Chapter 151: Is This Not Also a Form of NTR?

Hearing Zhanghuo stood at the boundary of the Hunguangda Sect's controlled zone, feeling the surrounding waves of praise wash over him, making him feel light-headed and euphoric.

If the Midnight Cemetery Plane succeeds and he ascends to the position of Holy Son of the Serenity Sect, he will not only be worshipped by millions in this one plane, but by all followers of the Serenity Sect across countless planes of the Wasteland Realm.

This is faith. This is control.

Had there not been so many believers around, requiring him to maintain the dignity of the Pontiff, he would have already let out a satisfied hum.

All of this is thanks to Lu Zi and the others.

It was they who came to him voluntarily and revealed everything Mikkel I had done, allowing Hearing Zhanghuo to understand that despair and suffering were the source of faith.

When they heard he wished to provoke a great miracle, Lu Zi and the others personally crafted today's script to secure the support of the Hunguang Sect.

Lu Zi and the others' guidance was like parting the fog for Hearing Zhanghuo—no wonder, after years of painstaking effort in this plane, forging miracles annually and nearly unifying the Serina faith, he still failed to provoke a great miracle.

He realized from the very beginning, his efforts had been misdirected.

As the Hunguangda Sect's cathedral continuously gathered devotional energy, he felt the Tree of Miracles rejoicing, leaping with joy.

Once merely a lifeless lump, its hidden vitality within his body was finally about to be awakened by the miracle.

He recalled the words spoken by the Grand Bishop who had given him the remains of the Tree of Miracles during the candidate Holy Son's trial.

Miracle Walkers never truly die; as long as they absorb sufficient energy and devotional energy, even if only a shred of flesh remains, they will revive and become whole living beings again.

They are witnesses to the Abyss, one of the oldest races, spanning all four layers of the Abyss, leaving traces everywhere.

They actively seek out their masters and take the truest form of their master's deepest desires.

If he could cultivate a living Miracle Walker and offer it to the Great Lord Lyman, not only would the position of Holy Son be his, but even that of High Priest or Pontiff.

The only problem now was that no matter how he stirred the believers' emotions, he still fell just short of triggering the true miracle.

If Suihuo were here, using Suihuo to fake a miracle would easily fill the remaining gap in devotional energy.

Thinking of this, he nearly went mad with hatred for Lei Hu, locked underground.

Yet even as his heart seethed, he had to smile and chant the prayer text.

"May the soul-fire, like the dawn's first light, dispel all calamities, protect me in peril, and grant me grace to be spared from evil."

The believers followed Hearing Zhanghuo, chanting the prayer in unison.

As with previous prayers, after reciting this line, their devotional energy increased slightly—but still fell short by a thread.

Just as Hearing Zhanghuo was about to chant the next line, he suddenly saw a faint white glow emanating from behind him, from the Hunguangda Sect's cathedral.

In a daze, he could see mist-like souls slowly drifting in all directions.

Where the pale white souls passed, the believers felt a powerful sense of peace, their fear and dread diminishing.

The undead, upon encountering the souls, recoiled instinctively, as if facing their natural predators.

"A miracle!"

"It's a miracle!"

"I think I saw my great-grandmother—she's watching over me!"

The sudden anomaly from the Hunguangda Sect's cathedral led the believers to believe it was the prelude to a miracle; under the lead of one loudly praying, they spontaneously began chanting scriptures about souls returning to heaven, without needing Hearing Zhanghuo to guide them.

The believers were energized, fervent, while Hearing Zhanghuo, the Pontiff, was utterly baffled.

What's going on?

Where did that white light come from? Was this part of the plan? Why didn't I know?

As more souls poured out, Hearing Zhanghuo understood.

Oh, so the drifting souls mean the undead bricks have malfunctioned—no problem then.

But that's impossible!

During the production of undead bricks, if a step in the process fails, a few bricks may become inert after a grand prayer.

But how many undead bricks are failing right now?

Dozens? Hundreds? No—thousands!

Such a massive failure of undead bricks could not be coincidence—it must be sabotage!

Recalling the massive tremor once felt from the fourth underground level, he had sent someone to investigate, but still received no reply.

His heart sank—could it be that Lei Hu's companions had come to break him out?

Zhidong once said there was a player named Zhan Gui who entered the same dungeon with Lei Hu, acting as the strategist; Zhidong planned to assassinate him in the chaos.

The Blood Moon Immortality Ritual has been ongoing for so long, yet Zhidong has not returned—he was likely killed by Zhan Gui instead of succeeding in his ambush.

That fool probably exposed this place's secrets, allowing the enemy to strike from within.

The enemy not only rescued Lei Hu, but is also systematically destroying the undead bricks.

Thinking of this, Hearing Zhanghuo wanted to rush back to the cathedral—but a new problem arose: he was now trapped by the rising devotional energy.

Zhan Gui's destruction of the undead bricks had amplified the believers' devotional energy, which actually helped trigger the miracle; the believers were all watching him now—if he left, he might lose everything at the last moment.

Should he choose the Four Directions Suihuo Lanterns—or the revival of the Miracle Walker?

Hearing Zhanghuo gritted his teeth—he chose the revival of the Miracle Walker!

If he could please Lord Lyman and receive a flame better than Suihuo, wouldn't that be effortless?

With his decision made, Hearing Zhanghuo no longer glanced at the Hunguangda Sect's cathedral; he joined the believers in prayer, determined to push forward and trigger the miracle in one final surge.

Wu Chang, holding the Purifying Soul Banner, walked through the upper layers of the Hunguangda Sect's cathedral; each sweep of his hand purified dozens of undead bricks.

Watching countless soul-energies rise into the sky felt more relieving than watching someone scrub cow hooves to clean a carpet.

Though the purification speed seemed immense, it placed no real burden on him.

The Purifying Soul Banner, though only a C-rank item, had an impressive origin—the item description stated it was an ancient relic carrying the orthodox Daoist methods.

Purifying undead bricks was trivial for the Purifying Soul Banner—not only did it consume negligible energy, but each purified brick released a thread of white energy that merged into the banner's fabric.

Wu Chang had never noticed this before, but now that his spiritual insight had surpassed 100 and he was purifying such a vast area, the banner's absorption of soul energy became clearly evident.

Each thread of soul energy absorbed slightly strengthened the Purifying Soul Banner, and the excess power flowed back through the banner into Wu Chang, replenishing his consumed energy.

Roughly estimated, the energy consumed to purify each animated corpse brick was less than what came from the spirit bodies.

This was no longer a perpetual motion machine—it was a power meter running backward.

The process of purifying the animated corpse bricks went smoothly; what surprised him was that, aside from the few wall builders he had killed at the start, the entire purification was undisturbed by the Hunguang Sect Sect.

This allowed him to purify all the animated corpse bricks in the layer in just four or five minutes.

As the final segment of the animated corpse layer was purified, the Soul-Purifying Flag absorbed a massive amount of spirit energy; the previously blurred characters on its surface became clear, emitting a soft white glow.

The next moment, the Soul-Purifying Flag—which was not a growable item—suddenly leveled up by one rank.

"Item Name: Soul-Purifying Flag."

"Item Rank: B."

"Item Description: An artifact passed down since ancient times; the flag bears the orthodox Daoist teachings, and when combined with other flags, it can be assembled into a complete cultivation technique."

"Item Skill: Soul Purification."

"Skill Description: Activating the Soul-Purifying Flag allows the user to enter a spiritual vision, perceive nearby spirit entities, soothe and purify spirit-type demons, suppress malevolent qi and toxic energy, eliminate obsessions and resentments, and bring spirit bodies to peace."

"Item Skill: Soul Nourishment."

"Skill Description: After each Soul Purification, the user absorbs a portion of the spirit body's essence, permanently strengthening their own soul."

The upgraded Soul-Purifying Flag had crystallized Wu Chang's sense of the reversed power meter into a concrete skill.

Yet the newly added Soul Nourishment skill, based solely on its description, was hard to judge in strength—after all, the player interface had no soul attribute bar, making soul enhancement impossible to quantify.

But according to Wu Chang's experience, skills that could stack attributes were never weak, and the Soul-Purifying Flag's purification had already been a pleasant surprise—there was no room for complaint.

The emergence of the Soul Nourishment skill was the most obvious change to the Soul-Purifying Flag, but Wu Chang's intuition told him that the real secret hidden within the flag lay in the change to its item description.

Before purifying the animated corpse bricks, the Soul-Purifying Flag's description only mentioned that it bore the orthodox Daoist teachings; after upgrading, it explicitly stated that when combined with other flags, it could assemble a complete cultivation technique.

Given the flag's abilities, the Daoist teachings recorded on it could not be weak—but collecting all the flags would likely require considerable effort.

Moreover, collecting the flags would probably require returning to the "Everlasting Peace" instance.

Judging from the arrangements of Hearing Zhanghuo and the Tranquil Sect across various dimensions, there must be items or methods allowing players to enter specific dimensions—or previously visited ones—but whether such methods would work after dimension-breaking remained to be verified.

He tucked away the Soul-Purifying Flag, closed his eyes, and used his spiritual force to sense the prayer energy above.

A massive energy mass had already formed; the so-called miracle had taken shape.

What remained was for the believers to inject their wishes into this energy through prayer.

The believers did not directly wish upon the Miracle Moon; their prayers were directed at the Hunguang Sect Sect, which acted as middleman—collecting the believers' prayer energy, modifying it, then resonating with the Miracle Tree and Miracle Moon to trigger the miracle. The believers' gathered prayer energy kept increasing, yet it always fell just short of triggering the miracle, because the middleman had taken a heavy cut: much of the energy was siphoned off by the Miracle Tree before reaching the Miracle Moon.

In short, the believers merely provided the massive prayer energy needed to trigger the miracle—but what kind of miracle actually occurred was entirely up to the Hunguang Sect Sect.

Wasn't this a kind of NTR?

No, Wu Chang was a pure love warrior—he couldn't stand this.

He must properly punish this blond-haired bastard, Hearing Zhanghuo.

Outside the Hunguangda Church, Hearing Zhanghuo led the believers in loud prayers, the moment of miracle formation reaching its critical point.

But the closer one gets to success, the more likely failure becomes.

Thanks to the purified animated corpse bricks, the believers mistook them for the prelude to the miracle, completing the final prayer energy needed for the miracle's emergence.

Yet the purification of the animated corpse bricks also nullified the Hunguangda Church's intimidation ability, rendering it unable to continue isolating the animated corpses.

As the last wisp of spirit body ascended, vast crimson moonlight flooded down; beneath the blood moon, the animated corpses' eyes glowed with bloody light, terrifyingly red.

The good news was, as the animated corpses cautiously crossed the previous boundary and bared their fangs toward the surviving believers, the believers showed no great panic.

!

The bad news was, they weren't panicking because Hearing Zhanghuo was there.

"Shit, the animated corpses are coming—will the Hunguangda Church also…?"

"Shut up, focus on praying! With the Zhanghuojiao Sect leader here, what's there to fear?"

"That's right—look at the Zhanghuojiao Sect leader's calm expression; clearly everything is under his control. These mere animated corpses can't possibly harm the Divine Messenger, blessed by the gods."

"Exactly!"

…

Hearing the believers' chatter, Hearing Zhanghuo wanted to reply: I'm in control of nothing!

Aside from gathering you all here to serve as offerings, continuously supplying prayer energy, not a single event that followed was within his control.

Even so, he had been pushed up by the believers—he could not retreat.

Though the believers claimed not to fear, their eyes were fixed on him; if he retreated, their faith would collapse, and the prayer energy forged by unwavering belief might also be affected.

Hearing Zhanghuo sighed. There was no choice—he had to hold the line.

He waved his hand, and the Undying Soul Flame from the top of the Hunguangda Church flew to him, coalescing into a giant of flame.

The flame giant struck out, sweeping away more than a dozen animated corpses that had crossed the boundary; any animated corpse touched by the flame giant had its head engulfed in pale red fire.

Under the flames, the animated corpses screamed like living humans; within moments, the pale red fire reduced their heads entirely to ash—even the blood moon's power could not restore them.

This was Hearing Zhanghuo's former signature technique: Soul-Burning Flame.

After the wicks of the Four Seasons Fire Lanterns were stolen, to sustain the Undying Soul Flame as the symbol of the Hunguang Sect, he had to retrieve the Soul-Burning Flame he used before obtaining the Four Seasons Fire Lanterns.

The Eternal Night Torch used to condense the Soul-Burning Flame was a pure offensive A-rank item, a treasure he barely obtained by risking his life in a heavily polluted A-rank instance.

In terms of pure offensive power, the Soul-Burning Flame was no weaker than the Season Fire—perhaps even more lethal—but in functionality, the two differed greatly.

Since acquiring the Four Seasons Fire Lanterns, the Soul-Burning Flame had gone from "sweetheart" to "old wife"; he had even planned to sell the Eternal Night Torch to obtain materials for rebuilding the lantern's cover.

Now it seemed that while the Four Seasons Fire Lanterns were good, they ran off with others—only the Eternal Night Torch had stayed by his side, never leaving him.

Riding the Soul-Burning Flame, Hearing Zhanghuo grew more adept with use; without needing the Hunguang Sect's knights as assistants, he stood alone like a god descending, single-handedly holding back the tide of animated corpses.

Season Fire was supposed to be a special flame appearing in the second layer of the Abyss, of very high rank—but precisely because of its high rank, even his transformed Zhanghuo Saint could barely control it.

It was powerful when used, yet always felt awkward and unnatural, never achieving unity between man and flame.

But with the Soul-Burning Flame, there was no such awkwardness; though unused for long, the man and the flame still moved in perfect harmony, as if they had never parted.

This feeling brought Hearing Zhanghuo back to the feeling of first love.

Rejuvenated, Hearing Zhanghuo stood on the shoulder of the Flame Giant, controlling it while loudly leading the faithful in fervent prayer.

Hearing Zhanghuo, slaughtering all around, made the faithful even more certain that the Hunguang Sect was protected by a deity, and their devotional power surged again.

The Tree of Miracles on the observation deck of the Hunguangda Cathedral shimmered with brilliant multicolored light.

A miracle has been achieved!

Hearing Zhanghuo gazed at the Tree of Miracles, tears welling in his eyes—it had been so hard, after so many trials, he had finally summoned a miracle.

If not for the faithful around him, he would have rushed straight to the top of the Hunguangda Cathedral to kiss the Eternal Night Torch buried within.

If given another chance, he would never again neglect the Soul-Blazing Flame.

Wait!

Who is that standing around the Undying Soul Flame?

Following Hearing Zhanghuo's gaze, Wu Changzhenwo could be seen—somehow arrived at the lecture hall's upper level—pulling the Eternal Night Torch from the brazier.

Then Hearing Zhanghuo saw Wu Changzhenwo take out a lantern—the very Four Directions' Age Fire Lantern he had lost.

How is this possible?!

The Four Directions' Age Fire Lantern was not in Lei Hu's hands, but in the hands of this stranger—yet according to Oda's intelligence, no such person existed among the new players entering the instance.

Someone must have used disguise.

Worse still, Wu Changzhenwo swung the Four Directions' Age Fire Lantern and directly controlled his Soul-Blazing Flame, transforming all of it into Age Fire and absorbing it into the lantern.

Then Wu Changzhenwo fiddled with the extinguished Eternal Night Torch and tossed it, like garbage, into the dead brazier.

"Little Flame! No!"

For Hearing Zhanghuo, who had just rediscovered first love, everything Wu Chang had done went far beyond betrayal.

To him, it was like a blond-haired boy bringing his ex to his door, playing with his current lover right before his eyes, then casually discarding her.

What made it unbearable was this: when the Four Directions' Age Fire Lantern was in his own hands—even with his Holy Disciple of Hearing Zhanghuo transformation—he could only control ordinary supernatural flames, barely affecting something as high-tier as the Soul-Blazing Flame.

Why could he do this just by being with that guy?!

"Damned scoundrel! You seek death!"

Hearing Zhanghuo's eyes were bloodshot. Since the miracle had already been achieved, he no longer cared about the bigger picture—he waved his hand, turning the Flame Giant into a cloud of fire that carried him straight toward the Hunguangda Cathedral.

But with the undead bricks purified and the Undying Soul Flame extinguished, the Hunguangda Cathedral had become an ordinary church, stripped of its protective power.

With Hearing Zhanghuo gone, the undead trampled over their fallen comrades and charged toward the unprotected faithful.

As members of the Mikkel Kingdom, the faithful now revealed the unique piety of the Mikkel Kingdom.

They had no time to mourn Hearing Zhanghuo's plight; without hesitation, they redirected their faith back to the deity who had first manifested a miracle.

As Hearing Zhanghuo landed on the observation deck of the Hunguangda Cathedral, before he could even curse Wu Changzhenwo, he felt the devotional power shift—its focus rapidly slipping from his control.

These fools, how fickle can they be?!

Hearing Zhanghuo completely forgot that he himself had once relied on the faithful's fickleness to gather the faith of every survivor in his hour of crisis.

The miracle could not fail—he turned to rush back, to stabilize the situation, to wait until the miracle fully coalesced before taking further action.

But as he turned, he saw the Tree of Miracles had withered significantly—upon closer look, he realized the two anomalous corruption points feeding it had been removed by someone.

Zhenwo hastily tucked away the Poison of Mortals, clasped his hands behind his back, looked up at the sky, pretending ignorance of what had happened.

Hearing Zhanghuo now understood: the root of all this was the damned scoundrel before him. Unless he killed this man, everything he did would only serve as a gift for someone else.

Zhenwo, still gazing upward, sensed the killing intent, turned to Hearing Zhanghuo, and said: "Let's fight below. Don't damage my tree."

Hearing Zhanghuo felt a surge of rage—my tree? That's mine! Mine!

But for the sake of the Tree of Miracles, he followed Zhenwo, leaping from the observation deck, ready to settle their lives and deaths before the Hunguangda Cathedral.

As they descended halfway, hovering in midair, he suddenly saw a golden throne beneath Wu Changzhenwo—then a flash of golden light surged toward him.

He tried to summon fire to dodge, but the moment fire appeared, it was suppressed and absorbed by the Four Directions' Age Fire Lantern.

Stripped of his flame control, Hearing Zhanghuo lost his flight ability, unable to maneuver or evade the encroaching golden light.

Hearing Zhanghuo could only watch helplessly as the golden light engulfed him and dragged him into the Golden Realm.

After the two vanished from the air, Wu Chang's true body rode the elevator up to the observation deck.

He shook his head. "This kid is too trusting."

Then he turned to the Tree of Miracles and said: "Now, it's time to end it all."

(End of Chapter)