Chapter 201: Three Super Malevolent Deities, Simultaneously Losing Control and Running Rampant!

Lu Yuan's cold and resolute words, like a final death sentence, completely severed Liu Xuanyin's last faint hope of survival, and also declared the failure of Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan's futile attempts at dissuasion.

After Gu Qingwan received Lu Yuan's unquestionable will, the pure, dark, thread representing absolute finality at her fingertip faced no further obstacles. With a detached precision and ruthlessness to the extreme, she lightly "pressed" it onto Liu Xuanyin's "frozen," ashen, and stiff forehead.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no gruesome scene of blood and flesh flying.

Only a faint, almost inaudible "crack," like the finest hairline fracture silently spreading across the surface of porcelain.

Then, under Lu Yuan's cold gaze, Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan's horrified and despairing expressions, and the Deity of Beauty's thoughtful look, Liu Xuanyin's body underwent a strange and terrifying transformation starting from the spot where the black thread had "pressed" on his forehead.

First was his face.

That originally withered, deathly gray face, frozen with endless terror and confusion, began to rapidly "fade" and "disintegrate" like a sand painting thrown into water, starting from that single point on his forehead.

Skin, muscle, bone—they didn't shatter in a physical sense, but rather the very "concept" of their existence was forcibly "erased." They transformed into the most primitive, most empty... "nothingness." The gray color receded like a tide, leaving behind a deeper, more hollow, pure darkness that seemed to absorb all light.

This darkness quickly spread outward, eroding everything.

That loose, strangely styled black robe.

That gaunt torso and limbs with dark green fingernails, as if slowly erased by an invisible eraser. They gradually disappeared from the "painting" of existence.

There was no pain, no struggle, because he had long been "frozen," his consciousness sinking into eternal stillness the moment it was extinguished. The entire process was eerily silent, only the soundless spreading darkness, slowly devouring all traces of Liu Xuanyin's existence.

In just two or three breaths.

Liu Xuanyin, the current patriarch of the Commanding Ghosts Liu Family. This schemer who had spent his life plotting, pushing Lu Yuan and Li Xiuye into a corner, and even daring to covet Gu Qingwan. This ruthless figure who, even among the Ten Families beyond the Great Wall, inspired caution in others... had completely disappeared.

On the spot, no remains were left. No blood, no clothing fragments, not even a trace of ash or the lingering breath of a soul. Only a circular area about three feet in diameter, its color a few shades deeper than the surrounding rock walls, as if "purified" or "hollowed out" by some invisible force.

Proof that an "existence" had indeed been there and was completely erased.

A dead silence fell over the cave.

Only Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan's heavy, trembling, desperate breaths filled with lingering fear sounded particularly harsh in the quiet.

They stared intently at where Liu Xuanyin had disappeared, their faces pale as paper, their eyes hollow. It was as if they were seeing some disastrous future, the one they least wanted to witness, unfolding before their eyes.

The electric light in Li Guanqi's purple pupils had long faded, leaving only endless bitterness and despair. Fu Yuanshan's hand gripping the blackwood staff had its knuckles turning white, his body trembling uncontrollably.

"It's over... it's all over..." Li Guanqi muttered to himself, his voice hoarse and dry. "With Liu Xuanyin dead... the Nine Nether God-Refining Array... it's completely out of control..." "All the restrictions, seals, and arrays bound to Liu Xuanyin's soul that kept evil entities imprisoned... they'll all collapse one after another in a short time..."

Fu Yuanshan let out a long, heavy sigh, filled with endless weariness and sorrow. He raised his deep but now lifeless eyes to Lu Yuan and said in a complex tone: "Young friend Lu... you... you have brought about a great calamity." "A calamity of enormous proportions."

His voice was not loud, but every word carried immense weight, as if soaked in blood and tears.

"You think Liu Xuanyin was just the patriarch of the Commanding Ghosts Liu Family?" "No. He was the final and only 'hub' and 'lock' of the vast evil system the Liu Family had built over countless generations, pouring in who knows how much effort and resources." "The Liu Family's forbidden grounds, scattered across all the yin-cursed lands beyond the Great Wall, seal, imprison, and nurture evil entities and ghosts. Their number, variety, and danger far exceed your imagination."

"Among them are some that Liu Family ancestors gathered from ancient battlefields and absolute yin lands, vicious beyond measure!" "Only because Liu Xuanyin suppressed and guided them with the Liu Family's secret techniques, bloodline, and connection to the 'Nine Nether God-Refining Array' did these evil entities and ghosts remain peaceful and even serve the Liu Family."

"And those... 'corpse-nurturing grounds,' 'yin-gathering pools,' 'dream fiend abysses' used to cultivate malevolent deities... each one is an independent and dangerous existence." "The evil entities bred within them, though not as powerful as super malevolent deities like the 'Dream Demon,' 'Ten-Thousand-Filth Mother,' or 'Blood-Skeleton Spirit Lord,' are still no match for ordinary cultivators."

"They too were under Liu Xuanyin's indirect control and pacification."

"Now..." Fu Yuanshan paused, a look of near-despair on his face. "With Liu Xuanyin's soul scattered, all connections of control, pacification, and sealing between him and these forbidden grounds, evil entities, and corpse-nurturing grounds will completely break, backfire, and collapse in a short time." "Those evil entities and ghosts, suppressed and imprisoned for countless years, will break free like wild horses running amok, like floodwaters bursting through a dam!"

"They will madly assault and destroy the restrictions, scrambling to escape the forbidden lands!" "They will vent the resentment, malice, and desire for destruction they've accumulated over countless ages onto this world."

"And those corpse-nurturing grounds and yin-gathering pools that have lost their 'keeper' and 'pacifier' will have their evil entities go completely berserk due to loss of control!" "Then they'll start devouring each other, evolving, or directly breaking out of their seals!"

"The most terrifying are those three super malevolent deities..." Li Guanqi took over, his voice trembling. "Their connection to Liu Xuanyin was the deepest." "With Liu Xuanyin dead, they've lost their last shred of orderly restraint and will completely unleash their savage nature, relying on instinct to devour, destroy, and strengthen themselves." "They will become the 'vanguard' and 'core' of this catastrophe. Wherever they pass, everything withers and all living things are annihilated..."

The two spoke one after another, painting a chilling picture. The land beyond the Great Wall was about to be swept by countless out-of-control evil entities, turning it into a true ghost realm.

Hearing their back-and-forth, Lu Yuan let out a cold snort of displeasure. "Stop your back-and-forth nonsense here!!" Lu Yuan abruptly cut off Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan's descriptions, his voice full of disgust. "You go on and on about the living beings beyond the Great Wall, about all the people under heaven, speaking so high-soundingly, so pitifully!" Lu Yuan's tone was filled with sarcasm and accusation.

"Then let me ask you!" "If you truly put the public good first, if you truly care about the lives of the common people beyond the Great Wall, if you truly worry about those evil entities raised by the Liu Family bringing disaster to the world."

"Why didn't you speak up earlier?!!" His voice suddenly rose, echoing through the cave.

"When Liu Xuanyin plotted against my master, lured me into this death trap, and set up this ambush." "When he even used the 'Nine Nether God-Refining Array' and three super malevolent deities, powers enough to overturn the order of an entire region, where were you?!"

"When my master was chained by the 'Nine Nether Soul-Refining Chains' and suffering the torment of soul refinement on the 'Yin Malevolence Soul-Refining Platform,' in agony between life and death, where were you again?!"

"When Liu Xuanyin colluded with Hu Huxu, schemed against me, my master, and Qingwan, trying to wipe us all out and throw everything beyond the Great Wall into chaos, where... were you still?!"

With every question, Lu Yuan's tone grew heavier, his gaze colder.

"Now, Liu Xuanyin is dead, and you show up!" "You show up to tell me that by killing him, I've committed a monstrous crime?!" "You show up to tell me that those evil entities and malevolent deities raised by the Liu Family are going to bring disaster to the world?!"

"Why didn't you do something earlier?!" "If you truly cared about all living things, if you truly knew about those Liu Family forbidden grounds and the existence and danger of those evil entities."

"Why didn't you, when Liu Xuanyin was alive, unite the various families beyond the Great Wall, even join with the Daoist methods, to stop him?! To eliminate those hidden dangers?!"

"Was it because you didn't dare?" "Or because you didn't want to?"

"Or rather... were you just like Liu Xuanyin, happy to see the Liu Family controlling those powers, and even... taking a share of the spoils?!" Lu Yuan's gaze, like two ice picks, pierced into Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan.

"Now that this 'hub' Liu Xuanyin is dead, you can't control those powers anymore, and you're scared?" "Afraid that those out-of-control evil entities will backfire on you, that's why you rushed over so urgently?"

"Then you push all the responsibility, all the blame, onto me, this 'inexperienced,' 'revenge-driven little Daoist'?!" "Making me bear the crime of triggering this catastrophe?!"

Lu Yuan took a deep breath, and though the movement caused his injuries to ache, making him frown, the disdain and resolve on his face became even clearer. "Stop pretending to be some pity-filled savior here!"

"Among the Ten Families beyond the Great Wall, aside from the treacherous Hu Huxu of the Continuing the Lamp Hu Family, and Liu Xuanyin of the Commanding Ghosts Liu Family as the chief culprit... how clean are you?!"

"United in spirit?" "I'd say you're birds of a feather instead!"

Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan, hit by Lu Yuan's relentless barrage of accusations and reprimands, had faces turning alternately red and white. Their lips moved as if to defend themselves, but they seemed unable to find the right words. Lu Yuan's words, though sharp and even a bit extreme, precisely struck some corners of their hearts they didn't want to face or had deliberately avoided. The relationships among the Ten Families beyond the Great Wall were complex and entangled with interests; often, as Lu Yuan said, it wasn't simply a matter of black and white.

Seeing the two speechless and their expressions shifting, Lu Yuan's disgust and distrust only deepened. He stopped looking at them and slowly turned around. Facing the still thick yin-cursed energy in the cave, which seemed to be starting to fluctuate unstably with Liu Xuanyin's death, Lu Yuan took a deep breath.

Then, in a calm voice that held an unshakable determination and conviction, he slowly said: "I, Lu Yuan, am a disciple of Zhenlong Temple." "I am a Daoist who has received the legacy of the Three Pure Ones, the teachings of the ancestral masters of past generations, and bears the orthodox Daoist lineage!"

"Vanquishing demons and exorcising evil, saving the world and helping people, protecting all living beings—this is my duty!"

"Liu Xuanyin deserved to die, so I killed him." "The evils he committed, the debts he owed, he paid with his life—that's only natural and just!"

"As for what you said, about those evil entities raised by the Liu Family, those out-of-control corpse-nurturing grounds, yin-gathering pools..." Lu Yuan paused, no trace of fear in his eyes, only a stubborn pride and sense of responsibility befitting a Daoist disciple. "I am not afraid."

"The entire Daoist path beyond the Great Wall is not afraid either!"

"Compared to you 'family heads,' who always look ahead and behind, afraid to act, only showing up after the fact to point fingers..." Lu Yuan's voice suddenly rose, carrying a decisive force that rang out through the cave: "We, the thousands of Daoist disciples beyond the Great Wall, though our cultivation may vary in depth and our traditions differ, the righteous spirit in our chests and the three-foot dharma swords in our hands have never grown cold!"

"We will never stand by and watch the lands beyond the Great Wall fall! We will never sit idly by while evil entities run rampant and all living things are destroyed without doing anything!"

"If the Liu Family's evil entities want to come out, then let them come out!"

"We Daoist disciples will naturally take up our swords and descend the mountains, cleanse the foul aura, and return a clear and bright world to the lands beyond the Great Wall!"

As his voice fell, the cave fell silent. Li Guanqi and Fu Yuanshan stared blankly at Lu Yuan, then looked at each other, exchanging bewildered glances. For a moment, neither knew what to say.

Gu Qingwan, floating in midair, had her blood-red heavy pupils behind the thin mist flicker ever so slightly. Her gaze fell on Lu Yuan's straight back, and amidst her icy divinity, there seemed to flash an extremely subtle, barely detectable hint of... softness?

And the Deity of Beauty gently blinked her beautiful amber eyes, staring blankly at Lu Yuan for a moment.

At the same time.

An indescribable, deeply rooted in the soul and the level of rules, extremely subtle but chilling feeling of "rupture" and "loss of control" welled up. Like the first pebble thrown into a calm lake spreading ripples, it silently spread through the perception of every being in the cave. This feeling did not come from the five senses like sight or hearing.

It was a more essential, direct perception of the collapse of "order," the disappearance of "restraint," and the emergence of "chaos."

The first change occurred deep in the cave.

The two super malevolent deities that had been cowering like startled beasts in the dark corners, their auras withered and their projections trembling, ever since Gu Qingwan "froze" Liu Xuanyin—the "Thousand-Faced Dream Fiend" and the "Ten-Thousand-Corpses Pollutant Mother."

The emerald-green projection of the "Thousand-Faced Dream Fiend," which had been flickering dimly due to the core damage and could barely maintain its form, first came to a sudden halt the moment Liu Xuanyin was completely annihilated, as if it were a puppet whose last supporting string had been cut. The countless twisting and changing dream scenes, the sweet and grotesque mental pollution aura, seemed to freeze as if a pause button had been pressed.

But only a breath later.

"SCREECH—!!!"

A torrent of mental shrieks, far more violent and chaotic than any before, filled with endless venom, terror, and desire for destruction, burst forth like billions of red-hot steel needles. Without warning, without any target, it exploded and pierced in all directions, toward all beings with consciousness!

This wasn't an attack... it was more like a pure instinctual release. A hysterical, mad scream from something that had lost all restraint, all reason, all "purpose"!

The emerald-green projection of the "Thousand-Faced Dream Fiend" suddenly expanded, twisted, and exploded! It no longer exhibited the purposeful mental pollution and dream erosion it had before. Instead, it turned into a pure, chaotic, storm-like torrent of emerald-green mental chaos!

Within this chaos, countless broken, twisted, and illogical terrifying phantoms frantically flashed, collapsed, and regenerated, carrying a pure malice that sought to drag all consciousness it touched into eternal madness and chaos!

It no longer "looked" at Gu Qingwan, no longer "aimed" at any target. It simply... "existed," releasing all its "essence" in the most insane and disordered way!

The reaction of the "Ten-Thousand-Corpses Pollutant Mother" was more direct, more horrifying.

"ROAR—!!!"

What it emitted was no longer the previous eerie, overlapping "cry of ten thousand spirits" with a strange rhythm. Instead, it was a terrifying roar filled with pure pain, violence, and an endless desire for destruction. It erupted from deep within its filthy, bag-like body!

The countless holes on the surface of its body no longer opened and closed rhythmically to spew pus. Instead, they burst like ulcerated wounds, spraying wildly! Dark yellow, pitch-black, and even a nauseating reddish filth pus, like an out-of-control volcanic lava, mixed with countless shattered and randomly re-aggregated, twisted, and indescribably formed remnants of "Filth Offspring," indiscriminately and violently sprayed, splashed, and flowed toward every inch of the cave's space!

Wherever it passed, even the cave's solid rock walls and floor made a violent "hissing" sound, a jarring, intense corrosive noise. Objects it eroded emitted rolling thick smoke and a pungent stench, quickly being assimilated and becoming part of its filthy domain!

The mass of pale mist, with overlapping human faces already twisted, merged, and collapsed, turned into huge, blurry ghost faces with only expressions of pain and destruction, emitting silent but soul-polluting blasphemous howls.

Both super malevolent deities, having lost Liu Xuanyin—the last "reins" and "pacification" connecting them to the "Nine Nether God-Refining Array"—had become like bombs filled with destructive energy, their safety pins pulled. They instantly entered a state of complete, indiscriminate, hysterical rampage!

They were no longer subject to any control, had no "goals" or "strategies." Only the most primal instinct to release all negative energy, to pollute and destroy everything around them, remained!

The yin energy and evil aura within the cave, as if stirred by the auras of these two rampaging malevolent deities, began to violently and chaotically boil and roll! The crimson evil array runes on the walls and ground flickered and flashed wildly, their light alternating between bright as blood and dim as if about to go out. Clearly, the stable energy cycles and rule restraints within were rapidly collapsing and becoming disordered.

The entire cave space began to tremble violently. The tremor was more intense and unstable than any from the previous battles, as if this space, forcibly stabilized by the formation, was about to completely collapse due to the core's loss of control!

Yet, this was only the beginning.

At the same moment the two malevolent deities inside the cave completely ran amok—

"RUMBLE—!!!"

A thunderous roar, far deeper and more massive than the tremor within the cave, as if originating from the depths of the earth or from the very bottom of the Nine Netherworlds, accompanied by a thick, undiluted, soul-freezing wave of bloody death, violence, and malice. Like a tsunami, it madly... impacted, squeezed, and poured in from the tunnel entrance!

It was the "Blood-Skeleton Spirit Lord"! That existence that had been lurking outside the cave, partially isolated by the "Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land," which had seemed to temporarily lie dormant due to Gu Qingwan's aura, the third super malevolent deity!

Liu Xuanyin's death had clearly also severed the last thread of "restraint" connected to it. Having lost this final shackle, the "Blood-Skeleton Spirit Lord's" purest instinct of destruction and violence, suppressed for who knows how many ages and belonging to "blood" and "death," erupted like a volcano suppressed for ten thousand years... with a bang!

Through the barrier on the verge of shattering, one could vaguely "see" that the originally just surging, bloody ghostly aura outside had now transformed into a sky-reaching, sticky as a solid, stench-emitting tidal wave of blood!

Within this blood wave, countless "blood-skeletal demons," formed from corrupted blood and white bones, with bizarre shapes and nauseating evil auras, surged like evil ghosts crawling out of the deepest hell, madly roaring, struggling, and devouring each other. Yet new demons continuously condensed and were born from the blood wave, their numbers almost endless!

And deep within the blood wave, a figure too enormous to describe, a terrifying giant projection seemingly built entirely from endless corrupted blood and skeletal white bones that could touch the sky, was slowly straightening its massive body! The giant had no clear face, only two enormous, empty holes like bottomless pools of blood, burning with scarlet flames, where eyes should be.

It opened a massive mouth, seemingly able to swallow mountains, formed by countless giant bones interlocking, and let out a silent roar filled with destruction and hunger that made the entire mountain range tremble! The "Blood-Skeleton Spirit Lord" had fully awakened.

Now, having lost all restraint, it was the fully manifested rampage form with only its primal instinct to destroy! It didn't even target Gu Qingwan and the others inside the cave first, as the "Dream Demon" and "Filth Mother" had. Its "gaze" seemed to pierce through the mountain, looking toward a farther distance, toward those vibrant mountains, rivers, villages...

Toward all existences containing "life" and "blood energy"! It was a predator looking at its prey, a naked, soul-freezing greed and violence!

Inside the cave, the emerald-green mental chaos raged wildly. The filthy pus and twisted "Filth Offspring remnants" indiscriminately sprayed and corroded. The dark red evil array runes flickered, the space trembled violently on the verge of collapse. Outside the cave, the towering waves of blood and bones surged, endless blood-skeletal demons shrieked. The "Blood-Skeleton Spirit Lord" projection that seemed to touch the sky radiated a destructive, all-encompassing pressure, shrouding the entire mountain range in the shadow of the apocalypse.

Three super malevolent deities, simultaneously losing control and running rampant! The chain reaction triggered by Liu Xuanyin's death, at a speed and intensity beyond anyone's expectations, had... arrived with a bang!