Above the towering flames of the Divine Punishment Grand Canyon in the Beers Mountain Range, after the Fire Great Perfection 'Baier' departed, the other seven Great Perfection powerhouses and Lin Lei remained floating silently above the fire. Having heard the news Baier shared, all eight of them were deep in thought.
"Brody left behind a message saying the Crimson Rhombus Diamond is in the Awklan Plane." Lin Lei frowned in contemplation. "That Brody, having endured the siege of so many powerhouses in Hell, should understand the importance of the Crimson Rhombus Diamond. Perhaps… he truly decided to give it up in exchange for a peaceful life."
Before the siege by so many powerhouses, Brody may not have fully understood how dangerous the Crimson Rhombus Diamond was to possess.
But after that ordeal, after losing one of his divine clones, Brody should have had second thoughts about continuing to hold onto the Crimson Rhombus Diamond! Keeping it could indeed drastically increase one's power. But it also meant facing the pursuit of countless powerhouses.
"All of you have heard the news by now. What do you all think — could the Crimson Rhombus Diamond really be in this Awklan Plane?" The Light Great Perfection '
"Hmph, if Brody is still playing tricks on people, harboring greedy thoughts to monopolize a Highgod artifact all for himself, he's asking for death." The Earth Great Perfection, a four-meter-tall muscular man, said coldly.
"If you believe the Crimson Rhombus Diamond isn't here, then just leave this plane," the Wind Great Perfection 'Baier' scoffed, glancing around at the group. "I'm staying regardless. Everyone — I won't keep you company any longer. I'm heading back." A gust of wind stirred, and Baier vanished from everyone's sight.
Within a material plane, the speed of a Great Perfection was comparable to the speed of Highgods in Hell.
"I won't stay much longer either." Clementine similarly transformed into a streak of light and disappeared in an instant.
One after another, the Great Perfection Highgods departed, leaving only Lin Lei and Dannington behind.
"Lin Lei, are you staying in the Awklan Plane or leaving?" Dannington asked.
"No rush. The Crimson Rhombus Diamond might still be in the Awklan Plane." Lin Lei's brows furrowed slightly, then he smiled. "Dannington, let's have a little competition — see who can obtain the Crimson Rhombus Diamond… Well then, this is where we part ways."
"You don't have as many people as I do. If anyone's going to get it, it'll be me." Dannington chuckled as well.
And so, Lin Lei and Dannington transformed into two phantoms and flew off in separate directions.
xxxxx Originally, after thoroughly searching the entire Awklan Plane from top to bottom, Lin Lei had been ninety percent convinced — the Crimson Rhombus Diamond most likely wasn't in the Awklan Plane at all. The Awklan Plane had merely been a waystation for Brody's escape! As for the remaining ten percent… it was only unwillingness that had kept him from leaving.
But after this recent event, upon learning this new information, Lin Lei's thinking had changed.
If Brody truly said that, then perhaps the Crimson Rhombus Diamond really could be in the Awklan Plane.
In the eastern part of the Awklan Plane, atop Cliff Mass Mountain in the Morin Empire, within a mansion at the summit.
"Boss, what do you think Brody is really scheming?"
"The Crimson Rhombus Diamond — a treasure of such magnitude. Of course he wouldn't just let us obtain it so easily!" Lin Lei said with a furrowed brow. "But the Awklan Plane has already been turned upside down by me. There's simply no Crimson Rhombus Diamond anywhere. So… there's only one possibility left." This final possibility was what truly troubled Lin Lei.
"Divine sense can easily cover the sky and earth, but probing inside a person's body is extremely difficult for divine sense to do on a large scale. So the Crimson Rhombus Diamond might be hidden inside some living creature!" Lin Lei said, his brows still knitted.
Any being with spiritual awareness and life force would naturally resist the intrusion of external soul power into its interior. And the strength of that resistance varied depending on how powerful the soul was.
If the being itself was far too powerful, it simply wouldn't allow anyone inside.
Just like Lin Lei! An ordinary Great Perfection might be able to communicate with Lin Lei via divine sense transmission, but they could absolutely not use divine sense to penetrate Lin Lei's body and probe the secrets within.
And for the weak, like ordinary mortals — a god could probe a mortal by concentrating a bit of mental power, and it would seep through easily. But penetrating a human body to search it required careful focus. The mental power couldn't be too strong, or it might shatter the mortal's fragile soul entirely. And if it was too weak… it likely wouldn't penetrate at all.
So, going deep inside a person's body was very difficult.
As for examining a person's soul — even harder!
Back when Dilia was in a coma, Lin Lei hadn't dared use soul power to probe deeply, terrified that a moment's carelessness might cause Dilia's soul to dissipate.
"This Awklan Plane is enormous. I suspect Brody chose this plane precisely because he'd heard its population is astronomically large," Lin Lei said with a frown. "To search human bodies for hidden objects — even for me, it's impossible to examine millions of people at once. It requires extreme care and patience! At one time, I could probably manage about a thousand at most."
This wasn't a matter of how powerful one's soul power was, but rather the ability to split one's attention across many targets. Every single search had to be done carefully.
The penetrating mental power could not be too strong, nor too weak!
"The Awklan Plane's human population, while far less than Hell's, is still nearly eight hundred billion billion," Lin Lei said, frowning.
That number was simply staggering.
But there was no helping it. The two continents of the Awklan Plane each spanned over a hundred million li across. The Yulan Continent was merely twenty to thirty thousand li across. The difference in land area between the two planes was nearly a hundred millionfold. The Yulan Continent already had several billion people, so eight hundred billion billion in the Awklan Plane wasn't unreasonable at all.
After all, compared to Hell…
It was just a tiny fraction.