Chapter 144: Faith and Conspiracy

Gu Sha was genuinely left speechless by the whole farce.

All of a sudden, his reputation had been completely whitewashed, and so thoroughly at that.

However, it had virtually no impact on him.

He did not pay it too much mind, simply tagging the official accounts of the four major factions of Northern Dragon on the global forum before calling upon his underlings to divvy up the spoils.

Once the loot was distributed, Gu Sha instructed his subordinates to keep a close watch on the hostages while he retreated into a secluded chamber to begin his cultivation.

The resources acquired this time were exceptionally bountiful.

First of all, the "ransoms" sent by the four major factions in an attempt to appease him had been delivered in full without any discount. Although Gu Sha had given away a small portion, those were merely low-tier alien fruits and corpse cores that no longer served any purpose to him. Everything actually useful to him had been retained, and the quantities were immense.

Additionally, he had plundered the spatial rings of seven Martial Monarchs.

These Martial Monarchs hailed from the Upper Realm, so their amassed wealth was far from negligible. Furthermore, being rather advanced in age, they had accumulated a considerable cache of resources. Even so, the wealth carried by these seven was relatively inferior to that of the young Martial Monarchs he had previously kidnapped.

Upon reflection, however, this made complete sense.

Those individuals had only attained the realm of Martial Monarch at an advanced age, whereas Lin Miaoyi and the others were still very young with immense potential. Their status within their respective sects differed, and as prime prospects designated for key cultivation, the internal resources allocated to them were naturally far greater.

Gu Sha wasted no time.

He immediately plunged into a state of frenzied cultivation.

...

While Gu Sha was absorbed in his cultivation,

Earth was thrown into an uproar from end to end. The entire internet was abuzz with discussions regarding Gu Sha's sudden whitewashing. Although many people remained skeptical, it had nonetheless succeeded in clearing his name, triggering massive turbulence both online and offline.

The upheaval caused by this incident extended far beyond ordinary human circles.

Various factions from the Upper Realm were also affected, most notably the four major factions of Northern Dragon that had served as the primary participants in this whitewashing event, with the Lin family standing at the very center of it all.

The phone of the Lin family head was ringing off the hook.

Eventually, following an emergency internal deliberation and finding themselves unable to evade the fallout any longer, the Lin family initiated a video conference, connecting with the leaders of the Flying Sword Sect, the Scarlet Gold Crane Clan, and the Wu family.

Inside the conference room,

the Lin family head cast an awkward smile at the figures visible on the projection screen and said, "Gentlemen, my apologies. This incident was truly an accidental twist of fate; my Lin family had no such plan in place."

The patriarch of the Scarlet Gold Crane Clan bellowed angrily, "Head Lin, do you have any idea how much fallout this has caused? While there may not be explicit rules etched in stone among our various factions hailing from the Upper Realm, everyone has tacitly agreed upon a single approach: to suppress the indigenous people of Earth through faith and spiritually enslave them.

Every single one of our factions has been racking our brains to demolish the original beliefs of the Earth's natives, yet your Lin family goes and turns that Gu Sha into the ultimate icon of human faith! By doing this, you've rendered all our previous efforts utterly worthless. The natives of Earth cannot be allowed to have their own god—they must only worship the beings of the Upper Realm!"

The Master of the Flying Sword Sect chimed in as well, "Indeed, Head Lin. This time, your Lin family has truly made yourselves the target of public ire. After steering public opinion for so long, we finally managed to knock Gu Sha—this supposed god of Earth's humans—down from his pedestal. But look at you now; his altar has only grown firmer! Do you know how many calls I received today? Every single one of them came to demand accountability."

The Lin family head offered an apologetic smile. "Yes, yes, I understand. This was indeed our misstep. Those two Martial Monarchs of our Lin family were probably frightened out of their wits by Gu Sha, which is only human nature after all..."

"Utter nonsense!" snapped the head of the Wu family. "Head Lin, please spare us the kind of drivel you'd feed a toddler. No matter how incompetent those two Martial Monarchs of your Lin family might be, they wouldn't get so scared out of their wits that they would disregard the clan's interests and the greater picture. Tell us the honest truth—what on earth was your actual plan?"

"This..."

The Lin family head let out a helpless chuckle and said, "Very well, I shall speak the truth. This matter was indeed a secondary contingency plan arranged within our Lin family.

Today's decapitation strike in the Taihang Mountains—I always felt somewhat uneasy about this operation, which is why, prior to their departure, I devised a backup plan and imparted it to the Martial Monarchs of our clan.

Although our factions estimated Gu Sha's combat prowess to be at the sixth or seventh rank of the Martial Monarch realm, judging by his actions ever since he rose to fame, every single move he made had been unpredictably formidable. Therefore, I had prepared myself for the possibility that this decapitation strike might fail.

However, as you all know, during the battle in the Taihang Mountains a few days ago, although Gu Sha's reputation was foul, he had forged immense momentum and cultivated a following of devout believers. If this decapitation strike failed, even without us washing his reputation clean, Gu Sha would have inevitably ascended back to his divine altar and reclaimed his status as the faith of Earth's indigenous people, dealing a devastating blow to the prestige of us Upper Realm beings.

And if Gu Sha chose to remain perpetually hidden within the Taihang Mountains, which of your factions' Domain Lords would have the leisure to deal with him? Furthermore, could any Domain Lord guarantee with absolute certainty that they could successfully kill him? The failure of this decapitation strike has already proven that Gu Sha's grip over the Taihang Mountain range is utterly ubiquitous.

If he holes up in the Taihang Mountains and refuses to show himself voluntarily, even if the Domain Lords of all four of our families were to march there, there is no guarantee they could eliminate him. That is why I prepared a contingency plan. If the decapitation strike had succeeded, this secondary plan would have been pointless. But since it failed, this backup plan became our golden opportunity to shatter the faith of Earth's natives—and to do so with lightning speed."

The leaders of the other three factions listened in silence.

The Lin family head took a sip of tea and continued, "Since step-by-step suppression is proving ineffective, we simply decided to do the exact opposite. We would forge a sole god for the indigenous people of Earth, creating a supreme and absolute existence to concentrate all their faith and channel every ounce of their spiritual sustenance.

And once this god—in whom the natives of Earth have invested infinite faith—fully materializes, all their spiritual sustenance will be anchored to it. If at that exact moment we were to destroy this god, what do you suppose would face the natives of Earth?"

The leaders of the three major factions were profoundly astonished.

After a brief moment of silence, the patriarch of the Scarlet Gold Crane Clan spoke up: "When everyone releases their sole spiritual sustenance and places unreserved faith in a single god, they will forge an incomparable and peerless power. But if that god were to suddenly be destroyed, it would mean their faith would collapse in an instant, their spiritual sustenance would vanish into thin air, and they would be reduced to a state of numbness, utterly devoid of direction—just like walking corpses!"

"Precisely," the head of the Lin family said. "That is the exact moment when the indigenous people of Earth will be at their most vulnerable to enslavement. Controlling them spiritually will become effortless, far faster than us slowly nibbling away at them step by step!"