I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

Dawn finally made its way over the towering city walls, casting its first pale rays of morning light upon Qingzhou Prefecture.

This was by no means a victory celebration filled with cheers and flowers. The devastation left by the simultaneous resurfacing of over a hundred old cases made this vast state capital look like a post-apocalyptic ruin.

On the bluestone slabs of the street, the ashes of demons burned to ashes by the pure Yang fire still remain; under the collapsed eaves, tattered white banners flutter forlornly in the cold wind.

But unlike the despairing silence of last night, today in Qingzhou Prefecture, there were the sounds of "people".

Medical practitioners clad in white protective robes moved among the ruins, bandaging and detoxifying the surviving wounded; teams of underworld soul collectors in black robes solemnly collected remnant souls in dark corners, holding soul-guiding lamps; and gray-clad engineering array masters manipulated psionic devices, rapidly repairing the damaged city gates and wells, and driving in spiritual stakes to purify the water.

The people who had hidden behind the door all night were still filled with extreme fear. They cautiously observed the group of strangers who called themselves the "Newly Formed Demon-Suppressing Army" with wary, suspicious, and numb eyes.

They didn't know where this army came from, nor what they wanted to do. In this chaotic world where life was cheap, government soldiers were sometimes more terrifying than demons.

However, the Earth Legion did not make a grand announcement of victory. Instead, they used the coldest and most irresistible efficiency to slam the word "order" hard onto the land of Qingzhou Prefecture.

On the open ground south of the city, the logistics troops set up a whole row of huge psionic marching pots.

The pot lid was lifted, and the thick, hot porridge mixed with low-grade spirit rice was boiling. The enticing aroma of rice, enough to dispel the coldness in one's internal organs, wafted on the morning breeze into every hungry alley.

A woman carrying a emaciated child bravely approached the soup kitchen. The logistics staff didn't ask any questions, but after glancing at the local constable sent by Shen Yanqiu to assist, and confirming that she was a disaster victim from the city, they ladled out a large bowl of hot soup and handed it to her.

The woman trembled as she took the porridge, not daring to let her child eat first. With her eyes closed, she swallowed a large mouthful as if facing death.

The anticipated poison didn't kill her. A warm, rich, life-giving sensation flowed down her throat into her stomach, instantly dispelling the chill that had accumulated within her for months. Tears streamed down the woman's face. She abruptly brought the bowl to the child's lips, crying and saying, "Eat...eat quickly, it's hope for survival..."

Outside the makeshift clinic on the street corner.

An old soldier, whose legs had been broken by a demon the previous night, was biting down on a tattered cloth, bracing himself for the excruciating pain of bone setting. But the young healer simply placed his hand on the soldier's broken legs, a gentle, emerald-green spiritual energy flowing through them. To the old soldier's astonishment, the broken bones were healing at a visible speed, and the malevolent poison that had tormented him for half the night was completely eradicated.

Meanwhile, several underworld soul-collecting messengers approached an old man with swollen, red eyes who had lost his son.

Unlike the usual demon-suppressing officials, they did not forcibly cremate the corpse to prevent it from becoming a ghost. The soul-collecting envoy handed a faint soul lamp to the old man, his voice flat yet carrying a reassuring air of authority:

"The spirit has been taken into the underworld. He will not suffer. Take it back and offer it a proper sacrifice."

Shen Yanqiu, along with the remnants of the Qingzhou Demon Suppression Division, stood beside these disaster relief sites. They remained silent, yet their Demon Suppression Division uniforms served as the strongest endorsement of this foreign army for the local community.

There was no coercion, no preaching.

When the hot porridge was swallowed, when the wounds healed, and when the dead found peace, the numb defensiveness in the eyes of the people began to melt away little by little, replaced by an extremely humble yet fervent gratitude, like a drowning person grasping at a piece of driftwood.

Just as the hearts of the people in Qingzhou Prefecture began to quietly lean towards this new order.

In the widest cross-shaped square in the center of the city, the masterpiece of the engineering array masters finally reached its final moment of completion.

"Base array connection complete! Spiritual vein resonance normal!"

"The main statue, hoist it!"

Accompanied by the roar of dozens of anti-gravity psionic golems, a colossal statue, tens of feet tall and cast from a mixture of dark gold and basalt, slowly rose in the rising sun and landed steadily on the base of the central square.

Shen Yanqiu stood at the edge of the square, looked up, and stared intently at the statue.

It was neither a benevolent Buddha who saved all living beings, nor a compassionate immortal.

The statue depicts a young man dressed in a plain-colored robe. He stands with his hands behind his back, his expression calm to the point of indifference. His eyes, carved from the finest spirit stones, gaze down upon the masses of people below him with an air of absolute superiority.

This statue has not a trace of "mercy" about it; it exudes an insurmountable absolute order and an inescapable sense of terrifying oppression!

On the base of the statue, four large characters are carved in an extremely arrogant manner using the ancient seal script of the Dayu Dynasty:

"Master Gu Qing".

Countless extremely complex array patterns spread out from the base, like thick roots, firmly rooted into the depths of Qingzhou Prefecture's earth veins.

But Shen Yanqiu didn't speak to stop him; his hand fell limply from the hilt of his sword. Because he had witnessed with his own eyes that it was this force that had forcibly pulled Qingzhou back from the brink of hell.

The enormous commotion surrounding the completion of the statue attracted countless people from the surrounding area.

Women carrying bowls of porridge, wounded people supporting each other, elderly people holding spirit lamps... they gathered from all directions of the streets and alleys to the edge of the central square, like ants on a pilgrimage.

A massive shadow loomed over them. At first, no one dared to step forward. The people of the Great Yu Dynasty were accustomed to revering the government and the gods, but faced with this unfamiliar and extremely oppressive statue, they were at a loss.

A gentle breeze blew by, and the square was deathly silent.

Just then, the old man holding his son's spirit lamp walked out shakily from the crowd.

He didn't understand the terrifying scale of civilization represented by the statue before him. He only knew that last night, it was the soldiers beneath the statue who had brought peace to his son's soul.

The old man walked to the huge incense burner in front of the statue, bent his knees, and knelt heavily on the hard bluestone slab.

He pressed his forehead to the ground, tears streaming down his face, and in an extremely simple, extremely hoarse voice, he uttered a sentence hidden in the hearts of all the disaster victims:

"Thank you, Lord Dao, for giving us a way to survive."

This kneeling was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake.

The woman carrying the bowl of porridge, holding the child, knelt down with a thud. Immediately afterward, the veteran whose broken leg had been set threw away his crutches and knelt on one knee.

There were no uniform slogans, nor any fanatical brainwashing sermons.

There were only scattered cries of survivors and the sounds of kowtowing filled with lingering fear and gratitude. In the square and along the streets, tens of thousands of Qingzhou people, like waves of wheat, knelt deeply before the statue of a deity standing with his hands clasped behind his back. A faith full of human warmth took root and sprouted amidst the ruins.

The moment the first group of people knelt down.

The intricate patterns on the base of the statue seemed to have been infused with a soul, suddenly emitting an extremely soft glow.

Streams of pale golden light, invisible to the naked eye, rose from the kneeling people throughout the city.

That is not the natural spiritual energy between heaven and earth, but the purest survival instinct, gratitude, awe, and dependence on absolute order after experiencing despair!

These pale golden beliefs, like rivers flowing into the sea, frantically converged into Gu Qing's statue. Then, following the earth vein array patterns, they shot straight into the sky, crashed into the invisible secondary heavenly network, and surged towards the distant Earth along the cross-boundary anchor point of the moon's star gate!

……

At the summit of Kunlun, the Heavenly Palace stands.

Gu Qing, who was sitting upright on the futon, slowly opened his eyes.

The moment he opened his eyes, a pure faith power that transcended dimensions and came from all the people and disaster victims of Qingzhou Prefecture poured into his sea of ​​consciousness like a golden celestial river.

This force of faith is completely different from the fortune generated by humanity on Earth. It is more primitive, more blind, and carries the smell of blood and earth.

At that moment, a row of dark blue characters flashed abruptly across Gu Qing's retina:

[A cross-boundary belief source has been detected; the system module can perform in-depth analysis and data collection...]

"Shut up."

Gu Qing showed no emotional fluctuation, not even a slight increase in his heart rate. His superior will, residing in a higher dimension, ruthlessly crushed down, forcibly silencing the system's notification sound and leaving no chance for it to touch this power.

He formed hand seals, and the Humanity Karmic Fire surged in his palms, directly melting and purifying this vast and chaotic cross-dimensional power, before pouring it all into the "Secondary Heavenly Dao Network" that he had created himself.

With the infusion of faith power, the causal chain between the statue in the first Qingzhou Prefecture and Earth Kunlun emitted an extremely clear and crisp resonance.

Gu Qing's deep eyes reflected the gradually brightening landscape of the First Realm, and he uttered a few words softly:

"The first anchor has been erected."

……

The first realm, Qingzhou Prefecture.

As the power of faith was fully absorbed by Kunlun, the statue in the center of the plaza emanated a stable, vast, and all-repelling dark golden divine radiance from within. Wherever the radiance reached, the remaining chilling demonic energy melted away like ice and snow.

Looking at the kneeling people throughout the city, and at the statue that seemed like a god descending to earth, Shen Yanqiu let out a long breath.

He knew that the history of the Great Yu Dynasty had turned a new page in this city. From this moment on, Qingzhou was no longer just Qingzhou of the Great Yu Dynasty.

Below the statue, Han Zhao, clad in dark gold armor, stood with his hand on his sword.

He didn't look at the kneeling people, but instead cast his cold gaze at the vast, dark land outside Qingzhou Prefecture.

He raised his hand and pressed the tactical communicator next to his helmet. The extremely cold military order traveled through the command network and instantly reached the ears of every commander of the mopping-up operation:

"The first phase of suppression has been completed."

"All troops, listen to my command: With Qingzhou Prefecture as the center, advance comprehensively towards the surrounding counties!"

Han Zhao's voice, carried on the cold morning wind, possessed an overwhelming and domineering quality:

"Erect a statue for each city that has been cleared."

"Each statue erected corresponds to a piece of land."

On the giant holographic tactical map in the joint control room.

At the location of Qingzhou Prefecture, a dark golden dot of light, representing absolute control, shone brightly.

Just moments later, a second point of light appeared in Huai'an County to the northwest.

Then, the third, the fourth...

Like sparks, those dark golden lights representing the order and faith of Earth's civilization began to spread wildly and unstoppably across the dark map of the First Realm.