A few hours ago.
"So today's the day?" [Planar Lord]
"It is." [Planar Energy Core]
"Our preparations are done. It should be possible to rein him down for a while." [Planar Lord]
"I hope so. She should be able to do what we can't." [Planar Energy Core]
The Planar Lord and the Planar Energy Core of the Douluo planet looked at the figure of Gu Yue and the Great Beasts who were looking over Fan Lin's Spirit Soul Tower challenge while floating above the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters.
"I hope so as well. We need to take care of the anamoly as soon as we can or our years of preparations would be in vain." [Planar Lord]
"If only I could divert more of my strength then I would have..." [Planar Lord]
"I told you, he was an unexpected situation. None of us could have thought about that." [Planar Energy Core]
The Planar Energy Core consoled the Planar Lord and looked at Fan Lin's battle.
A long long time ago, they were given a important task and all these years, they have to painstakingly catering to the task.
Now they were on the final years of their plan, and helpless about the current situation, as a certain someone was becoming a thorn in their plan.
...
Spirit Pagoda Headquarters
"What was he doing in the past seven days?"
Gu Yue asked Di Tian.
"He was sleeping, My Majesty."
Di Tian answered while focusing on the battle of Fan Lin.
"Sleeping seems to improve his mindset. His mind is harder to breach than we anticipated." [Gu Yue]
Gu Yue perfunctorily stated.
"From the situation, it is highly likely." [Di Tian]
Di Tian agreed to her statement as well.
Gu Yue quietly observed the Dead Calm state Fan Lin before disturbing his mind again. Di Tian did the same. So did the other participants.
They all took turns and assualted him mentally from all sides, although not a single of them was serious or they would have killed his mentality by now. Anyone of them could have.
They were the Ten Great Beasts of the Starduo forest, the strongest of the spirit beasts to currently exist, and also the only available one.
But then one question arises: Why were they all ganging up on Fan Lin?
Just a single of them could have done the job.
Fan Lin might be strong but he wasn't on the level of the Great Beasts. That's a fact!
So why were they all ganging up on him?
The answer still remained unanswered.
...
She did hate Fan Lin enough to kill him.
She did dislike working with him.
She did want to kill him.
But she needed him alive for a few years.
More than that, she wanted to know just what were his thoughts on the future of the soul beasts and the Moon Forest.
Those were her constant thoughts. Thoughts that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get them out of her head.
What if he was just playing a cruel joke on her? What if it was all a game to him?
He was just doing this all for something and if one day, he changed his mind, he would burn everything he had done to the ground.
She wouldn't put it past him. He was like that. He was someone who hid his self from everyone.
Why?
She didn't know.
Someone who truly wanted the humanity to end.
Why?
She didn't know.
She had felt his emotions, listened to his thoughts and spend enough time to understand one thing, he didn't trust her.
Why?
She didn't know.
If he was helping her, if his motives were pure, if he truly was empathetic to his cause, then why does he need to hide so much from her?
If he wanted the good of the spirit beasts, envisioning their better future, then why was he so nonchalant about the existence of the Moon Forest?
He controlled more than 1/3 of the Spirit Pagoda, so why was he aligning himself with Qiangu Dongfeng for some information?
She knew that he had other ways to get the information. Then why was he hurrying?
Because he was going to die soon?
Or was it something else?
She didn't know.
He came to her whenever he needed her but he wasn't there when she needed him. She was just a tool for him, nothing else except that. She knew that. So did he.
She wanted to trust him. She truly do but each time she thought that she could trust him, he had broken her trust, abandoned her, or did something extremely risky and dangerous.
How can you expect her to trust him with the lives of her entire species when he didn't trust her?
Since he didn't trust her about the information pertaining to her own kind, she will take it herself.
'He would have done the same.'
So Gu Yue was here, above the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters, and ready to get her answers.
But unbeknownst to her, the reason for the why Gu Yue was going to mentally grape Fan Lin wasn't the result of her own independent thinking.
It was the work of the Planar Lord who influenced her into doing so.
During their last meet-up, Gu Yue had developed a hint of trust and goodwill towards Fan Lin, a boy that wasn't Tang Wulin.
That was unacceptable to the Planar Lord as Gu Yue should have no relation to anyone of the opposite gender except Tang Wulin. That's how she was educated (brainwashed) and it should remain the same.
It would have remained the same, until the Fan Lin made contact with her and now Gu Yue has a trust~respect relation to him due to the various actions that he had done in her life.
Gu Yue now had taken another step into acknowledging Fan Lin as a special person of the opposite gender who wanted to know about.
That wasn't the problem though. The Planar Lord and the Planar Energy Core could easily influence Gu Yue to the 'right path'.
The problem was Fan Lin the anamoly.
Anamoly?
The most simple hint is : Tang San was an anamoly.
Someone who came from another world.
Fan Lin was the same.
The Planar Lord found the existence of Fan Lin... because he was killing people just less than a kilometre away from Tang Wulin's family.
The Planar Lord would have ignored Fan Lin and left him on his own if he had come to the Douluo realm at any other point of time.
This wasn't the time to have some widespread variations to the already set up stage that they have meticulously prepared over the years.
And yet, Fan Lin was doing exactly that. Each of his actions causing immense ripples through their minds because each time he acted, their years worth of work was being discombobulated (destroyed if you can't read that word).
They were currently not available to go down and kill him. Heck, after millennias of struggle with the abyssal plane, the rapid change in the ecosystem and not being able to recover their strength had made the Planar Ruler and Planar Energy Core nothing more than mere spectators by now.
Even their influence on the various beings had become close to nothing and the only thing they could do to Fan Lin's actions was to weep in silence.
But that didn't mean that they wouldn't do nothing about him. They did and it was a failure.
After that, they just left him on his own accord, not daring to interfere with him at all.
But what does all that had to do with the current situation?
When Gu Yue started to 'consciously' acknowledge him. That became a problem.
Fan Lin was the problem. They could rein in Gu Yue's feelings as she was one of the few being who could be heavily influenced by them. But what about Fan Lin's?
And this was how the situation came to be.
The Planar Lord and the Planar Energy Core got stuck in the problem of what could they do at that time?
Time?
Fan Lin's strength growth was monstrous so waiting till that time...?
What if Fan Lin devloped feelings/friendship/comraderie and/or something more than that with her in that time?
If he did, what would he do to gain her?
What would a madman who wouldn't mind killing people in the hundreds of thousands, would do to gain the woman he liked?
They knew that Gu Yue would obviously choose Tang Wulin and reject him. That was her destined fate. She would even turn hostile on Fan Lin if he tried to even it out with Tang Wulin.
So what would he do?
Well to better understand the situation, let's just take the example of one of the people that the Planar Lord had once influenced to deal with Fan Lin and also the only time they dared to mess with him.
Shi Yuan was Fan Lin's helper who helped him end the child killer case and continued providing support till he joined Qiangu Dongfeng and snitched everything he knew about Fan Lin to Qiangu Dongfeng.
The result was, as we previously mentioned, horrifying. Fan Lin had rage killed for around nearly two years and above 500k people, all because he was angry that he was wrong in choosing a person.
That he was betrayed.
What would he do then, if he had his heart broken? Another rage slaughter? Or even worse, the end of humanity.
Fan Lin was capable of that. Not everyone were a Spirit Master and not every Spirit Master was strong. Fan Lin was fully capable of ending the human kind.
For his cultivation strength wasn't what made him dangerous, it was his Mastery over the vials that he created.
You can't expect people in their 200s above repopulating the planet to its former glory? Cuz they would be the only ones alive and even that wasn't a complete guarantee.
What would he do, if he developed intense feelings for Gu Yue, who then rejected him but not on her own judgement but as a part of the preparation that they had done?
What would he do at that time?
The Planar Lord saw nothing but absolute demise. So did the Planar Energy Core.
They didn't know and that's why they decided to do something now because he was showing signs of being attracted(forced) to her without his own knowledge.
But what can they do?
Kill him immediately!
Root him out before he became something they couldn't handle!
And that's what they were going to do.
Gu Yue was their puppet to complete the task, although Gu Yue would not kill Fan Lin because she needed him for rational uses but they had put aside the plan of killing Fan Lin aside. He is unkillable for a while.
The other Great Beasts would most likely stop her as well.
And in the worst scenario, if Gu Yue realised that she was being forcefully controlled, Gu Yuena would rage them down in her half god state.
They were already weak, they would rather not take the chances.
So that's why, they partly influenced her into committing mind grape with a clear conscience.
Since the need was actual and important, the other Great Beasts also heeded to her words.
Apathy wasn't something they would develop for a human who made them realise just how crafty, cruel and deceitful the human kind was.
Their plan was simple. Destroy his mind and turn him into a fool, or just destroy it enough that his spirit sea is broken and he loses his cultivation potential and his cultivation.
[What?]
[You think it's cruel?]
[Do you not know about him? About the killings that he had done? Or the manipulation of people to his own benefit?]
[If you think that he is pitiful, you are a kind person. Remain the same.]
[But you are stupid as well, for you think justice is served to all those who are just.]
Thought 'Fan Lin' after he left the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters.
....
Gu Yue had just began her mental attack, gently probing and interfering with his upcoming battle while making sure that Fan Lin wouldn't be alerted about her.
If he did, he will obviously stop the trial. Fortunately for her, nothing she thought happened as Fan Lin didn't seem to care about the cause of the spiritual interference and he realised it quite easily that he was mentally attacked.
She had succeeded, and quite easily at that.
'His mind was that easier to break?'
She wondered as she thought on why she never tried it before.
Fan Lin did enter the Dead Calm state as she had expected. Gu Yue used that moment to pry into his mind but the moment she tried to, he automatically exited out of the Dead Calm state.
'Huh?'
"What happened, Your Majesty?" [Di Tian]
Di Tian asked while observing the emotion state Fan Lin and from Gu Yue's reaction, she hadn't succeeded in what she wanted.
"You do it." [Gu Yue]
She asked Di Tian, wanting to check something.
The Great Beasts all looked at Di Tian and then at Fan Lin.
"On it, My Majesty." [Di Tian]
Di Tian calmly stared at the collected Fan Lin and then tried the same thing Gu Yue did. He failed. Fan Lin exited the Dead Calm state the moment he tried to pry while entering the Dead Calm state to get rid of the mental interference.
"It's like him. He must have known about his spiritual weakness and prepared for it beforehand." [Gu Yue]
"If you cause any mental interference, he will enter his emotionless state, the effect of the mental interference ending with it, then if you forcefully try again, he will exit of his emotionless state, the effects of the mental interference ending again."
She indifferently looked at them and began to think the next step.
"What do we do now?" [Zi Ji]
Zi Ji asked their next action since peacefully dealing with Fan Lin didn't bear any results.
"We can't leave now. He is joining Qiangu Dongfeng after this and I don't think he will have any kind of conversation with me for a long while. We can't always have someone spy on him as well because if he truly wants to hide something, we have no way to stop it." [Di Tian]
"He should have a limit. If we all try, we can get inside his mind." [Myriad Demon King]
"He would have his spirit broken and become a fool if we all were to force it. His spiritual power is a lot weaker than any of us." [Zi Ji]
"What do you think about it, Your Majesty?" [Di Tian]
Di Tian asked Gu Yue.
Gu Yue quietly observed Fan Lin before interfering with his mind again.
She had thought of all the things that the Great Beasts said and none was worth it, nor would they work on him. She just instinctively knew it.
"Till the time he is in the tower, he will continue to his True self to battle."
"The information! Information without leaving him a vegetable..."
"We will continue to mentally break him while disrupting his battles. His mind isn't indomitable. With us on this side, the spirit beasts in the arena and the mental breakdown , he is bound to leave a gap in his defence. I just need a fraction of that moment to get the required information, then we will leave." [Gu Yue]
Gu Yue stated and all the Great Beasts along with her nodded their heads.
Thus a small plan was formed. They will all continue to spiritually attack Fan Lin in a gentle manner, like a bee buzzing around someone, diverting his attention from the battle, forcing him to loosen up the defence of his mind or just tire out from the repeated mental struggle, and then Gu Yue would slip in, take the information that they wanted and they all will leave.
Except Gu Yue was going a little too hardcore on the play, her intentions a little rowdy than the others.
[A little?]
Then moments passed, and continued to pass but Fan Lin's mental self didn't break, nor did it leave any cracks in his defence. He continued to be in a mental struggle, they continued to put him in the mental breakdown and the Planar Lord and the Planar Energy Core continued to eagerly wait for the end of Fan Lin until...
But the end didn't seem to come, the Great Beasts had speedened up, Gu Yue has rose the intensity of her attacks and Fan Lin was still struggling with his mental health, as if on the line where he would lose himself but was not losing it at all!
Then in the confused eyes of everyone, Fan Lin just suddenly adapted to the mental interference, as if effortlessly accepting his mental struggle while fighting his battle, changing his battle intensity with the changes in his mind.
It was as if he was flowing through the changes of the tides, accepting the change as a part of himself.
The spiritual interference thus had no effect on his battle anymore. Yet the Great Beasts still continued to attack because Gu Yue wasn't stopping on her mental assault, so maybe there was a way.
There wasn't. It was all in vain. Nothing changed on their side but with each passing moment, Fan Lin was becoming 'Fan Lin', the spiritual interference and the mental struggle adding nothing to the field.
Meanwhile.
"What in the world is that?" [Planar Energy Core]
The Planar Energy Core whispered to herself in confusion.
"He was sealing his self, True Self? Now it seems to have aroused due to the mental attacks. This doesn't look good." [Planar Lord]
"We should stop." [Planar Energy Core]
"Indeed." [Planar Lord]
As they both signalled Gu Yue to stop and vanished without any questions, the mental struggle stopped just before he can be fully unsealed.
[It is too late now.]
...
After nearly seven years of living in the Douluo World, Fan Lin had forcefully changed himself to fit the world from what he first was when he arrived at the Douluo World.
Now he was at peace and wasn't a bit bloodthirsty at all. He had achieved this by killing till his heart content, killing till he was bored, killing because he had nothing to do and killing because he needed to, thus somehow fulfilling his sadistic nature and achieving inner peace and was living a calm life with tamer goals and future cooperations.
He had chained and sealed away all his past self's desires and had firmly accepted himself as a tan brown kid with green eyes and short brown hair with variation, a slimmer build and a good height of 1.79 for age.
[... Specific]
But was he always calm? Wasn't he the epitome of childish anger and hate?
Don't like this thing. Kill.
Don't like that thing. Kill.
Human ate animals. Hate humans. Kill.
Bad humans doing bad things. Kill.
Blame myself. Blame the others. Blame the world and then kill.
Manipulate myself. Manipulate others. Get betrayed. Kill!
[Pathetic]
Gu Yue's attacks were messing with his mind and memories. Each time she attacked, it was like she was clawing the ground where he buried his past, slowly unearthing what shouldn't.
Gu Yue and the Great Beasts didn't know just what their actions would lead too but if they knew, they would have rather attacked the Abyssal plane than go near Fan Lin.
Only a few shreds of his sanity was left when Gu Yue had stopped. His actual self was still not released. He was still Fan Lin.
.....
Gu Yue finally stopped. The other Great Beasts stopped as well. Fan Lin's mental struggle ended. Fan Lin returned to his usual state as well.
"We failed, Your Majesty." [Di Tian]
Di Tian said while watching Fan Lin pick his spirit soul.
"Huh? I know..." [Gu Yue]
Gu Yue replied, feeling a little muzzled on why she was feeling such hate for Fan Lin. He deserved her hate due to his actions but she knew that he had a reason and he didn't trust her at all.
But even then, Gu Yue had been controlling herself for all this while. She had no idea of the influence she was under in.
'Just take this as my revenge for that time.'
She thought.
"He failed as well. Qiangu Dongfeng had also left the city. Their deal is broken for now." [Myriad Demon King]
The Myriad Demon King reported by the side. He was right as well because according to the situation that they had witnessed, Spirit Pagoda also wasn't keen on the union of Fan Lin and Qiangu Dongfeng and had officially blocked Qiangu Dongfeng from approaching him for now.
On the other hand, Fan Lin definitely was angry about this so future cooperations might be tough for them.
*sigh*
"At least our goal's partly achieved. We now-" [Di Tian]
"He always gets what he wants. He definitely must have something in his mind if he is leaving so peacefully." [Gu Yue]
Gu Yue interjected Di Tian's word as she saw Fan Lin's figure leaving the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters. He was too quite. It was as if he wasn't a bit effected by the events in the Spirit Soul Tower.
Events that happened less than half an hour ago.
"Where is he-" [Gu Yue]
....