Chapter 2996 - Vicious Cycle

"It's getting rather scary...." Even Xiaodao was able to realize that. People were modest by nature. If it wasn’t for something going on in their minds, there was no way anyone would just engage in such acts with strangers in public. Not to mention, normal people wouldn't cheer people on as they did the deed, either, and many of those who were doing just that were ascendants!

In fact, everyone from Ebonia was a normal god at the very least, so things were bound to be worse there than they were on the Sun.

"This is going to be a pain!" The entire world's will was beginning to collapse. The fighting spirit and morale from before had completely vanished without a trace. "If this goes on, all my omnisentient threads will disappear!"

Then again, it was fine as they currently weren't facing off against any powerful foes. "The troubling thing is that if people's minds remain in this altered state for too long and they focus on nothing but debauchery, the folk of Ebonia and all my followers would turn into beasts of instinct! I still don't know what other effects the red mist will have in the future!"

Yin Chen had said that all the wildbeasts in Ebonia had exploded from the red mist. In other words, it could have potentially fatal consequences. If the trillions of people shared the wildbeasts' fate, then Ebonia and the Sun would become absolutely devoid of life. Tianming couldn't imagine what kind of disaster that would be. "We truly are in deep shit."

Shenxi Xingtian's final gambit was far more troubling than Mister Taihe, Demoness Yin, Meng Ying, the eight million wonderians, and even Yi Daiyan combined. The threats they had faced kept getting worse, and this time was no exception. It was the worst of all!

Tianming, Wudi, Xiaodao, and the rest felt the weight of unknown terror on their hearts. To say that they were worried would be an understatement. Some astral gods began studying the microscopic things in the red mist, yet their studies yielded no results.

In the span of two days, the situation in Ebonia and the Sun got worse. Every normal god and mortal seemed both lucid and trancelike at the same time. Their behavior didn't seem to make any logical sense as they sought out pleasures to occupy their senses. Tianming had no choice but to separate each individual person within small barriers. Otherwise, who knew what kind of atrocities they would end up committing in their

illucid state. The same was done on Ebonia, but that didn't solve the root of the problem.

"We finally found some ancient records. It's said that the ancestors of the ebons found this thing deep in the astral void millions of years ago. It’s some kind of unique lifeform. To think that it persisted after so many aeons.... The ebons named this thing 'Hong Chen', or 'red dust'. It's incredibly fine and is able to reproduce within the bodies of living creatures and continue spreading. It causes people to lose their will to fight, along with their rationality, causing them to let go and carry out any kind of pleasurable stimulus and forget themselves... but they won't die!" Xiaodao said.

"Why won't they die?" Tianming furrowed his brows.

"Think about it. This red dust is a kind of parasite. Whether it takes a beast or human as host, if it kills its host, it would no longer have anywhere to live. So, the people who are infected with the parasite not only wouldn't die, but in fact, the parasite will change their behavior to promote its spread, speeding up its reproduction!" At the very least, that was Xiaodao's guess.

"I'm speechless." The astralscape of order was truly vast for there to be such an odd lifeform. Even though there didn't seem to be any risk of death at the moment, they couldn't be sure if that would stay the same for good. Meanwhile, the mortals and normal gods of the Sun and Ebonia seemed to have had their personalities replaced without even knowing it.

"Do the records state anything about how we can counter it?" Tianming asked.

"No. Not even the ebons' ancestors understood the nature of this thing at all. It was born in the deeper reaches of outer space, where the ruins of star worlds are found. There seemed to be signs of life back then, but no actual living beings remained," Xiaodao said. There was no solution!

It had been three days since the first outbreak, and Tianming's omnisentient power had significantly decreased. Currently, he was only as powerful as a tenth-level cosmic cartographer. That would have been fatal, had it happened earlier. Fortunately, the outbreak only began after Tianming had defeated most of his pressing foes. He didn't need any extra power right now. Though the infected seemed happy, their mental states were visibly deteriorating.

"If they don't keep cultivating and only chase pleasure, their cultivations will degrade. That'll cause their lifespans to greatly shorten! The red dust causes people to reproduce to create more hosts for itself. It’ll increase the populations of Ebonia and the Sun, but they’ll only keep growing weaker until they reach rock bottom!" It was a truly vicious cycle.

"The Sun and Ebonia will eventually stop producing astral gods altogether! Over a few thousand years, the older generation of astral gods will perish. By then, my dynasty won’t have a single astral god left. If foreign invaders come again, they'll only need around a million astral gods to wipe out entire worlds, causing mass extinction!" From that point of view, the red dust, humans, and beasts wouldn’t survive in the long term; some powerful faction would eventually crush them all.

Astral gods in the Sun were so busy quarantining people from each other to the point that they were going to vomit blood from lack of rest. There were even more people in Ebonia, so there weren't enough astral gods to go around at all. Many cities and territories of top clans had completely fallen to chaos, staining the founding of the Tianming Dynasty. Tianming was being driven to utter frustration.

"Keep looking for a way to exterminate the red dust!" Yin Chen had already been spread out far and wide. No nook or cranny was left untouched in Ebonia or the Sun. But even after Tianming took control of Ebonia's fusion and astralguard formations to become the world's true owner, no progress was made on countering the red dust.

It wasn’t until Xiaodao brought an unexpected someone over for there to be any hope. He was the orange-haired youth with stars in his eyes, Li Fan of Myriadpath Valley! He was still alive; Tianming had completely forgotten about him.

Meng Ying had threatened Tianming with the lives of his subjects before, so he’d used Li Fan as a bargaining chip against Mister Taihe, only for the latter to completely ignore it. It seemed like he didn't care about Li Fan's existence at all. Li Fan wasn't even valuable as a hostage, so nobody cared about him anymore.

With the passing of time, he managed to reform his physical body. However, the astrons were still fresh, and Li Fan seemed like a specter that strengthened himself by consuming flesh and blood. So, in a fresh new state, he was far from his maximum combat potential. It would take years of nurturing and cultivation for him to return to his peak. Li Fan knelt before Tianming, his face completely pale with a troubled expression.

"Him?" Why did Xiaodao bother bringing Li Fan over when Tianming was so antsy? Tianming would have killed him had he remembered him.

"Yes. He's still of use." Xiaodao gave Li Fan's head a smack. "Tell him yourself!"

Li Fan looked up, grit his teeth, and said, "I know this red dust."