World version update

Chapter 284 Extraordinary Order, The Awakening of the Second Dao
The underworld path and the mysterious version of the extraordinary path have fundamentally different advancement logics.

The Mysterious Version of the Transcendent Path requires drinking and digesting potions to advance, because the Transcendent characteristics of different paths in the Mysterious Version are scattered throughout the world.

Those with extraordinary abilities must systematically search for and consume potions to gain the corresponding extraordinary characteristics.

Then, one must go through the process of digesting the magic potion to remove the madness and pollution hidden within, making oneself more compatible with the extraordinary path and striving to avoid the misfortune of losing control.

However, the Underworld Path is a completely new path created by Lu Yan based on the concept of the Divine Court Underworld. This world does not have the extraordinary characteristics of the Underworld Path.

The root of all paths to the underworld lies within the Divine Court Underworld, therefore there is no step of taking magic potions for advancement.

The only prerequisite for entering the ninth level of the Soul Sequence is to receive extraordinary characteristics from the Divine Court and the Underworld at the moment of death as a guide and anchor, so that the soul can transcend the boundary between life and death and not fall into reincarnation, and finally be promoted to a wandering soul.

After advancing to the level of a Wanderer, the path ahead diverges.

Firstly, if a soul is dominated by its obsessions from its previous life, especially a strong desire for revenge, it will accumulate boundless resentment through continuous killing, and thus become twisted and corrupted, rising to the uncontrolled sequence number eight: vengeful ghost.

Secondly, as Anna chose, one must cleanse the soul of impurities and resentment, and through continuous dreaming, observe the world, understand good and evil, and only after comprehending one's own path and having one's soul sublimated can one be promoted to the orthodox sequence sequence eight: Soul Binder.

Entering Sequence Eight means that the Underworld Sequence has finally broken free from the weakness and passivity of a wandering soul and possesses truly meaningful, lethal, and extraordinary abilities that are sufficient to interfere with reality and even threaten life.

As the name suggests, the core power of the Soul Collector is to capture and seize souls.

Whether it is an ordinary being or an extraordinary being, once it locks onto them, it can forcibly seize their soul, strip them of their consciousness, and plunge them into eternal silence or turn them into puppets.

Of course, the ability to steal souls is subject to the level of one's extraordinary sequence and rank, but it is undoubtedly an extremely domineering ability.

As Anna successfully advanced from a wandering soul to Sequence Eight: Soul Binder, changes began to occur in her originally pure and solid soul body.

A chilling wind, powerful enough to harm the soul and shake the mind, gathered behind her, eventually weaving into a dark cloak that exuded a sinister coldness.

At the same time, chains forged from pure soul power materialized in her hands.

Upon closer inspection, each link of the chain seems to be engraved with countless fragments of ever-changing dreams; once locked, one will be lost in the dreams of all living beings.

Just as Anna's soul underwent a complete transformation and stabilized at the Sequence Eight: Soul Reaper rank, it was as if a crucial gear had finally meshed into place. The Underworld Divine Court, which had been as silent as a background figure since Lu Yan descended upon this mysterious version of the world, finally ushered in its first change.

Back in the apocalyptic version, in order to forge a powerful magic weapon, Lu Yan instigated a war and harvested countless zombie souls on the battlefield, intending to forge the legendary Ten Thousand Soul Banner.

However, after Lu Yan obtained the method to forge merit-based magic treasures and accumulated a massive amount of Heavenly Dao merits with the help of the Heavenly Dao of the Apocalypse, and successfully forged the Heavenly Dao merit magic treasure Human Emperor Banner, the tens of millions of zombie souls that were originally planned to be used to refine the Myriad Soul Banner were all taken into the underworld world inside the Human Emperor Banner.

These zombie spirits are the product of the only ones in this post-apocalyptic world fighting against the Heavenly Dao, and are born without the Heavenly Soul and Earthly Soul that symbolize intelligence and memory.

They are essentially incomplete, have almost no independent thinking ability, and have no value whatsoever. At most, they can only be consumed as materials for the advancement of ghost soldiers and ghost generals.

However, due to Lu Yan's own cultivation level and time constraints, he was unable to continue creating a large number of Yin soldiers and ghost generals, so there were still tens of millions of remaining zombies and wandering souls.

They roam every corner of the underworld, like a part of the whole world.

But now, with the birth of Anna, the first Soul Collector in the Underworld sequence, everything begins to change.

The path to the underworld created by Lu Yan began to actively embed itself into the divine court and the underworld, becoming a part of the underworld.

Inside the Emperor's Banner, the underworld suddenly trembled.

Order and rules are woven within the divine court and the underworld, and from the originally empty concept above the sky, a dazzling radiance like the sun is formed out of thin air.

That is extraordinary spirituality originating from the divine court and the underworld!
Thousands upon thousands of extraordinary spiritual energy descended like a meteor shower, precisely striking a large number of zombie souls.

Each spiritual essence transforms into a cocoon of light radiating a soft glow, enveloping one or more zombie souls within.

Within the cocoon of light, the miracle of the soul begins to descend.

The originally incomplete soul structure, under the nourishment and repair of extraordinary spirituality, began to gradually become complete at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The missing primordial forms of the Heavenly Soul and Earthly Soul slowly coalesced and were born under the catalysis of spirituality.

Beneath the cocoon of light, those originally illusory souls began to solidify rapidly. They were no longer muddled remnants, but were truly beginning to move towards the path to the underworld.

"Boom!"

With a sound like a bubble bursting, the first cocoon of light suddenly exploded.

Emerging from it was a middle-aged man with a solidified soul and a sinister face.

Unlike his previous, muddled counterparts, his eyes gleamed with the light of an intelligent being.

Although he still carried a trace of naivety, he was no longer a remnant soul with only instincts left. Instead, he had successfully completed his soul and entered the ninth rank of the Sequence Soul, becoming a genuine extraordinary being.

His appearance seemed to ignite a fuse, and the still-dazed zombie remnants around him began to converge on this high-level being like moths to a flame.

The sinister man's gaze swept over his fellow humans, a glint of greed and violence flashing in his eyes.

Without any hesitation, he suddenly stretched out his condensed soul hand, grabbed the nearest zombie remnant soul, opened his mouth, and began to devour it greedily.

The soul energy, powerless to resist, quickly transformed into nourishment for him, making his newly solidified soul body clearer and stronger.

At the same time, wisps of crimson light, representing resentment and slaughter, began to coil around his body like thin snakes.

He is not an isolated case.

"Bo! Bo! Bo!"

More cocoons of light burst open one after another, and tens of thousands of wandering souls were born within the extraordinary order of the Divine Court and the Underworld.

The vast majority of them, upon regaining their senses, are driven by memories remaining deep within their souls, the violent instincts of the zombie era, and the hatred that may have existed in their previous lives.

Like that sinister man, these wandering spirits did not hesitate to extend their demonic claws to their still weak kin, beginning a frenzied process of devouring and growing stronger.

In an instant, this newly imbued underworld was transformed into a brutal feast of souls, with crimson resentment spreading everywhere. However, not all newly born wandering souls chose this path.

A small number of wandering spirits stand out as particularly special.

When they regained their intelligence and felt the intense temptation to devour their own kind, a fierce struggle flashed in their eyes. In the end, they struggled to suppress the instinctive desire and gave up the shortcut of becoming stronger quickly by devouring their own kind.

These restless souls, who had chosen to exercise restraint, seemed to be guided by some invisible force, and unanimously raised their heads to look towards the center of the underworld.

There, a stream of water from the underworld, exuding an aura of deathly stillness, meanders and flows.

At the end of the river stands a colossal city sculpted from countless majestic mountains, exuding supreme majesty.

Fengdu City!
They actively went against the flow of the Yellow Springs water, trudging upstream with great difficulty, step by step towards Fengdu City, which symbolizes the origin of the divine court and the underworld.

After enduring hardships, they finally arrived at the majestic gates of Fengdu.

Those relatively pure wandering souls that did not devour their own kind encountered no hindrance as they approached the city gate. The gate seemed to open automatically for them, allowing them to easily enter this magnificent city.

There, they will receive a deeper cleansing and guidance from the underworld's divine court, truly embarking on the true path of the underworld.

However, when those wandering souls, shrouded in crimson resentment and empowered by devouring their own kind, attempted to approach or even forcibly enter Fengdu City, they encountered a completely different treatment.

Before the city gate, ghostly soldiers, wielding long spears and clad in ghostly armor, appeared out of nowhere, their expressions indifferent.

These ghostly soldiers exuded a cold and powerful aura, and whenever a wandering soul entangled with resentment approached, they mercilessly brandished their weapons.

With a few shrill screams, those once arrogant wandering souls were easily shattered, their remnants dragged away into the distance.

It's not that the Yin soldiers are incapable of killing wandering souls, but rather that even though these wandering souls have strayed from the right path, they are still part of the underworld and still hold extremely important value for the newly established divine court and underworld order.

This moment is of extraordinary significance!

When the zombies and wandering souls in the underworld are given intelligence and the opportunity to step onto the path of the extraordinary, they will embark on different fates according to their own choices.

The entire divine court and underworld were no longer merely confined to the images reflecting the heavens, or a vague conceptual framework.

The Divine Court and the Underworld are in operation, forging their own extraordinary foundation.

A mythical underworld with its own inhabitants, rules, and power system is taking shape at a visible pace.

Lu Yan's will, like a deity high in the heavens, clearly overlooked this gradually evolving Netherworld.

He could see newly born wandering souls either falling into depravity due to their instincts or heading towards Fengdu due to their restraint.

He could hear the ceaseless roar of the Yellow Springs waters and feel the overwhelming majesty of Fengdu City.

He could also sense that as this world was revitalized, streams of pure feedback power, originating from the tens of thousands of newly ascended Sequence Nine Souls, were continuously flowing into his body, just like hundreds of rivers flowing into the sea.

This feedback, originating from the extraordinary order, disregarded the differences between the extraordinary path and the method of cultivating immortality, and directly affected his cultivation level.

Lu Yan condensed the Great Dao Golden Core, and unlike ordinary cultivators, he did not need to accumulate magical power. Instead, he used the process of nurturing the Great Dao Golden Core to comprehend the world.

Lu Yan could clearly feel that extraordinary rules belonging to the Netherworld path were being woven within the Great Dao Golden Core, and his original early Golden Core cultivation level was instantly broken through without any obstacles.

In an instant, his cultivation level had steadily reached the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm, and the momentum of growth had not yet completely stopped.

But this was not the change that Lu Yan was most concerned about.

What surprised him even more was that the second Dao position, which had almost disappeared after he left the Great Transmigration version, was now beginning to revive as the Divine Court and Underworld evolved into a transcendent order.

Like a star that has been dormant for billions of years being reignited, that faint, almost imperceptible second Dao rank is being reawakened in the Divine Court and the Underworld.

Although this newly awakened second Dao position is extremely weak, even the unique position of the one in this world contained in the King's Staff in Lu Yan's hand far surpasses that second Dao position.

However, between nothingness and existence, there is ultimately an insurmountable chasm.

Having even the slightest trace of the Second Dao Realm means that one has regained a fulcrum to leverage higher levels of the Great Dao, representing a completely different essence.

Moreover, Lu Yan knew perfectly well that this was merely the starting point of the path to the underworld.

Even Anna, who was highly anticipated, only had the rank of Eighth Soul Reaper. If measured by the cultivation system he was familiar with, her actual combat strength was only at the late stage of Qi Refining or even the perfect stage.

To allow the Divine Court and the Underworld to take initial shape, the Underworld sequence must be developed to a level sufficient to accommodate the five great ghost gods, ghost soldiers and ghost generals, and other core combat forces.

However, the most basic Yin soldiers in the Underworld system are at least comparable to the peak of the Foundation Establishment stage in the cultivation system, which is at least in the sixth sequence of the Underworld path.

To develop a completely new extraordinary path from scratch to Sequence Six is ​​no easy task, even for someone with Lu Yan's current strength and status.

Not to mention that there are still six hundred Golden Core Realm Ghost Generals and five Nascent Soul Realm Ghost Gods in the Divine Court Underworld, which means that the initial formation of the Divine Court Underworld requires at least the Underworld sequence to be pushed to sequence four.

In this world, which extraordinary path to advance to Sequence Four hasn't been passed down for thousands of years?

Even if Lu Yan has many trump cards up his sleeve, it will probably take a long time.

"In the mysterious version, all the unique beings in this world are pursuing faith, and faith itself is closely related to the path to the extraordinary."

"Gathering faith might accelerate my deduction of the path to the underworld, allowing the divine court and the underworld to take shape sooner."

Lu Yan let out a long sigh, his eyes flashing with interest.

As the pathways to the underworld are gradually improved, Lu Yan will be able to recover more and more of the second Daoist ranks.

Even if we don't become the only one in this world in the future, we still have the hope of competing with it.

(End of this chapter)