Chapter Forty-Three: Cleansing the Taint

Today is April sixteenth.

They say the moon is at its fullest on the sixteenth, and tonight, Ji Yu saw that the night sky truly lived up to the saying. Silver radiance spilled across the heavens, undisturbed by the interference of the violet moon, rendering the entire world especially tranquil.

At this moment, Ji Yu, controlling the sika deer, had arrived at a meadow near the riverbank. He gazed at the moonlight, at the clear reflection shimmering on the distant river surface.

Without realizing it, Ji Yu stepped into the river. Standing at the edge of the shallow waters, quietly listening to the sound of the current colliding with rocks and the banks, the life essence swirling around him—unabsorbed yet—began to fade.

Once Ji Yu had fully absorbed all the lingering life essence, the sika deer’s body had grown to an astonishing eight meters in length, with a shoulder height of about five meters. Standing in the river, the deer resembled a colossal sculpture.

Its shoulders were nearly as tall as a two-story building, and its body stretched to the length of an ordinary city bus. Yet unlike the bus, the sika deer’s physique was anything but bulky. Thanks to its towering height, it appeared not only immense but also graceful and ethereal.

Its four sturdy legs sank deep into the river’s mud, yet Ji Yu remained perfectly still.

Because, at this moment, Ji Yu, aided by the moonlight and his extraordinary vision, was observing the strange patterns emerging on his own body.

A normal sika deer’s fur would be reddish-brown, dotted with white spots. But now, the deer Ji Yu had become looked decidedly uncanny.

On the outermost layer of its fur, two hues flowed and mingled. One was a blend of brown and green; the other, a deep, inky black.

The brown and green swirled into a vortex, ever-shifting like a cosmic spiral, and at the heart of this vortex was a blackness so profound that merely gazing at it stirred a sense of malice.

Ji Yu understood perfectly well why these bizarre markings had appeared on the sika deer’s body. The flowing brown-green colors were the outward manifestation of the life essence the deer had absorbed from flowers, grass, and trees, while the ink-black hue was the so-called pollution from the violet moon.

The blackness ceaselessly attempted to consume the life energy, but the life force—grafted and channeled into the deer’s body—responded calmly.

Today, because Ji Yu had controlled the deer to perform extensive life grafting, the deer’s internal life energy was extraordinarily robust.

Thus, when faced with the assault and devouring attempt of the pollution energy, the life force remained composed, soon revealing a posture of embracing all things.

Within the deer’s body, the life energy began to encircle the pollution from the violet moon, constantly pressing and seeking to assimilate it.

But the energy from the violet moon was not to be underestimated.

To resist the life force’s assimilation and transformation, the pollution swiftly contracted, causing the deer’s exterior to reveal persistent spiral patterns.

The energy’s flow tainted the deer’s fur—at first, the spirals appeared intermittently, but now, they seemed fixed as flowing motifs across its body.

These uncanny, slowly rotating spirals covered the deer’s massive form.

Just glancing at them for a moment would induce a profound dizziness.

Of course, Ji Yu himself felt no such discomfort as he observed his own body.

After all, the sika deer was his avatar, and he was the deer—the deer was him.

Therefore, if he wished, Ji Yu could even manipulate the polluted energy.

But unless absolutely necessary, Ji Yu had no desire for his consciousness to touch such energy.

Now that he had calmed himself, he finally had time to peer into the depths of his awareness.

Perhaps it was because he had activated his second transformation; he could now clearly see the exact form by which he took over the deer’s body.

Within the space of consciousness, Ji Yu once again saw his own awareness—a radiant orb like a blazing sun.

In the pitch-black realm of the mind, only his radiance illuminated all.

Meanwhile, the sika deer’s consciousness was indescribably feeble.

Compared to Ji Yu’s awareness—strengthened by the All Things Transformation game—the deer’s consciousness was merely the size of a sesame seed.

This tiny speck was now deeply engulfed by Ji Yu’s enormous solar consciousness, wrapped tightly at the core of his mind.

The deer’s consciousness was overlaid, enveloped, allowing Ji Yu to seamlessly take over every part of the avatar’s body.

For the first time, Ji Yu had such an intuitive understanding of transforming into another creature.

A hint of wonder stirred within him as he sensed the current state of the deer’s mind.

The deer’s consciousness was exceedingly naive, lacking even the concept of self; it possessed only the instincts bestowed by nature—eat when hungry, sleep when full, be vigilant at night, flee from predators, and so on.

This was rudimentary intelligence, worlds apart from the higher wisdom of humanity.

Of course, Ji Yu, as a human, felt no need to seek superiority from his deer avatar.

The deer’s level of intelligence could be set aside, but there was one thing Ji Yu had to pay attention to.

Half of the deer’s consciousness was stained by an inky darkness.

This was the pollution from the violet moon, and also the source of the deer’s bloodthirsty, feral nature.

Looking at the polluted part of the deer’s mind, Ji Yu hesitated.

Would it be possible for him to cleanse the pollution from the deer’s consciousness, using his game-enhanced awareness?

Ji Yu was uncertain.

But after lingering by the riverbank for a long while, he finally resolved to mobilize his vast awareness to try.

After all, his consciousness had always enveloped the deer’s mind.

If the pollution could infect him, wouldn’t he have been corrupted already?

Moreover, by the logic of the All Things Transformation game, if he were susceptible to pollution, the game would surely have warned him.

And if he didn’t solve the problem now, once his gameplay time expired, the deer’s manic consciousness could devastate the entire forest—or even farther.

Thus, the deer’s issue had to be resolved, and as swiftly as possible.

With this determination, Ji Yu began to channel the power of his awareness—multiplied countless times—into the deer’s mind.

Though he didn’t know exactly how to purge the pollution, he approached with caution, ready to experiment.

At the core of consciousness, under Ji Yu’s control, his awareness scattered, extending innumerable fine threads.

The instant these threads touched the deer’s mind, they slipped in like strands of hair into water—without a ripple, without resistance.

And just then, Ji Yu’s mind received a prompt from the All Things Transformation game.

[Detected harmful substance invading the game’s enhancement system. To prevent player benefits from being affected, firewall cleansing mode activated.]

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