The vortex spun in the dark sky, but eventually stopped growing after it covered all of Holy City. Catastrophe was once again about to strike the place. The members of the Twofold Alliance had already dealt with a curse resurgence, taboo poison, and scorching heavenfire. Things were already miserable. Their captured patriarchs had been freed, which brought some hope. But then a god arrived, and that hope was shredded to pieces. Despair filled the city.

Also filled with despair were the surviving five Spirit Trove experts. Three of them, those in dao begetting, were shaken to the point of being dazed. The godly might of the god’s finger had bereft them of any hope of defending themselves. They were so terrified their minds were blank.

The patriarchs both had secret troves that had produced heavenly daos. Although the violet moon had awoken the curse within them, they could still cling to lucidity. In fact, it was that very lucidity that caused them to be filled with so much astonishment and terror that it slowly became pure despair. In the final analysis, each of them had only a single secret trove. Perhaps if they had five, placing them in the great circle of Spirit Trove, then they might have a chance of surviving.

But they didn’t have that many secret troves. Therefore, they could do nothing but watch as the 90-meter-tall figure devoured the Mirrorling royal preceptor. Then that figure took a step in their direction. It was like a fierce tiger taking a step toward a trembling deer.

The Skyface Spirit Trove cultivator stood there blankly as the finger approached. Then the finger directed Xu Qing’s hand to land atop the Skyface’s head.

He’s Xu Qing. He’s Xu Qing! I’m eating Xu Qing!

A shocking gravitational force erupted, latching onto the dao begetting cultivator, causing him to rapidly wither up until he was dust.

White energy poured into the god’s finger. It was disgusting, and caused the finger to start violently retching.

In that moment, the patriarchs of the Twofold Alliance suddenly erupted with shocking fluctuations. After some struggle, they had finally managed to reveal their secret troves. There was no time to use magical techniques. They were just hoping that a blast of pure power would break them free from the god’s finger. What was more, their personal heavenly daos were in their secret troves, and they were targeting the god’s finger.

“Detonate!” the patriarchs screamed, and then they fled like mad in the opposite direction.

Their secret troves rolled toward the finger, pulsing with terrifying fluctuations. Cracks spread out onto their surfaces, and then they exploded. Around that time, the other two dao begetting cultivators recovered their senses. Trembling, they unleashed their own incomplete secret troves and sent them flying toward the god’s finger. An intense boom rang out as the two illusory secret troves detonated. The terrifying shock wave that resulted swept over the 90-meter-tall body.

At that point, it was without any hesitation whatsoever that the four Spirit Trove experts fled. They were so deeply shaken that they couldn’t care less about the survival of their species. They just wanted to get to safety. In the blink of an eye, they became beams of prismatic light that shot off over the horizon.

Yet right then, a very gruish scene played out.

It started with the Skyface’s royal preceptor, who was in the dao begetting phase. He had flown about 3,000 meters away when, as his secret trove exploded behind him, he pulled out a special treasure. It was a very rare item that was the most powerful object he possessed. Not only could it provide a huge blessing of speed, but also, he was capable of long-range teleportations. In fact, it was a range that surpassed any sort of ordinary teleportation talisman.

Without any hesitation, he activated the treasure. 𝑖𝘦.𝘤𝑜𝘮

And yet, that treasure, which had always worked perfectly for him, failed to activate. Apparently, the general chaos, plus the detonation of the secret troves, caused its magical power to malfunction.

If that were all there were to the situation, it might not have been a big deal. Not even very gruish things would surprise this royal preceptor. But after his treasure failed to activate, it started cracking. An instant later, it exploded. It was only an explosion of a treasure. However, the royal preceptor had already hung the talisman around his neck, and thus bore the full brunt of the detonation.

The shockwave swept over him. A scream rang out as he slammed onto the ground, seriously injured. He had already been weakened by the secret trove explosion, and now his treasure detonated, leaving him even more deeply wounded.

Confused, he tried to struggle to his feet. Most gruish of all was that a Mirrorling general up above suddenly turned in place, then raced toward the spot where the secret troves had detonated.

Given that the Mirrorling had the same cultivation base as the Skyface royal preceptor, it was no wonder he reached that spot in the blink of an eye, then disappeared….

Meanwhile, something horrendously gruish was happening to the Skyface patriarch. As he was fleeing like mad, a stream of heavenfire suddenly appeared in the sky above him.

Heavenfire Skycrossing had just been going on barely a month before, so it wasn’t unheard of for stray bits of heavenfire to appear here and there. But they usually wouldn’t be very destructive, and would only affect a small area. That was especially true considering how massive the Moonrite Region was. As a result, the statistical probability of lingering bits of heavenfire landing on inhabited areas was extremely remote. But right now… a massive, 300-meter-wide swath of heavenfire had appeared right over the Skyface patriarch’s head. The astonishingly powerful heavenfire fell.

The Skyface patriarch had an extraordinary physical body, and despite detonating his secret trove, still had a lot of strength left. Heart filled with fear, he burst into motion, heading around the falling heavenfire. Thanks to his quick reaction, he avoided most of the heavenfire, though he did receive a few random burns in the process.

Once safe, he looked down at the fire, wondering what exactly was going on. However, there were more gruish things to come. Strange heavenly lightning had somehow gathered in the canopy of heaven, and then it fell. Well over 10,000 lightning bolts were all heading in his direction.

Fundamentally speaking, the chances of this happening were so small as to be nonexistent. Yet it was very clearly happening.

The Skyface patriarch’s pupils constricted, and he madly tried to fight back. However, a series of booms echoed out, and blood sprayed out of his mouth. He staggered, hit over and over again before managing to flee the affected area. Before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, he suddenly stopped in place. Scowling, he looked down at his body to see that it was withering up.

He had suppressed the curse inside of him, but apparently, the shock waves from the secret trove detonations had caused it to awaken. The curse of Crimson Mother would kill you beyond the shadow of a doubt. A moment later, his withering body collapsed into dust. The last thing he saw before he died was that nothing like this was happening to any of his compatriots….

Down below, the struggling Skyface royal preceptor saw what happened, and it filled him with intense terror.

“Misfortune!!” he said. At the same time, the fluctuations of teleportation power appeared in a different direction in the sky.

It was the Mirrorling patriarch, who had moved quickly enough to avoid the misfortune. As a result, nothing unusual happened when he activated his teleportation talisman and vanished.

After all of that, the god’s finger let loose another wave of godly might. The finger’s 90-meter-tall god body then stepped out of the area affected by the secret trove detonations. The body didn’t look any different from before. It still glowed with golden light, and didn’t seem to be injured at all. It was almost as if the detonation of the secret troves were like nothing more than sparks to īt.

The reality was… īts body was starting to shrivel. In order to protect īts body, īt had wasted a lot of god power. Considering īt had been hungry before, that resulted in īt being downright starving now. 𝑖𝘳.𝒸ℴ𝑚

“Hungry. Hungry! So hungry!!”

The god’s finger was essentially salivating like mad. With a burst of speed, īt arrived in front of the despairing Skyface royal preceptor and devoured him. The finger felt more starved than ever, though, and īt was so empty īts pangs of hunger resounded like thunder. The finger turned and looked at Holy City. īts expression became one of struggle. In the end, it didn’t matter how disgusting the food was. When you were starving, you didn’t worry about such things.

īt blurred into motion, appearing right over the city. The surviving members of the Twofold Alliance therein could only look on in despair as the finger inhaled deeply. Instantly, the huge vortex overhead sank down and enveloped the city. Innumerable howls of grief and screams of pain spread out. Countless members of the two species were sucked up and devoured. The process was slow. After half the time it takes an incense stick to burn, the huge city… was basically emptied out.

“Disgusting! Revolting. So gross!” the finger spat angrily.

Back down in the public square, Duanmu Zang looked at what was happening and seemed completely taken aback.

Have humans on the outside really become this strong?

Although Duanmu Zang was certain there were things he didn’t understand about the situation, he couldn’t help but wonder about what it indicated about humankind in general.

Thankfully, the finger had some level of intelligence, and steered clear of Duanmu Zang. Then, at a certain point, īt seemed to sense something, and suddenly opened īts mouth wide and looked up into the sky, as if waiting for something.

Before long, teleportation fluctuations spread out, and someone popped out right in front of the finger’s god body.

He was in really bad shape. He had lost half of his body. The parasitized host was falling apart, his true form mirror was almost completely shattered, and his expression was one of despair. He had indeed escaped successfully via teleportation. But then he appeared beneath the surface of the Heavenfire Sea. However, he had paid a heavy price for the teleportation, and then, as he tried to leave the Heavenfire Sea, he was attacked by a mutant beast.

He had been so outmatched that, despite knowing he was dealing with the threat of misfortune, he had been forced to teleport back to stay alive. That second teleportation was what brought him here.

Heart full of grief and indignation, he could do nothing as the god body of the finger opened īts mouth, inhaled, and reduced the patriarch to ashes. The finger’s god body then bent over and retched loudly, all while looking vaguely resentful. Then īt descended on the city below.

As īts feet landed on the ground, the body shrank down. īt went from 90 meters to 30. And before long īt was normal sized again. The golden color faded away, and the golden light disappeared from the eyes.

Xu Qing was back in his normal body, his eyes shining as he walked across the square.

In his sea of consciousness, the god’s finger pulsed with the aura of a curse, and īt was bitterly grumbling.

“Food in the Moonrite Region is all marked! It doesn’t matter if you kill them or eat them. Your karma ends up suffering from Crimson Mother’s curse! I said I wasn’t going to eat! No eating. No, no, no! Now we’re finished. Once Crimson Mother wakes up, we’ll be the first meal! I need to sleep. I have to sleep! And no matter how you yell at me next time, I’m not going to wake up!!”

Xu Qing made an attempt to placate the finger, but the finger just ignored him, went into D-132, and went to sleep.

𝑖𝘦.𝑐𝘰𝘮