Chapter 369: The Echoing Obsession

Walking forward calmly, Du En traveled along, accompanied by invisible, great Dharma power, restoring the city's original grand thoroughfare.

Vegetation receded, human corpses lay everywhere.

At the moment of death, some wrote in blood.

"Why! Why?! Why on earth is it like this?!"

"Ahhh! This is unfair! That is unfair!!!"

"Damn Mo Ju, this city should be destroyed!!!"

Utterly insane, filled with despair.

From the bottom of their hearts, they harbored hatred for Mo Ju City! "Being so resentful of heaven and blaming others, could it be that True Monarch Regret could not take it by force, so she switched to a strategy of attacking the heart, thus creating this scene of mutual slaughter?"

Du En could not help but suspect this, because True Monarch Regret was the type of person who could do such a thing.

To her, the winner is the king and the loser is the bandit; it was just that simple!

However, there was no way to draw a complete conclusion right now; it could only be a guess.

Du En continued to move forward, their pace appearing slow but actually very fast, crossing over a dozen zhang in a flicker, and in a trance, already arriving a hundred zhang away.

Thus, they quickly crossed this stretch of road, finished walking through the outer edge of the city, and arrived before the meticulously planned residential area, which could also be called the true entrance to Mo Ju City.

Because the wilderness area just now actually had one greatest purpose.

That was to serve as a buffer zone!

Placed between the outer city defenses and the residential area, it absorbed various shockwaves from the outside world, thereby ensuring that the people living in the city—those who only had the cultivation realm but no Dharma power, and were actually no different from ordinary people—would not be wiped out in a single wave by some suddenly erupting conflict or battle! Therefore, this zone required no extra arrangement; if there were a war, the shockwaves transmitted from outside to inside, and the power triggered from inside to outside, would be enough to easily crush the mixed crowd within.

In other words, naturally, in the kind of place Du En was currently in, there would often be certain defensive measures laid out, echoing the outer city defenses, yet belonging to two different sequences.

Boom! A tremor, the ground collapsed with a roar, and amidst the rising dust and smoke, two cold red lights lit up.

Ka-ka-ka! Dong-dong-dong! The sounds of winches and battering rams rang out incessantly, and the invisibly spreading shockwave dispersed the smoke and dust, revealing one of the mechanical giant soldiers within.

It stood ten zhang tall, with fifth-grade wood as its main material and fifth-grade mineral iron as padding, concealing unique mechanical operation methods to suppress spatial changes and resist the impact of Dharma power; it was a war puppet, now reawakened due to the invasion of an external enemy, still faithfully fulfilling its mission.

To intercept the external enemy and defend the home city! The heavy hammer in its hand, weighing tens of thousands of jun, swung down heavily, simple and unadorned; even if the Great Demon Greedy Beast came, it would have to dodge, not daring to take it head-on!

Du En naturally would not try to resist it head-on; in the blink of an eye, vegetation grew wildly, surging up from the ground, seeping into the gaps of the mechanical components to hinder its movement, then stepping forward, they had already forcibly broken the suppression and spatially moved to its head.

"This structure, it's in that book of Luo Heng's, 'Mechanical Metalwork'. Does he want to come back? Or did he come back long ago? So, has he already been treated as an external enemy, or should I say, in the eyes of the defensive measures here, has he, who chose to flee this place back then, already become a usurper?"

Various doubts arose one after another, with no answer for the moment.

And the mechanical giant soldier had already torn apart and crushed the entanglement of the vegetation, the dong-dong-dong sounds ringing non-stop, as it quickly began to shift into other forms based on the current situation.

But, it was too late!

Earth-Wood Sacred Refining!

Mechanical Re-smelting!

Du En waved their hand to take out the fifth-grade essence steel, burning it into red-hot molten iron in the blink of an eye, forming strands of tool-seals, entering through the opened gap to forcibly splice and alter the original various restrictions, blocking the internal transmission chain of this mechanical giant soldier.

It began to paralyze on the spot, the red light in its eyes flickering uncertainly, its whole body creaking, desperately wanting to make a new response, but instead falling into a conflict with the altered old logic, trapping itself in a contradictory loop.

Pop~ The core crashed and exploded.

When it came down to it, it was an old antique; facing the current encounter, it was quite normal for it to directly overload and exceed its limits.

Furthermore, mechanical soldiers of this kind, which were created by finding another path without relying on spiritual Qi, were not as good as things that relied on spiritual Qi in terms of preservation and existence.

Of course, once those things lost the nourishment of spiritual Qi, they would break down even faster.

Between the two, each had its own pros and cons; one could not say who was higher or lower.

"However, the commonality is consistent."

"Originally, it was actually a more troublesome frontal opponent than the Great Demon Greedy Beast, but because I knew its origins and had the corresponding means, dealing with it was easy."

This situation was the same as when Du En broke into the prison at the Southern Pivot City; facing defensive measures whose explosive power was far from what they could easily resist, through a bit of manipulation of technique, they could very simply subdue and destroy them.

When it came down to it, these were just man-made objects...

"No, if it were from the Rotten Forest Immortal Gate, then one would have to consider that it might actually be a person, or rather, a means of stuffing in a person's mind and soul."

Looking at it this way, the Rotten Forest Immortal Gate must be very welcoming of the techniques here! Thinking this, Du En found the various drive points of the paralyzed mechanical giant soldier, cut and separated them, and then observed whether there were any self-destruction settings.

There were, indeed!

They were an old hand at this, possessing their own insights and experience; even if the great cultivator Mo Ju from back then came, they would have the confidence to exchange pointers with them in this regard.

Immediately, they removed them with practiced ease, and then, tucked the mechanical giant soldier into their pocket!

"Although it is quite troublesome to activate it, as it requires changing the power source, repairing, and updating other aspects—a total overhaul—and it cannot be used here right now, but after returning, whether I throw it to the Resolution to overhaul or do it myself, I can quickly regain combat power, and even draw inferences about other cases..."

In short, this was a very good harvest, worth spending some effort on later.

It was just a bit strange? After quickly finishing up, Du En felt a sudden pause in their heart, but no change was visible on the surface.

They only turned their gaze back to the city.

A desolate wind blew with a wail, bringing a thick, foul, bloody stench.

The entire city had long since died completely, leaving behind only abandoned corpses; after the mechanical soldier was defeated, there were no other movements or sounds, so quiet it felt terrifying! Staring at the street again, the dwellings were dilapidated, the roads potholed, and the corpses were like those of yesterday, having died not long ago; there was only the stench of decay, but the general appearance was preserved, frozen in the tragic stage of having been dead for no more than a day or two.

Mutual slaughter!

It did not look like there were factions; it was very disorderly, messy, attacking each other, triggering a total extinction.

"An internal frenzied riot, huh..."

Du En stepped into it with the small stone statue, and immediately, it was like a drop of water falling into a boiling wok of oil; strands of lingering obsession boiled and floated up, telling of the prayers and doubts of the people back then.

"Absolute impartiality..." "Only the interests of the human race above all..."

"Why would there be mutual rebellion..."

"Why would we bring about our own destruction..."

"Where exactly did such Mo Ju rule-following go wrong?"

Even the people who slaughtered each other, until the moment they died, could not understand why it had become like this; there was no repentance, only deep pain.

Clearly, this should have been a city of Great Harmony and a city of Mo Ju, bound by strict rules, yet in the end, it brought about its own destruction in such a way, leaving one unable to find the reason at all.

The city is a bit large, but Du En is not in a hurry; he does not make any more pointless conjectures, instead measuring it with his own pace, walking past one place after another, arriving before one scene after another.

That riot and massacre from the distant past faintly reveals the hidden circumstances behind it.

The madness of the people, rather than being the collapse of some kind of persistence, is more like hysteria faintly under the influence and control of something! The more Du En looks, the more he feels it is the handiwork of True Monarch Huiqing.

It is just that, put this way, there are some strange points.

Not to mention anything else, why did they just kill the people, but not take the entire uninhabited Moju City? He explores further and, on a wall very close to the city center, finds the entire wall covered in desperate deathbed blood-writings.

"Envisioning an absolute design, the opportunistic realization of that ideal Great Harmony, selecting the superior to nurture, destroying the inferior, everything solely by law, completely discarding human hearts, executing only justly and strictly..."

Judging from the wording, it should have been written by some high-level figure at the time, who knew quite a lot.

Du En ponders very calmly, then raises a hand, channeling great magic power to forcibly solidify the lingering obsession here, letting it take the form of a blurred human shape.

Lacking facial features, there is only a hollow voice, recounting the content within the obsession.

"Resources are limited, we can only restrict the population to avoid the birth of the Unstained, to avoid the alienation of our race; since the Unstained fall after three generations and will only rapidly pollute and drag down the whole, even if the total population is still within the permissible range, once an Unstained appears, it must be destroyed immediately!"

"To ensure everyone can be well-fed, it is necessary to manage resources powerfully; whenever someone reaches out, they are cut off immediately, and thus, an army is established to guard the city and the people, and to maintain the powerful implementation of the law!"

"Going further, we conduct thought control, making Moju strict and impassable, thereby establishing a Great Harmony morality where everyone is equal; if there is a deviant heart, they are brainwashed immediately, and if brainwashing is useless and the inferior human nature cannot be eradicated, they are directly executed; this is called Rectification!"

"Rectification! Rectification! Rectify all baseness! Everything for the Holy City of Moju!"

The faceless human shape suddenly sees its tone become high-pitched; Du En is losing control over it.

And before that, the content it spoke also made Du En frown slightly, his emotions clearly fluctuating quite a bit.

The Great Harmony established by the Great Cultivator of Moju is, to say the least, too, too...

For a moment, he also cannot find a suitable description.

And on the face of that obsession-humanoid, faces begin to appear repeatedly; the nearby obsessions are spontaneously gathering together, faintly revealing a terrifying fact that makes even Du En fall silent! "Destroyed!"

"Our homeland is destroyed!"

"The perfect homeland was destroyed in the end!"

Drifting flames and smoke, shattered fragments of books.

As the obsessions gather, formless thoughts seem to materialize and become real.

What collapsed in the smoke and fire was the perfect Holy City.

Before the books were shattered, they told of Moju's Great Harmony in a monotonous way! Its conception was rigorous and orderly, its considerations were all-encompassing, and its logic was impeccable!

Even though people would face some problems because of this, it should not have shaken the foundation; in this resource-barren underground, it appeared to be an extremely correct and very suitable "law of survival"! "Adapting to local conditions, sticking to established rules..."

"Sigh! The Great Cultivator had a beautiful design, but in the end, we ordinary mortals simply could not manage it."

"So in the end, all of this was ultimately destroyed by our own hands!"

As the obsessions gather to the end, an old man's face with a clear main body but mixed with many facets appears before Du En and speaks to him like this.

His brow relaxes, and he is calm as water; at this moment, he already knows the answer in general.

Now he just needs corroboration.

"Controlled thoughts, established morality, and the clan that implants the law—it is these various factors that led to the integration of people, or rather, the homogenization of the divine soul and true spirit."

"... That is correct, perhaps it is so; we only knew how to follow the old rules, we did not want to make changes, and in the end, although everyone looked different on the outside, on the inside we had unknowingly become the same."

"Not everyone was like that, though."

Du En speaks calmly and sharply, "No matter when it is, there will always be people dissatisfied with the status quo, whether they are good people or bad people, but they might choose to submit, or they might choose to resist."

Old man: "..."

The obsession aggregate falls into silence, revealing irrepressible hatred.

Hatred for those defilers, hostility toward those rebels, for...

Squeak—a slightly discordant sound rings out; the old man, who had fallen into madness due to the obsession, becomes able to speak again.

Du En raises an eyebrow slightly, his expression basically unchanged, just waiting for the other party to continue.

"The people who chose to flee were not hateful beings; they just could no longer receive the protection of the Holy City and needed to explore and move forward alone in the darkness."

"This underground is now nothing more than a containment field for external enemies; having left Moju's embrace, they must have lived very difficult lives and suffered many failures!"

"And those who did not have the courage to flee, only trembling and hiding inside, were the direct fuse for everything's collapse, because the overly tight structure of the whole would suffer unimaginable collapse due to the non-standard parts mixed within."

"Therefore, when the collapse began, people with identical cores would lose control and only kill the others in their eyes, attempting to erase the damaged parts among them, so as to restore the system to its original state."

"But, how can pieces that have already shattered into a pile be put back together?"

The melodious and distant voice seems to spread from the other side.

To this, Du En's response is as calm as ever, unceremoniously stabbing at the other party's sore spot: "For that kind of situation, there should have been corresponding contingency plans, right? So, it is impossible for it to have collapsed simply because of that; therefore, in the end, it was just the successors who chose inaction—no, it should be that it was difficult to take action, which is why everything collapsed completely."

(End of this chapter)