allendalepharm Page 406
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"The target area is the Gray Wasteland, the place where the resistance is fiercest." A scarlet magic circle slowly unfolded in the center of the activity room. A cold, deathly aura seeped out from the other end of the magic circle.
"Let's go."
Zhou Ye was the first to step inside.
"Go and carry out a friendly community outreach activity."
On the edge of the underworld, lies a gray wasteland. The sky here is perpetually a hazy gray, devoid of sun, moon, and stars. On the earth stand countless broken stone tablets and weathered statues.
Countless souls wander here in various forms.
In the heart of the wasteland, within a city built of colossal skeletons, the atmosphere was unusually frenzied. A gigantic undead, over ten meters tall and clad in tattered armor, stood atop a skeletal throne, its enormous eyes, formed from soul fire, scanning the densely packed followers below.
He is Argus the Broken Spear, an ancient war god long forgotten, who became the ruler of this wasteland after his death.
“Those living people! Those demons! They try to buy our noble souls with a few small favors!”
Argus's voice echoed throughout the entire City of Bones. "They want us to forget our glory, to forget that we were once gods, heroes! They want us to be herded like sheep!"
"We refuse!"
"We are free spirits! We would rather fight forever on this wasteland than bow down to the living!"
"Roar!"
The undead below roared deafeningly. Just then, a crimson portal suddenly opened above the City of Bones. Zhou Ye and his group stepped out.
"Where did these living beings come from, reeking of demons?" Argus's massive head turned to Zhou Ye, his soul fire flickering violently. "You are not welcome here! Get out!" "Boss, he's so big." Nami tilted her head back and muttered softly, "His bones are so big, they must be worth a lot of money, right?" Zhou Ye ignored Nami's greedy remarks and paid no attention to Argus's roar. He simply looked calmly at the army of undead below and spoke. "I'm here to give you an opportunity." His voice wasn't loud, but it clearly reached the ears of every undead. "An opportunity?" Argus seemed to have heard the funniest joke. "A mere living being dares to talk to us about opportunities? We have existed here for thousands of years, witnessing the rise and fall of countless pantheons! What are you?"
“I’m giving you two choices: 0…” Zhou Ye held up two fingers.
"First, accept the unified management of the Council, lay down your weapons, and wait for resettlement. You can obtain a more stable place for your souls to reside, and even have the opportunity to reshape your physical bodies through merit."
"second……"
He paused.
"His soul was scattered and his spirit was destroyed."
Dead silence.
After a brief silence, a deafening roar of laughter erupted. "Hahahaha! Did you hear that?! He's going to annihilate us!"
"A living being dares to threaten us in the underworld!"
Argus laughed so hard that the entire Bone Throne trembled.
"Living being, your ignorance has successfully pleased me. Now, kneel down, offer your soul, and I may make you the lowest-ranking skeleton soldier under my command!"
Zhou Ye shook his head.
"It seems you chose the second option."
He took out the unremarkable white jade pendant from his pocket.
"Since you don't want a chance..."
He held the jade pendant in his palm.
"Then experience the purification." The next second, the jade pendant shone brightly. It wasn't a blinding light, but a gentle, pure white light, yet carrying an irresistible will. The white light rapidly spread outwards from Zhou Ye, forming a huge domain that enveloped the entire City of Bones.
"what is this?"
Argus's mocking smile froze instantly. He felt his soul being disintegrated by an incomprehensible force. It wasn't an attack, burning, or tearing; it was an "erasure."
It was as if his very existence was a mistake, and was being corrected.
"Ahhhh!"
A piercing scream erupted from the undead army below. Under the white light, the black aura surrounding those spirits, composed of resentment and obsession, rapidly dissipated. 3.6
The weaker ones didn't even have time to scream before they were instantly transformed into the purest soul particles and dissipated into the air. The stronger ones also writhed on the ground in agony, their soul flames flickering and on the verge of being extinguished.
"This...what kind of evil magic is this!"
Argus roared in terror, brandishing his massive bone spear as he tried to smash it down on Zhou Ye. But the moment the spear entered the range of the white light, it began to disintegrate from its tip, vanishing into nothingness.
"No! I am the immortal God of War! I..."
His roar abruptly ceased. The white light had already spread to his body. His immense war god soul, formed from a thousand years of obsession, was as fragile as a sheet of paper before the white light. Under the astonished gazes of Rias, Nami, and the others, this ancient war god, along with the skeletal throne beneath him and the entire city of bones, were quietly and utterly erased in the gentle white light. The entire process took less than a few minutes.
When the white light faded, only a vast, empty wasteland remained. It was as if the city of the dead, and its army of over a billion undead, had never existed.
Chapter 369 The Underworld Officially Unifies the High School DxD World
When the gentle white light completely faded, the whole world fell silent.
The gray wasteland remains the same wasteland.
However, the magnificent city in the center of the wasteland, built from the bones of hundreds of millions, along with the hundreds of millions of noisy and fanatical undead army within it, all vanished.
They vanished without a trace, as if they were merely a dream that had lasted for thousands of years, now scattered by the first rays of morning sunlight.
There was no explosion, no shockwave, and no residual energy.
There was only an empty space.
An absolute, thorough emptiness, erased from the level of existence.
"This...that's it...that's it?"
Nami clutched a stack of reports, the numbers and accounts now a jumbled mess in her mind. Her mouth hung open, unable to close for a long time. She tried to estimate the value of the city of bones in her mind—how many gold coins she could get if she dismantled it and sold it as raw materials—but she quickly gave up. Her mind simply couldn't process what had just happened.
Kasumigaoka Utaha's hand, which was adjusting her glasses, froze in mid-air. Her writer's mind, which was always conceiving earth-shattering plots, was now completely blank.
The scene before my eyes was as if the author had deleted an unsatisfactory draft, and the draft paper itself had also turned into nothingness.
Unlike their shock, Rias and Akeno Himejima reacted much more violently.
Rias's face was ashen, and fine beads of cold sweat trickled down her forehead. She wasn't terrified, but rather gripped by a shiver originating from the very essence of 07's life. Just moments ago, within the domain enveloped in white light, she felt her "demon" attributes being forcibly "neutralized" by an undeniable force. It wasn't restraint, but a definition. It was as if a voice deep within her soul was telling her that her form of existence was "wrong" and needed to be "corrected."
If Zhou Ye hadn't deliberately avoided them, she had no doubt that she would have been quietly "erased" like those spirits.
Akeno Himejima's smile had vanished. She gripped Rias's arm tightly, her fingertips trembling slightly. As a hybrid of a fallen angel and a human, a demon, she was experiencing two completely different reactions. Her "fallen" half was emitting mournful howls, while her "human" half felt an unprecedented peace and tranquility within the white light. This sense of being torn apart was more terrifying than mere destruction.
Zhou Ye put away the jade pendant, now restored to its antique appearance, and casually stuffed it into his pocket, as if he had simply turned off a slightly noisy radio. He patted non-existent dust off his hands, looked around, and was quite satisfied with the cleaning result.
“Noise cleanup complete,” he said calmly, breaking the deathly silence.
He turned to look at Rias, who was still breathing heavily.
"Now, I don't think anyone in the Underworld has any objections, right?"
"Speaking of the extent of the Underworld, Hades occupies a portion that was once part of the Greek pantheon, Anubis of Egypt, the Japanese, and the Indians—since we're already here, let's deal with them all at once. We need to ensure the stability of our own homes to prevent future troubles."
Rias opened her mouth, but couldn't utter a single word. Opinions? Who dared to object? Who had the right to object? Argus and his group of ancient beings who had been entrenched for tens of thousands of years were considered powerful figures in the vast Underworld. Even a Demon King like her brother wouldn't bother provoking them; it wasn't worth it.
As a result, he was easily defeated by Zhou Ye.
At this moment, a sudden change occurred.
It didn't come from Zhou Ye, but from this desolate underworld.
Centered on the gray wasteland, a silent wave swept across the vast underworld in all directions. This included those who had remained neutral observers, those who secretly supported Argus, and even the wandering spirits who didn't care what was happening.
At that moment, all the surviving spirits, no matter where they were or what form they took, knelt down in unison in the direction of Zhou Ye.
Tens of thousands, billions, tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions of souls of all kinds offered their most humble respects in the same direction across the vast land of the underworld.
The fire of their souls flickered violently. There was no longer any resistance, resentment, or arrogance within them, only a single emotion remained.
That is the purest form of fear that can arise when faced with an incomprehensible, unpredictable, and irresistible force.
On the edge of the gray wasteland, an ancient entity, formed from countless fragments of souls and swirling like a vortex, trembled as it conveyed a thought. It had existed for far too long, so long that it had even forgotten its own name in life, leaving only the most basic instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm.
"Divine...punishment..."
This faint thought, like a spark, fell into a powder keg filled with fear.
boom!
The thoughts of all the departed souls were ignited at this moment.
Fear, after reaching its extreme, begins to transform into another extreme.
For these souls who have struggled for thousands of years in the dead, cold, and desperate underworld, what is God?
Being high above and issuing rules? That's just what administrators do.
Bestowing favors and responding to prayers? That's just for traders.
The true "God" is definition. It is rule. It is the ultimate arbiter who can decide "existence" and "non-existence".
They had just witnessed a "miracle." A miracle that erased "existence," the most terrifying, yet the greatest miracle.
Thus, fear transformed into awe, and awe sublimated into fanaticism.
A new, fervent faith, originating from the deepest recesses of their souls, began to grow wildly. They no longer saw Zhou Ye as a powerful living being, an intruder. Instead, they saw him as the one and only, supreme god who had descended upon the underworld.
Zhou Ye raised an eyebrow slightly. He clearly sensed that a torrent of faith, even larger and purer than the seven billion people in the previous spell world combined, was surging in from all directions and flowing into the golden ocean within his body.
The faith of the living is mixed with many impure thoughts such as desires, demands, and expectations.
The beliefs of these deceased were terrifyingly pure. They stemmed solely from the most primal fears and the most extreme forms of worship.
"look."
Zhou Ye suddenly turned his head and smiled at Nami, who was still in a daze, "Isn't this another new asset? And it's a renewable resource at that."
“Assets…?” Nami murmured to herself. For the first time, she felt that her proud value system, which quantified everything into money, was being challenged like never before. Faith… could such an ethereal thing really be considered an asset? But looking at Zhou Ye's matter-of-fact attitude, she felt that perhaps her perspective was too narrow.
Ignoring their shock, Zhou Ye casually slashed open a red portal in front of him, leading back to Demon High School. The familiar aroma of red tea wafted from the old school building.
He turned to Rias and Akeno Himejima and said, "You two handle the rest."
“Establish a new order, divide management areas, take inventory of all the dead, and create files.”
“Tell them that obedience will bring them peace, and even a chance for a new life in the future. As for examples of rebellion… they have already seen them with their own eyes.”
After saying that, he stepped into the portal, as if he had just given instructions on a trivial household matter.
The portal slowly closed.
Rias stood rooted to the spot, motionless for a long time. She looked down at the vast, boundless land beneath her feet, where countless souls knelt, stretching to the horizon. They remained kneeling, their devotion fervent and pious.
She suddenly understood something.