Chapter 452: Doomed

I flipped ahead to the final chapters:

The Imperial Response came in the fourth year, when Emperor Zhao Tianming declared the formation of the Purification Orders. These specialized organizations, drawing on the strongest believers from across the realm, were tasked with containing and eventually eliminating the Disbeliever threat.

The Order of Absolute Faith, led by Grandmaster Liu Wuji, developed the first effective containment protocols. Rather than attempting to argue with Disbelievers or prove the validity of chosenness, they focused on physical elimination before the corruption could spread.

The Sword Saints of Unwavering Conviction, under the direction of Saint Mei Tianxue, pioneered the "Belief Cutting" technique, a method of using pure Xuan Yi to sever the spiritual connections that allowed Disbeliever corruption to propagate.

The Celestial Tribunal of Divine Certainty, perhaps the most effective of all the Orders, developed sophisticated methods for identifying potential Disbelievers before they could fully transition, allowing for preemptive intervention through spiritual reconditioning.

This wasn't just ancient history; it was a manual for how this realm dealt with threats to the blue sun's control. The "Purification Orders" were still active, still hunting down anyone who showed signs of thinking clearly.

And here I was, systematically creating more Disbelievers and planning to spread the "infection" throughout an entire city.

It was only a matter of time before these orders paid us a visit…

The turning point came in the ninth year, when Saint Mei Tianxue successfully cornered the original Disbeliever, Huang Yaoshi, in the ruins of what had once been Jade River City. The confrontation, witnessed by over ten thousand cultivators from both sides, ended with Huang's complete spiritual annihilation.

With their philosophical leader destroyed, the remaining Disbelievers began to fragment. Some fled to remote regions, others attempted to hide their nature, a few even sought voluntary reconditioning. By the fifteenth year, organized Disbeliever resistance had collapsed entirely.

The aftermath was equally devastating. Entire regions that had been cleansed of Disbeliever influence remained spiritually scarred for generations. The Purification Orders, having succeeded in their mission, were granted permanent authority to monitor and eliminate future threats.

In the modern era, isolated Disbelievers continue to appear, typically one or two per decade across the entire realm. These cases are handled swiftly and quietly by the Tribunal, preventing any possibility of a resurgence of the Great Doubt Plague.

I closed the book and leaned back in my chair, feeling a heavy weight settling in my chest.

The situation was even worse than I'd initially thought. Not only was this realm completely corrupted by blue sun energy, but it had developed sophisticated immune responses to prevent anyone from breaking free of that corruption.

The few Disbelievers who still emerged naturally were being eliminated before they could make any meaningful change. And based on the patterns described in the text, the corruption was getting stronger over time; fewer people were managing to achieve the clarity needed to see through their delusions.

My time in this realm was limited, and I wasn’t sure Du Yanze would be able to carry the torch.

Even with Feng Zhaoyang, who was what the texts described as a ‘Void Sage’, I doubted he and his guards would be able to succeed where the Great Clarity Movement had failed.

They simply didn't have the numbers or the institutional support.

"Azure," I said quietly, "this realm is slowly dying."

"Master, I've been analyzing the same historical data," he replied. "The frequency of natural Disbeliever awakenings has decreased by approximately 73% over the past five centuries. If the trend continues, within another few hundred years, no one in this realm will possess the mental clarity needed to question the system."

"And what happens then?"

"The same thing that's happening to the Two Suns world, Master," Azure said, and I could hear the grim certainty in his voice. "Once the corruption reaches a critical threshold, this realm will become perfectly prepared for annexation. The inhabitants will be so detached from reality, so consumed by their delusions, that they won't even be capable of recognizing an external threat. In fact, they’re more likely to welcome it."

I felt ice forming in my veins as I realized what that meant. "You think that being, the one that's trying to break through into the Two Suns world, you think it's planning to expand here too?"

"I don't think it's intentional, Master," Azure replied. "Based on what we observed in the Two Suns world, that entity seems completely focused on breaking through their reality's barriers. It probably doesn't even know this inner world even exists.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

"But that doesn't mean it would ignore such an opportunity if it became aware of it. If that entity gains control of the Realm of the Chosen, and if it follows the spiritual connections that bind this inner world to the Azure Peak Sect's territory, then from there, it would have access to the entire Cultivation World."

Cold sweat broke out across my forehead as the full scope of the threat became clear.

The highest cultivation level in the Azure Peak Sect was Civilization Realm, equivalent to maybe a Rank 7 or 8 Lightweaver or Skybound in the Two Suns world. Powerful by most standards, certainly, but I'd seen how this otherworldly being's mere presence had terrified Kal, and Kal was a Rank 8 Lightweaver with centuries of experience and the knowledge that came from living through countless time loops.

If something that could traumatise Kal managed to breach into the Cultivation World...

"Azure," I whispered inwardly, "if this being makes it to our world, do you think anyone could stop it?"

The pause before his response told me everything I needed to know.

"I honestly don't know, Master," Azure finally admitted. "The cultivation world has powerful protections, ancient formations, and beings who've reached cultivation stages that we haven’t even heard of. But not only is this entity capable of corrupting entire realities from the inside out, but it can also physically world walk..."

He didn’t need to finish. It was clear just how bleak the situation was.

I sat there in the silence of the sealed library, surrounded by thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, and felt smaller than I had in a very long time.

All my careful planning, my cautious approach to cultivation, my attempts to understand and master the forces I encountered - none of it would matter if something that ancient and alien managed to establish a foothold in our reality.

And the worst part was, this entire catastrophic threat could have been prevented.

Some world walker,  someone like me, someone who had traveled between realities and witnessed the wonders and horrors that existed beyond their home realm, had encountered blue sun energy and thought it would be interesting to share.

They'd probably seen the consciousness manipulation abilities, the reality-shaping potential, and decided it would be a valuable addition to their ally's cultivation research.

They might have even had good intentions.

The original Dao of Belief system in this realm had been pure, focused on understanding truth rather than manufacturing delusions. Purified blue sun energy, properly understood and carefully applied, could have enhanced that system rather than corrupting it.

But they'd failed to recognize the insidious nature of the corruption, or maybe they'd simply been careless about the implementation. And now, centuries later, their mistake was having lasting consequences.

The world walker who had doomed the Realm of the Chosen hadn't just screwed over a single inner world and its inhabitants.

They'd potentially doomed us all.

The weight of what I'd learned pressed down on me; this wasn't just about saving one corrupted realm anymore. If Azure was right, if this entity managed to use the Realm of the Chosen as a stepping stone to the Cultivation World, then everyone I knew, everyone I cared about, could be in danger.

I wanted to stop all of this, I really did.

But the more I understood about the situation, the more impossible it seemed.

And as a spiritual manifestation, I was already severely limited in what I could actually do.

My inner world remained with my physical body, back in the sect, so the Genesis Seed wasn't able to form a connection to this realm. Under normal circumstances, that would have frustrated me; the Genesis Seed's purifying influence could potentially help cleanse the blue sun corruption, or at least establish a foothold for future intervention.

But the Sect Master's warnings about the dangers of linking to other inner worlds during the tournament had been clear enough, and now after learning that the entity could potentially make its way into this realm, even if I somehow could force such a connection, I absolutely wouldn't dare attempt it.

The risk was too great.

If that being could follow spiritual links back to their source, if it gained access to my inner world through a Genesis Seed connection... that would be the end of everything. And I don’t think even the Genesis Seed would be able to protect me from a being that could physically breach other worlds.

No, I needed to find another way.

But more importantly, in trying to save this inner world, I had to be careful not to damn my own.