I, the leader of the esoteric sect, am doing great things in the infinite world!

The outbreak of the worship of gods killed some people, but in comparison to what happened next, those who died directly could be considered lucky.

The lingering resentment of the demon god drove some people mad. They could hear strange whispers day and night, and they also saw bizarre hallucinations. It seemed as if there were huge eyes watching them from the sky, enormous tentacles spying from the ground, and venomous gazes sweeping over them from under their beds... The only doctor in the village, that gentle woman, had already been eaten by the madmen during the initial riot.

Yes, they ate it alive.

Driven by anger, or perhaps by some other influence he couldn't understand, the village chief Washizu barely managed to maintain order with violent methods. He brought all the madmen to the shrine and beheaded them one by one.

The head rolled on the ground, blood gushing from the cavity and splattering onto the vermilion wooden structure. Until one night, the village chief Washizu found himself hearing those sounds as well.

His memory should have ended there, but Li Lin pieced together the things he had done during his instinctive period as well.

Then he saw how he used deception to raise his knife against the villagers who had survived by chance, killing them one by one as sacrifices.

Only when there was not a single living person left in the village did he collect their belongings to lure passersby, kill them again, and begin the cycle of sacrifice.

228 Tonight, I'm going to have a big feast of crayfish!

There are many tragedies in the world, but one of them is particularly heartbreaking.

The slayer of light fell, becoming the very dragon he once despised, and his followers, who had followed his light, degenerated into villains who took up the sword.

However, Li Lin never cared about these things. In the end, the village chief of Hiki Village, Washizu, was already dead. After he finished giving his last words, he died upright as a person, just as he wished. Hiki Village, which had once prospered because of the Snake Bone Mine, was now left with only an orphan and a widow.

To be precise, the "widow" among the orphans and widows had already boarded the last ship and headed to the Kingdom of Sumeru to deal with the "worship of gods" on her body.

Washizu told the truth that he had been moved by compassion and had not offered a sacrifice to the mother of the head priest as required by the god, but instead let her go.

As for that woman, although she was corrupted by the deity, she did not lose her mind or die suddenly like the others.

The power of the divine flowed through her body, and apart from the persistent low-grade fever and bleeding, it had no other effects on her mind or body.

If Li Lin hadn't confirmed that she was over thirty, had a child, and a husband, she would have seemed like a perfect template for being chosen by heaven.

Unfortunately, this kind of married woman protagonist can't be written, and miHoYo wouldn't be so brain-dead as to add her to the gacha pool for those blonde-haired idiots to pull for.

"And what about her son?" Kaedehara Manyo dragged the shovel, burying Washizu with the last shovelful of soil. "She didn't take her son with her?"

Without turning his head, Li Lin said, "Her son, the division commander, has been loitering around the Snake Bone Mine. If you want to go find him, go by yourself. I have some things to handle by myself."

To officially ascend to become an immortal, one must first become a knowledgeable one. Unless Li Lin intends to stay in Teyvat forever, he will still face certain death when his time comes.

Now, he will use these three weapon blanks, as well as the special environment of Wuxiang Blade Gorge on Bayun Island, to forge his third legendary artifact and advance to the third mark.

Thunder rumbled ominously in the sky above Ba Yun Island. Not far away, the remains of a giant serpent stared blankly at the sky with its gaping maw, its empty eyes flashing with bluish-purple lightning.

Kaede Manba had no objection to this. He knew very well that Li Lin was a rather unconventional person, and no one could stop Master Li from doing what he decided to do.

Li Lin pulled the Jing Shen sword from his crotch and used it as a walking stick as he traversed the seemingly flat but actually rugged roads of Bayun Island. After the outbreak of the Chong Shen incident, only the northwest and southeast directions of the vast Bayun Island still had troops stationed there. There were no fearless sea monsters jumping out from some corner and shouting, "Let me try my knife!"

Half an hour later, Li Lin arrived safely in the Wuxiang Blade Gorge.

The long skeleton of the serpent god Orobas is scattered on both sides of this narrow canyon.

The flat land was cleaved in two by an unparalleled force long ago. Looking down, instead of clear seawater, there was dazzling purple plasma that made one's limbs tingle. Every now and then, a bolt of lightning would appear in the air and strike the stone wall.

This is the Thunder movie from that time. When she went to war in place of her sister, she left a permanent scar on Bayun Island with a single, unexpected strike. Even now, the Thunder element entwined within it is still so dense that it makes onlookers feel uncomfortable.

Both the Coral Palace Army of Umijima Island and the Shogunate Army of Narukami Island avoided the area between Musou-no-Kage Gorge.

This is why, even though the Wuxiang Blade Gorge runs through the entire Bayun Island, no one dares to sail through it. When their ships enter this area contaminated by excessive lightning elements, they automatically disintegrate.

【Between the Gorge of No Thought】

[Nature/Characteristics: Winter, Heart.]

[Phenomenon: Location. Everything has its place, just as this thing is located here.]

In the waking world, as in the dream world, the dead are usually located below. This place has passed away, yet the things that have passed away still have meaning.

Thunder followed closely behind lightning as it pierced the clouds, and a torrential downpour fell like heavy punches. The rhythm of thunder, in a sense, was no different from a heartbeat; the power of the immortal heart still lingered in this place.

You can either catalyze it, or you can use up all the remaining mana in this place.

Li Lin shifted his gaze from the Boundless Blade Gorge before him to the three weapon blanks on the table, which were somewhere between marble and bone.

They were once renowned swords and swift blades wielded by heroes, severing thousands of heads and cleaving through the flesh of demons. Yet, the winds of the world have covered them with heavy scars, leaving them without edge and as silent as bones.

[Original blank]

[Sexual Characteristics: Casting, Winter, Secret History]

No one can bring them back from a history that is dead yet not truly dead—unless touched by fire.

These weapon prototypes once had equally glorious and magnificent stories, and now those stories and memories have become the thick outer shell that envelops them.

Li Lin took out the first unfinished piece from the dark green tabletop—a blunt, thick rod with its tip melted by firing, which showed that it had once been a large sword that required two hands to wield.

With a release of his hand, the unfinished greatsword fell like a meteor into the deep valley between the Wuxiang Blade Gorge.

thump—

The intensely hot and tingling plasma remained completely still.

The second blank was also a greatsword, but compared to the former, it still retained some sharpness because it had been polished when Snake Eye Village worshipped it.

However, ordinary methods cannot reshape it. Only a more intense and violent process can destroy these "remains" that are dead but not completely dead, and then recast them.

thump—

The second greatsword blank also fell into the Wuxiang Blade Gorge.

Li Lin got up and took a few steps, then pulled out the third weapon prototype from the dark green table in front of him. It was a sword of unimaginable length—not a "sword" in the Inazuma sense, but a double-edged sword that met the Liyue definition.

It is a one-handed sword, and in the light reflected from the rain, you can see the light flowing across the metal surface.

This is a weapon preserved in the village of Shizhi Liudou. When he handed this unfinished piece to Li Lin, he told him its origin truthfully.

“Our village doesn’t actually have any inherited weapons. It’s just that a warrior from Liyue came to our village in the past. He was seriously injured, and I was young at the time. I accompanied him through the last period of his life.”

"As payment, he entrusted his weapon to me, and before he died, he told me the name of the sword."

When Toshiro Ryuto said these words to Li Lin, his eyes were filled with longing and admiration for that Liyue warrior.

He remained silent for a long time before telling Li Lin the name of this one-handed sword, which was longer than he had imagined.

"The name of the sword is Hidden Edge."

After the Liyue warrior died, the sword never showed any more sharpness than expected, and its blade, which reflected the sky, had become covered in dust. It wasn't until Li Lin drew it that the long-silent blade began to vibrate again, like a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, this is someone else's sword, not Li Lin's.

Li Lin also left Cangfeng in the Wuxiang Blade Gorge, and then jumped down.

Both the sword shadow and the human figure vanished, disappearing into the purple plasma.

The next instant, the Wuxiang Blade Gorge began to boil.

229. A near-master, peak-level expert!

From the westernmost side of Hachiyū Island to the easternmost side that is about to border Kannazuka, the entire Musōrin Gorge began to boil.

The intense plasma crashed against the stone walls on both sides like a tide, followed by a terrifying roar, a sound like drumbeats and heartbeats, but even more like thunder in the sky.

In the first level of the secret transmission of the Heart Sutra, heartbeats, drumbeats and thunder are often linked together. This originates from the source of all ancient thunder gods and music, the ancient god Wheel, who was not yet dead at that time and whose name was Thunder King.

In that era, the woodlands of Mansu had not yet fallen into darkness, until later when the Wheel of Destiny was hollowed out from its thigh by the Moth of the Stars, and its own personhood was taken in by the Skin of Thunder.

Whether it is the Wheel of Reincarnation or the Skin of Thunder, thunder is their reliable authority to cleanse the world, maintain its surface, and safeguard its borders.

[Impact: The rhythmic vibrations of the drum]

[The influence of the third-order mental image.]

The world moves as you please.

[A third-order influence! Power and danger intertwine and merge into one.]

In just a few seconds, the influence of second-order and even third-order mental images occupied the entire Wuxiang Blade Gorge, and Li Lin, who had voluntarily jumped into the plasma, unveiled the first secret manual.

[Fourth-Tier Secret Technique: Exterior View]

[Rank: Remnant]

[Nature/Appearance: Heart]

[The exterior is the skin peeled away from a dream, the exterior is the unwilling corpse of a demon, the exterior is the wedge that defines reality and illusion... But we can still find solace and shelter in it, like the protection that silk provides us in the woods, and the heart that bleeds and dies for the world.]

Do not associate it with your guardian spirit.

The air vibrated, and every inch of plasma rose with the rousing drumbeats. The once tranquil river burst forth with each high-pitched drumbeat.

Despite the dim sky and the heavy rain formed by the eruption of the gods, which pressed down on the sky above Bayun Island as if to devour all light, a thunderous bolt of lightning rose from the deepest part of Wuxiang Blade Gorge, soaring above the gale and rain, constantly leaping and tumbling in the medium of air, rain and clouds!

In a mere instant, it stretched out over a vast distance before falling from the sky like a sword hanging overhead, striking the skull of Orobas that was raised towards the heavens.

thump.

In that instant, everyone on the entire Bayun Island, centered around Wuxiangren Gorge, heard that heartbeat.

Then, to their disbelief, the lightning bolt that struck down from the sky stretched and flowed along the remains of the great serpent Orobas, leaving charred marks on the mountain-like skeleton, and in an instant, it enveloped the entire serpent's skeleton.

Is it that General Thunder has finally made his move, or has the God of Worship finally realized that he is dead and wants to possess the body of the past to return to the present world?

However, this was no longer something that the Sangokyu army and the shogunate army could interfere with. As the lightning continued to spread, Goro, the commander of the Sangokyu army, immediately ordered: all troops to abandon their camps without the slightest delay.