Chapter 859: The Devil’s Back-up Plan

Li Qi didn't manage to see through the entire southernmost part of the world like Maudgalyāyana did.

True Knowledge Dao Resonance was more akin to 'infiltration'.

Like water seeping into soft soil, it penetrated everywhere, leaving no crevice untouched.

Though this 'soil' was not soft at all.

If the area of Outer Void was soft soil, then the area of the world was a single, solid lead plate.

They were not on the same Rank at all.

However, True Knowledge Dao Resonance... no, it was no longer Dao Resonance; the True Knowledge now was like a superfluid, or perhaps like a neutrino, effortlessly passing through the molecules of the lead plate.

Thus, the location of every molecule was easily detected.

Approximately half of City of Dreams was clearly seen by Li Qi.

However, in correspondence with that—

Li Qi's thinking organs were almost about to explode!

"It's really... I haven't felt this way in a long time," Li Qi thought with a hint of nostalgia.

This feeling, it had truly been a long time since he experienced it.

The feeling of being overwhelmed by information flow to the point of almost losing his personal identity, where even his 'consciousness' itself was about to melt into the ocean of information.

Too much, too much.

So much that even a Fourth Rank mind couldn't process it.

Not to mention...

Li Qi was not actually a complete Fourth Rank.

Although he was unbelievably strong compared to ordinary Fourth Rank cultivators, he was actually in a state without inner body spirits, and everything had to be mobilized by his Nascent Soul.

And the Nascent Soul itself was the body god responsible for calculation and coordination; a large amount of Li Qi's computing power was constrained by regulating various Qi within his body and maintaining the balance of his Inner World.

This also caused an unavoidable fluctuation in Li Qi's cultivation; to free up a large amount of computing power to process this information, fluctuation was inevitable.

The other three stayed by Li Qi's side, protecting the execution of his Divine Ability.

However, at this moment, the entire City of Dreams suddenly turned 'dark'.

demonic thoughts surged forth, as if tens of thousands of years of accumulation had all erupted!

Coincidentally, Li Qi was currently investigating 'information'.

All the demonic thoughts, under the powerful function of True Knowledge Dao Resonance, instantly surged into Li Qi's body, being clearly read by Li Qi.

All the demonic thoughts was consumed by Li Qi in that instant!

Li Qi's already turbulent Inner World once again showed a flaw!

"Oh no!" Jing Wuzhen immediately realized what had happened; she immediately drew her sword, spread her senses, and investigated the source of the demonic thoughts!

Sariputra's expression changed slightly, then he walked to Li Qi's side and recited a Buddha-Dharma incantation: "Namo Sandanam... Koti Nam."

A binding boundary rose.

The Cundi Mantra can eradicate the five heinous crimes and ten evils, and eliminate various sicknesses, sufferings, disasters, nightmares, evil spirits, and all inauspicious matters.

This mantra is the heart of all Buddhas; all ghosts, gods, and demons dare not approach.

With the appearance of the mantra, in this present world and future worlds, hundreds of thousands of ghosts and gods appeared around Li Qi, guarding him day and night, not allowing evil matters to reach his ears.

Maudgalyāyana also followed Jing Wuzhen, setting off together.

Sariputra alone guarded Li Qi, while the other two investigated the source of the demonic thoughts; everyone immediately acted with tacit understanding.

Clearly, the Demonic Dao was waiting for this moment.

The Desire Realm rift just now was indeed a bait; they wanted to lure Li Qi into activating a large-scale True Knowledge... or was there another motive?

But no matter what, cutting off the source of the demonic thoughts was the top priority!

However, when Jing Wuzhen and Maudgalyāyana rushed out, they looked around, their brows tightly furrowed.

The source of the demonic thoughts—

It was this City of Dreams.

The negative emotions in everyone's hearts had all exploded!

— — — — — — — — — —

Jiao Chi was an ordinary Eighth Rank in City of Dreams.

Now, a corpse lay before her.

It was her 'son'.

However, he wasn't her biological child; he was picked up here.

Just moments ago, her 'son' died, killed by her friend.

Several years ago, someone gave birth to this child and abandoned him on the street, which was not uncommon; the rule of law in City of Dreams could almost be said to be non-existent.

Therefore, a large number of rapes and even deliberate 'humiliations' naturally led to a large number of newborns; most of these newborns would be abandoned, because their birth itself was some kind of 'play', not 'love'.

This even spawned several new professions in City of Dreams: those who collected these infants, and some who specialized in producing infants.

They would cultivate female bodies, then put them into brain death or use drugs to induce a permanent illusory dream, and then use their Physical Body to continuously produce infants.

After all, infants themselves could be mass-produced and used as Raw Materials.

These 'fertility factories' were essentially no different from Spiritual Artifact factories; both were industries born to meet widespread demand.

For cultivators not in this line of work, a single infant was useless, perhaps even a hassle, but they would collect infants and then process, prepare, categorize, and sell them as commodities using various methods.

Those with good talent were trained as dead soldiers; those with insufficient talent were made into longevity pills or Raw Materials for things like Hundred Soul Banners.

Of course, there were also infant-rearing facilities here, but they were basically all in the Heavenly Grottoes.

What Jiao Chi did was this job: she was responsible for collecting infants on the 36th floor of Jiachen District and handing them over to her superiors, who would then categorize them.

During this process, she once showed favoritism.

She privately adopted a child, a very obedient and lovely child.

For some reason, it was this child who touched the softest part of her heart, making this cold infant collector voluntarily choose to adopt the child.

Life was very happy; her income was more than enough to support a small child.

However, a few years ago, the situation suddenly changed.

Some monks came; they forbade such practices and wanted to collect all the children, which caused the factory to close for a period of time.

But where there's demand, there's supply; although the factory scaled down and her pay decreased, making her much more financially strained, she could still barely make ends meet.

She heard that such 'rectification' periods had occurred before, so the boss wasn't worried at all, only saying that they just needed to endure for a while and everything would return to normal.

So she prepared to 'endure'.

But after more than ten years, just now, she received an order.

To kill the currently stored goods to deal with the upcoming problems.

Since it was an order from above, she carried it out.

After disposing of about 600,000 units of stored goods, she returned home.

Then, she discovered...

Her child had been dealt with by a colleague she got along well with.

Negative emotions surged in her heart; she looked at her colleague next to her.

Who knew, the colleague next to her also had a pale face; she seemed to be contacting someone as well—

"What's wrong?" Jiao Chi asked.

"My home world—did you expose it?" The colleague turned her head and looked at Jiao Chi.

Conflict was imminent.

And such stories were also playing out downstairs, and upstairs; upon closer inspection, they were everywhere on the street.

Everywhere in City of Dreams, such a 'conflict' occurred.

Between siblings, between friends, between parents and children, between colleagues.

Subtle contradictions in daily life.

Tiny gaps that occasionally arose.

Minor displeasures not really taken to heart.

Unsatisfactory work, a few insults from a client...

It's like a white-collar worker working in a big city.

Going to work in the morning, the bus was crowded, and he was dizzy from being squeezed.

Arriving at the company, he heard a few female colleagues talking bad about him behind his back, saying he didn't give way to girls during yesterday's team building.

In the morning, he was assigned some manual labor.

Because of the work, he didn't finish his main job and was reprimanded by his boss.

At lunch, the delivery guy spilled the soup, and even giving a bad review couldn't fix it; reordering was too late, and lunch break was only one hour.

In the afternoon, he was asked to work overtime to finish what he hadn't completed in the morning.

But just as he started working overtime, the central air conditioning was turned off; people in the office said it was to save electricity, and the temperature at his workstation immediately went up, making it terribly hot.

After finally finishing overtime and going home, he opened a live stream to relax, and then found that the streamer he watched got angry over a small matter, spouting nonsense and scolding fans, fully displaying her 'fairy' nature, and there were a bunch of 'crystallized' fans frantically defending her; he couldn't help but say a few critical words, his account was blocked, he felt like all the gifts he sent before were given to a bitch, seeing the fan badge annoyed him, so he deleted it.

Lying in bed arguing with the 'crystallized' fans until three in the morning, furious, he barely suppressed his anger and fell asleep, only to wake up at six to catch the early shift.

All of it, in isolation, meant nothing; taken individually, there were no problems, but when accumulated, the pressure felt inexplicably immense.

But because of these things, a lot of pressure would accumulate in people's hearts.

This pressure slowly grew until it met the moment of explosion.

The trigger could be big or small; a big one might be being diagnosed with a terminal illness, a small one might just be being disturbed during a nap, and then some people would find that someone who was usually smiling suddenly turned into a devil.

This is like... demolishing a building.

Determining which components are to be pre-broken, which are to be demolished by blasting, which locations need to have rebar cut first, etc., components closer to the direction of collapse have less delay, and those further away have more delay, all calculated clearly.

And the blasting time is set, only a few tenths of a second delay is enough, demolishing the entire building only takes a few seconds, how much explosive to use, ensuring that the columns are not overloaded or underloaded, calculating for some columns, the explosives used for blasting will also be as precise as possible.

Finally, the minimum explosive charge required. By minimizing the amount of explosives used, the maximum reduction of flying debris is achieved, reducing the possibility of damage to nearby buildings.

All the detonating cords are connected together, spreading like a spider web throughout the entire building; with just a press of a button, the entire building will instantly collapse in place, and even other buildings a meter away won't feel a thing.

It is that exquisite.

This City of Dreams is also like that.

The Demonic Lords pressed the 'demolition' button, and thus, the conflicts between people all exploded.

A massive amount of negative emotions surged forth!

At such a time, what could be done?

Killing a colleague's child, secretly telling a colleague's little secret to bad people, or simply causing a scene in the office, poisoning the boss—

These things, in turn, would trigger more chain reactions,

Just like dominoes, as long as each piece is heavier than the last, then just a domino the size of a mahjong tile can easily topple a building, and even if one is willing to arrange them, as long as each subsequent piece is fifty percent larger than the previous one, then this process can continue indefinitely, even destroying the world.

The demonic thoughts of City of Dreams came from this!

The Demonic Dao, with exquisite arrangement, quickly amplified everyone's 'tiny杂念' within minutes!

And the amplified demonic thoughts triggered even greater demonic thoughts, and ultimately, in just an instant, City of Dreams was completely enveloped by emotions.

Originally, these雜念 were ignored; how could anyone not have雜念?

Everyone has some烦恼, which is very natural; no one is carefree every day.

Therefore, Li Qi and Sariputra only cleared the demonic thoughts, drove away the Demonic Dao, and then spread Buddha-Dharma to suppress the generation of new demonic thoughts, but they did not manage these雜念.

This directly led to the current situation.

Indeed, the Demonic Dao still had many tricks up its sleeve.

"What should we do? The source of the demonic thoughts is everyone, which means we have to kill everyone to alleviate Li Qi's pressure and prevent the Demonic Dao's invasion. Should we do that?" Jing Wuzhen looked at the Mortals below.

Jing Wuzhen's killing intent wasn't strong, but she had already seen... all the Mortals below had gone mad.

Trillions? No, Mortals counted in units of trillions of trillions had fallen into madness; a clever trigger point caused the entire City of Dreams to collapse.

Falling into the Demonic Dao, a large number of people falling into the Demonic Dao, it was simply like child's play.

"Kill... no, but if we want to make them sober, it will probably be very difficult. Making them fall into the Demonic Dao is much simpler than saving them. The Demonic Dao, this is truly—" Maudgalyāyana scanned below, finding it difficult to make a decision at the moment.

Kill? Impossible.

Save? Also difficult to achieve.

But it was also impossible to stand by and do nothing.

"Alright... Jing Wuzhen, you go stop the Patrolling Envoys. I will use my Divine Ability to suppress the entire City of Dreams," Maudgalyāyana said.

"Stop the Patrolling Envoys? That would be very difficult to explain afterward," Jing Wuzhen frowned.

"Every minute of delay means many more deaths. While life and death are impermanent, each instance of life and death is an important tribulation and should not be taken lightly," Maudgalyāyana said, "Then I'll trouble you, Jing Wuzhen."

As soon as he finished speaking, he had already sat down cross-legged, his Dharma form unfolding!

Exerting full power directly in the world would inevitably attract the Patrolling Envoys.

So the task of dealing with the Patrolling Envoys would have to be handed over to Jing Wuzhen.

Jing Wuzhen looked at the chaotic City of Dreams below.

"Demonic Dao..."

She murmured, then directly soared into the sky.

Above the sky, three Patrolling Envoys had already surrounded them.

"What is the matter? Why violate the heavenly rules?"

The voices of the Patrolling Envoys were deafening. (End of this chapter)