Chapter 413: Tai Sui

“Huh?!”

Fang Rui suddenly saw that it had started to rain in the shared dreamscape of everyone in Pinghu County.

But it wasn’t raindrops that fell, but… a flurry of Black Mushrooms.

In the midst of this mushroom rain, the crowd, who had been dancing like a host of demons, paused for a moment. Then, they resumed their frenzy, though it was as if they had switched to a different song.

Some men leaped and bounced about, twisting their bodies as they danced in the mushroom rain. An old man got down on all fours like a frog, hopping and twitching as he chased the fluttering mushrooms. A woman lay on the ground, squirming like a maggot while gnawing on the mushrooms that had landed there…

These people were mumbling something under their breath.

“Tai Sui! Tai Sui! Black Tai Sui!”

“You are the harvest! You are the darkness! You are propagation…!”

“Praise to the Great Black Heaven!”

…

The overlapping, dream-like murmurs of these countless people spread through the air in tangible ripples, carrying a terrifying, brainwashing corruption.

‘This level of corruption is nothing to me, but an ordinary person would be easily assimilated. They’d go mad in this dreamscape and have something harvested from them, which in turn would accelerate the world’s degeneration.’

Fang Rui looked at the crazed crowd around him. He was the only sane one, which gave him an inexplicable sense of absurdity. It was as if being mad was normal here, and sanity made him the aberration.

Contrasting this scene of depraved madness with the tranquil, peaceful Pinghu County from the daytime—a place like a veritable Peach Blossom Spring—he was profoundly shaken.

‘If this is what things will look like after the Great Black Heaven ‘opens its doors,’ then we might as well… I’m tired of this. Just let it all be destroyed!’

Fang Rui shook his head, reining in his thoughts. ‘So the “Black Tai Sui” these people are chanting about is the Evil God responsible for all this? Hmm, Black Tai Sui and mushrooms… a fitting pair.’

‘This Evil God, symbolized as the “Black Tai Sui,” doesn’t seem to be the same one I dealt with in the Shangluo Two Realms Mountain. What the hell? Is there more than one Evil God in the Great Black Heaven?’

‘Whatever. I can mull over these things later. Just finding the anomaly in Pinghu County is a major breakthrough.’

‘As for a solution… well, I’m just a wisp of Divine Soul Will. I should just get out of here and let my real body worry about it!’

Fang Rui joked to himself, transforming into a streak of light and ascending, preparing to exit the dreamscape.

But then—as he hovered high in the air, he seemed to sense something. His expression darkened. ‘Damn it, I can’t get out!’

A binding force tugged and pulled at him, connecting him to the countless people below.

The moment Fang Rui tried to exit the dreamscape, everyone below seemed to sense it. They stopped what they were doing and raised their heads in perfect unison, staring in his direction.

It was… utterly horrifying.

‘What is this?!’

From his vantage point high above, Fang Rui looked down. The dreamscape below had become a scarlet sea of blood, and the countless people of Pinghu County were like drowning souls within it.

After a momentary pause, their faces twisted into ferocious masks, like ghouls from the underworld. They waved their arms, as if trying to pull him down into the depths.

‘Easy to get in, hard to get out? So to leave, I have to pass some test and lead everyone to salvation? This jealousy, this greed… this place is a manifestation of pure evil!’

‘Too bad for you, I hate predictable tropes. To hell with your tests and your tethers. I’ll smash this whole damn thing to pieces!’

“Break!”

With a sharp cry, Fang Rui’s entire body erupted in light as brilliant as the sun.

One man to shake tens of thousands. Today… he would shatter this shared dreamscape of twenty to thirty thousand people and force his way out.

Could he actually do it?

There was no doubt.

Although he had only sent in a wisp of his Divine Soul Will, its fundamental essence was incredibly high-level; he was Super Grade in both the Spirit Master and Martial Arts paths. In contrast, his opposition consisted of a mere twenty or thirty thousand Mortals. He certainly had the power to shatter a dreamscape like this.

RUMBLE!

The ground shook and buildings collapsed.

CRACKLE!

Deep fissures split the earth, and the very fabric of the dreamscape shattered, revealing black voids.

‘Time to go!’

Just as Fang Rui was about to escape the dreamscape, he suddenly felt a faint gaze upon him. In that instant, his wisp of Divine Soul Will froze, like an insect trapped in amber.

「At the same time.」

Boundless darkness surged through the dreamscape. The scarlet sun, at some unknown point, had completely transformed into the shape of a Tai Sui, and the dream, which had been on the verge of collapse, was instantly stabilized.

‘The Black Tai Sui? So, the worst-case scenario has arrived.’

Fang Rui sighed to himself. Following his contingency plan, he prepared to dissipate this wisp of his Divine Soul Will.

He would never dare let even a wisp of his Divine Soul Will fall into the hands of an Evil God. Who knew what terrifying things might happen? Compared to that risk, the loss of a single wisp was insignificant.

At worst, his Divine Soul would be rattled, and he’d suffer minor injuries that would heal after a day or two of rest. The real trouble was that all the information he had gathered on this venture would be completely lost.

But just then—

“SCREEE!”

A clear Phoenix cry echoed. In midair, a hazy, seven-colored light swirled into a portal, and from it emerged a person and a bird.

‘It’s that woman in white. She found me here?’

Fang Rui mused, feeling a ring of seven-colored light brush past his wisp of Divine Soul Will. The seal that bound him was instantly broken, and he couldn’t help but be inwardly shocked.

‘If my full Divine Soul had entered this dream, I would never have been pinned so easily. But then again,’ he thought, ‘I wouldn’t have been able to break that Restriction so casually, either.’

‘I thought she was just a Source Master. Now, it seems she’s far more than that.’ Fang Rui’s gaze flickered.

At this moment, Yu Yunlan was completely different from the several times Fang Rui had seen her before, when she had deliberately restrained herself. Now, her aura was fully unleashed. She stood atop the Phoenix, wearing a coronet. The bright moon behind her head had transformed into a halo of light, and a pure, ethereal energy flowed from her sleeves and back, manifesting as colorful ribbons. She was like Fairy Guanghan—cold, noble, and inviolable.

Illusory mountains and rivers flowed around her, forming a seven-colored Domain that suppressed the entire dreamscape.