After taking his seat, he looked to Zhang Yao, who recounted the series of findings the group had just been discussing.

"So, you’re saying everyone’s Evil Energy has degraded by about twenty percent? And it seems to be continuing to degrade over time?" Lin Hui frowned.

"Yes..." Zhang Yao gave a bitter smile.

Lin Hui then turned to look at Gongsun Xinlian.

She was wearing a thick, black veil that obscured her face. From the skin visible on her neck and arms, he could faintly make out fine wrinkles.

The degradation of their Evil Energy meant it could no longer suppress the natural aging of Fog People who were nearing the end of their lifespans.

This was likely why she was wearing a veil, even at an occasion like this.

As if sensing Lin Hui’s gaze, Gongsun Xinlian lowered her head slightly and turned away, no longer facing him.

The meeting had completely devolved into a personal grievance session. It seemed the Black Cloud Fog People gatherings had always been this informal.

Lin Hui recalled that when there were fewer people, Xie Chang’an and the others would hold meetings while eating and drinking.

Now that the group was larger, that same informality had just become a chaotic mess.

Everyone wanted to speak, to make demands of the Gang Leader. By the time they had all taken their turns and it was finally Xie Chang’an’s chance to speak, more than half an hour had passed.

Seeing that these pointless discussions were likely to continue, Lin Hui and Zhang Yao quietly slipped out.

The two flew from the floating mountain in tacit understanding, heading toward the Outer City.

"Actually, it’s not just us. This massive devolution is happening elsewhere, too," Zhang Yao sent via voice transmission.

"What else have you discovered?" Lin Hui asked in a low voice.

"The fog," Zhang Yao said with a nod, pointing to the still relatively thick fog outside.

"The fog’s concentration is far, far thinner than it used to be. And it’s not just the fog. There’s also..."

The two flew past the gradually reviving docks, left the coastal waters, and soared over one sailing fleet after another.

Soon, they reached the deep sea.

He made a casual grabbing motion.

A large hand made of Void Power easily scooped several large fish out of the seawater.

But these deep-sea fish looked different than before.

Previously, after being contaminated, even after the taint receded, the fish had retained the fierce appearance of monsters from the Fog Area—things like hard scales, sharp teeth, and barbs on their bodies.

But now...

Lin Hui’s brow furrowed. He also reached out, wrapped his power around a fish, and held it in his hand.

The sea fish’s eyes used to be reddish, and one could faintly sense the decaying aura of "Xiwo" flowing within them, as many of these fish fought each other and were scavengers. But now...

The sea fish in his hand had smooth, shiny, silver-white scales. Its eyes were black with white pupils, its scales had softened considerably, and its barbs were gone.

"Is this their normal state?" Lin Hui asked.

"Yes. The fishing boats off the coast of Black Cloud have been going crazy lately. The danger from the sea fish has plummeted, so everyone is desperately trying to catch as many as they can, afraid the opportunity will be gone before they know it," Zhang Yao replied.

He tossed the fish back into the sea and sighed. It seemed he had sighed more in this short period than in the past several thousand years combined.

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

"Don’t overthink it. It’s probably just a temporary, large-scale environmental adjustment..." Lin Hui paused before offering some comfort.

"Actually, this has happened once before... After that time, all the top-tier Fog People experts went into seclusion and vanished. But this time..." Zhang Yao didn’t finish his sentence.

He gazed at the distant Jade Sea, where the fog had thinned considerably.

Because the sea level had dropped significantly, Black Cloud City’s original docks and harbors were now much farther from the shore, so workers were still busy renovating various new piers.

Giant laborers had become the most sought-after workforce. The thick-skinned and powerful Elephant People came in second, also making a fortune. Everything seemed wonderful on the surface.

"If, one day, we can no longer protect Black Cloud..." Zhang Yao said softly, "Daoist Master, perhaps everything will depend on you."

"...I’m not very reliable," Lin Hui said lightly. "This is your life’s work. It’s better if you watch over it yourselves."

The decay was still being shared, but now, it seemed the Fog People at the very source were having problems of their own.

Zhang Yao sighed again and fell silent. Soon after, he was summoned back by the Black Army to deal with some miscellaneous affairs.

Lin Hui, however, didn’t return home. With a slight change in expression, his figure abruptly accelerated, flying high out of Black Cloud City’s domain and heading toward Zhenlong Divine Palace.

「A short while later.」

He returned to Zhenlong Divine Palace in the depths of the sea.

Inside the entire divine palace, only Cloud Cleansing was left, dutifully standing guard.

The other Fog Spirits were nowhere to be seen. The area around the divine palace was completely empty.

The moment he saw Lin Hui return, the old turtle Cloud Cleansing was overjoyed. He got up and quickly scuttled toward him.

"Daoist Master, you’re finally here! Something terrible has happened!"

"What is it?" Lin Hui already had a faint suspicion.

"Just a short while ago, everyone’s Divine Position became unstable! Many of the weaker Fog Spirits even degraded directly into Scions. And those Scions then degraded into ordinary creatures...!" Cloud Cleansing began to chatter on, explaining in detail everything that had happened recently.

It turned out that ever since the battle at the royal capital of Haiming, all the Fog Spirits had felt their Divine Positions disappearing.

The Divine Position was the foundation of their very being. Without it, a spirit could no longer be called a spirit; they could no longer gather Divine Power. Their divine kingdoms couldn’t be maintained, and they would only degrade into common creatures of Scion bloodline.

So, from the moment their Divine Positions became unstable, everyone panicked and began searching everywhere for the cause.

But since they had all lived through the great war ten thousand years ago, they quickly deduced the conclusion.

"It must be another ’limitation.’ The last one didn’t affect us, but this time, it’s even reached us..." Cloud Cleansing sighed. "I’m fine, I’ve always looked like this. But some of the humanoid Highnesses have devolved directly back to their original forms. They can’t even maintain a human shape anymore."

Lin Hui stood to the side, carefully inspecting the changes inside Zhenlong Divine Palace.

He discovered that the palace’s strange spatial effects were also diminishing; the space itself was shrinking.

"You noticed it too? Yes, the palace’s spatial formation has started to degrade. Its volume is already less than half of what it was." Cloud Cleansing sighed. "Everyone’s divine territories are in chaos now. We’ve also observed that some long-lived animals are suddenly dropping dead. It would be one thing if they were just dying of old age, but when large numbers of older individuals from many different species and groups all die suddenly, there’s definitely a problem."

"Could it be... that even age is being locked down?" Lin Hui murmured.

"It must be another ’limitation’..." Cloud Cleansing nodded. "Fundamentally, the higher the concentration of various energies in the environment, the longer life spans are, and the greater the upper limit for the powerful. Now, it’s highly likely that this ’limitation’ has forcibly siphoned away the total upper limit of energy concentration in the wider environment..."

"Are there any countermeasures?" Lin Hui asked. "Since you’ve been through a ’limitation’ before, you must have thought of a solution, right?"

"There are none... Back then, the great spirits either died or went into hiding. Even those willing to show themselves were completely unapproachable, having clearly fled to some other, completely isolated plane of existence. They did it to escape the last ’limitation.’ But this time... the scope is even larger, even wider!"

Cloud Cleansing’s words reminded Lin Hui of the great spirit woman he had seen drifting across the sea.

The sorrow on her face seemed to signify that she had already foreseen this coming catastrophe.

Cloud Cleansing continued to ramble on, complaining about how hard it was for him to hold the fort alone and how the group of Scions from the surrounding divine palaces had made all sorts of grand promises when they were receiving benefits, but had scattered like birds and beasts the moment trouble arose, showing no sense of belonging.

Lin Hui paid him no mind.

He had a vast number of subordinates at the divine palace, but their loyalty was questionable from the start. He had only gathered them for the convenience of collecting Treasure Medicine.

Now that he had the Treasure Medicine, this bunch had outlived their usefulness. Once they left the way of Daoist Master Qingfeng, their Dharma Seals would be automatically reclaimed, and the Eye of Life would disappear.

Of course, at this point, these Fog Spirit Scions probably didn’t care about such a minor loss. Their most precious Divine Positions were starting to crumble, and that was a matter of life and death.

Everyone had fled.

Lin Hui looked at the empty divine palace, feeling the space within it continuing to shrink.

"Are you willing to leave with me and return to headquarters?" He had a reasonably good impression of the honest and dutiful Cloud Cleansing.

"Yes, yes! Master, I’ll call you Master from now on, Master Daoist Master! I can’t stand to stay in this place a moment longer. Please, take me away at once!" Cloud Cleansing said hastily.

"What about your divine kingdom?"

"It’s long gone. My Divine Position has vanished and my Divine Power has dissipated, so I’m basically no different from the Scions of old. But my greatest strength is my hard shell! Plus, my lineage has an extremely long natural lifespan. Even without a Divine Position, we won’t face the great limit of decay, so you don’t have to worry about me having problems!"

Cloud Cleansing did his best to sell himself.

He had traveled around during this time and seen a great many Fog Spirits and Fog People who were in trouble.

Everything was changing, everything was degrading.

It was as if the entire world was rejecting the once-glorious Fog Spirit race.

Just when he thought everything was fated, Lin Hui’s appearance had utterly shaken his Heart and Spirit.

In this world where everything was regressing, Lin Hui was like a lone traveler, standing apart from it all, completely unaffected.

In fact, the aura and presence he exuded were even stronger than when he had last left.

This sight made Cloud Cleansing completely and utterly devote himself to Daoist Master Qingfeng.

’What does it mean to be a backer? This is a true top-tier backer!’

’There’s nothing more to be said.’ The moment he saw Lin Hui return, he had decided to go all in.

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