Yun Yi could sense that something had been added to his body, something that was both intangible and real.
Being in a disciplined community, Yun Yi first reported the situation to his superiors. For the Celestials, it was extremely difficult to find anyone who would keep a unique treasure or unusual phenomenon that they had just discovered to themselves.
On the other hand, this was something that was extremely common for the Desolates, as the very first thought of any Desolate whenever they found anything beneficial was to keep it to themselves.
The Celestials had even made a plan to target this tendency by creating 'treasures' and purposely scattering them into the Desolate's territory, picking out very specific targets to delude them into thinking that they were some sort of chosen one.
All of them had, without fail, kept the existence of these 'treasures' to themselves, the most common way of executing this was to exchange resources for powerful Cede curses, or other kinds of secret techniques.
And so, the Celestials had developed several heinous Cede curses, like a 'divine incantation' that would allow the user to instantly obtain a huge boost in power, but in reality, they were sacrificing their latent potential in order to achieve this effect, and it also left an obvious opening for the Celestials to take advantage of.
The other kind was to exchange resources from the Desolates while also wrecking the foundation of that Desolate. Some Desolate geniuses had even ended up using these so-called 'powerful Cede curses' so much that they crippled themselves.
Additionally, there was also another kind of 'treasure' that was essentially a wireless receiver disguised as rings or other small trinkets, the Celestials would then deceive the ones who picked it up with stories of how they were a famous ancient Desolate who ended up inside the trinket as a Totem spirit due to being betrayed.
Using this identity, they would completely fool the greedy Desolates into becoming spies for the Celestials, actively leaking information from within.
Of course, even though this had gotten exposed and there were people in the Desolates' territory constantly propagating the dangers and risks of these Celestials' 'treasures', there were still people willing to keep the treasures to themselves, since people are creatures that aren't willing to stay mundane.
After the regular path could not be taken or had become too difficult, mundane people who wanted to shine would start placing their hope in random fortunes that dropped from the sky or other unrealistic matters. Their wishful thinking had made it so that they ignored the possible risks of these items.
In fact, although some Desolates had confirmed by themselves that this was the Celestials' trick, they would still refuse to give them up and continue using them in secret.
This was because although the 'treasures' provided things with considerable drawbacks, some of the benefits were still very real. Sentient beings were creatures that wanted to become the light that shined in others' eyes, even if they weren't, they at least wanted to be the light in their own eyes.
In the depths of their hearts, the feeling of being unwilling to remain mundane was something that couldn't be suppressed.
Of course, when Negary drafted this plan, he had also left them a path to escape, since Negary wasn't a devil.
As long as a Desolate could realize the Truth of the path of eternal peace, they would be able to obtain true power from it.
However, there were very few who could actually achieve this. The reason why these individuals were unwilling to remain mundane was that most of them were originally mundane. Many factors could have contributed to them being mundane, which included their background, race, talents, family, and education; all of them became limits that restrained them.
It was because they could not escape from these restraints that they had to place their hopes in a fortune from the sky, in the Celestials' 'treasures', their unwillingness to accept the status quo remained as nothing but unwillingness, so very few of this kind of people could reach the path of eternal peace.
Negary's previous self was also a normal person who was unwilling to remain mundane, but he had given up his everything as a price for it, which gave birth to Negary who would never become mundane.
After walking the path of eternal peace, Yun Yi's unwillingness had become his motivation, he would not wish for far-fetched things with wishful thinking, so as soon as he noticed the irregularities on his body, he immediately reported it to his superiors.
After that, he received confirmation that this was the product of Negary's plan, which would change Yun Yi's luck just a little bit and nothing else.
After getting his answer, Yun Yi wasn't too worried nor glad, he remained calm as always and moved to another research center, once again immersed in his experiments.
Whether or not it was because of his newfound 'luck', Yun Yi quickly developed a weapon to counteract the disaster-infected Desolates, which was a type of unique metal. By using weapons created by this metal to attack the disaster-infected Desolates, their destructive power would find it difficult to affect this metal and instead would be reflected to other parts of their bodies.
The disaster-infected Desolate's own destructive power would throw off their inner balance, bringing disaster to themselves and die.
The research was smooth, so smooth that Yun Yi had even doubted if it originated from his luck, but after a short contemplation, he crushed his own confusion.
The research results were produced by him through trial and error, although luck might have played a role in it, the knowledge and product he created were not fake. The so-called 'luck' only made it so that he could skip some of the roundabout processes, and he was fully convinced that even without luck, he would still have arrived at these results with his knowledge.
After the research came into fruition, the pace of the war became greatly sped up. Yun Yi also did not return to the backline of the Celestials territory to continue researching and instead advanced forward with the main forces against the disaster-infected Desolate, the 3rd squadron.
…
"Tighten the net, chase those disaster-infected Desolate to the west" the commander of the 3rd squadron gave his orders while moving the pieces on the sand table.
After a weapon to counteract them had been researched, the defeat of the disaster-infected Desolates was only a matter of time, so the Celestials had begun to use their advantage to systematically chase the disaster-infected Desolates away.
While these destructive maniacs wanted nothing but destruction, not all of them weren't afraid of death, not to mention the small portion that still maintained a bit of their rationality.
Under the overwhelming threat of the new weapon, these disaster-infected Desolates were being guided towards the Desolates' frontline, thus causing them more casualties.
…
"Serpent, devour!"
At the frontlines of the Desolates, Meng Luo's right arm was wrapped in cloth as one of his eyes was glowing bright red. Following his call, a serpent as large as a mountain slithered forward and devoured several disaster-infected Desolates at once.
Turning his gaze to the writhing right arm that appeared as if it was boneless, his expression became even more maniacal.
Having his arm devoured by The Unreachable Gate, he could not regenerate it no matter what he tried, so the thing that was currently attached to his right shoulder wasn't an arm at all, but a snake manifested from a portion of his Totem.
This snake couldn't even take the appearance of an arm, otherwise, it would immediately shatter. It was almost like the concept of 'right arm' had been stripped away from his existence.
At the same time, as a consequence of failing his mission and allowing the Celestials to successfully produce a new weapon, he wasn't pinned to any crimes thanks to his relationships, but he also didn't receive any contributions. He had no other choice but to head into the frontlines and risk his life against the disaster-infected Desolates.
"General, there are still some of our men…" a relay officer standing next to him hurriedly called out as he saw the rampaging serpent devouring everything in its path, but before he finished, he faced Meng Luo's pair of bright red eyes.
"There's no need to save useless garbage" Meng Luo slowly turned his gaze away, but his horrifying presence still enveloped the officer: "If you don't want to become useless garbage, then follow my orders"
"I need a few 'baits' to gather these disaster-infected Desolates. And order the curse team to remain on standby!"
The nature of disaster-infected Desolates was destruction, and they prioritized the destruction of living beings with strong life essence, so slaves were insufficient to draw their attention, the bait had to be a group of Desolates with overflowing vitality.
"We don't have time to do this slowly, our true enemies are the Celestials, and we've already wasted too much time on these disaster-infected Desolates!" Meng Luo's voice was cold and cruel, causing the relaying officer to subconsciously tremble.
Afterwards, a group of Desolate soldiers were forcefully sent out on orders to retrieve some crucial supplies in the frontlines, but they could not find the supposed supplies anywhere, nor did they receive any of the reinforcements that the General promised even after half a month.
The only thing that they received was an increasing number of attacking disaster-infected Desolates, and finally, a wide-range Cede curse performed by the military curse team.
…
At another location, the Celestials had marched towards the original location of the Nanwu tribe. Among the soldiers, Yun Yi slowly narrowed his eyes.
