Mental pollution is mutual.

At least in Gawain's opinion.

According to the experimental reference provided by the Eternal Sleeper, and according to the technical data left by the disobedient, Gawain can now almost determine that the birth process of the gods is related to the beliefs of mortals, or more accurately, the collective thoughts of mortals are projected in a certain dimension in the depths of this world, thus giving birth to gods, and if this model is true, then the process of dealing with gods face-to-face is actually a process of losing SAN - that is, mutual pollution.

The knowledge of the gods will unhindered the contamination of any mind that has a connection with it (at least Gawain does not know how to block it now), and in turn, those who are connected to the gods must have a reverse effect, but one thing is obvious, the mind of ordinary people cannot be compared to the mind of God, so the process of losing SAN becomes a one-sided erosion.

But what if there is a mind that is not affected by the knowledge of the gods, and at the same time has a huge memory bank, and "docks" with the gods?

The mountain-like upper narrator cracked, his torso slowly falling, his remaining power still struggling to sustain itself, but this residual power also quickly dissipated with the dimming of those divine patterns, and Gao Wen stood quietly in place, watching all this, constantly suppressing and dissolving his own erosion and pollution.

The erosion he had suffered was quite severe, much worse than it seemed on the surface. This time he is no longer facing the flesh and blood of the gods sealed in the crystal cubes, nor is it the pseudo-god stitched corpse made with biochemical technology, the upper narrator is a real, complete, living god, even if it is weak, it also has a special personality, and it is quite a risky move to fight against pollution.

But this was the only way Gawain could think of.

The sword can't kill the upper narrator, and no amount of combat skill can fight against the nightmare itself, and to destroy the formless and insubstantial god, the only way to destroy the formless and insubstantial god is to use the same formless and insubstantial power, in the previous battle, he used his long sword against Duvalt, which was just a cover made by both sides to hide their own spiritual pollution.

Gawain looked down at his hands and was relieved to find that his arms had begun to gradually return to their human form.

The upper narrator is a young and inexperienced god, which is Gawain's only advantage, if it is one of the gods in the real world who have been around for countless years...... Or don't do such a risky thing anymore.

In the depths of the darkness, next to the cobweb, the birdcage of unknown material also disintegrated silently, Selena felt that the invisible influence that suppressed her own power really began to dissipate, and she quickly walked to Gawain's side without checking her own situation, and watched the other party return to her human posture little by little, she secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's all over?" She asked in disbelief as she looked at Gawain, then at the fallen upper narrator.

Gawain didn't answer for a while, but stared at the huge spider crawling in the middle of the cobweb, and he was also asking himself - is it really over? That's it?

A trace of doubt came to his mind along with vigilance, and Gao Wen's face suddenly became serious: "Wait, I'm afraid not yet!" ”

He stared at the spider god, who seemed to have lost his breath, and spoke quickly: "Duvalt says that he is the 'humanity' of the upper narrator...... Where is the corresponding 'divinity'?! Also, we saw earlier that the upper narrator was protecting some of the 'cocoons' - what about those cocoons?! ”

Selena also reacted suddenly, as if a part of the consciousness that had been affected and blocked in her mind before suddenly began to operate, making her realize the key point that she had overlooked: "That girl named Naretil?!" ”

……

Deep in the dungeon of the Eternal Sleeper, in the corridor leading to the central area, the voice of Archbishop Semler echoed through the long corridor:

"Something went wrong shortly after the operation began, first the containment area was contaminated, then the rest of the area, and many of the otherwise perfectly normal clerics suddenly became followers of the upper narrator - we had to face everyone with the utmost vigilance......"

"Understandable," Magnum said gruffly, "the upper narrator...... This thing is so wicked, I just glanced at him in the sandbox and almost couldn't come back! Thankfully, I've found a way to quickly identify polluters......"

"Don't talk about your 'methods' again," Yuri interrupted with a look of unbearable remembrance, "I've never said anything so vulgar in decades, and I now highly doubt that you left the Church of the God of War not because you studied heretical texts in private, but because you were kicked out because of your vulgar words and deeds!" ”

Magnum glared: "What's wrong with the crime they gave me in the first place?" ”

Semler's somber and stern face darkened a little more than usual, and he ignored the conversation behind him, but kept on walking with a tense face.

Yuri sighed as well and stopped talking.

Magnum, noticing that no one had responded to him, shrugged his shoulders indifferently and stepped forward in the middle of the line.

The deep and long corridor seemed to have no end, stretching all the way to the center of the dungeon, and the light of the magic crystal lamp shone on the helmets of the spirit knights next to it, glowing with bright brilliance.

A faint translucent phantom suddenly crossed the corner of his eye, causing Magnum's footsteps to subconsciously stop.

It seemed to be part of a massive arthropod, transparent and almost invisible, piercing through the nearby walls and ceilings, flashing within Magnum's line of sight, and quickly retracting into the walls.

"Archbishop Magnum?" Yuri noticed Magnum's sudden stop, and with a serious expression on his face, he immediately stopped, "What's going on?" ”

"Yuri, I just saw something flashing by," Magnum said in a serious tone, "like some kind of limb...... Spider's. ”

Samler immediately frowned and looked around, confirmed the memory just now, and shook his head: "I didn't see anything. ”

Everyone shook their heads, and Magnum seemed to be the only one who saw the fleeting phantom.

Illusion? Wrong? Visual hallucinations caused by trance and excessive tension?

A few thoughts appeared in the minds of the priests at the scene for less than a second before they were directly dismissed, Yuri directly raised his hand, and the invisible magic summoned tangible runes, and directly spread a water-like aura to the entire corridor - "Mind detection!" ”

The other clerics and spirit knights also went their separate ways, some activating protective spells, some starting to scan for unknown spirit marks nearby, and some raising their weapons to form a formation to protect the relatively vulnerable clerics in the center of the team.

The Eternal Sleeper never says anything "wrong" and never believes in the so-called "nervous hallucinations".

They are experts in the field of dreams, explorers of the spiritual world, and they are already on a dangerous path against God, and they are so vigilant that it is the professional habit of every sleeper to be almost neurotic, and some people in the team say that they have seen an unusual sight? Whether it's true or not, throw twenty mind detections first!

However, after all the detection spells were activated, no one saw what Magnum mentioned, nor did they perceive anomalous spirit imprints in the space near the hallway.

"Nothing was found...... Archbishop Semler said in a low voice.

"Whether you find it or not, stay on top of your guard, detection spells are not a panacea - there are so many things in this world that mortals can't see," Yuri reminded him, then looked at Magnum, "You watch your surroundings, there's something...... Maybe only you can see it. ”

Magnum was stunned for a moment, looking into Yuri's solemn eyes, he understood what the other party meant.

He had once accidentally looked directly at an upper-level narrator without protection.

Perhaps some irreversible damage has remained in the depths of his soul.

The entire team did not lose their vigilance in the slightest, and began to continue to return to the central area of the underground palace.

Behind them, in the distance of the long, deep corridor, a vague, almost transparent phantom flashed again.

It was a spider's arthropod, piercing through walls and roofs, and moving as fast as an incomparably large transparent spider weaving invisible webs between the stones and dirt deep underground.

Magnum and Yuri followed Semler's team and finally arrived safely in the heart of the dungeon, which is also the control center and largest computing center of Sandbox One.

This is the most important and core area of the entire Eternal Sleeper headquarters, and it is a place that must be guarded first under all circumstances, and must not be breached.

Relying on the strong walls and relatively large internal space here, Archbishop Semler has built several lines of defense, and urgently formed a "bishop's warband" composed of the remaining archbishops and bishops to guard here, and all the priests who have been determined to be safe and unpolluted have been concentrated here, and several teams composed of spirit knights and battle priests are operating in other areas of the dungeon, while continuing to suppress those who have been polluted by the upper narrators everywhere, while looking for any of their compatriots who are awake.

In the huge sturdy hall, there was a tense state of battle.

Heavily armed Spirit Knights guarded all entrances and exits to the hall, and had set up barriers in the outer corridors and several fortified rooms that connected them, and battle clerics in battle robes and light metal armor stood by behind the ramparts, monitoring the mental state of their men at all times.

In this well-guarded hall, around the large stone pillars in the central area, the technical priests responsible for controlling the sandbox system and the psychic network are connected to the nerve cords behind their heads, and they sit neatly on the control seats, still maintaining the normal operation of the system.

They had already applied a powerful psychological cue to themselves before they were wired, and even if the hall was breached and the sword was already in their throat, these technical priests would maintain the system until the very end.

Yuri noticed that there were still traces of battle in the hallway outside, and in a corner of the hall lay some of the techno priests who seemed to be unconscious.

He and Magnum had been active in the sandbox world for a day and a night, and only two hours had passed outside, but in those two short hours, so much had happened in the real world.

Pollution and commotion that took place inside the dungeon...... I'm afraid it's even more sinister than Semler described.

Before Magnum walked into the hall, he first carefully observed the barricades and the configuration of the fighters in the corridor, then glanced at the weapons and equipment placed against the wall in the hall and the state of the reserves, and finally nodded to Semler: "Not bad." ”

As a former god of war priest, he could tell that the emergency fortifications here were under the guidance of professionals.

"There are a few priests who were once soldiers, and I temporarily elevated their command, and without them the situation would have been even worse," Semler said in a deep voice, "and before I set out to confirm your situation, we were met with a wave of counterattacks, and the tainted Spirit Knights nearly broke through the hall defenses...... It is not a pleasant thing to raise a knife against a fellow man. ”

"Leave the professional business to the professional, your decision is very correct, as for raising a knife against your compatriots,......" Magnum shook his head, "This mess, let's pay it back slowly after we all survive." ”

"Archbishop Yuri, Archbishop Magnum, it's great to see you safely here."

With a gentle and magnetic voice, a female priest in a long white dress with a gentle temperament walked out from the depths of the hall.

"Archbishop Wendy," Yuri first noticed the woman who came out, "I heard it's you...... Is this blood?! ”

He looked at the leader of the psionic choir in surprise in front of him, and saw that the other party's white gauze dress had been soaked in blood at the moment, and the harsh dark red soaked the fabric, and it was depicted as a complex curved rune on the chest and hem of the long skirt, which looked strange and mysterious.

But after one more glance at the runes, the tension in Archbishop Yuri's heart quickly dissipated, and he realized what those runes were—a gift from the Wanderer, a "gift from the depths" that could combat the spiritual pollution of the gods.

Wendy smiled, her face a little pale: "I'm going to come out to report the news, but I'm worried that the contamination in my body will recur after I leave the room and leave those runes, so I have to 'take the runes with me' - blood, which is the only 'magic guide material' I can find below." ”

She raised her wrist to reveal the wound on her arm, which had healed for the most part under the healing spell, but the coagulated blood still remained, and she had no time to wipe it away.

It was a reluctant task to depict the runes with her own blood, and there were originally many contaminated upper-class narrator believers in the containment area, but Wendy was worried about the safety of the contaminated blood, so she had to use her own blood to depict the runes.

Looking at Wendy, the "spiritual song" who came out covered in blood to report the news, looking at the traces of the battle in the corridor outside the hall, looking at the barricades set up in the dungeon, the priests and knights behind the barricades, Yuri sighed softly.

After sighing, you still have to look up - because the danger is far from over.