March 14th, night.

In the northern part of the Great Spirit, within an unfathomably dark mountain range.

The night was dark and the wind was high, the forest deep and mist thick.

On a slope within the mountain, there was a bamboo grove.

In the bamboo grove stood a temple.

The temple wasn’t large, about the size of a typical mountain god temple. It could only hold one statue and two side rooms.

The wind howled, continuously pouring through the dilapidated temple.

There were holes in the temple’s walls, the doors and windows had collapsed, and half the roof was broken, leaving the other half exposed to the moonlit night sky.

The ground was damp, covered with weeds and moldy soil.

But even on such black soil, there was a person, devoutly kneeling before the ancient and mysterious statue, murmuring prayers softly.

"Great compassionate Iyamosha, bless me with success in everything from now on, rising step by step, fortune wide and plenty, all wishes fulfilled, invincible...."

The man had a full beard, wore a slightly black robe, and had patterns inlaid with brocade, clearly not a poor person.

Such a well-off person coming to a ruined temple in the mountains in the middle of the night to pray was indeed strange.

The man continuously recited his prayers and wishes, then offered incense and sacrifices.

Finally, using the lantern placed beside him for light, he bowed, kowtowed, and started to knock his head against the ground before the statue.

What was unexpected was that, right where he kowtowed, there stood a bright, long, sharp silver metal needle!

The needle pointed directly at his forehead, but the man seemed not to see it, closed his eyes, and fervently kowtowed towards the silver needle.

Thud, thud, thud.

The continuous sound of impact, for a moment, even drowned out the sound of the wind outside.

After a short while, the man sighed in relief, straightened up, a few tiny pinholes appearing on his forehead.

But strangely, no blood seeped out from the pinholes, instead, the wounds healed rapidly.

"There shouldn’t be a problem! There mustn’t be a problem! That business deal tomorrow will definitely succeed!" He seemed to sense something, gaining renewed confidence for tomorrow.

Packing up his things, the man turned and left the temple quickly, somewhat staggering.

As the night wind howled, his silhouette gradually merged into the night, quickly disappearing.

It turned out this person was actually a martial artist.

Not long after he left, soon, more people entered the ruined temple.

This time, it wasn’t one person, but several figures.

They were burly and tall, the tallest nearing three meters, the shortest was two meters three.

"To think there’s one of our strongholds here, unexpected." One of them glanced at the idol in the temple, speaking coldly.

"The Great Brightness Religious Alliance was defeated, this is a warning for us...." Another spoke. "Who dares not show their stance, dare to support Spirit Flying Heaven, they’ll directly kill them. Do those Five Religions Circle people really think the world belongs to them?"

"Spirit Flying Church’s nobles are aloof, probably don’t care about such trivial matters...." Someone sneered.

"Just now, someone from Great Dao Teaching contacted me. They want us to join their camp, or else they’ll put us on this second esoteric believers list. But if we join, we’ll have a chance to get off the previous esoteric believers list."

"Who does he think he is? The Spirit Flying Heaven of old?"

The group was filled with indignation.

"Talking about such things is pointless now. What we need to consider is that Great Dao Teaching has used some method to temporarily blind Spirit Flying Church’s lower and middle level connections.

Now they’ve shown their hand, we must choose a faction to align with, otherwise...." The first person to speak said.

"They don’t think merely killing a few masters means annihilating the religious alliance, right? The Great Brightness Religious Alliance isn’t so easy to destroy." Someone said.

"In my view, now is the perfect time for us to develop and expand, why can the big sects openly recruit followers? Why do we have to use underhanded methods to secretly steal the brains of believers?

Don’t they do brain extraction while recruiting followers? It’s just more covert." A woman said coldly.

"The more followers we have, the stronger our God Lord becomes, the better we can resist those evil gods and heretic sects. Indeed, I too think we should seize the opportunity to expand quickly." Another person agreed.

"Those big sects, on the surface, are only about recruiting followers, getting people to believe, but in truth, whenever they worship a bit devoutly, they get a bit of their brain extracted.

Over time, people become more ignorant, once their brain is drained, they become dolls for the dead. In contrast, our Thousand Teachings Alliance, whether it’s believing or devoting oneself, is all done openly." The woman spoke.

"Watch your words!" The tallest and most burly man suddenly spoke, his voice stern and deep, instantly suppressing everyone’s debate.

"The Demon Eagle sent a message earlier." The man looked around at everyone. "The throne is now vacant, with the Five Religions gathering power, there are many vacancies appearing, indeed a rare great opportunity. So..."

Everyone was startled upon hearing this, knowing they were at a crucial moment.

"So..." The man continued, "Based on the information I’ve received here, we indeed shouldn’t continue to lay low."

"The Alliance Leader’s intention is... to take action?" The woman, her eyes stern, asked in a deep voice.

"It’s time...." The Alliance Leader’s eyes burned, "On the surface Yue Dewen is at his peak, the Five Religions Circle intimidating the world, but in reality, they are just outwardly strong but inwardly weak, firefighting all around. Reverse Time Society and Spirit Flying Church both require their diversion.

Therefore... it’s time for us to act..."

"How do we act!?" Someone asked.

"Don’t they enjoy annihilating sects and slaughtering cities? Let them exterminate to their heart’s content! If not enough, we’ll help them!" The Alliance Leader laughed.

He looked up at the night sky, dark clouds covering the crescent moon, gradually shrouding the last sliver of light completely.

"Kill!!!"

With a thunderous boom.

In a large city below the mountain, where Great Dao Teaching was the primary belief, a great fire blazed into the sky.

Countless bandits wearing gray hoods stormed into the urban area.

With no city gate to stop them, the feeble Spirit soldiers guarding it were quickly swallowed by the torrent of thousands of bandits.

As soon as the mob entered the city, they killed whoever they saw.

The doors of the residential buildings were easily smashed open by these people with weapons and bodies, rushing in, and anyone who resisted was hacked to death.

Those who didn’t resist were dragged out, tied up on the spot using ropes or shredded clothes.

A person who was tied up, someone specifically prepared with a ritual hammer, went up one by one, and hit these people on the forehead with a hammer.

Extremely fine silver needles were driven into these people’s foreheads.

Some stood up in horror, trying to flee, but were quickly caught by the mob guards, pinned to the ground, and forced to have silver needles driven in.

Many martial artists in the city rose up in resistance.

The strongest among them, the governor, had excellent body technique, wielding a war hammer and shield with his backhand, flashed swiftly among the mob, killing one person with each movement.

His eyes gleamed with icy killing intent, charging fiercely at the nearby leader of the mob.

"Die!" The governor flipped over, in mid-air like an eagle hunting, diving down toward the mob leader.

The leader’s face twisted, covered in blood, as he lifted a two-meter-long slicing blade from a small girl’s corpse, sensing the wind, he swept the blade upward. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Clang!!

Amidst the blood and fire, the hammer and knife collided but immediately separate.

The governor’s body leaned to one side, gliding down lightly like a falling leaf beside the slicing blade, raising the small shield in his hand, using the spike on the lower side of the shield as a trump card.

Plop!

A burst of blood.

The spike of the small shield fiercely pierced into the chest of the mob leader.

"Foolish!" The mob leader laughed wildly, not bothering to fight back, hugging the governor tightly, crashing his forehead against the governor’s head.

Bang!

At this moment, a large hammer heavily smashed the mob leader’s head, crushing his entire upper body completely.

Just when both of them thought the battle was over, preparing to move forward to use the spiritual line to siphon and kill this person.

A large array of silver lines suddenly exploded from the mob leader’s body.

Hundreds of silver lines, like living creatures, precisely pierced into the heads of the surrounding crowd.

Immediately, more than ten people were pierced in the head, a large amount of brain fluid flowed along the silver lines, pouring into the mob leader’s body.

All this happened in a flash, just a second passed.

In an instant, the mob leader’s body rapidly recovered, reconsolidating and forming in another location.

This time, his physique was much larger than before, showing patches of silver-black patterns all over his body, like birthmarks, irregularly distributed everywhere.

This was clearly entering the Extreme State.

"What is this!!?" Both the governor and the hammer-wielding assailant watched the scene, their faces dramatically changing.

"You dare to violate the Ten Thousand Teachings Shepherd Contract!!"

Many people didn’t understand how the various teachings ended their battles and killings many years ago. But as a Spirit Person, the governor must learn and understand this part of history.

Seeing the change in the opponent at this moment, the governor’s shock was beyond words.

The Ten Thousand Teachings Shepherd Contract was the true turning point for all sects to get on the right track!

Before that, it was the darkest era for the people.

And now... these esoteric believers dared to lift the restrictions of the God Worshipers’ Ten Thousand Teachings Shepherd Contract...

"Insane! You are insane!!" Before the governor could finish speaking, everything turned blurred before his eyes, his body suddenly sliced in half by the approaching mob leader.

Countless silver lines erupted from his body, but before they flew far, they were forcibly covered, siphoned by another set of silver lines, intersecting in the air, shrinking, and disappearing.

*

*

*

In the mountain forest, the convoy was cooking by the cliffside.

Zhang Rongfang sat cross-legged above the cliff, closing his eyes, quietly staring at the attribute panel in front of him.

Without hesitation, he directly allocated all accumulated attributes into the Illusion Talisman Skill.

But unfortunately... the attributes were quickly returned after being placed.

’Still a bit lacking.... The direction for Absolute Defense has been found, but the final form still....’

The greatest strength of a Grandmaster is the final form, which is an absolute boundary different from those below the Grandmaster.

Sighing, he still allocated all attribute points to Life.

Anyway, gaining one point per day, it’s still easy to accumulate attributes, and when it becomes possible to allocate to Illusion Talisman Skill in the future, it can also quickly accumulate numbers.

attribute points were allocated to Life, quickly increasing it from 255 to 271.

’Almost there.... If I keep adding to Life, in a month, I will gain a new characteristic talent.’

A small anticipation arose within him.

Now his martial arts aren’t that far apart from the Great Grandmaster, and further increasing characteristic talent might again bring tremendous improvement.

Whether the path of the Grandmaster or new characteristic talent, the future looks bright.

Pausing his thoughts, he felt the familiar airflow brought by the enhancement of Life to his body.

Like a web of streams, evenly distributed throughout his body.

This process lasted only a few minutes before slowly fading and disappearing.