Ten thousand I am across the heavens

The raids on the front lines, with the influx of many Earth and Wood elementalists, gradually descended into a stalemate. Even with a large number of dedicated individuals involved, relying on their own abilities to carry out one dangerous mission after another, the results of the raids remained extremely limited.

It has to be said that the Ghost Demon Lord has now been forced by the Republic of Mountains and Rivers to spontaneously evolve into various patterns in the cycle of reincarnation.

The current devotees are being gathered on a large scale and placed into small rooms resembling reincarnation teams, where they are forced to act in groups. Different practitioners specialize in different abilities. The Ghostly Demon Lord has created these small rooms for them to rest and exchange resources. Missions are issued periodically. Completing missions or performing additional objectives within missions earns points, which can then be exchanged for enhancements. In short, it's a system that allows you to achieve the greatest results with the least amount of points.

These enhancements were originally meant for these people. Now they've been converted into rewards with points. Using supplies that should have been given to frontline soldiers as motivation for their combat readiness demonstrates a truly comprehensive implementation of the principle of achieving great things with minimal expenditure.

These people's modus operandi is indeed becoming increasingly similar to that of the Reincarnation Squad. Each team has a dedicated strategist and a specific leader to execute and formulate mission plans. This greatly enhances the execution capabilities of each Reincarnation Squad, allowing them to exert exceptional initiative in operations behind enemy lines and causing considerable trouble for the Mountain and River Republic. However, this same behavior also makes these so-called Reincarnation Squads quite unpredictable.

Just like real reincarnation teams often go too far when carrying out missions in the Main God Space. They only care about their own tasks and lack a sense of the bigger picture. Sometimes the mission may be accomplished, but the additional consequences cause great trouble for both sides.

Ultimately, however, these efforts were forcibly contained by the increasingly large and complex earthwork operations. It was as if, in a barren desert, even the most brilliant strategist would find it difficult to devise any innovative maneuvers. The desolate natural environment virtually blocked all additional possibilities, thus reducing the war to its simplest form of offense and defense.

Meanwhile, within the Ghostly Demon Lord's spiritual world, a similar selection process, akin to a cycle of reincarnation, was underway. The number of outstanding personalities he selected was steadily increasing; these personalities, at least of first-tier strength, were more than sufficient as non-physical secondary personalities. If we disregard his long entry into the galactic era, his devouring of countless planets and civilizations, and consider only the initial strength of his ascension within a single civilization, the Ghostly Demon Lord was already quite powerful. After all, this continent was vast, capable of supporting far more people than ordinary planets. He had also been forced to learn many methods from the Mountain and River Republic for cultivating and developing talent potential, albeit through somewhat unorthodox applications, yet still remarkably effective.

It seems that as his training system has become more mature, the efficiency of cultivating outstanding individuals has also increased. He now has a large reserve of outstanding individuals, ready for him to draw upon and utilize at any time.

Unbeknownst to him, he also felt himself being influenced. During his preparations for ascension, he sensed his personality being subtly shaped by the thoughts of countless other personalities. He even occasionally began to reflect: Was his act of plundering an entire continent truly right? Did it violate the natural course of this world's development?

Initially, the Ghostly Demon Lord was aware that his will was being influenced. He would identify the thoughts that clearly affected his will and then peel them away and delete them. But as time went on, the situation gradually changed. He gradually became unable to distinguish which will was influencing his thoughts. It seemed that no two people's wills were particularly different; everyone seemed quite similar. There were also many people who did things against their morals or even their inner will for survival or to achieve certain goals. There were even those who would stop at nothing to achieve their goals. But the combined influence of these people on his thoughts was constantly interfering with and pulling at his mind.

The Ghostly Demon Lord was at a loss for what to do, much like when you're running out of storage space on your phone and need to free up some space. Deleting photos or apps would inevitably cause some loss. There are always some infrequently used photos and apps, or junk information. But it's difficult to pick these out on your own. Some content may seem useless, but because you might need it someday, you're still reluctant to delete it, or afraid to delete it.

Ultimately, they will end up like the Ghostly Demon Lord today, powerless against a mountain of already running, utterly useless code.

At this moment, Lanno's true strategy is finally beginning to emerge. The Ghost Demon Lord is now finding it difficult to abandon the fruits of his labor accumulated over so long. He has laid out plans for so long, schemed for an entire continent, and invested countless resources and energy in cultivating what he has. Even if it is now corrupted, even if certain hidden dangers have arisen, he has to swallow it down.

It was precisely because of this mindset that the Ghostly Demon Lord did not sever the connection to his non-physical personalities. And just at this moment, the massive number of personalities that Lanno had invested began to show their influence. They were like grains of sand scattered in the ocean, seemingly insignificant, yet subtly influencing people to become like them—lacking great ambition or extraordinary abilities, at most possessing a slight increase in resilience and trust in others. This slight increase was so subtle that it couldn't even be detected by technology, because it remained entirely within the deviation range of normal human personality, yet it genuinely and subtly influenced the operation of the entire world.

By the time the Ghostly Demon Lord realized this, it was too late. His alternate personality had already begun to erode his primary personality, to the point that he felt as if he were under the influence of Kotoamatsukami. Even the thought of escaping this mental influence was fading, and in this respect, it seemed no one could help him.

[To be continued]

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