Chapter 1 The Blueprint

At this moment, Su Zhou's mind was already sketching out the blueprint of the Descending Spirit Society's plan.

No matter how crazy and deranged their previous actions were, whether it was creating riots or spreading plagues, the core purpose of the Descending Spirit Society was, in the final analysis, to collect Devil Factor.

"Yala said that humans can collect Devil Factor to create elixirs or magic potions, making themselves Divine descendants. Just like in ancient times, those demon beast cultivators who transformed into various extraordinary creatures."

"However, those who transformed into demon beasts were only trying to use the power of demon beasts to protect their tribes and clans, and even to protect human civilization—so they were also part of humanity. But the people of the Descending Spirit Society, no, the devils. They have completely abandoned their humanity, and even use their own compatriots as materials."

Flying in mid-air, Su Zhou's heart was filled with burning anger, but he still calmly analyzed and thought: "The ritual array for collecting Devil Factor cannot be too far away, it must be around the South Sea, but this is easily discovered, so they incite mutants to create chaos, and then use plagues to kill the mutants, recover the Devil Factor, and hinder the investigation. Killing many birds with one stone."

"Even I would find it difficult to find their main body in such a vast area."

At this moment, it could be seen that the aggregate of Devil Factor that had gathered into a stream of light had begun to gradually dim, no longer in its obvious luminous form—long-term movement caused it to lose its own spiritual light, leaving only the residual extraordinary essence, so that Su Zhou could only descend back below the clouds, overlooking the continuous heavy rain, like a typhoon passing over the sea.

"This is almost in international waters, there are many cargo and passenger ships coming and going, I can't search them one by one."

For a moment, Su Zhou also had a headache: "If I use my full spiritual vision, I can indeed see a very far range, but that distance is fine on land, but in the sea, it is like a drop in the ocean, not worth mentioning."

"Moreover, there is no way to guarantee that the spiritual light I see is from the Descending Spirit Society's transcendents, or the surrounding sea beasts."

Su Zhou had already activated his spiritual vision, and he could see that all the more conspicuous spiritual lights in the entire sea area had lit up—but just as he had thought before, spiritual lights were everywhere in the sea. Heaven knows how many sea beasts and treasures were hidden in this sea that was not covered by an order array and had been developing freely for more than a year.

He could even see large groups of sea beasts chasing closely from the direction Su Zhou flew from… Those were the various dragon-blooded sea beasts he had gathered along the coast of the South Sea before.

Previously, because Su Zhou noticed that there might be a crisis in the city, after immediately reminding the Zheng Nation officials to dispatch armed forces to suppress the chaos, he had no time to manage those sea beasts—anyway, they seemed quite well-behaved and didn't cause much trouble.

But now, they seemed to have sensed the aura of thunder left by Su Zhou in the rain clouds, and were now chasing even more frantically.

"Alas, I don't have time to play with you now… Hmm? Wait, sea beasts?"

Landing on the sea surface, surrounding and appeasing these sea beasts that were crowding around him, Su Zhou suddenly had a flash of inspiration and thought of a good idea: "Good children, good children… Well, so many sea beasts listen to my orders, I can't waste them."

Anyway, his persona is already the Sea King who can talk to fish, so he doesn't mind continuing to say so.

As for the fact that he now has all sorts of messy nicknames like 'Flash' and 'Thor' on the internet… that's something he needs to pay attention to when he goes online in the future.

"I want you to help me find a ship, it should have…"

Thinking like this, Su Zhou immediately began to broadcast his thoughts to all the surrounding sea beasts through soul communication.

At this time, Yala did not speak to remind him. She nodded slightly after seeing Su Zhou realize this.

—Only by thinking for oneself and finding solutions on one's own can one be called growth. Excessive and unnecessary prompts and reminders are just forcing growth and are not beneficial to people.

July 2, 2015, 4:35 PM.

The far sea of the South Sea.

An unremarkable Nanyang cargo ship.

The brownish-red and black double-layered hull was slowly sailing in the heavy rain and strong winds, pulling out an inconspicuous white trail in the waves.

The deck was empty—obviously, no one would be on deck in such weather as a sea storm on a modern ship, and the figures of crew members could be vaguely seen in the bridge. Everything was so normal.

But in the bottom of the cargo hold.

The ritual had reached its final stage.

The huge array composed of blood, human bones, resentful soul dust, Yin Soul Grass juice, and black Nether Ironwood root powder had reached its final stage. The deep gray spiritual power turned into rotating light discs, releasing obscure but heavy spiritual light.

In this vast spiritual light, a truncated hexahedral trapezohedron-shaped spiritual crystal was forming in the center of the array.

"Praise the Silent Lord! The source of life, the destination of death, the Lord of Reincarnation!"

A low chant sounded, completely transformed into the Bone Lord's 'Shepherd', calling out in spiritual sound, shaking the spirit world.

[Silent Lord]

The root of life and death, the leader of all the dead and those who transcend death, and the protector of all newborns and the elderly, He is the source of heroic spirits, the judge of judgment, the highest point of will, and the master of reincarnation.

He is a demon named Entropy, and also a god who can reverse Entropy. He is the beginning and the end, the netherworld where everything returns to eternal rest, and the earth that nurtures all things to multiply.

From the dawn of birth to the dark night of decay. Death, aging, and decay. Life, rebirth, and new life. All are His authority.

All realms are His people, repeating the cycle of decaying into mud and then breaking ground for new life under His gaze.

All the gods of the earth in the world, all the gods of the underworld, are but His aspects. Compared to those departed ancient immortal gods, the Silent Lord is the truly supreme and great existence, a being who truly fits the definition of 'God'!

"I need your power!"

However, in the Shepherd's heart, there was not the slightest bit of true faith.

Precisely because they knew the power of those great existences, it was impossible for any leader of a mysterious organization to have any faith in them.

Perhaps at first, there was a bit of emotion that could be called awe, but after knowing their own insignificance and the greatness of the other party, this emotion turned into a fear that came from the bone marrow… Faith? Are they worthy? Just the power of the dependents of these great existences would already be considered gods for ordinary civilizations!

Whether it was the 'Abyss Lord' who could control all spiritual bodies, or the 'Undying Heroic Soul' who symbolized being a deceased but also overcoming death, or many more, various dependents whose power was no less than the former, it would be enough to dominate this world just by obtaining one of them!

So, all that was needed was power. It was better to treat it as a transaction. This kind of great existence would not bestow any favors because you believed in Him, nor would it inflict any punishment because you blasphemed Him.

They are the revolving principles. Just like no one would believe in the constants of the universe.

"Finally, enough Divine Factors have been accumulated!"

Although on the surface, he was just watching the spiritual crystal in front of him without joy or sorrow, the Shepherd's heart was leaping for joy: "After decades, I can finally surpass the current 'Bone Shepherd' and be promoted to 'Mentor of the Dead'!"

The Descending Spirit Society was not like the Litany Society, which served a single great existence, but an organization that nominally served several great existences. Their advancement method was to collect the extraordinary elements from the bodies of the Heavenly God's dependents, and then merge them with themselves to become a new Heavenly God's dependents.

The power of the Heavenly God's dependents was indeed far superior to that of humans and various demons, and it was a very easy path to heaven.

This was an essential improvement, which could gradually improve one's life essence and become a more powerful and closer to immortal individual. Moreover, as long as one chose the right Heavenly God's dependents that matched one's aptitude, this advancement method would not even have bottlenecks. As long as there were enough Heavenly God factors, one could advance rapidly!

With the Shepherd's will dominating, dozens of spiritual lines that ordinary people could not see at all derived from his body and touched the fourteen-sided body in the center of the array. At the same time, he himself took out another fourteen-sided crystal from his arms that was smaller than the fourteen-sided body in the array, but its light was more brilliant and purer, and pressed it against his forehead.

"The Heavenly God Factors collected from the deteriorated Heavenly God's dependents who have turned into hungry ghosts mostly carry negative attributes. If you don't want to lose your mind and become a pure Hungry Ghost King, you must match them with a large amount of pure soul power to dilute the influence."

The spiritual lines absorbed the power of the dark gray crystal, and the forehead absorbed the power of the golden crystal. The Shepherd's body began to rapidly change and sublimate.

The body that was originally just bones began to gradually fade, spiritualize, and completely transform into a spiritual existence. The slightly hideous skull also returned to the face of the Southeast Asian man when the Shepherd was in human form.

But the difference from before was that there was a halo-like spiritual light flashing above his head, and the Shepherd's eyes had completely turned into pure soul light, no longer having eyeballs or pupils.

Transcendence, achievement!

Boom! At this moment, all the souls of the crew members who were still alive in the entire cargo hold were released from their bodies, and the lifeless bodies fell softly to the ground. These souls followed the guidance of the spiritual lines derived from the Shepherd's body in a daze and came to his front.

The Shepherd opened his mouth, stretched out his hand, and swallowed all these souls into his belly.

'Mentor of the Dead' was originally a dependent used to enlighten unintelligent dead spirits, allowing them to regain the wisdom of their lives and be reborn in the underworld. In addition to bestowing intelligence, they also had the power to erase the memories of the dead, achieving an effect similar to that of Meng Po soup, allowing the dead to be reborn. Every Mentor of the Dead had a small piece of his own underworld pure land, which could be developed into a true underworld by collecting enough dead souls.

And this cargo ship engraved with the array was now the core of its underworld.

However, now, the Shepherd did not need these ordinary and fragile souls. What it wanted to graze were at least powerful enough cultivators.

So, eat them.

"Too much miscellaneous flavor… the souls of ordinary people are like this, only the souls of children taste a little better, when they get older, the taste is strange."

Clicking his tongue, the Shepherd originally wanted to take advantage of his interest in advancing to transcendence and express some feelings, or sing a song to celebrate.

However, accompanied by a roar, the entire cargo ship shook slightly.

A violent crash came from the bottom of the hull.

"Sea beast attack? Did it smell the overflowing spiritual power? It seems that the array is not tight enough."

Stunned for a moment, the Shepherd did not find it strange, after all, even it knew how many sea beasts there were in the sea: "But ordinary sea beasts would not dare to approach a cargo ship with an array, right? Could it be that the sea beasts that also became dependents before were attracted by me?"

If that was the case, it was a little interested—being able to subdue a powerful sea beast of the same kind would increase its strength by more than a little, especially for the Descending Spirit Society, whose headquarters was located in Nanyang, they knew the importance of sea beasts best.

But when the spiritualized Shepherd appeared on the deck, it found that the rather strong great white shark, whose body was even somewhat woody, was rapidly swimming away—it was estimated that it had just hit the cargo ship, but why was it leaving?

Could it be that it just wanted to do a hit-and-run?

Before it could figure it out, as if sensing something, the Shepherd immediately turned its head and looked seriously at one side of the sea area.

In the waves in the distance, a looming figure appeared.

"Transcendental level? The Holy Seat of the Zheng Nation? Alone? So fast?"

The doubts in its heart appeared like丛生的杂草 (a tangle of weeds). The Shepherd did not leave immediately. Having just advanced to transcendence, it was not afraid of anyone else who was also at the transcendental level.

The strength of the Heavenly God's dependents was originally stronger than that of transcendent individuals of the same level, not to mention that the path of the Mentor of the Dead it chose was similar to the path of Immortal Spirits. As long as it had made sufficient preparations before, it could completely reach the sky in one step!

Now, it had overtaken on a curve through the advancement ceremony and achieved spiritual power circulation throughout its body, initially entering the high level of transcendence!

With this confidence, the Shepherd looked into the distance, and in the sea area at the other end, a very young voice came from where the figure was. It broke through the wind and rain and was still clearly audible.

"Although I can't see any life spiritual light anymore, I'll still ask—besides you monster, there shouldn't be any living people in the cargo ship, right?"

The tone of this voice was cold, as if it contained great anger, but the words he said were so naive that the Shepherd couldn't help but find it funny—if he answered 'there are still living people', would this person stop, and for the sake of those mortals, not prepare to catch himself, and not fight with himself?

So its answer was: "They were all eaten by me."

Then, in the next instant, dazzling lightning lit up between the sea and the sky.