Miners continued to pour in, and Fang Ming and Nannan had no choice but to keep killing them. Otherwise, they would be buried by the horde if they weren't careful.
A few thousand humans, on the surface, didn't seem powerful, but their sheer numbers were overwhelming. Why were zombie apocalypses in movies so terrifying? It was because of their countless numbers.
"Swish, swish, swish!"
Nannan manipulated her flying hair, which sliced through the crowd like steel blades. The miners' bodies were no match for her Netherworld-level strength, their flesh parting as easily as hot knives through butter.
In just a few minutes, the battlefield was littered with severed limbs. As Nannan slew them, she collected the miners' blood. Soon, a blood mass resembling a dark cloud formed above the residential area, energy swirling within as the blood bubbled and burst.
"Die~"
"All of you must die!"
"I hate this so much..."
The miners wailed, their faces contorted, showing no fear of death. Fang Ming looked at the situation below, his brow furrowed in thought. What could they do? As the waves of miners appeared, Fang Ming could clearly feel their strength increasing. Although the increment was small each time, this enhancement seemed to have no end. He couldn't imagine how powerful they would become after dying a certain number of times! It would be their doom if Nannan eventually couldn't defeat them.
Meanwhile, Fang Daolong, following the miner horde, finally reached the residential area and immediately spotted Fang Ming fending off the attacks from a high vantage point. Without a moment to spare, Fang Daolong told his wife to wait and then leaped up, stepping on the miners' heads as he rapidly approached Fang Ming. The miners' sole target was Fang Ming, and they paid no heed to Fang Daolong's passage.
Fang Ming, seeing Fang Daolong approaching with his elegant movement technique, quickly instructed Nannan to assist. "Nannan, help my dad."
"Okay." Nannan's small hand reached out, and countless strands of hair condensed in the air, forming a floating bridge that extended to Fang Daolong's feet. Stepping onto the hair bridge, Fang Daolong leaped a few times and landed on the rooftop.
"Why are you here?" Fang Ming asked, his tone a bit annoyed.
"If I didn't come, you'd be finished," Fang Daolong said with a wry smile. "These miners can't be killed. The creator here has a peculiar ability. Killing them blindly like this will only hasten your demise."
"What is its ability?" Fang Ming asked, his tone not very pleasant, but Fang Daolong didn't mind.
"Infinite rebirth, immortal and indestructible," Fang Daolong slowly revealed a preposterous ability. Fang Daolong's strength was at least at the Void Fiend level, and anyone he described as immortal and indestructible was, in a sense, truly eternal. Normally, reaching the Netherworld Fiend level granted the ability to live forever. As long as such a fiend didn't court death or excessively deplete its resentful energy, it could survive indefinitely. For example, even if Nannan were reduced to dust, as long as a single drop of her blood remained, she could revive and eventually return to her peak after recuperation. However, if her internal resentful energy was depleted, there would be no hope of revival. But Fang Daolong's words of "immortal and indestructible" likely referred to a true, literal immortality, where killing the vengeful fiend might be possible, but extremely difficult.
"What do you mean? Can you explain it in detail?" Fang Ming inquired.
Fang Daolong pointed to the miners still swarming below. "These miners are all part of that vengeful fiend; they are not like the illusory beings in ordinary realms. In other words, each of them can leave this world and become an independent entity."
"What?!" Fang Ming looked down in shock. These miners were actually real? "What's going on?"
Fang Daolong paused, organizing his thoughts. "You know how natural fiends are formed, right?"
Fang Ming nodded. Of course, he knew. The formation of natural fiends required a place with extremely heavy resentful energy, where the most resentful being would lead this energy. Over a long period of condensation, a new consciousness would form, creating a special kind of sentient being. For instance, the well-rotted corpse in Bai Mu Village was a fiend formed from the resentful energy of the well after Nannan's mother's tragic death.
Seeing that Fang Ming understood, Fang Daolong continued, "Generally, a fiend has only one core. To kill it, you only need to destroy this core, and the other led resentful energies will revert to their initial state, thus killing the fiend. But the miners here are different. Each of them is a core! They don't have a specific ruler, yet they are one. If you kill any one of them, the other cores will use resentful energy to recongeal them. Furthermore, as the condensation process repeats, they absorb more and more resentful energy until their strength reaches a terrifying level, exceeding the world's carrying capacity, triggering a special cycle mode, and restarting the entire world."
Fang Ming: "..."
So, this was his inadvertently triggering the solution, right? But wasn't this a bit too absurd? How much power would it take for this world to collapse and restart? Fang Ming felt that even ten more Nannans wouldn't be enough to cause the world to buckle.
"So... can we only keep killing until they become so powerful that the world collapses?" Fang Ming hesitated.
Fang Daolong sighed. "How could that be? If you could kill them until they became powerful enough to break the world, your own strength would be more than the world could handle. This is a dead end; it's impossible."
"Then what do we do?" Fang Ming asked urgently. "Are we just waiting to die?"
Fang Daolong shook his head. "There's one more method."
"What is it?"
"Wait for October 2nd, the world's cycle node. This world will then reset, and that will be our only chance to escape."
"October 2nd? Isn't that the day the entire mine is supposed to collapse?" Fang Ming frowned. As expected, this day was indeed the cycle node, just as he had guessed.
Fang Daolong's expression suddenly turned sorrowful. He looked at the miners below, silent for a long time. "Yes, on that day, the entire mine will collapse. Out of twenty-three thousand two hundred and eleven miners, only three hundred and two will survive..."
Seeing Fang Daolong's expression, Fang Ming suddenly remembered the young father he had met in the gold mine. "You're one of the survivors, aren't you?" Fang Ming suddenly asked.
Fang Daolong nodded in pain. "My work group, 24 people, only I escaped. The rest all died. I watched them get buried by mud and water, and I was powerless!"
"Didn't you always want to know why I abandoned you to fight the vengeful fiend? This is the reason! I don't want to see tragedy repeat. I abandoned you, and at least you're still alive. Consider me dead. But if I don't fight against the vengeful fiends, do you know how many people will die when Changsheng invades reality?"
"The Changsheng realm has been saturated for thousands of years. If it weren't for the Principal and me disrupting Changsheng's plans, this war would have started twenty years ago!"
"But now, Changsheng's actions are increasing, and our time is running out!"
Fang Ming was speechless for a long time. He had witnessed Changsheng invading reality in the Blood Kin King's tomb. As vengeful fiends, they showed no mercy to women, children, or the elderly. Anyone alive was subject to their slaughter and consumption. It was a scene akin to the end of the world.
"But that's no reason to sacrifice Nannan!" Fang Ming said firmly. "Changsheng, I will find a way to deal with them. There must be other ways; they can't be invincible!"
Fang Daolong looked disappointed and shook his head, knowing he couldn't convince Fang Ming.
"Tell Nannan to stop. Let me handle this now," Fang Daolong said.
Fang Ming glanced at Fang Daolong, his mysterious father, finally about to take action?
"Nannan, stop for now."
Nannan obediently stopped her attack. "Got it, Fang Ming."
The flying hair instantly vanished into the air, and a colossal snake head appeared in the sky, swallowing the blood cloud in one gulp. Fang Daolong then began his actions. The patterns on his clothes lit up and began to burn, transforming into a new set of clothes as he was reborn in fire. In an instant, his original miner uniform turned into a Daoist robe.
"By the Heavenly Decree, let the talismans manifest!"
Fang Daolong floated in the air, chanting words, his voice powerful, echoing through the residential area. He then drew a mystical rune in the air with his hands, a rune that was as tall as a person. The surrounding resentful energy surged, and a strong wind picked up, creating a powerful suction force centered on the rune, pulling everything around it. Fang Ming instantly felt the surrounding resentful energy thinning out to an astonishing degree. If resentful energy were oxygen, this concentration would suffocate a vengeful fiend. As expected, as the rune activated, the miners below struggled in pain, their bodies beginning to dissipate, turning into wisps of resentful energy that were absorbed by the rune.
"Will this resolve the miners' riot?" Fang Ming asked curiously.
Fang Daolong landed back on the rooftop, looking at the rune in the sky. He explained, "It won't completely resolve it. Ever since you killed the first one, the miners' riot has been unstoppable. I am only reducing the concentration of resentful energy around us, slowing down the miners' rebirth speed. It doesn't solve the problem."
"Then what now?" Fang Ming asked.
"Stall," Fang Daolong uttered a single word.
Fang Ming understood immediately. "Stall until October 2nd?"
Fang Daolong nodded. As long as they could hold out until October 2nd and the miners' strength hadn't become outrageously powerful, they could leave during the world's automatic reset. Indeed, as the concentration of surrounding resentful energy significantly decreased, although miners still came in endless waves, their numbers visibly decreased. Unlike before, where they were revived moments after being killed.
"You two stay here for these few days and don't leave. Otherwise, once the miners shift positions, the rune's effect will be greatly diminished. Leave here on October 2nd." Fang Daolong looked at Fang Ming and continued, "After leaving here, don't look for me again. You should live your own life."