Qin Shilei's thoughts stirred, and he, along with Mary, departed from the Blessed Land.
With a wave of his hand, the hundreds of evolved beings from before appeared on the open ground ahead.
Qin Shilei instructed, "Set up your formation!"
Those individuals immediately dispersed, each hunting a mutated beast nearby. They then returned to the same open space.
Using the blood of the mutated beasts, they drew an intricate formation, twenty to thirty meters wide, on the ground.
Countless varieties of materials were then placed within the formation.
Finally, tens of thousands of crystal cores were added to activate it.
The formation flashed a red light, and then fell silent.
"Is that it?" Qin Shilei, who had been watching intently, was bewildered.
Where was the master they spoke of? Why hadn't he appeared yet?
"Now, all that's needed is to pour in vast amounts of flesh, blood, and souls to fully activate this formation."
The hundreds of people again turned and ran outwards, continuously bringing back semi-dead mutated beasts from afar.
As these mutated beasts were thrown into the formation, small white orbs, representing the light of souls, floated out from their minds, and the beasts instantly perished.
The white orbs were absorbed by the formation, and even the flesh and blood of the beasts were completely melted away.
Qin Shilei watched as dozens of mutated beasts were thrown in without fully activating the formation, forcing him to intervene personally.
Finally, thousands of mutated beasts were brought in before the formation was successfully activated.
The formation, resembling a blood pool, suddenly erupted with a dense mist of blood.
The blood mist slowly condensed in the center, gradually forming a humanoid object composed of blood.
"Heh heh!"
This blood figure cackled, "Not bad. I didn't expect you to gather the information I needed so quickly. Now, let me see where this place is."
As the blood figure was about to fly into the air to survey its surroundings, it suddenly saw a familiar face appear before it.
"Aruns, long time no see!"
Qin Shilei smiled and waved at him.
The appearance of this blood figure was that of Aruns, whom Qin Shilei had met once before.
Aruns paused, "It's you? It seems you've seen through my methods."
Qin Shilei chuckled lightly, "Indeed it is I, Lord Aruns. It appears you are about to lose a clone today."
Aruns said indifferently, "A mere clone. Take it if you want it. A friendly reminder: those humans you've taken into that space might still have my pawns among them."
After speaking, Aruns quickly flew down towards the formation below.
Though he spoke casually, he was still unwilling to give up this clone easily.
A dazzling silver light suddenly flashed, instantly striking Aruns.
This clone, at the peak of Platinum, didn't even have time to let out a scream before it was shattered by the thunderous blast, transforming back into blood mist.
Qin Shilei then summoned several more thunderbolts, completely destroying the formation beneath his feet and the blood mist upon it.
He also conveniently sent hundreds of humans, who had been subjected to Aruns' secret arts, to hell.
Mary asked with some concern, "Brother Qin, do you think there are still demon scouts hidden among the humans in Amelia? Should we conduct a thorough investigation?"
Qin Shilei pondered for a moment, "A full-scale investigation would be too time-consuming and labor-intensive. Be more vigilant when you absorb faith power. If anything similar happens again, we'll make a plan then."
He paused, then added, "We should still go find Helga. She has lived for tens of thousands of years and surely has a way to deal with such situations."
Mary nodded, "Alright."
The two of them, using a teleportation array, quickly arrived at a temple of Helga.
One minute later, a clone of Helga appeared before them.
Qin Shilei bowed gratefully, "Thank you again, Divine Venerable, for your enlightenment last time, which allowed me to successfully advance to the Master realm in such a short period."
"You are most welcome!"
Helga smiled, "I was also just about to personally visit and congratulate Your Highness on transcending the mortal realm!"
After some pleasantries, Qin Shilei stated the purpose of his visit, "This is my wife, Mary. She discovered something amiss while absorbing faith power. I never imagined that there would be spies from the abyss world among the believers. Please, Divine Venerable, is there a way to quickly identify those insincere pseudo-believers?"
Helga glanced at Mary, "That's simple. Once she becomes a deity, all pseudo-believers will have nowhere to hide."
Qin Shilei gave a wry smile, "This, I'm afraid, cannot be accomplished in a short time."
"Oh," Helga asked, staring at Qin Shilei, "Can't you also help your wife become a deity as quickly as you did?"
Qin Shilei shook his head, "No."
"Is that so?" Helga pondered, "This is a bit troublesome. There are several types of spies you mentioned. Some become spies without knowing they've been secretly influenced; others are devout believers of other deities who, by special means, have sealed their hearts and turned to you; and some are just superficial believers who harbored ill intentions from the start. While they can provide you with faith power, they can also easily betray you. Your wife is not a deity, so many divine methods cannot be employed."
Qin Shilei frowned slightly, "Is there no method Mary can use right now?"
Helga looked at Qin Shilei, "Fine, I'll owe you another favor."
With that, she extended her right index finger and pointed it towards Mary's forehead.
"Mary, the Divine Venerable is imparting a method to you. Do not evade," Qin Shilei said, stopping Mary from instinctively trying to dodge.
Helga's index finger flashed with a white light, and she transmitted a set of incantations to Mary.
"Thank you, Divine Venerable, for imparting this technique!" Mary bowed gratefully.
Seeing Helga's friendly demeanor towards him, Qin Shilei once again asked for her advice on the key strategies for battles between deities.
He learned that it was very difficult for deities to kill each other, as they could both retreat into their own personal spaces when at a disadvantage. Deities hiding within their personal spaces were extremely difficult to attack for anyone not skilled in spatial arts. Therefore, under normal circumstances, deities would not bring enemies into their divine kingdoms to fight them.
After their conversation, Qin Shilei gained much more knowledge about deities.
Upon leaving Helga's temple, Qin Shilei and Mary continued their work of relocating believers. However, this action was soon interrupted.
The vassal state of Lair, under Great Xia, had been destroyed, suspected to be the work of abyss demons. Lair was nearly fifty thousand kilometers away from Great Xia, at the very edge of Great Xia's sphere of influence. It was only one-twentieth the size of Great Xia, with only two cities protected by walls. The survivors numbered around one million six to seven hundred thousand.
Upon receiving news of the incident in the first city, people from the Qin An Royal Mansion immediately dispatched Platinum-level experts to investigate, only to discover that Lair's other city had also been massacred.
No, it should be that over a million survivors in both cities had inexplicably lost their lives silently.
Since the Night Watch members could not ascertain the cause and feared that other cities might suffer similar fates, they immediately notified Qin Shilei.