Reborn as a lotus, she initially refuses to hand it over to the state.

After a moment of silence on the other end of the communicator, Lu Cang spoke: "You are responsible for entering the temple to rescue people, and I will be responsible for keeping the entire Linjiang City alive. Su Wan, try to buy me half an hour."

Su Wan sensed something was off about his tone and immediately pressed, "What exactly are you planning to do?"

Lu Cang did not answer, but simply cut off the communication and turned to walk towards the underground array room at the deepest part of the Ninth Bureau building.

In the center of the array chamber, a palm-sized black iron seal floats.

The iron seal connects to all the psionic towers, identity databases, community archives, and city defense array patterns in Linjiang City, making it the true core of Linjiang City's defenses.

This iron seal cannot kill enemies, nor can it withstand high-level alien beasts.

Its sole purpose is to determine how many people are still alive in Linjiang City after a disaster, and who each person is.

Lu Cang walked to the front of the iron seal and placed his palm on the center of the array platform.

All the sixth-order spiritual power surged into the black iron seal, and city array patterns spread along the underground pipes to all areas of Linjiang City.

[The defensive formation in Linjiang City has been activated.]

Large-scale identity verification contamination has been detected.

Linjiang City currently has a population of 11.73 million.

[Those influenced by the Pure Land of No Birth: 437,621]

[13,007 people have lost their identity records.]

Lu Cang stared at the last line of numbers and pressed the Ninth Bureau Chief's mark into his brow: "Activate the Human Register Array, with me as the array's core. Transfer all the vanished names to my soul."

The two Ninth Bureau members guarding the array chamber paled instantly: "Chief, the Human Registration Array can only be used when a city has completely fallen. You are only at the sixth level, carrying the identity information of tens of thousands of people; your soul may collapse."

Lu Cang did not withdraw his hand: "If even the Ninth Bureau has forgotten how many people are missing in Linjiang City, then these people will never be able to come back to carry out the order. Immediately connect all the city's files."

The black iron seal suddenly sank down, completely connecting with Lu Cang's brow.

Millions of household registration, school registration, medical and employment information from Linjiang City simultaneously transformed into streaks of white light and flooded into his consciousness.

Lu Cang's body shook violently, and blood seeped from his nose.

He saw unfamiliar faces flashing before his eyes, and heard countless voices repeating his name deep within his soul.

"My name is Zhao Yu, and I am a nurse at Linjiang Third Hospital."

"My name is Zhou Guoqing, and I live in Xinhe Community."

"My name is Chen Yuxin, and I am a student in Class 1, Grade 6 of Linjiang Experimental Primary School."

Those names that had disappeared from the database reappeared in Lu Cang's soul.

At the same time, grayish-white Buddhist seals began to erode his body, following the names.

Lu Cang pulled out the black iron seal from the center of the array platform, turned around and walked out of the array room: "The Human Register Array has been activated. As long as I remember who they are, Wusheng Temple will not be able to take away anyone from Linjiang."

An armored vehicle had been waiting for some time outside the Ninth Bureau building.

Lu Cang got into the car, and the vehicle sped towards the old city along the deserted main road.

Countless citizens stood at their windows along the way, calling out the names of their family members to each other.

All the GG screens on the street have stopped playing other content, leaving only lines of constantly scrolling identity information.

"Remember your name, remember your family."

Do not respond to the temple bells.

"If you see a gray-robed monk, please immediately call out the name of the person next to you."

When Lu Cang arrived in the old city, Su Wan had already led the first action team to turn the outer perimeter of the air-raid shelter into a three-layer defense line.

Tens of thousands of sleepwalkers were temporarily blocked at the entrance to the mountain road by a spiritual barrier.

Su Wan's expression turned ugly when she saw the black iron mark between Lu Cang's eyebrows: "You activated the Human Registration Array? With your sixth-level divine soul, you can only hold a maximum of 50,000 people. Do you want to turn yourself into an idiot?"

Lu Cang walked past her and looked at the temple that was faintly visible deep in the gray fog: "So you'd better hurry up and find the core of Wusheng Temple within half an hour, otherwise I will have to forget myself along with more than 400,000 people."

Chen Mo rushed over from the other side, carrying the Azure Lotus main lamp. The lamplight had split into hundreds of thousands of strands, each strand connecting to an affected citizen whose face was even paler than Lu Cang's.

Xuan Ku also stepped into the old town at this time.

The grayish-white Buddhist seal on his wrist had spread to his shoulder, while the golden Dharma image behind him was being eroded by a large amount of gray mist, becoming flickering.

The four exchanged a glance, wasting no time.

Su Wan left one team to guard the cave entrance, then drew her long knife and was the first to step onto the mountain path covered with gray and white ashes.

As soon as they entered the air-raid shelter, the city lights behind them quickly disappeared into the distance.

The cement walls turned into black cliffs, and a Styx River appeared overhead, flowing upside down.

Countless pale hands descended from the River Styx, each palm holding a blank spirit tablet.

Each time the memorial tablet shakes, a name in Linjiang City disappears from reality.

The iron mark between Lu Cang's brows vibrated continuously, and the names that had disappeared were instead imprinted on his skin.

In just a few hundred meters, his arms were covered with a dense array of names.

Su Wan turned to look at him: "Can you still hold on?" Lu Cang wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth: "I won't die. At least until you find that bell, I'll still know my name is Lu Cang."

More and more monks in gray robes appeared on both sides of the mountain road.

They did not attack the four people; instead, they turned their backs to the mountain path and quietly recited the same passage of the Unborn Sutra.

"Nature is called attachment, kinship is suffering. Forget the past, and you will enter the Pure Land."

As the scriptures echoed continuously, the main lamp of the blue lotus in Chen Mo's arms began to shake violently, and the flames were in danger of going out at any moment.

Xuanku placed the Pure Lotus Dharma Seal next to the main lamp, and the golden Buddha light and the blue lotus lamp flames blended together: "Do not listen to the scriptures, nor try to understand them. The more they sound like reason, the closer they are to the law of non-birth."

Suddenly, dozens of forks in the road appeared ahead.

At the end of every road stands the same temple, and in front of each temple stands a resident of Linjiang, waiting for his family to return.

Lu Cang closed his eyes and scanned the identity information in the human register array with his divine sense.

He pointed to the leftmost road where no one was waiting: "The others are all fake roads created from memory. Take the one where no one is."

The four of them crossed a fork in the road and finally arrived in front of Wusheng Temple. The temple had no plaque, and there were no Buddha statues inside the gate, only densely packed gray and white memorial tablets that stretched from the main hall all the way to the mountain gate.

More than 10,000 citizens who had already entered the temple knelt quietly before the memorial tablets.

Their faces were blurred, and their bodies were gradually becoming translucent, as if they might disappear from the world at any moment.

An old, faceless monk wearing a gray robe sat cross-legged in the center of the main hall.

A broken ancient bell hangs in front of it, and every crack in the bell is filled with distorted human faces.

"Human officials, followers of the Green Lotus, disciples of Buddhism." The faceless old monk slowly raised his head: "Now that you have come to the mountain gate, why not relinquish your names and share in the purity of non-birth?"

Lu Cang raised the black iron seal: "Because Linjiang City is not your pure land, and the more than ten million people here are not souls you can take away at will."

The faceless old monk raised his hand and struck the ancient bell. With a loud thud, more than 10,000 citizens kneeling in the hall simultaneously lost their faces, and the corresponding files in the Ninth Bureau's database instantly vanished.

Lu Cang's body suddenly arched, and more than ten thousand names were simultaneously imprinted into his soul. Large patches of white characters appeared beneath his skin, and blood began to flow from his eyes.

Zhao Anhe, a worker at Linjiang Steel Plant.

"Lin Yue, a teacher at Qinghe Middle School."

"Liu Chengan, a resident of Xinhe Community."

Each time Lu Cang uttered a name, a citizen in the hall would regain their appearance.

The faceless old monk turned to Lu Cang for the first time: "A sixth-level cultivator dares to bear the name of 400,000 living beings?"

Lu Cang gritted his teeth: "I may not be able to kill you, but I can still remember a few people."

He pressed the black iron seal heavily into the ground. The Linjiang City Defense Formation transcended reality and dreams, entering the Wusheng Temple along the mountain path, where the pale hall lit up with human lights for the first time.

[The Human Register enters the Temple of No Life.]

[The real-life identity is covering the blank memorial tablet.]

[Warning: The array's core spirit has exceeded its limit.]

[Estimated duration of the array's core: 300 breaths.]

Hundreds of thousands of memorial tablets in the main hall simultaneously displayed names. The gray-robed monks who had followed the citizens into the temple were also forcibly squeezed out of the human bodies.

Inside and outside the temple, countless gray-robed monks turned around for the first time. Their faces still lacked features, but a cluster of grayish-white remnants appeared on their chests.

The main blue lotus lamp then emitted a clear notification.

The parasitic relationship is breaking down.

[The current gray-robed Buddhist practitioner has transformed into an independent, remnant of the past.]

[Attacks on the independent lingering resentment will not continue to harm the parasitic target.]

Chen Mo immediately controlled hundreds of thousands of guardian lamps, placing them on the foreheads of the citizens: "Director Lu has already expelled them from the citizens' bodies; now, don't let any lingering remnants return!"

Hundreds of gray-clad remnant spirits simultaneously lunged at the spirit tablet. Su Wan swept her longsword horizontally, a circle of icy blue blade light spreading along the ground, severing the foremost dozens of remnant spirits in half.

The lingering resentment did not die after being severed; instead, it split into more faceless monks. They pierced through the frost and walls, rushing towards Lu Cang from different directions.

"They know who the key player is."

Su Wan stepped in front of Lu Cang, unleashing a series of slashes with her longsword, freezing all the approaching remnants in mid-air.

Xuan Ku then walked towards the faceless old monk. With each step he took, the grayish-white Buddhist seal on his wrist spread further toward his heart, and the golden Buddhist image behind him grew increasingly dim.

"If the Zen Master Wusheng wants to descend through my body, then let him come." Xuanku sat cross-legged in front of the broken ancient bell, voluntarily releasing his Buddhist Dharma form and no longer resisting the gray-white Buddhist seal.

The faceless old monk clasped his hands together, and his body quickly turned into gray mist, all of which flowed into Xuan Ku's brow.

Behind the ancient bell, an even larger gray-white Buddha figure began to condense using Xuan Ku's physical body.

Different faces kept appearing on Xuan Ku's face. There were old monks, young novices, and even the decaying remnants of Buddhist cultivators. Tens of thousands of voices came from his mouth at the same time.

"All beings suffer, why bother waking them up?" Xuan Ku's body trembled continuously, yet he still retained the last shred of consciousness: "Because although life is full of suffering, it should be up to them to decide whether or not to wake up."

He suddenly raised his nine-ringed staff and slammed it down on his own golden image.

With a loud bang, the Buddhist image that had been cultivated for many years completely split open from the center of its forehead.

The Zen Master Wusheng, having lost his vessel for descent, roared in fury.

Xuan Ku also suffered a backlash; his chest collapsed, and golden Buddha blood dripped continuously down his monk's robe.

At the same time, a grayish-white hand reached out from above the hall, its five fingers simultaneously grabbing at the Azure Lotus main lamp. Chen Mo had no way to dodge and could only protect the main lamp in front of his chest.

As the gray palm fell, half of Chen Mo's body instantly lost sensation.

A crack also appeared on the surface of the main Qinglian lamp, running through the lamp body, and tens of thousands of guardian lamp flames dimmed as a result.

Those grey-robed monks who had just left the bodies of ordinary citizens were now seeking new hosts.

Su Wan plunged her longsword into the ground and forcibly burned her spiritual power to construct an ice wall that encircled the entire hall.

Tens of thousands of regrets crashed against the ice wall.

With each impact, Su Wan sustained another wound, and the surface of the ice wall quickly became covered with dense cracks.

"Lu Cang, how much longer?"

Su Wan gripped the knife handle tightly with both hands, her thumbs and index fingers completely split open.

Lu Cang knelt in the center of the register of names, his voice hoarse: "There are still 73,000 names left."

Outside Wusheng Temple, hundreds of thousands of sleepwalkers are still approaching along the mountain road.

The entire first team had joined in the obstruction, but could only slow their entry into the temple.

Despite his legs being corroded by the gray mist, a member of the Ninth Bureau still used chains to bind dozens of sleepwalkers: "Captain, the mountain road is about to fall! There are at least two hundred thousand more behind us!"

Su Wan didn't turn around: "We must defend even if we can't. Tell everyone that it's okay to get hurt, it's okay to retreat, but we can't let a single citizen fall into the River Styx."

The number of names in Lu Cang's soul increased.

He could no longer see the scene before him, and even began to forget why he was sitting there. He could only keep repeating the initial command.

"I am Lu Cang."

"Director of the Ninth Bureau of Linjiang City"

"I am activating the human registration array; there are still 73,000 people who have not returned."

Chen Mo dragged his half-conscious body to Lu Cang's side and placed the shattered Azure Lotus main lamp between them: "You forgot? I'll remind you. Before the lamp shattered, you were still Lu Cang."

Finally, over 70,000 names flooded into the Human Register Array simultaneously. The black iron seal between Lu Cang's brows shattered completely, fragments piercing his soul, but also restoring the original names to all the blank spirit tablets.

Boom! The entire Wusheng Temple shook violently.

All 437,621 parasitic connections were severed at the same moment.

Hundreds of thousands of gray-robed monks were completely expelled from human bodies. They were no longer untouchable dream shadows, but remnants of the underworld exposed to the laws of the ancestral realm.

In Black Dragon Lake, Chu Zhou raised all ten lotus leaves simultaneously. The image from the Azure Lotus Mark in Linjiang City had appeared completely in his consciousness through the Jianmu Root Network.

The connection between the citizens of Linjiang and the lingering spirits of the underworld has been severed.

All goals have been transformed into the regrets of independent laws.

[The Azure Lotus Purification Technique can be used for direct cleansing.]

[Detection indicates that Lu Cang's divine soul is on the verge of collapse.]

Chu Zhou's divine sense descended upon Linjiang City, where he saw Lu Cang lying in the Human Register Array, as well as Su Wan guarding outside the ice wall, Xuan Ku with his Buddha image shattered, and Chen Mo with his main lamp cracked.

"With your sixth-level cultivation, you've preserved the names of 430,000 people." Chu Zhou's ten lotus leaves slowly unfurled: "You've done enough. Leave the rest to me."

The waters of Black Dragon Lake parted dramatically to both sides. Chu Zhou's main body slowly rose from the bottom of the lake, and eight world nodes lit up simultaneously, accompanied by a deep rumble from the ancestral realm's mountains and rivers.

A silver-green root pierced into the earth veins of Black Dragon Lake. The Azure Lotus Purification Law traveled along the Jianmu root network, traversing thousands of miles, and instantly arrived underground in Linjiang City.

Within the Wusheng Temple, hundreds of thousands of gray-robed monks seemed to sense something. They simultaneously ceased their assault on the ice wall and turned to look at the human world beyond the void rift.

The next moment, a gigantic lotus spear formed from the Azure Lotus Law shot into the sky from the depths of Linjiang. Instead of falling towards the city, the spear traveled along the mountain path and blasted into the void rift.

Boom! The entire night sky over Linjiang was completely illuminated by the azure-silver light. The black river, hanging upside down in the underworld, was pierced through from the center by the Azure Lotus Law.

The residual power of the lotus spear spread wildly along the Black River. Countless shattered temples floating above the river exploded one after another, and the gray-robed monks in the temples were also reduced to ashes in the spiritual fire of the blue lotus.

One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, five hundred thousand. With just one strike, the remnants of Buddhist cultivators gathered around the void rift were mostly wiped out by the Purification Law.

All psionic detection devices in Linjiang City exceeded their limits simultaneously. The lunar base and global satellites also captured the complete image of the Azure Lotus Law crossing the ancestral realm and crashing into the underworld.

In the main hall of the Ancestral Realm Joint Defense Council, the meeting of the Seven Cities' Return Journey was forcibly interrupted. Representatives from various countries stared at the Azure-Silver Lotus Spear piercing the Black River in the satellite imagery, remaining silent for a long time.

A general from the White Eagle Kingdom said in a strained voice, "The Azure Lotus Lord's true form is still in Black Dragon Lake. He only launched an attack from thousands of kilometers away through the World Root Network?"

Xuanweizi stood before the Kunlun Heavenly Gate, gazing at the ever-expanding ripples of cyan and silver laws in the direction of Linjiang: "This is no ordinary projection; Chu Zhou has mobilized the power of eight nodes."

Inside Wusheng Temple, the gray fog quickly dissipated. After losing the control of the monk's lingering will, tens of thousands of sleepwalkers collapsed simultaneously, their blank faces returning to normal.

Su Wan used the broken longsword to support her body and looked at the upside-down black river that had been pierced by the Azure Lotus's attack: "This lotus has finally decided to take action."

Holding the shattered main lamp, Chen Mo said weakly, "It's not that the master refused to intervene. Just now, those monks were connected to the souls of the citizens. Once the Cleansing Law is applied, everyone will die together."

Lu Cang was unable to answer. The iron seal between his brows was completely shattered, and his soul, which contained more than 400,000 names, was rapidly extinguishing itself like a candle in the wind.

Su Wan squatted down and carried him on her back: "Lu Cang, don't sleep. The people from Linjiang City have returned, and you haven't given the bonus to Action Team One yet."

Lu Cang's lips twitched slightly: "I remember... very clearly." As soon as he finished speaking, he completely lost consciousness, but the last trace of the black city-guarding mark remained between his brows.

Everyone thought the crisis was about to end. But the black Styx River, pierced by the lotus spear, suddenly stopped flowing, and the shattered temple and the lingering gray-robed spirit did not continue to dissipate.