"STOP!"
Right as Yun Yi hurriedly called out, the bodies of the Desolates abruptly morphed. Their regular necks rapidly extended and grew full of scales, their eyes that were originally full of the will to learn started glowing crimson red.
The head snakes reached forward and opened their mouths. Due to the immense force of their jaws, their cheeks were ripped open to reveal the bloody teeth and jaws.
Po Nan's expression immediately changed. As an elite special ops of the Celestials, he instinctively summoned his Totem, which was an androgynous statue whose arms covered their own eyes. As soon as the Totem manifested, the extended head snakes all went through Po Nan's incorporeal body.
Po Nan's Totem represented the traversal of his own path that ignored looking at anything else. The ability derived from this enabled him to turn his body into an intangible state that ignored all damage as long as it didn't surpass his limits. Meanwhile, his Totem would still be able to freely move within a certain range.
Both the Celestials and Desolates had a critical flaw whenever they used their Totems to fight, which was, compared to Totems, their real bodies would be very weak no matter how much they trained; and once their body died, their Totems would return to the Ancestral Wild.
While the Celestials used fantasy technology to protect themselves, the Desolates developed techniques that infused their Totems into their bodies to remedy this shortcoming. However, this infusion technique wasn't perfect, and there had been plenty of Desolate Warriors who died before their Totems could even exert its power.
Po Nan's Totem ability made it very easy to resolve this issue. The only way to kill his body was to first defeat this Totem, but as long as his Totem remained in his vicinity, it would be able to exert exceptional combat strength.
After his body became intangible, the deity statue slowly lowered its hands and opened its golden eyes.
Po Nan was the same as Yun Yi, having gotten an opportunity to meet their pioneer Negary, whose golden eyes left a deep impression on him. What Yun Yi witnessed was a different possible future, while Po Nan obtained knowledge from Negary's eyes.
This knowledge allowed Po Nan to gain a pair of golden eyes when he further depicted his own Totem, which allowed him to see through the majority of things in this world.
The bodies of the Desolates collapsed on the ground, but their necks continued to extend and stretch, eventually resulting in resounding cracks as the skin of their neck was ripped, pulling out their spines together with their innards.
An unhinged mouth, a thin scaly neck that was attached a bare spine and innards, such humanoid snakes appeared in front of Po Nan.
Po Nan's eyes could see the Desolates' souls as they slowly disappeared. All of their souls suffered extreme pain before being consumed by their converted bodies. This sort of pain was so severe that it had gone past the limit of mortal endurance.
The mouths of their souls were moving, apparently trying to say something, and as an elite special ops, Po Nan had naturally learnt the Desolates' language.
These Desolates, whose minds were still in the process of being released, who had surrounded him to ask questions and soaked up knowledge like sponges, were once again asking him.
They were asking about the Land of Eternal Peace he had spoken off, and why they were feeling so much pain.
Desperate screams and cries resounded from every direction. Quite obviously, these few Desolates weren't the open ones whose bodies were undergoing mutation, the majority of the Desolates must be going through the same changes.
『 WhErE iS thE pEAce yoU prOmISed? 』
These humanoid snakes spoke with their ripped mouths, which sounded almost like the hissing of snakes. Since they couldn't attack Po Nan's body, they shifted their target to his Totem.
「 I can see it 」the golden-eyed deity statue solemnly looked upon the slithering humanoid snakes.
One of them retracted their neck very slightly before abruptly leaping forward, but it was swiftly caught by one of the statue's hands. The others were also swatted away, thrown on the ground, then stepped on by the statue's feet. The statue's golden eyes reflected the humanoid snake's struggling appearance.
Through his unique vision, Po Nan saw more information than on the surface. Deep within the other party's soul, where there would be a so-called subconsciousness, there was a profound malice. And it was behind this malice that there was a force modifying the Desolates, turning them into literal head snakes.
"What's the situation?" observing the head snakes, Yun Yi couldn't help but scowl. There was also a surging consciousness deep within his mind that caused him to instinctively lick his lips.
Yun Yi immediately noticed his unusual behavior and firmly looked back into himself to discover a relatively small passage. A faint hint of malice was seeping out from inside the passage followed by a mass of power, but due to how small the passage was, it couldn't reach him just yet.
"The collective subconsciousness of the Desolates? Is this the Desolates' plan?"
Yun Yi couldn't do much about this except leave a part of his attention here to ensure that his mind wasn't corroded by the malice.
『 TeACher Po Nan, wHy arE you reStrAIning mE, leT me biTe you juSt oNce, it's so PAInfUl, leT mE bITe YoU jUst OnCe to reLIeVe mYself!! 』the head snake painfully struggled. His pain didn't originate only from the grip of Po Nan's Totem, but also the torturous pain resonating from his soul.
Po Nan's expression twitched. The Totem's grip seemed to have relaxed a bit and allowed the head snake to move. It opened its giant jaws, wanting to bite Po Nan's arms.
"Wait…" Yun Yi wanted to stop this as he saw it, but stopped himself as he remembered something.
The golden eyes could clearly see it, deep within the head snake's consciousness, right before the snake was about to bite down, the malice released a mass of jet-black 'poison' that contained chilling animosity.
Right at this moment, the deity state's hands directly crushed the head snake's neck and stripped off its esophagus. Within the esophagus, the mass of black writhing 'poison' was struggling, attempting to enter Po Nan's Totem. Unfortunately, Po Nan was already prepared and restrained it using a Cede cage.
This power was of the same nature as the Totems, so if it was allowed to enter a Totem, it might cause a Totem to become mutated as well.
「 It was this. They were using the collective subconsciousness of the Desolates to spread this and modify them 」 Po Nan's deity statue still did not show any emotions on its face, even its voice remained ethereal and faint.
But having known him for a very long time, Yun Yi recognized that Po Nan was currently furious.
"This substance or whatever it is had also attempted to enter my mind through my subconsciousness, but most likely it failed because my mentality has already changed compared to other Desolates, making it impossible for the other party to infect me" Yun Yi scowled and commented as he observed the head snakes.
"A mutation poison that spreads through the collective subconsciousness of the Desolates, only Desolates with an altered thought process can slightly resist this infection, and only those who have began walking the path of eternal peace would be able to completely block it off"
Yun Yi made a general estimation of this writhing black poison and shook his head. The Desolates that they had recruited for the past few months had only just begun to change, so except for very few, most of them hadn't actually reached a point where their thought processes had changed.
"I understand. Send this information to the other regions, then snuff out the hidden bastard that's causing this!" Po Nan applied force on his foot to crush the head snakes completely, ending their suffering.
His Totem deity statue had once again covered its eyes with its hands, causing his intangible body to become solid again, swiftly making his way to the other parts of the camp.
That moment when you realize after 40 chapters that these people were essentially Stand users
