Chapter 670: NO.39: Aomo: You're Getting More and More Outrageous, aw!

NO. 39: Aomo: You're Getting More and More Outrageous, aw!

Panpsychism, also known as animism and vitalism, is a theory claiming that all material things possess life, sensation, and thought.

Later it was expanded and interpreted as pantheism, gradually evolving into a type of religious belief.

Thus it faded among the myriad teachings.

Frankly, as a philosophical idea it attracts far more discussion than as a religion.

After all, panpsychism can summarize the basic logic shared by many religions.

For example, the Shinto concept of 'tsukumogami' that lingers in Jidong, and likewise the river and mountain deities in nature worship.

Even such an abstract concept as ley lines can be encompassed by that idea.

Thus you can better understand what is meant by the incarnation of the ley lines.

It is the convergence of mountains, rivers, and streams; it is the projection onto the surface of the physical meaning of feng shui; it is the controller of the earth and water sources, Renlong.

Its control over all of that is like a person controlling their own body, and its perception of all of that is like a person's awareness of their own state.

Indeed, most people's understanding of themselves is based on direct bodily feedback during abnormalities—pain, numbness, tingling… these sudden abnormal sensations are exactly the body's reminders and even warnings to you.

Only after that do people think of going to medical facilities that are far more delicate and precise than bodily feedback, to obtain double reassurance for body and mind.

The incarnation of the ley lines is the same, the only difference being…… it has no hospital.

Renlong arises from the dragon veins, and is itself the dragon veins; it possesses a material form and will try to ease the discomfort of that instinctive feedback, but superficial solutions actually solve nothing.

Aomo once defined it as: 'A divine beast whose home has been occupied by filth, forced to come to the bathhouse.'

This definition is actually inaccurate, for strictly speaking, the Heavenly Pool is merely Renlong's tranquilizer.

As everyone knows, even birds and beasts know to regularly cleanse their bodies to avoid illness, and divine beasts naturally understand that as well.

But Renlong's bathing is meaningless, for its impurity is not on its body, but in the earth beneath where it stands.

Mountains and land are its bones and flesh.

Water flow is its blood and marrow.

In the Gaia set, Renlong will act angrily due to humanity's greedy underground development, precisely because it cannot tolerate humanity forcibly performing 'surgery' on it.

Even if it's just an appendectomy, you should ask for its opinion, shouldn't you? After acting, one can only say that those people brought it upon themselves.

But switch to the set of the Federation's East Flame District, and there will be no such problem.

Here, environmental development has always gone hand in hand with protection; the local government even regularly dispatches Feng Shui Masters to communicate with Renlong for confirmation—directly asking the nature spirit where there are environmental problems, which is no less than an efficient natural survey.

Just as most doctors ask about symptoms before examining a patient.

Renlong has stayed pure this way for nearly a century, appearing far happier and more at ease than its kin in the neighboring world, yet in recent years it has been inadvertently 'screwed over' by humanity as a whole.

Countless beings' dark thoughts floating in their hearts turn into intangible, substance-less poison, spreading across the land with population movement, then gathering further and sinking underground, and being carried by subterranean rivers to the likewise sediment-filled dormant volcanoes that hold lava—

It is just like poison permeating the whole body and then gathering in a few vital organs.

Of course, there are differences within the toxin; people often call facial acne toxin buildup, and the erosion of negative energy on the ley lines is also quite limited.

It does not block water sources, nor cut off lava, nor cause mountains to collapse.

But its buildup also interferes with and affects the mentality of surrounding beings, and may either dampen or activate the pumping of those ley lines.

This is practically a state of discomfort akin to hormonal imbalance, and undoubtedly the most uncomfortable part is when that negative energy accumulates to a certain degree……

It may then shed the intangible, substance-less label and become an actual living entity.

From wild beasts to monsters, various forms abound.

Usually low in intelligence but possessing extremely strong negative emotional contagion, once they appear they easily cause nearby living things to go mad together.

If an individual possesses sufficient destructive power, it will indeed interfere with the ley lines, prompting Renlong, who already harbors a bellyful of anger, to personally go out and fight.

Then they discover that these damned things seem impossible to kill completely.

It is not only found in Changbai Mountain; rather, it often roams various places in the Great Yan mountains and rivers, and will visit some nostalgic Taoist temples and shrines, after which there is a certain chance of seeing yet another damn negative-energy monster using its own blood vessels as highways.

Roaming everywhere, absorbing more negative energy to strengthen itself, yet it stubbornly stays underground, so it always ends up enraged enough to go up and give it two damn claws.

And after such days drag on, it too will grow weary.

When seeing humanity's own anti-disaster teams busy to the point of being stretched thin, it also grows disheartened, returning to its happy hometown bearing the stains left from battling negative-energy monsters.

Changbai Mountain, this is its cradle.

And the Heavenly Pool, reforged after that great eruption, is like the bathhouse Renlong specially expanded, towering atop the mountain body.

It often returns, using bathing to calm itself, to counter the discomfort that comes from the mountains and rivers' feedback, akin to a soul's unease that is hard to shake.

And then one day, the bathhouse it loves most also finally manifests that familiar intangible, substance-less poison.

Even if it dissipates, even if it has not condensed into a solid pollutant crystal, it still makes Renlong irritable and vexed.

It even finds it difficult to purify, for the problem has never been the water quality or the rocks, but that curse-like aura.

Naturally it can dispel those auras, just as Feng Shui Masters often use feng shui to change fortune and dispel misfortune.

As the incarnation of the ley lines, the Dragon Lord certainly knows how to utilize the field energy of all things to resolve those rising negative energies.

But each time it clears them away, there will be a second, third, fourth time……

That which is said to be countless beings' dark thoughts floating in their hearts is actually, upon a rough statistic, found to be mostly the negative-energy toxin supplied by humanity…… and it has never been exhausted.

It also cannot be exhausted, for every sentient being has a dark side, even certain high-level AIs are no exception.

Renlong also cannot possibly exterminate all of them, regardless of whether it wants to; even if it did, it would have to consider whether it could prevail over them.

In the Pangu Project a hundred years ago, Renlong naturally participated, and it witnessed those so-called human technologies even more vividly than before.

Compared to the cultivators it is already accustomed to, even many familiar ones, those dangerous machines left a deeper impression on it.

To think of going to war with humanity is out of the question—at the very least, it cannot war with the Federation, nor even with the East Flame District.

Uh…… Renlong, who already resides in the East Flame District, is unwilling to leave home; seeing its days grow meaningless, yet then this group of people shows up.

Among them is someone who looks nothing like a person at all.

"Dragon God, don't worry, don't worry! The training instructor came together with Sister Adel and the others to dispel evil for you, eh!" That child, who seemed to recall having seen him somewhere, was still trying to comfort himself.

That... Renlong, Your Excellency, we were entrusted by the Changbai Mountain Geological Observation Bureau this time, and we came specially to study the negative energy gathering at the volcano. If we can determine their specific nature, there is a possibility to manufacture isolation devices. Please... please remain calm and don't panic.

And that human girl with goat horns, who can still stand firm before them despite the pressure, is still trying to put on an official tone to explain herself.

It seems she is the good child Duo Li spoke of…… Just thinking that it had been staying in the lake for a while, they planned to go deep into the subterranean lava to observe the negative energy of the sheep, and they became a little worried again.

After all this time, they still haven't come back; they must have been affected, right?

They gazed at the two children, while the dragon head behind them stared at the humanoid young figure capable of condensing substantial negative energy, a terrifying heavenly demon.

Their heart was filled with worry.

Even the power of this dangerous existence is being used……

Could it be that even those humans have been driven to a dead end?