The road is vague

Chapter 402 The Established Order
Back in his room, Li Mo's earlier relaxed demeanor vanished.

Following the guidance of the paper crane, heading into the mirage to seek help from the human cultivators hidden there is a last resort.

If one can defeat the God of Year on their own, that would undoubtedly be a better choice.

Even if the hope is slim, we must never give up on saving ourselves.

At the same time, Li Mo felt a strange sense of familiarity with these oil paints.

At first, he didn't realize it until he released Wen Aoxing. Then he suddenly remembered that when the princess was cultivating in Qingming Mountain as Ye Yimeng, she had also worn a strange, colorful mask that seemed to resemble this patch of paint.

The only difference is in quality and quantity.

"Could this just be a type of material?"

With these thoughts in mind, Li Mo looked at the True Demon clone that was constantly harming itself in the room.

At this moment, the true demon clone actually drew out the greatsword made of its spine and began to inflict self-harm again and again.

This leads to the second pattern that Li Mo summarized based on the current situation of the people on the Solar Ship.

That blob of ink will preferentially contaminate mentally disturbed individuals.

First was the fortune teller Mu Qianying, who could perceive things that ordinary people could not. Her spirit was traumatized, and she was the first to be forcibly contaminated by the oil paint.

Then there was Liao Qunan, who saw Pang Yi's back, causing Pang Yi to disappear. He himself became mentally unstable and kept rubbing his back against the deck to move forward.

Li Mo, on the other hand, planned to make the True Demon clone the next target of the oil paint's forced contamination.

He planned to use the immortality of the true demon clone to trap the oil paint on his body!

After all, according to previous patterns, the God of Year only begins the Curse of Order after the target, who has been forcibly contaminated by the paint, dies.

If the person forcibly contaminated never dies, will they never be able to begin the process of cursing the order, and thus be trapped and die within their own rules and order?
After a stick of incense.

The situation outside seems to have changed.

Li Mo pushed open the door and looked at the crowd surrounding Wen Aoxing.

As expected, the Peacock Prince was ultimately not identified by Pang Yi. Apart from Princess Dai, everyone closed their eyes and surrounded him.

Weakened, he was forced to the edge of the deck.

The tangible darkness of the forbidden sea extends ever onward, thread by thread.

When this darkness fell on Wen Aoxing's clothes, they quickly wrinkled and decayed; when it fell on his skin, terrible pustules grew on it.

Li Mo watched this scene quietly.

Wen Aoxing finally gritted his teeth and looked at Li Mo.

Li Mo could sense the intense resentment brewing within him, which was being absorbed by the God of Year, making the God of Year's control over the rules and order of this solar ship even stronger.

"You humans are indeed the most cunning creatures in this world!"

Say it.

This Peacock Prince suddenly leaped up and jumped off the Sun Boat.

Li Mo hurriedly went to the edge of the deck and looked down.

On the calm sea, a golden gourd appeared. Wen Aoxing crawled into the gourd, trying to escape into the distance.

However, in just a moment, the golden gourd suddenly shattered into pieces, turning into a shower of golden light and dissipating.

"what……"

After Wen Aoxing, who was inside the golden gourd, let out a painful scream, the surroundings fell silent again.

His death was not due to the forbidden sea, but rather to the order of the year gods that shrouded the sun ship!

Upon seeing this, Li Mo, who had activated his True Spirit Eye, made a preliminary estimate of the area covered by the Year God's order, which was approximately thirty feet outward from the center of the Sun Boat.

If they can escape this area, they will be safe.

However, this is a forbidden sea. Let alone escaping thirty feet, even standing on the edge of the deck would be harmed by the tangible darkness.

"As dawn broke, the shell-shedding man was very satisfied with the delicious food."

Almost at the same time that King Thousand Faces, Princess Dai, Venerable Golden Turtle, Zhao Ping'an, and Liao Qunan opened their eyes after receiving a prompt from the God of Time, Pang Yi transformed into a ball of oil paint and pounced on the True Demon clone.

The crimson aura and the oil paint formed a brief stalemate, but it was no match for the contamination of the oil paint.

Seeing that the lower half of the True Demon clone had merged into the deck and was about to disappear like Mu Qianying and Liao Qunan, Li Mo immediately shouted and forcibly summoned the True Demon clone back into the Misty Box.

Then Li Mo noticed that the entire solar ship seemed to have been assembled from countless building blocks.

A ripple swept from bow to stern, as if all the blocks had been reassembled, or rather refreshed, and then the sun boat returned to normal.

"Its control over the rules and order of the solar boat has become stronger."

For Li Mo and the others, this solar ship is equivalent to their world.

During the process of the God of Year's rules and order being refreshed, the Thousand-Faced King, Princess Dai, Venerable Golden Turtle, Zhao Ping'an, and Liao Qunan were all stunned for a moment, and then immediately adopted a guarded posture, looking up at the sky.

"Check everyone thoroughly, is everything alright?"

The Thousand-Faced King addressed the crowd.

"I am fine."

"I'm fine too..."

Their memories returned to the time when they were attacked by the God of Year magic.

Memories of the ship seem to have entered a new cycle, with no recollection of anything from before.

From an outsider's perspective, Li Mo suddenly felt that the Thousand-Faced King, Princess Dai, Venerable Golden Turtle, Zhao Ping'an, and Liao Qu'nan were extremely pitiful, completely unaware that they were being eaten away bit by bit.

But this time it's different from before.

Once everyone was certain that they would no longer be attacked by the Year God's magic, they immediately began to repair the damaged solar ship.

This time, however, no one saw any abstract oil paints, and everything seemed to be developing in a positive and orderly manner.

"what?"

At this moment, the Thousand-Faced King took out the array plate and let out a soft exclamation.

"What's going on? The solar boat is out of my control; it seems to be spinning in circles in this area!"

Upon hearing this, everyone gathered around.

As a formation master, the Golden Turtle Master first checked the formation plate, then began to check the ship's restrictions, and finally could only give a vague explanation that the formation had been affected by divine magic.

"What are we going to do?!" "Are we going to be trapped here forever?"

The crowd chattered amongst themselves, a hint of unease creeping in.

But Li Mo knew that this clearly meant that the God of Year had already mastered the rules and order of this solar ship.

As unsuspecting bystanders, even if the God of Time does nothing but keep the solar ship spinning in place, all that awaits them is death.

"Is this the current predicament of the Mountain and Sea Realm?"

Li Mo returned to his room and entered the Misty Box.

At the summit of Misty Peak, only the head of the True Demon's clone remained, not yet covered by paint.

Although he was fighting desperately, it was only a matter of time before he was completely corrupted. Even the evil grass order, which was known for its corrupting properties, was at a complete disadvantage in the face of these paints.

"what……"

As the paint spread to the head of the true demon clone, ever-changing facial makeup representing various roles appeared on his face, and the true demon clone let out a painful and unwilling roar.

Eventually, everything returned to calm.

Li Mo calmly observed the subtle changes in the true demon clone.

As Li Mo's natal magic weapon, the Misty Box allows him to control only a limited area around Misty Peak, but this area is practically his domain.

Through the Eye of the True Spirit, Li Mo will possess incredible insight within this range!
The true demonic clone, completely corrupted, should have melted and sunk into the sun ship.

Then, according to the rules of the God of Year, once the paint on his body is seen by everyone, everyone's senses will be dominated by the God of Year's mind world. What they perceive as the areas covered by the paint will be the God of Year's mind world, not reality.

That's why Li Mo cut off the image of Mu Qian, the movie queen, from the canvas painted with oil paint, and killed her without her even realizing it.

That's why the Thousand-Faced King burned Liao Qunan to death without any scruples.

The cursed person will watch helplessly as they are killed by others; their resentment is unimaginable.

Once the cursed one dies, the Year God absorbs the resentment, which further strengthens its control over the Sun Ship. At the same time, it will establish more stringent rules and order, and even control the essential power of the Sun Ship. For example, it is now able to control the direction of the Sun Ship's movement.

But at this moment.

The true demon clone has already left the range of the sun ship and the rules and order of the year god, so it cannot merge into the sun ship, nor will it be absorbed by the year god's resentment.

If that's all there is to it, it will have some impact on the Year God, but not a significant one.

But Li Mo's goal was to disrupt the order and laws of the Year God!

Thus, in his eyes, the true demon avatar had transformed into a rotting corpse, crawling with worms covered in painted patterns, a sight that evoked disgust.

Li Mo quietly watched the true demon clone.

Even the Eye of the True Spirit saw the same disgusting scene.

"This is not an illusion, but a real scene created by the God of Time's brain world. This oil paint is like a special spatial material that can reflect the shadow of the Mountain and Sea Realm... After entering the Dharma-ending Age, the rules and order of the Mountain and Sea Realm have been lost. These lost orders coexist in various forms of crack space, as if the Mountain and Sea Realm has evolved countless shadows. The reason why those high-level beings can survive is because they hide in these shadows."

Although Li Mo's senses could not purify the pollution of the oil paint and see the true situation, the ethereal box, as his natal magic weapon, brought him a different kind of perception.

Within the realm of the Misty Box, the True Demon clone remained in the same spot.

But at that moment, he was sucked into a black hole.

The hole looked like the entrance to a pipe, much like the vortex in his palm, except it was replaced by the enormous mouthparts of a mosquito, inserted into the real world and aimed directly at the true demon clone.

"Is this the form of the Year God, a giant creature with the mouthparts of a mosquito?"

Without hesitation, Li Mo immediately unleashed the Five Thunders to Dust technique.

With a series of thunderous crackling sounds, the Five Thunderbolts struck the location of the True Demon clone. In Li Mo's eyes, it was a disgusting corpse being blasted into dust, but under the perception of the Misty Box's domain of order, it was the True Demon clone being annihilated by his thunder.

The enormous mosquito-like mouthparts sucked away the resentment of the true demon's clone, and it seemed to be very pleased.

Only a clump of demonic blood remained, flowing silently in place, just like Mu Qianying's corpse inside the wooden box of the Sun Boat.

"Open your eyes when it's light, and don't see the person who has shed their skin."

This is undoubtedly a more severe curse of rules and order than the previous two.

However, this time, since only Li Mo saw the paint, the rule only applied to him.

So, as he lowered his head and opened his eyes, he immediately activated the Ethereal Transformation Technique.

A strange eye blinked into the pool of demonic blood on the ground.

The demonic blood surged and converged continuously, and the true demonic clone was actually resurrected on the spot due to the influence of the ethereal box's evil order!

Although he became weaker, the rules and order of the God of Year were also affected and completely disrupted.

"It's getting dark..."

"Its daybreak……"

"It's getting dark..."

"Its daybreak……"

The order that the God of Year, relying on this blob of paint, sends from the world of the mind must be executed in the predetermined sequence.

In other words.

The God of Year simply wrote a pre-set order into the Destiny-Changing Aura and threw it onto the Sun Ship through the God of Year's magic.

However, the resurrection of the true demon clone at this moment immediately threw this established order into chaos.

It got stuck in the step of activating the Curse of Order after the corrupted person dies.

After countless cycles, the oil paint completely merged with the demonic blood.

Poof!
After the true demon clone exploded on the spot, the splattered blood re-aggregated and transformed into a mask that kept flashing with the facial makeup of various characters, rather than the human form that resembled Li Mo's seven parts expression.

Such an astonishing change was something even Li Mo hadn't anticipated.

He tried to use the Ethereal Transformation Technique again, but it had no effect, which meant that the true demon clone was not dead.

"How is this going?"

"The order of the Year God on the Sun Ship is gradually failing, and people are gradually regaining their memories. I am trapped in the Destiny-Changing Light. The Year God is taking back its order, including this Destiny-Changing Light. I am resisting through the anchor points embedded in the Evil Grass Order."

Upon hearing this, the masked figure revealed a hint of pain and gasped for breath.

Its mouth opened and closed, responding to Li Mo's words.

"Haven't you always wanted to return to the Great Qian Dynasty? With this ray of spiritual light, combined with the Divine Mud of One Transformation and the Feathers of the Thousand-Faced Bird, you can forge the Thousand-Shadow Mask. You will have a thousand faces and a thousand shadows, making you impossible to predict or divine. At the same time, you can transfer all the negative influences on you to me, or defile others into me. I will accompany you in a completely new way. Hurry back and forge the mask, I can't hold on much longer..."

(End of this chapter)