The golden drizzle slowly sprinkled down. The black gas enshrouding the ground slowly faded away.

  At this moment, countless magic beasts were roaring and panicking. Dead souls, who seldom appeared during the day, were rushing out from underground in a frenzy and were spewing out black smoke with all their might. That was a thick and rich negative energy, something that was as important as their blood and life.

  Despite their low intelligence level, these magic beasts who were infected by the negative energy, as well as the dead souls, did still have the basic instinct for sensing danger. Their instincts were telling them that a great crisis was about to happen soon.

  At this moment, they were left with no other choice but to fight this crisis with all their might.

  But it was useless.

  Satan had been preparing for this moment for decades, during which the patrol team of the Republic of Northwest had already eliminated or expelled all the truly powerful magic beasts from Ashes Woods. They had taken care of all these magic beasts well. And those powerful dead souls were all caught by the legendary mage, Tu Ya’an, who specialized in Dead Soul Spells. He did not leave out a single one, and all these dead souls were now locked up in a cage underground of Pit Tree Town.

  Without this mainstay, the weak magic beasts and dead souls were simply unable to prevent the fall of the purification arrays.

  The curtain of light fell. The first thing that came into contact with it were those plants and magic beasts on the higher grounds.

  Amidst the golden light rays, the black plants automatically moved though there was no wind. And amidst the golden light rays, the magic beasts trembled.

  Amazingly, be it those plants that had already been infected and thus changed color, or the magic beasts who had mutated because of the negative energy, no one died. On the contrary, they quickly got through the purification process and started to undergo some wonderful changes.

  The leaves of the plants were gradually turning green. The bodies of the magic beasts no longer exuded the aura of negative energy. The withering tree barks were thickening again, and the dry skins of the beasts were slowly becoming smooth and lubricous.

  After the curtain of golden light had passed beneath them and swept through them all over, would there still be any contaminated black vegetation and strange magic beasts that were half-dead souls left on the hills? There were only innumerable luxuriant and green trees, long stretches of shady grass and the ordinary magic beasts who slept drowsily within the grass among the trees.

  Upon taking a closer look, one could see that there were still traces of black patterns on the tree barks, grass stems and beasts’ fur. These were traces left on them due to being subjected to the influence of the negative energy for such a long time.

  These traces would not have any dire consequences, nothing more than coloration.

  The curtain of golden light continued to fall. More and more areas were being purified.

  \r \r \r

  On the high mountain outside Ashes Woods, the Snow Elephant King, who managed to ascend the high mountain with Sui Xiong’s help, was watching the changes in the woods. He let out shouts of joy.

  Although with its strong power, it was not afraid of being eroded by the negative energy, but as a living creature, it still preferred to have a normal environment after all.

  Grass and tree leaves without negative energy were tastier. Stones without negative energy made more comfortable beds. Likewise for snow. Snow without negative energy also gave a more pleasant feeling than that which was contaminated with negative energy.

  The curtain of light continued to descend. Gradually, almost the entire Ashes Woods had already changed color.

  The Great Marsh was located in the deepest part of the forest. Because of its low-lying terrains, it was the last to be enshrouded by the purification array. A giant slime monster, which had long been forewarned, straightened its body. As this body usually crawled and squirmed on the ground, it was rare to see it become an almost vertical gray mud column that pointed towards the sky. It was trying its best to be the earliest one to establish contact with the curtain of light.

  When the curtain of light touched its body, the giant slime monster trembled very violently. It was apparent that the slime monster was in agony, but it was determined not to back off and allowed its body to be submerged by the golden light rays as though they were flowing water.

  When the curtain of light fell on the ground of the Great Marsh, the inhabitants, who long had crawled out of the caves, raised their hands high to welcome the power of purification. The golden light rays fell upon their bodies and made them all tremble as well. These people had long transformed into strange half-fish and half-beast shapes.

  By the time the curtain of light finally disappeared deep into the ground, the appearance of everything in the Great Marsh had changed. The gray marsh was now a scene of greenery. There was verdure spreading and trailing all over the ground. The place was full of vitality.

  In this vibrant marsh, a giant covered in mud was looking up at the sky. It had an angular face that was full of resolve.

  And on the ground beneath its feet, a group of people, who were similarly covered in mud, were looking at each other. They were all laughing heartily.

  Likewise, there were still some incredible marks on their bodies—for example, on their faces, there were some rock-like patterns while their legs were like the webbed flippers of frogs. But in general, they were now human-like and no longer looked or gave the vibe of monsters.

  They frolicked for a little, then began to worship the giant. They were singing praises loudly as they worshipped it.

  Amidst their songs of praise, the giant opened its month and began to laugh too.

  Its laughter was very powerful, as though it could penetrate the clouds. Together with its laughter, its body was also glowing. It was radiating golden green light rays.

  A shadow flashed across the sky, and Sui Xiong’s figure appeared in front of it and smiled at it.

  “Congratulations, ‘Skeleton Devourer,’ Junior,” Sui Xiong said. “You are thereupon welcome to the rank of gods.”

  The giant smiled in response and replied in a voice that sounded like dull thunder, “I’m now a member of the Void God System. I’m Junior, the ‘Guardian of the Green Marshes.'”

  “Yes, welcome to the Void God System. You are definitely going to love our environment here.”

  Sui Xiong answered with a smile.

  Just then, his face changed slightly as he looked down at the ground.

  “My apologies. I have something to tend to. I’ll be right back.”

  “Go ahead. You still have to clean up that old thing underground!”

  Sui Xiong smiled and nodded. Then he transformed into a stream of flowing light and rushed into the ground.

  A moment later, the earth shook violently and yet, the verdure, animals, pedestrians, buildings and such on the ground… nothing was affected. It was all extremely strange.

  Satan had already opened his eyes. His body was now continuously emitting golden light spots, as though there was a huge golden fountain hidden within him.

  His eyes, equally golden, were gazing at the magic plate.

  In the middle of the magic plate, a huge black shadow was slowly emerging.

  That was an ancient god who had once been buried here, thus polluting the vast earth and turning the northwest region of the Main Plane into a forbidden zone for living creatures.

  A… grim reaper from the ancient times.

  Satan wanted to purify Ashes Woods, and by virtue of this meritorious contribution, he aimed to be sealed as a god. One of the important knacks was to extract and transform his power, then turn it into the key driving force for him to step into the realm of gods.

  And the greatest danger of all came from the will of the ancient gods that might not have completely dissipated.

  But Satan had never worried about this.

  He firmly believed that His Majesty, the Void Mask, was definitely much more powerful than that ancient god who had been dead for ages!

  Sui Xiong did not let him down. After only a minute or two, the earth was calm again. The black shadow on the magic plane completely vanished. But there was eruption of this mainstay and amazing powers from underground that moved along the route that was already laid out. They came from all directions and converged as they entered the magic tower where they all condensed on Satan.

  Within an instant, he almost became a heap of golden light rays.

  The next moment, a somewhat old yet confident voice resounded throughout the entire Main Plane, as well as several other worlds around it.

  “I’m the ‘God of Purification,’ Satan. I will try my best to salvage those places that have been polluted and eroded and which are not conducive to the reproduction of living creatures so that they can be purified.”

  In the Pantheon Temple, two seats were added in succession.