The undead have descended upon the world? I possess a sword that can cleave the heavens once more!

Wu You turned his gaze away from the passage wall and said without hesitation, "Then let's go."

The hoarse voice paused, then became unusually serious, as if confirming one last time: "Are you sure?"

"You are now one with my [divinity] and cannot be separated. If I forcibly separate you, you will most likely die, your true spirit will dissipate, and you will completely perish in this world, beyond any chance of being retrieved."

"At this point, my condition was at its lowest point. As soon as I left the [Godhood], the information that sustained my existence would begin to dissipate at an extremely fast speed."

"It's estimated that within a few minutes, the God of Beasts will cease to exist in the world."

"This means that if you choose to use the phantom of the throne projected by the [Divinity] to block this passage, you will be stuck sitting on the phantom of the throne for a long time, trapped inside this passage."

"And I, of course, can only be confined here with you."

"Although your talent is amazing and you have the potential to become a god, the available energy within the passage is extremely scarce. Let alone cultivating to become stronger, simply maintaining your current rank is already the limit."

"Even if you now possess a trace of immortality, and your strength won't decline or your body will perish due to a lack of energy, at most you can only maintain your strength from declining."

"In other words, every day spent inside the passage is a complete waste of your talent."

"So, do you still want to do this?"

He can't leave; only by sitting on the phantom of the divine throne can this passage be blocked? This makes it look even more like the Golden Throne!

Wu You did not respond immediately; his gaze fell on the layer of pure black flames that were slowly burning on his body.

After a long silence, he finally spoke, "Then, are there any other ways to block this passage?"

"No," the God of Beasts answered crisply, leaving no room for deliberation.

"Unless a space-based deity intervenes to help repair the world's barrier, or a being at the divine level directly moves a part of their divine kingdom into this passage—which has the same effect as the phantom of the divine throne and can suppress this passage—there is no other way."

"After all, the difficulty of destroying the world's barriers and the difficulty of repairing them are not even in the same league."

"Even your Lord Li could not do that."

"After all, their combat power is only close to that of gods. In other aspects, they are far inferior to true gods like Thousand Faces, Lust, and Sin Dragon, who have ascended to the throne and completed a leap in the level of life."

After saying that, the hoarse voice fell silent, leaving the choice to Wu You.

Wu You was also deep in thought at that moment.

If he chooses to block the passage with his own body, he will be trapped inside the passage, sitting on the phantom throne.

The energy inside the passage is thin, so this doesn't have much of an impact on him.

After all, his current power is maintained by the [Lihentian], and it has basically no connection with the energy concentration of the outside world.

However, if his physical body cannot leave the phantom of the divine throne and cannot leave this passage, his strength will indeed be unable to increase.

Since there are no zombies to kill, how can he gain a lot of experience points and level up quickly?

But the next moment, a notification flashed across the Sword Codex panel.

Experience points +800!

Wait, he didn't even lift a finger, so where did he get the experience points?

Wu You seemed to remember something and turned his gaze towards the direction outside the vortex.

At that moment, in a corner of a city, a pure white sword light shone from the alley entrance, precisely piercing through a Thousand-Faced Clan member who was rushing towards a torchbearer.

Wu You's lips curled up slightly: It seems I'll have to play the role of 'General Manager Wu of AAA Talisman Sword Wholesalers' this time.

With his current strength, he could probably only make a dozen or so talisman swords a day if he were to create one that could carry the power of the fifteenth rank. After all, the higher the energy level, the more energy is required to create the corresponding talisman sword, otherwise he might accidentally blow it up.

Compressing fifteen levels of power into a small talisman sword is indeed a complicated process.

However, if Wu You were to settle for second best and focus all his efforts on producing eighth and ninth-tier talisman swords, he could produce several thousand a day without stopping!

As for why we didn't consider making rune swords of rank eight or lower? Well, that's because rank eight is already the lowest!

With Wu You's current skill level, crafting rune swords of the eighth rank and below is a piece of cake, and the time required is about the same. Considering the cost-effectiveness factor, it is more worthwhile to make an eighth-rank rune sword.

After all, an eighth-tier rune sword can kill a seventh-tier corpse species, but a seventh-tier rune sword may not be able to kill an eighth-tier corpse species.

One Tier 8 Corpse Seed is worth 15,000 experience points, and several thousand Tier 8 Corpse Seeds would be worth tens of millions of experience points!

Of course, this is under the most ideal circumstances, which requires each rune sword to be activated and each one to successfully kill a corpse of the corresponding rank.

However, in actual combat, there will inevitably be some discounts.

Not everyone can encounter a corpse species of the same rank as the Rune Sword, and there will definitely be Torchbearers who use high-rank Rune Swords to kill lower-rank corpse species.

However, Wu You roughly estimated that even if the efficiency of the talisman sword was only half, it would still be a considerable gain of experience points.

He couldn't help but think: Perhaps, he could discuss with the bureau and have all the torchbearers prioritize using the talisman swords he gave them to clean up the corpses?

At that time, the torchbearers will find it easier to carry out the cleanup mission, and the casualty rate will be greatly reduced, while he will gain experience points. Isn't that the best of both worlds?

Moreover, it's possible that this method of earning experience points with the talisman sword might yield experience points even faster.

After all, Wu You was alone. Even if he ran around cleaning up the corpses, he would waste a lot of time on the road. Overall, his efficiency was not high.

With that thought in mind, he pulled himself together and spoke to the quiet, hoarse voice in his head: "And you? What do you think?"

The God of Beasts was momentarily stunned; He had never expected Wu You to ask for His thoughts: "What do I think?"

"Hmm." Wu You's voice was brief, without any probing or politeness; he was simply asking for the opinion of the God of Beasts.

In the current situation, if he doesn't block this passage, the joint defense line between reality and the deep dark domain that humanity has painstakingly built will suffer a huge blow, or even collapse directly.

However, blocking this passage still relied on the God of Beasts, and Wu You felt it was necessary to respect His ideas.

Of course, the main reason is that the God of Beasts has given up his own divine essence to save him. They have now reached a real agreement to live and die together, and there is an unspoken understanding and affection between them.

The hoarse voice seemed to have reorganized itself during the silence, and when it spoke again, it was a little slower than before:

"Now I am completely on your side, humankind. If the barriers of your world collapse, their true forms can descend. At that time, let alone helping me regain my divine throne, you and I will undoubtedly die at their hands."

"Well, it's also possible that their consciousness will be obliterated by them and then turned into collectibles."

"so--"

"Things have come to this point, we really don't have a choice, do we?"

In the end, the hoarse voice used the word "we".

"Help Him regain His throne..." Wu You silently repeated this sentence twice in his mind.

He understood the God of Beasts' meaning and nodded: "Then let's begin!"

"good!"

The moment the last syllable fell, the blazing golden hexagonal polyhedron within Wu You's body suddenly emitted an incomparably bright and vast golden light.

The light spread outwards from his body in all directions, passing through his flesh and bones, constantly intertwining, coiling, and shaping within the passage.

The golden light gradually condensed into a majestic and magnificent golden throne in the intersecting trajectory. The base was made up of layers of golden light, each layer with fine silver-white holy seal patterns. The backrest extended from the back of the base, and the lines of the edges were like wings of light that were slowly unfolding. Although it was not moving, it gave people the visual impression that it was opening outward.

At the same time, a faint circle of runes was slowly operating beneath the throne, with the connections between the nodes flickering at an extremely slow frequency.

The only flaw is that the overall outline of the throne has a slightly ethereal transparency, indicating that it is just a phantom and not a real throne of the gods.

The moment the throne took shape, Wu You felt a strange sensation. He followed that sensation, placed his hands on the armrests, and as his arms settled, he steadily sat down in the center of the throne.

The moment Wu You sat on the throne, it suddenly lit up, projecting even brighter golden light outwards. At the same time, he looked down at himself and realized that he and the throne were becoming illusory.

However, that illusion was not blurry, but rather more like a change in his form of existence.

Then, the golden light emanating from the divine throne spread rapidly throughout the passage. Wherever it passed, not only were the dense, scarlet cracks on the passage walls suppressed, but the passage itself also began to solidify and shrink.

. . . . . .

Meanwhile, those changes were noticed by everyone on the outside.

The three provincial bureau chiefs were each clearing out the last of the Thousand-Faced Clan members in their respective jurisdictions. Almost simultaneously, they all stopped what they were doing and looked up:

The dark vortex overhead, which had enveloped the entire three southeastern provinces, was shrinking!

The shrinking speed was slow in the first few tens of seconds, requiring focused attention to be noticed, but it quickly became a visible, uniform contraction, like a dark pupil slowly closing!

The turbulent undercurrents of the void at the edge of the vortex gradually calmed down, transitioning from rolling waves to fine ripples, and finally returning to near stillness.

The azure sky was reappearing from the edge of the shrinking vortex, and the blue was so long-lost that it made people pause for a moment when they saw it.

White clouds and sunlight streamed through the gaps at the edge, casting warm patches of light on the surfaces of the buildings that had grown accustomed to their dark red hues.

All the torchbearers who were looking up at the sky, and all the ordinary people who had survived and were peeking out of the buildings, clenched their hands at that moment, and the same thought flashed through their minds: Is this catastrophe finally coming to an end?

Just then, a streak of light with a purple trail rapidly approached from the edge of the sky and entered everyone's field of vision.

The light was extremely fast, leaving a long, thin arc in the sky. But if someone looked closely, they would realize that it was not a shooting star, but a humanoid figure flying at high speed!

The three provincial bureau chiefs simultaneously caught sight of the purple streak of light, their expressions subtly shifting as they clearly recognized the figure within it: "Is that the Director-General?"

That's right, the purple meteor was none other than Ji Lingzuo, the belated director of the Dongling Kingdom's Abnormal Investigation Bureau!

At this moment, Ji Lingzuo also noticed the rapidly shrinking dark vortex in the sky, and a hint of doubt appeared in his eyes.

He first sensed the continuously falling black raindrops, and after not feeling any harmful effects, he glanced briefly at the situation in the various cities below.

Once he was certain the situation was under control, he immediately moved toward the dark vortex.

At this moment, he had many doubts in his mind: the intelligence he had just received said that the Thousand-Faced Projection, which had reached the fifteenth level, had been eliminated by an unknown Torchbearer, but as the Director-General, he knew very well that there was no other Torchbearer of the fifteenth level in the real world besides him!

So, who exactly is this unknown being at the fifteenth rank or even higher?

Is he really the torchbearer from the Investigation Bureau?

If they were torchbearers in the Investigation Bureau, as the director, he couldn't possibly be unaware of them. After all, level 15 torchbearers are extremely rare, even in the deepest dark domain, they are among the strongest! If they were to return to the real world, he couldn't possibly be unaware of them!

But the current situation is that he truly cannot sense the presence of the Thousand-Faced God! Meanwhile, the dark vortex continues to shrink!

Everything indicates that there was indeed an extremely powerful being who, after killing the projection of the Thousand-Faced God, also conveniently shut down that mysterious, dark vortex!

But if he wasn't the Torchbearer in the Investigation Bureau, then who was the one who killed the Thousand-Faced Projection and shut down the Dark Vortex?

Filled with many questions, Ji Lingzuo arrived at the pitch-black vortex, which had shrunk to a size that could only accommodate one person at a time.

Then he reached out and touched it.

The moment his fingertips touched the edge of the vortex, a gentle suction force emanated from within, as if inviting him to enter.

He frowned slightly: Could it be that the being that dealt with the thousand-faced projection is inside the dark vortex?

Since he sensed no malice and still had many questions to answer, he hesitated for a moment before stepping across the vortex entrance, which was almost completely still, and entering the passage.

Then he saw light, endless golden light.

The dense, almost solidified golden light was slowly flowing inside the passage, like a golden sea of ​​light.

Following the direction of the flowing golden light towards its source, he saw a figure sitting on a divine throne at the center of the golden light.