Chapter 635: Aftermath

The evening wind howled across the nameless hill, stirring Luo Yan's violet hair, charged with magic, and carried away the moans curled at his feet.

Ma Lusi was dead.

This monster, who had lurked in the shadows of the Leyne Kingdom for decades, along with his decaying body and corrupted soul, dissolved entirely into the black flames leaking through Luo Yan's fingers.

He rarely killed opponents this cruelly, unless he felt granting them a swift death was truly "an affront to the Dao."

As the ruined body turned to ash, the tormented souls bound and stitched inside him were finally freed at this moment.

A miracle occurred at this instant.

They did not vanish immediately, but became countless glowing specks dancing through the air.

In that moment, the dark night sky seemed to mirror a river of stars.

"Thank you…"

Faint whispers, countless voices overlapping, drifted on the wind—the most sincere gratitude of souls freed from their chains.

Among them were innocent children, elderly elders, desperate mothers… and many still formless, babbling murmurs.

Tens of thousands of glowing points circled Luo Yan, swirling like embers rising from a bonfire, then ascended toward the boundless starry sea.

Luo Yan stood silently at the cliff's edge, letting those warm specks pass through his bangs, swaying with the evening breeze.

"Go."

He whispered, offering no farewell, watching them drift toward the vast starry sea.

He blessed them to encounter beautiful scenery in their next journey, healing the unpleasantness they endured within this hive…

As the last glowing speck vanished, an indescribably vast energy, Shunzheyinguodesixian, silently surged into Luo Yan's body.

It was the accumulated spoils stolen by a Master-level thief from tens of thousands of Leyne people.

Perhaps out of gratitude for vengeance fulfilled, or thanks for this kind soul guiding their tormented spirits, part of the spiritual essence returned to the earth under karmic pull, merging into the "Hive," while another part, in silent resonance, flowed toward their longed-for new home.

As that boundless power surged in, Luo Yan heard a clear, shattering sound within his body—the starry expanse of his soul sea seemed to break through an invisible barrier.

That solid wall, which had blocked him for so long, melted like thin ice cast into lava under the torrent of that immense force.

Luo Yan closed his eyes and swiftly entered meditation, sinking his consciousness into his soul sea.

Not a trace of pain.

No endless tormented souls surged forth.

Only a profound sense of soul-stretching ease, like parched earth receiving a torrential downpour.

He felt as if he had become a butterfly freed from its cocoon—the previously blurred rules of the world now clearly visible in his perception.

The flow of wind was no longer mere air currents, but the breath of planets. The rocks beneath his feet were no longer lifeless—he could faintly hear their silent pulse through the strata.

A thread of joy welled in Luo Yan's heart—"The Hive Theory" had become vividly tangible.

He could clearly sense the planet beneath him as a living hive, countless vibrant glowing points forming its neural network like neurons.

And now, this hive was opening its gates to him, welcoming him to become one of its new masters…

His spiritual power surged like a dammed river breaking free, instantly covering a hundred li in every direction—every ant's crawl, every leaf's tremor, escaped none of his perception.

He slowly opened his eyes; deep within his pale violet irises, a faint golden ring shimmered into view.

Before him, a pale blue interface silently appeared, its data transformed utterly.

【

id: Luo Yan

Race: Human

Soul Rank: Master (Level Cap lv170)

Level: lv. 151 (+1)

Constitution: 291 (+66)

Strength: 239 (+67)

Agility: 246 (+67)

Intelligence: 1969 (+800)

Spirit: 2149 (+1000)

】

"So this is… the view beyond Master?"

Luo Yan gently clenched his fist; the floating elements in his palm emitted a soft hum, which then rippled into the trembling of the mountain beneath his feet.

A smile touched his face.

No incantation needed—he merely willed it, and the elements around him obeyed like loyal ministers.

This mastery over the rules was an entirely different dimension from his former reliance on raw magical accumulation!

The numbers on his stat panel could no longer reflect his true power.

Meanwhile, the data beneath the stat panel also shifted silently.

With the "Hand of the Former King," the scourge of the Leyne Kingdom, severed, an invisible tide of fortune was converging upon him.

It was the "mini-hive" secretly forged by Ma Lusi and his partners through some blasphemous power within the Hive.

As this nascent hive lost a corner, the stolen portion of faith energy flowed back.

【Influence Share: 12.2% (+2%)】

"Whoa!"

A milky-white ghost materialized midair, circling Luo Yan excitedly twice.

"Congratulations, Demon King! You're one step closer to ascending the throne of divinity! How do you feel? Do you feel invincible?"

Luo Yan opened his eyes; deep, luminous light swirled in his violet gaze, then settled into calm.

Looking at the eager, hovering Youxi, he smiled faintly, dismissively.

"Fine. I didn't just realize I'm invincible today."

"No way! You're the Demon King! That was the smoothest flex ever!"

Ignoring the flatterer hovering beside him, Luo Yan carefully sensed the changes in his power and sorted through his scattered thoughts.

What delighted him was not merely the power.

In that moment of soul transcendence, he gained deeper insight into the elusive "faith energy" and the "Hive" built from collective thought.

It was not killing itself that increased transcendent power—essentially, it was soul resonance!

Killing was merely one method.

When two opponents clashed with intense will, their spirits naturally resonated, their karmic threads entangling.

When the dead soul was released from the body, part of its spiritual essence returned to the Hive under karmic pull, while another part, in spiritual resonance, was drawn to nearby soul matter.

This explained why ambushes, poisonings, and massacres yielded little "experience"—only battles of equal strength or hard-won victories granted soul transcendence.

And direct challengers, even without landing heavy damage or a decisive blow, could claim the lion's share through their opponent's "hatred value."

As for traditional cultivation methods like meditation and martial technique training, they absorbed wandering spiritual essence from the heavens and earth.

Though this process involved no interaction with other souls, it still aligned with the Soul School's "Hive Theory."

Thinking of this, Luo Yan sighed—no wonder the Grand Sage never saw him as a threat; he'd never even had access to true soul knowledge.

And to have uncovered these truths, that man truly had grounds for arrogance.

At that moment, a fluttering sound rose from below the cliff—Youxi, wings beating, wobbled up.

The intense battle moments ago had terrified her.

Seeing Luo Yan unharmed, she immediately landed on the rock, prostrating herself, as if wanting to bury her face in the earth.

"Demon King, your divine might is unmatched! That old bastard was nothing before you! I—I knew no one could stop you! So cool!"

Youxi's flattery echoed across the heavens, though still lacking the finesse of Mixi.

Frankly, the Demon King preferred her "petty triumph" demeanor. Among his many demon generals skilled in showing off, few could say "minion" with such delightful charm.

Ignoring Youxi's sycophancy, Luo Yan's gaze swept over the dozen black corpses curled in the grass nearby.

They were the minor demons who had died at Ma Lusi's hands—their hearts shattered, their deaths horrific.

Unlike the souls returning to the starry sea, their spirits had returned to the Great Cemetery, dwelling upon the temple's stone steles.

Though they could not be reborn with memories like players, the Demon King would remember these minor demons' contributions, crediting their next life's "starting panel."

"Take your kin back. Bury them properly in the Great Cemetery."

"Yes, Demon King!"

Youxi bowed respectfully, then shouted for the minor demons hiding below the mountain to return and work—she showed not a moment of grief for the fallen.

Heartless indifference was the nature of minor demons; these little creatures, unlike humans, lived joyfully every day.

At that moment, she noticed over two hundred human corpses still lying on the hill and turned to the Demon King.

"By the way, my lord, what about these humans? Should we dispose of them too? Or take them back to feed Arakdo…?"

"Leave them."

Gathering Ma Lusi's fallen loot into his space ring, Luo Yan turned away from the bloody battlefield, his voice carried off by the night wind.

"Someone will bury them."

…

The July sun burned like boiling asphalt, mercilessly scorching the ridges of Wanren Mountain, extinguishing the ratmen's arrogance.

Since the Kingdom of Gutaifu had unleashed its true strength, the allied offensive had shattered through defenses like a flood, and the army of the Campbell Kingdom had witnessed weapons they'd never imagined.

Rocket cannons were child's play.

What truly stunned Sir Wesley was a hand-cranked fixed machine gun capable of drenching enemy lines with tens of thousands of bullets in mere moments!

As long as ammunition kept arriving from the rear, their gunfire would never cease.

This time, he finally understood what weapon had turned the Jiaoren attacking Muddy Swamp City into a sieve back in the southwestern swamps.

Before this weapon, dense formations would lose all meaning; volley fire tactics would become nothing but lined-up suicide.

Perhaps—

the logic of war had truly changed.

The crackdown on the Carrion Clan was merely the beginning of this transformation.

Besides the machine guns, the Wind Roar Tribe's participation brought vast numbers of aerial units to the front, with wind lizards howling over the mountain peaks providing precise coordinates and firing corrections for artillery.

The ratmen's lines continuously contracted, retreating entirely into the caves, relying only on poison gas and magical scrolls to struggle desperately, trying to regain some advantage.

Yet it proved their struggle was in vain.

Faced with the fearless lizardman army and the "Sacred Spirits" mixed among them, they could only scream and curse the Kingdom of Gutauf for lacking martial virtue.

What of the Campbell Duchy?

Although rumors about the "Sacred Spirits" had surfaced on the front, both frontline officers and rear commanders chose to turn a blind eye.

There was no direct evidence proving the Kingdom of Gutauf used necromancy—what if they were using the "Seal" arts of Jiana Continent?

Or that dragon language magic.

In short, since it was an allied matter, and they hadn't stolen their corpses, even Edward tacitly approved this harmless desecration.

The only one who seemed interested in the rumors about the Sacred Spirits was probably Eileen, but she was busy dealing with the Divine-Selected Rats and alchemical golems appearing across the front, with no time to spare.

In just three short days, the First Army of the Kingdom of Gutauf and the First Mountain Army of the Campbell Duchy pushed the front northward by nearly thirty kilometers!

Countless Lein people were rescued; refugees stranded outside Crow's Nest City had nearly reached ten thousand, approaching one-tenth of the local population.

Thanks to Vivian's Saint Corin Hospital Knights, these people had survived, rather than dying from plague or wound infections.

As for their spiritual wounds, they might still require a long time to heal…

The front.

The soles of his boots crushed weathered shale, producing a grating, teeth-on-edge sound.

Dickbin stopped, wiped sweat mixed with dust from his forehead, and gazed ahead, comparing it with the map in his hand.

This was a highland at twelve hundred meters altitude.

Although the mountain's temperature was slightly cooler than below, the vicious sun showed no mercy, nearly melting his silver chest medal.

On the morning of July 11, Year 1054 of the Aus calendar, Lieutenant Dickbin of the 1st Platoon, 1st Company, Lein Battalion, First Mountain Army of the Campbell Duchy, was ordered to lead his platoon to the spellcaster position that had rained fire meteors upon the Lein Battalion, and plant the Lein Battalion's flag there.

Even now, Dickbin, the knight, still remembered vividly that night's hell, when nearly an entire battalion's worth of men were sent skyward in their sleep by fire meteors.

After that heart-stopping "meteor shower," Duke Edward personally inspected the front.

He did not punish anyone for the Lein Battalion's heavy casualties; instead, he fairly promoted every survivor who had performed exceptionally.

The nearly hundred soldiers who survived became seasoned veterans, leading new recruits to refill the Lein Battalion's ranks.

Even Dickbin received equal recognition, his rank rising from corporal to lieutenant.

To be honest, when that medal was pinned to his chest, he could hardly believe it was real.

He had always thought Edward had dumped him into this meat grinder of a front purely out of annoyance with a nagging envoy and a public humiliation of the Devalu family.

But now, he held a different view of that duke, and finally understood why the Campbell Duchy was so powerful.

If even a man like him could be fairly promoted, what force could possibly stop this duchy's iron tread?

He refused to speak of Theoden's issues—he was, after all, his sovereign. But he knew well: that king, who appeared magnanimous, couldn't even tolerate a cook.