Chapter 359 Acid Rain and Spiritual Pollution: A Pervasive Cause of Infection

"Sizzle—sizzle—"

The open-air material storage yard of the Third Heavy Industry Casting Plant in Xinchang'an City.

The sound was initially very soft, like the sizzling of fatty meat on a hot griddle at a roadside food stall on a summer night. But just a few minutes later, the sound was amplified a million times, pressing down from 20,000 meters in the air as if it were a tangible force, drilling into everyone's ears.

Old Zhao, wearing heavy canvas gloves, was using an iron crowbar to rummage through a pile of newly arrived scrap metal. He stopped what he was doing, pushed his goggles up to his forehead, and looked up at the sky.

"Master, the noise from the sky... it's giving me the creeps!"

The apprentice next to him was holding a bundle of high-conductivity copper wire for engraving arrays, his neck hunched, his eyes staring blankly at the sky.

The Kyushu Barrier, which was originally bluish-gray and had a cold, hard metallic texture, now looked like it had developed an extremely disgusting "poisonous sore".

Large swaths of dark purple, high-dimensional corrosive mist, after being blocked by the earth's extremely yang fire, did not dissipate directly. They rapidly liquefied in the high atmosphere, turning into an extremely viscous, asphalt-like "acid rain" that clung tightly to the bluish-gray hexagonal array patterns.

The intense heat of the sun scorched the acid rain, producing blinding white smoke and a sizzling sound that made your teeth ache. But the dark purple liquid was like a persistent leech; as soon as one layer burned away, a new layer would immediately rush up from space, seeping down in a sticky, gooey way.

"Stop looking! Keep your head down and get back to work!" Old Zhao felt a surge of inexplicable anger and cursed irritably.

But when he turned his head, he saw the copper wire in the apprentice's hand fall to the ground with a "clang".

The apprentice, as if possessed, tilted his head back, staring intently at the swirling dark purple patches in the sky. His pupils dilated in an extremely eerie way, and a stiff smile involuntarily tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Two streams of blood flowed silently down his nasal cavity, dripping onto his oil-stained work clothes.

"Hehe... Master, there are people chanting scriptures in the sky... They say we don't need to forge iron anymore, just open up the skull, there's a golden elixir inside..." The apprentice made a gurgling sound like a bellows leaking air, but his feet involuntarily walked towards the furnace that was tens of meters high at the edge of the stockpile.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Old Zhao's eyelids twitched wildly. He rushed forward, swung his arm, and with his rough, calloused hands from years of blacksmithing, delivered a vicious slap to the apprentice's face.

"Snapped!"

The slap sent the apprentice spinning halfway around before he landed hard on his backside in a pile of scrap metal, his mouth filled with the taste of blood.

"Cough cough... Damn it! Master, why did you hit me!" The apprentice covered his swollen cheek, his eyes finally regaining their clarity, tears streaming down his face from the pain.

Old Zhao ignored him and stared intently at his right hand. When he had just whipped the apprentice, he clearly felt a surge of extreme frustration and a violent urge to pick up a crowbar and smash the head of the person next to him.

"Contain your Qi Sea! Don't try to perceive the heavens with your pathetic divine sense!" Old Zhao gritted his teeth, enduring the needle-like headache in his head. "This isn't aimed at the metal shell; it's aimed at the human brain!"

……

Earth. 700 meters underground in Kyoto, in the joint control room.

"Beep beep beep—Warning! A mass hysteria outbreak has occurred among low-level cultivators in the seventh air-raid shelter of the South China Military Region!"

"Warning! Production line at the Chengdu Psionic Weapon Factory has been interrupted!"

The red lights in the control room flashed rapidly, and urgent reports came through the communication channels from monitoring posts in various locations.

Lin Feng sat at the control panel, his face pale. He didn't lose his composure as usual, but his ten fingers were taut as he typed, and his forehead was covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.

"Professor Wang, the barrier is not damaged, but the high-frequency waves are penetrating the armor."

Lin Feng pulled up a spiritual pressure comparison chart, his voice dry: "The void liquefied the corrosive energy into a bone-deep affliction. It adhered to the surface of the barrier, and during the process of being scorched by the earth's fire, it forcibly broadcast [mental pollution] into the earth's interior using the resonance of the array patterns."

Wang Mingyuan stood in front of the large screen, his hands behind his back, his fists clenched tightly, his gaze cold and stern.

"What's the casualty situation? Why are ordinary people unharmed, but it's all the cultivators who are in trouble?"

"Because of divine consciousness."

The head of the array formation team strode over with a newly printed band analysis report in hand, his face extremely grim.

"Mortals lack divine consciousness and have low brainwave frequencies; at most, they might experience headaches, irritability, or nausea. But cultivators are different! The higher a cultivator's cultivation level, the more acute their divine consciousness and the stronger their perception of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The Nine Cauldrons Grand Array is now like a super antenna, amplifying the pollution from outside and directly pouring it into the brains of those cultivators trying to perceive the sky!"

Wang Mingyuan has a tight jawline.

"Sever all spiritual energy connections between low- and mid-level cultivators and the earth vein array! Order the entire army to lock their divine senses!" Wang Mingyuan coldly issued the order. "Array group, increase the output of the Extreme Yang Earth Fire; burn as many as you can!"

……

Kunlun, the Valley of Death.

"puff!"

At the edge of the sinkhole, a Kunlun Golden Core cultivator responsible for maintaining the array's core suddenly coughed up a mouthful of black blood and fell straight backward. Extremely faint dark purple mist was seeping from his seven orifices.

"Senior Brother Xu!"

Zhao Yi strode over and used his one arm to support the cultivator.

"Don't touch me... there are bugs... something is crawling inside my soul..."

His once calm and serene face was now covered in terrifyingly bulging veins. His eyeballs bulged wildly, and he actually raised his right hand, fingers pointing like a sword, as if he wanted to slice open his own skull!

"Medics! Use quick-drying gel to seal his veins! Tie him up tightly with cable ties!"

Zhao Yi remained calm and shouted sternly.

Several engineers in heavy protective suits immediately rushed over and quickly pinned the crazed Senior Brother Xu to the tracks of a mecha, binding him tightly with high-strength metal cable ties.

Zhao Yi leans more towards physical cultivation; his spiritual sense isn't strong, and he mainly relies on his exoskeleton and physical strength to fight. At this moment, although he also felt his head buzzing and was so irritable that he wanted to kill someone, he still stubbornly remained at his command post thanks to his extremely strong willpower.

A fierce wind, mixed with snow foam, howled through the sinkhole.

At the bottom of the sinkhole, the massive, jet-black cauldron number nine was trembling violently. Its surface was not only glowing with intensely yang golden light, but also wreathed in extremely cold, venomous, dark purple arcs of electricity.

"Instructor Zhao! Half of the cultivators guarding the hub have fallen!" a communications soldier shouted, reporting the error. "The array guiding the Earth Fire has lost its micro-management by divine sense, and its output power is dropping!"

Zhao Yi drew his military knife from his waist and slashed his thigh, using the excruciating pain to forcefully suppress the irritation in his mind.

"Use the engineering mech modules to push them up! Manually calibrate the array patterns! We have to keep the fire going, even if it kills us!"

Just as the formation in Death Valley was about to fall into chaos due to the monks' mental breakdown.

"Zheng—"

A sharp, clear sword cry, seemingly capable of severing all physical and mental noise, suddenly resounded in the sky above Kunlun Death Valley.

The sound wasn't loud, but it was like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing the churning violence and madness in everyone's minds.

Xu, who was convulsing on the mecha tracks, suddenly quieted down, panting heavily, and the purple aura in his eyes dissipated.

Zhao Yi was startled and abruptly raised his head.

The edge of the Heavenly Palace on the Cloud Top amidst a blizzard.

Gu Qing, dressed in a snow-white robe, found himself standing at the very edge of the cliff.

He looked down at the No. 9 cauldron at the bottom of the sinkhole.

Dark purple arcs of electricity continued to spread across the cauldron, as if some invisible pollution was trying to invade the depths of the formation.

Gu Qing's expression didn't change much; he simply slowly extended his right hand, palm facing upwards.

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried with remarkable clarity throughout Death Valley.

"It is indeed ingenious to mix mental pollution and energy exchange together."

"pity."

"This is Earth."