360: The thread of cause and effect originates from the spying of the "Alliance for Eliminating Dissent".

The wind before the mountain gate brushed past a scene of deathly silence.

Lin Fan withdrew the finger he had pressed against Xiao Chen's brow.

He didn't even spare another glance at that "Child of Destiny," whose Dao Heart was crumbling inch by inch and whose eyes had completely lost their light.

He turned and, as if taking a leisurely stroll, walked toward the crumbling mountain-protecting array of the Qingyun Sect.

With every step he took forward, the bodies of the "Demon Slaying Alliance" prodigies kneeling behind him trembled uncontrollably.

The terrifying pressure that had suppressed their Souls receded like a tide.

But in its place was a bone-chilling cold and fear even more profound than the pressure itself.

Lin Fan reached the light screen, extended a finger, and tapped it lightly.

The light screen, which had been on the verge of shattering, instantly stabilized and radiated an unprecedented soft light.

He looked back at Fatty Zhang, who had long been standing dazed among the crowd.

“Clean the house well.”

“Don't let trash dirty the place.”

After saying that, his figure vanished into thin air under the gaze of everyone in the Qingyun Sect, leaving no trace behind.

It was as if he had never appeared.

He left behind a mess on the ground and dozens of so-called prodigies with collapsed Dao Hearts, reduced to useless people... In the Command Hall of the Tian Yuan Realm.

An imperceptible ripple shimmered in space.

Lin Fan's figure appeared out of thin air, landing steadily before the commander's seat.

Li Hanyue immediately came forward to meet him; looking at Lin Fan, she noticed a solemnity on his face that was different from usual.

“Is it resolved?”

Her voice carried a trace of subtle concern.

“Mm, just a swarm of flies.”

Lin Fan sat down, his fingertips unconsciously tapping lightly on the armrest of the seat, producing a dull sound.

The atmosphere in the hall became oppressive with this small movement of his.

Li Hanyue didn't ask further about the Qingyun Sect; she knew that whatever could make Lin Fan show such an expression was definitely not those insignificant clowns.

“What did you see?”

She asked softly.

Lin Fan's tapping stopped.

He looked up, meeting Li Hanyue's clear eyes, and did not hide anything.

“A chessboard.”

Lin Fan spat out those two words.

Li Hanyue frowned slightly, waiting for him to continue.

“I saw lines.”

Lin Fan's eyes grew deep, as if penetrating the dome of the Command Hall to look into the endless Void Realm.

“On Xiao Chen's body, and on the bodies of those so-called 'Demon Slaying Alliance' members, there was an almost invisible black line attached.”

“The other end of the lines leads to a place I cannot perceive.”

“They are... all pawns being manipulated, or rather, marionettes.”

Li Hanyue's heart sank abruptly.

She instantly understood what this meant.

A mastermind behind the scenes who could toy with a Prodigy of Xiao Chen's level and even reach across the endless Star Domain to precisely provoke them into causing trouble for the Qingyun Sect.

Such an existence was far more eerie and harder to guard against than the previous Heavenly Dao Clone.

“They are looking for you.”

Li Hanyue reached a conclusion immediately.

“Exactly.”

Lin Fan nodded, a cold arc curling at the corner of his mouth instead.

“Since they can't find where I'm hiding, they want to use the traces I left in the past to force me to show myself.”

“Decent tactics.”

“Unfortunately, they picked the wrong person.”

After speaking, he slowly closed his eyes, leaning his entire body against the back of the chair, motionless.

Li Hanyue knew he was going to start dealing with this greatest hidden threat.

She didn't make a sound to disturb him, only silently retreating to the side to act as his Protector.

Lin Fan's Divine Thought sank into the depths of his Sea of Consciousness.

There, the scene he had just witnessed was perfectly replayed.

Dozens of slender black threads extended from the tops of Xiao Chen's and the others' heads, vanishing into nothingness.

These were the lines of Karma.

Lin Fan mobilized his vast Divine Thought of a True Immortal Great Perfection and cautiously entwined a strand of it around one of the frailest black threads.

He didn't exert force rashly, but like a patient hunter, he began to trace back along this line.

In an instant, his Divine Thought crossed an unimaginable distance.

Passing through one dead star after another.

Crossing vast stretches of desolate Star Domains.

Sweeping past various unfamiliar worlds.

The end of that black line was far beyond imagination.

Just as his Divine Thought was about to touch the fuzzy outline of the source,

An ancient, cold, and emotionless will suddenly jolted awake from its slumber.

“Who dares to pry into the Karma of the 'Alliance'!”

An invisible roar transformed into a pure, terrifying Divine Thought containing the Law of 'Erasure,' following the line of Karma and violently counterattacking at a speed that transcended time and space.

The goal of this Divine Thought was to completely wipe out the very foundation of Lin Fan's existence as an interloper.

Within Lin Fan's Sea of Consciousness, the situation changed abruptly.

The counterattacking Divine Thought transformed into a giant grey eye, staring coldly at Lin Fan's Divine Soul.

Everywhere the giant eye passed, everything in Lin Fan's Sea of Consciousness began to fade and dissipate, as if being directly erased from conceptual existence.

However, at that very moment,

Deep within Lin Fan's Divine Soul, the Undying Heavenly Merit, which had long since fused with him, began to operate automatically.

Buzz.

A tiny but profound vortex emerged at the core of his Divine Soul.

The giant grey eye containing the Law of 'Erasure' suddenly froze in its tracks.

It was as if it had seen an incomprehensible natural enemy.

In the next moment, that profound vortex erupted with an irresistible suction, swallowing the giant grey eye along with the Law power it carried in an instant.

There was no explosion.

There was no confrontation.

There was only a one-sided, crushing devouring... In a hidden space billions of light-years away from the Tian Yuan Realm, wrapped in endless Chaos turbulence.

Inside a black divine hall floating in the Void Realm.

A blurred figure sitting upon a throne suddenly let out a muffled groan.

The shadows that constituted his body fluctuated violently.

“How is this possible?”

A raspy and incredulous thought echoed through the divine hall.

“The counterattack along the line of Karma... was devoured?”

“A being from the Lower Realm, a 'Calamity' level Anomaly, actually managed to injure me in return?”

The blurred figure fell silent, but the aura within the divine hall became increasingly cold and dangerous... Back in the Command Hall of the Tian Yuan Realm.

Lin Fan slowly opened his eyes.

His face remained calm, but in the depths of his eyes, a sharp light flickered.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the vortex formed by the Undying Heavenly Merit was slowly grinding down the Divine Thought it had just devoured.

Some broken fragments of information were analyzed.

[...Erasure... Anomaly...]

[...Calamity-level target... Locked...]

[...By order of the 'Alliance'...]

Finally, a clear term was pieced together from the countless fragments.

Anomaly Elimination Alliance.

A cold smile slowly curled on Lin Fan's lips.

So it was a hunter organization specifically dedicated to hunting down "anomalous" existences like him.

Good.

Very good.

What he hated most was being treated as prey.

He never minded becoming the hunter himself.

Seeing him open his eyes, Li Hanyue immediately stepped forward.

“Did you find anything?”

“Mm.”

Lin Fan nodded, the solemnity on his face swept away and replaced by his usual laziness.

“Just a bunch of rats that can't handle the light.”

He stretched and took out that palm-sized puppet woven from withered grass from his storage ring.

It was precisely the karma grafting puppet.

On the puppet's chest,