I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

Gu Qing's casual rhetorical question, accompanied by the slight lifting of his toes, lingered in the air above the central square of the new Chang'an city.

That depleted uranium armor-piercing round was like a piece of code that had been selected and then deleted by the main program, leaving not even the tiniest bit of metal dust or residual heat behind. Where Gu Qing landed, only the spotless floor tiles reflected the still terrifyingly imposing main shaft of the space elevator overhead.

"call--"

Only at this moment did the interrupted gale begin to howl again in the square, abruptly pulling people's stagnant thoughts back to reality.

"Sniper! Take control of the suspect!"

"Quickly! Special Operations Team One, immediately set up the outer perimeter! Medical team, stand by!"

"Full-band signal jamming activated! Immediately check all high points in the vicinity! Not even a fly can be allowed to escape!"

The near-hysterical roar of the new Chang'an City military commander over the communications channel finally shattered the deathly silence of the square. A dozen elite special police officers, clad in black combat uniforms and armed with psionic heavy weapons, who had been concealed around the base, pounced on Li Jianguo, who lay in a pool of blood, like madmen.

These tough men, selected from among the best in the major military regions and who had completed their Foundation Establishment after the spiritual energy was restored, were now as pale as paper, their foreheads covered in cold sweat.

If it weren't for Gu Qing's unfathomable supernatural abilities, even if Gu Qing had only suffered minor injuries today, the entire security system of New Chang'an City would have been nailed to the pillar of historical shame.

"Click click click—"

The dark muzzle of a gun and several tactical longswords gleaming with a chilling light instantly formed a deadly net around Li Jianguo's neck and brow. Any slight movement from him would result in immediate death.

"Step back."

Gu Qing didn't turn around, but simply uttered two words.

His voice wasn't loud, nor did he deliberately release any overwhelming pressure, but the moment those two words were uttered, the special forces soldiers seemed to be frozen in place by some irresistible rule.

The special operations captain leading the team swallowed hard, suppressing his panic, and urgently reported, "Mr. Gu, the scene is still not safe! The suspect may be carrying a self-destruct device..."

"It's alright."

Gu Qing slowly turned around. His long blue robe fluttered in the wind, but his face was eerily calm. There was no shock or anger after the assassination attempt, no relief at surviving, his eyes were empty and deep, like an abyss that swallowed all starlight.

He looked down at Li Jianguo, who was lying paralyzed on the ground.

Li Jianguo looked utterly miserable. The double-barreled gun, codenamed "Mountain," had exploded from its miniaturized barrel after being forcibly fired a supersonic depleted uranium armor-piercing round. The violent recoil had torn his right arm and half of his shoulder to shreds, and blood streamed down his tattered sanitation worker's coat.

But he seemed completely oblivious to the physical pain.

Li Jianguo's bloodshot eyes were fixed on the spot where Gu Qing had just stepped, his eyeballs trembling violently with extreme disbelief.

"How is this possible... This is absolutely impossible..."

Li Jianguo, as if possessed, uttered hoarse, bellows-like murmurs, "I clearly calculated all the trajectories... That's a weapon that uses electromagnetic rails to push speeds up to Mach 8! It can tear even the composite armor of a main battle tank like paper! You have no formations, no spiritual energy shields... How could it not even penetrate your thin layer of cloth?!"

"Why?! By what right?!" Li Jianguo gripped his hair tightly with his remaining hand and roared madly. His seemingly indestructible cognitive system shattered with a devastating sound at this moment.

Gu Qing tilted her head slightly, looking at Li Jianguo with a compassionate yet extremely cold gaze: "Mortals always arrogantly believe that the little bit of gunpowder and metal they have in their hands is the whole game."

"You think that as long as you don't use spiritual energy, you can bypass my perception. You think that as long as the bullet is fast enough, faster than a cultivator's hand seals and incantations, you can kill a god."

Gu Qing took a step forward, shrinking the distance to an inch, and instantly appeared in front of Li Jianguo.

"But you've got one thing wrong. The rules you see—metal can penetrate flesh, fire can cause burning… that's just what this world used to be like."

Gu Qing slowly raised her right hand, palm facing upward.

An incredible miracle occurred, witnessed by millions of people in the audience and billions of eyes around the world.

Without any array of light, without any seeds or soil, a bright red rose appeared out of thin air in Gu Qing's empty palm, blooming spontaneously. The delicate petals swayed gently in the wind, even glistening with dew.

Creation from nothingness.

"And now, I'm the one who sets the rules for this world."

Gu Qing gently tossed the rose, which had appeared out of thin air, onto Li Jianguo's face.

Boom!

These words struck like a massive hammer blow to the hearts of all those who still secretly believed in the ideal of "pure humanity" around the world.

Inside the air-raid shelter in Zone D, dozens of meters underground in the new Chang'an City.

Qiao Yuan stared intently at Gu Qing's emotionless face on the big screen, trembling violently. He had originally thought that Gu Qing was just an extremely powerful cultivator, and that anyone with flesh and blood could be killed by modern firearms.

But now, Qiao Yuan realized with despair that the other party was not human at all. It was a creator who completely transcended the realm of human understanding, whose words became law!

"It's over...it's all over..." Qiao Yuan slumped in front of the control panel filled with monitoring screens, his face ashen.

Meanwhile, in the square, Gu Qing's counterattack had only just begun.

"You keep talking about the purity of humanity."

Gu Qing's gaze pierced through Li Jianguo, as if she could see directly into Qiao Yuan and the others trembling in the basement. "You portray yourselves as martyrs resisting tyranny, your slogans sounding incredibly heroic. But, the moment you pulled the trigger, were you truly thinking about the future of humanity?"

Gu Qing waved his hand casually.

[System Command: Consume Faith Power to extract and materialize the target's subconscious fluctuations.]

In an instant, a nearly transparent, gigantic holographic phantom, tens of meters tall, unfolded in mid-air in the center of the plaza. It was not an illusion created by any holographic projection device, but rather a "real memory and subconscious mapping" forcibly extracted from the depths of Li Jianguo's brain by Gu Qing using his supreme divine power!

The world was in uproar.

Because everyone clearly saw what was happening on the screen.

In that subconscious vision distorted by paranoia, there was no grand vision of humanity's resurgence, nor any cheers of ordinary people's liberation.

The scene shows Li Jianguo putting on a sharp suit, a symbol of high-ranking officials in the old era; he is sitting in the most luxurious office building in the center of the new Chang'an city, watching those new-era cultivators who once looked down on him because of their spiritual roots kneel at his feet like dogs, begging for the allocation of resources; he is wantonly trampling those low-level cultivators under his feet to satisfy his pride and desire for control, which were deeply hurt by the spiritual energy era.

Greed, envy, and an intense desire for a reshuffling of privileges—that was the sole driving force that propelled him to pull the trigger.

This is what they call pure humanity! This is what they call martyrs!

"No...that's not how it is! This is fake! It's a smokescreen you used to slander me!" Li Jianguo watched as his darkest desires were laid bare in mid-air, his tragic facade of "for humanity" brutally torn away, revealing his rotten selfishness. He immediately let out a scream of despair.

A deafening roar of curses erupted across the square. Ordinary citizens who had initially been terrified and at a loss for what to do now raised their phones and unleashed a torrent of abuse at him.

"Pah! I thought he was some great hero, but he's just a nouveau riche trying to seize resources!"

"Is this old bastard insane? He doesn't have the talent for cultivation, but he wants to drag all of humanity down with him!"

Hearing the tsunami of insults around him, Li Jianguo's face turned ashen.

"This is what you call purity."

Gu Qing's words contained not a trace of sarcasm, only absolute coldness. He extended a finger and gently touched the wreckage of the homemade shotgun from the mountain, which had already exploded.

A barely perceptible wisp of blue light disappeared into it.

The tattered iron pipe, wrapped in black insulating tape, suddenly emitted a sickening metallic scraping sound. Under everyone's gaze, this crudely made weapon began to "self-reconstruct" against all reason. Its rough internal parts twisted and reconstructed wildly under the infusion of the blue light, and the rust on its mottled surface shed, revealing ancient and mysterious array patterns that shimmered like breathing.

In just two seconds, a gun that perfectly blends modern tactical design with high-dimensional immortal laws, radiating a breathtakingly bright white light, silently floated in mid-air.

"If you're going to kill someone, use a good gun."

Gu Qing looked at Li Jianguo, his tone calm and collected: "This gun is now firmly locked onto the fate of all your accomplices. Li Jianguo, I'm giving you one last chance. Pull the trigger one more time."

Li Jianguo shuddered and opened his eyes wide in horror.

"If you truly only have the noble belief in humanity in your heart, without the slightest selfishness, then this shot will be aimed at me. I will not stop you."

Gu Qing's voice was like the whisper of a devil, each word piercing the heart.

"But... if you harbor even the slightest selfish desire for self-preservation or cowardice, this bullet will turn around. It will clear out those 'colleagues' lurking in the basement, ready to kill your whole family at any moment."

Li Jianguo felt a brute force lift up his intact left hand and press his fingers back onto the trigger that emitted a white light.

Of course he wanted to kill Gu Qing!

But at that moment, what uncontrollably surfaced in his mind was Qiao Yuan's gloomy, vicious face in the basement. If this shot didn't kill Gu Qing, that madman Qiao Yuan would definitely stage an accident to send his wife and child to hell in order to erase all clues!

Those people are not comrades at all; they are a bunch of vipers who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals!

The instinct for survival and the deep attachment to family instantly overwhelmed all false faith in the face of that destructive white light.

"No... I don't want to die..."

Li Jianguo shook his head frantically, tears streaming down his face, but in his heart, he had already made his decision.

Qiao Yuan, if you want to die, then you all should die!

"boom--!!!"

He pulled the trigger.

A burst of intense white light erupted instantly.

There was no deafening roar; it was a beam of destructive light with unparalleled precision. It didn't shoot towards Gu Qing, who was right in front of it, but instead turned its head and shot into the hard white jade floor tiles like a meteor.

The white light followed the underground pipe network, moving at a speed surpassing that of any mortal weapon, and instantly tracked down to the distant air-raid shelter in District D.

Inside the dungeon, Qiao Yuan had just jumped up, his hands about to smash the hard drive destroy button on the control panel.

But it was all too late.

A silent white light filled the entire underground space.

There were no flames, no screams, and no splattering blood. In a fraction of a second, thousands of high-ranking members of the "pure human" elite, plotting to overthrow the era, along with their servers and computers filled with top-secret data, were completely wiped out.

Deep underground, completely undetectable to the ordinary people of New Chang'an City, the meeting place was utterly reduced to nothingness, not even a speck of dust remained.

In the square, the hovering gun ran out of light and turned into ashes that scattered with the wind.

Li Jianguo collapsed to the ground like a lump of mud. He had won; he had saved his life. But he had personally killed all his "accomplices," and had also personally nailed himself to the pillar of shame as a traitor and a clown.

Gu Qing turned around, not giving the ant another glance. His figure transformed into a streak of azure light, soaring straight into the heavens along the main axis of the space elevator.

Human nature does not need to be tested.

He completely forgot about the noisy world and slowly closed his eyes in the strong wind, feeling the increasingly cold data flow within his body.

"Because it has never stood up to scrutiny of the truth."