Ascension and Embers

From beginning to end, it had never crossed Ji Jue's mind that Wen Sheng had never actually left. And he was right beside him, close at hand. When he sensed the signs manifesting across the divine realm at this moment, Ji Jue finally realized with a jolt where Wen Sheng had come from—every place, every corner of this entire dream. Even... inside the soul of every single person. Countless minute constituents, glimmers so minuscule as to be almost imperceptible, endless motes of spiritus—all rose from the soul of every person, churning like a vast expanse of stars, converging into shape. In the end, they formed Wen Sheng's existence right before Ji Jue's eyes! And before this, his soul had likely already been scattered across the entire world... From the day the Holy God vanished, he had probably already merged into the whole dream. "I see. Was it prayer?" Ji Jue understood in an instant, discerning the cause of this phenomenon. Just like the premise Ji Jue and the old codger had confirmed—faith went both ways! Just as believers connected to their god, the god connected to the believers in turn. The moment all those believers prayed to their god, the link was established. They offered up their self-nature and faith, and in return received the god's self-nature and spiritus. A consciousness calmed in meditation, a soul that had opened all its mental defenses during prayer, became like a loose, nutrient-rich flowerpot into which a seed was sown. From then on, day after day, month after month, it silently grew... The instant he grasped this fundamental truth, Ji Jue could hold it in no longer and burst out laughing, doubled over in uncontrollable mirth, tears practically welling in his eyes. This was too bizarre, too absurd. Even he hadn't imagined that the corrupted sacred seal he had cobbled together merely to drive a wedge between the Order and its believers and shake his opponent's foundation had actually become Wen Sheng's worst nightmare, causing him an untold amount of grief! Once self-opening prayer was replaced by the Spirit of Creation, the seeds Wen Sheng cast out had no way to take root in the believers' souls... To make matters worse, once the fully automatic prayer machine was equipped, it ran around the clock, continuously using the link of faith to leach spiritus right back from Wen Sheng. Who knew how many fragments of spiritus had been sucked right in and burned to ash! It was practically death by a thousand cuts, night and day of torment. Yet being so infinitesimal, those fragments couldn't resist in the slightest... Existing within everyone's soul simultaneously meant sharing everything they knew and felt—whether joy or agony—with no choice but to bear it in silence, devoid of any way to fight back or shield himself. Not just the decadence of Tiancheng and the piety of Central City, but even the torture and suffering of Limbo... Believers, hierophants, sinners, heretics, fine wine and delicacies, scorching flames, devout worship, agonizing torture—a myriad of mortal experiences came flooding in, while that self-nature, so tiny as to be virtually nonexistent, could only passively endure it all, like someone in a vegetative state. Even the existence of the "self" drifted between being and nothingness. Those countless tiny constituents drifted through the dream, continually arising and perishing. Quietly taking root and sprouting. In other words, the Faceless Ones were the true finished product? When all of the host's self-nature and consciousness were thoroughly worn away, what replaced them and proliferated within the hollow soul was Wen Sheng's self-nature. Cultivated like plant division and grafting, usurping the nest step by step, growing another version of himself. A negligible investment yielding a billion-fold return! Ji Jue hadn't expected that even now, Vortex Planting was still at work! Although the structure was completely different, the theory and application hailed from the same origin, merely swapping life for the soul as its subject. Did that mean the Dragon Cult had a hand in this too? "As expected of Ascension." Ji Jue marvelled from the bottom of his heart, almost tempted to applaud. Sinister motives aside, this brand of madness and ruthless determination to reach sublimation and a grand leap by any means necessary... was truly rare in this world. Splitting oneself into countless parts meant dismembering one's soul first—it was virtually suicide. And once that negligible sliver of self-nature failed to withstand the shifts and was entirely obliterated, it would indisputably mean his utter annihilation. Even leaving that aside, the pain and torment to be endured along the way, the countless risks and horrors to be faced, were still immeasurable. No one could even say for certain whether he would ever be able to recombine from that fragmented state. Even inside a dream, the chance of success was less than ten—no, less than one percent! Yet now, Wen Sheng appearing before Ji Jue meant... he had pulled it off. Treading upon all those obliterated souls, he had completed another leap! "Mere suffering, not worth mentioning, utterly meaningless, and even less worthy of showing off or boasting." Even in this rebirth, Wen Sheng showed not the slightest hint of complacency, nor any of his previous cruel madness. He was as calm as if brushing away a speck of dust. Only his smile held a faint undertone of mockery. "If anything, I have you to thank, Ji Jue..." He murmured in appreciation, "Under the catalytic drive of the strife you brought, the cycling of souls was accelerated, advancing the completion of the convergence phase by twenty years. Otherwise, how could I have achieved this so effortlessly?" "Credit where credit is due, fair enough," Ji Jue nodded solemnly. "Why don't you get on your knees and kowtow to me, then?" "..." For a moment, the smile on Wen Sheng's face froze. He had never imagined such a shamelessly insolent wretch existed under heaven. Clearly, he had never experienced the moral disparity among those of Embers, never imagining that even among artisans—notorious for their lack of scruples—there were grades of bastardry. The gap in character between certain artisans was wider than the gap between a human and a dog. Ji Jue hadn't been intimidated in the slightest! I'm your benefactor? Why don't you just call me your secret daddy while you're at it?! From the very moment he appeared, this bastard had been posturing, putting on airs right in front of Ji Jue—did he really think Ji Jue hadn't studied Vortex Planting? Lawrence's research materials were still sitting in the Security Bureau's vault; taking a look was as easy for Ji Jue as browsing lewd pictures in a group chat. Being advanced by twenty years meant twenty fewer years of gestation, and twenty fewer years of refinement! Even if he had converged successfully, he was still a premature baby! Who was he trying to fool?! "Now that we're done with the good news, how about some bad news?" Seizing the moment Wen Sheng was choked for words, Ji Jue cut in, "How does it feel to open your eyes and see that everything's changed beyond recognition? Things have come to this—even if you succeeded, what good is it?" Tiancheng was on the brink of collapse, countless believers had decoupled, and everything had gone completely off the rails. You want to stage a king's return now? You'd at least need some old loyalists around to kiss your feet, wouldn't you? "Perhaps. But does the Holy God not still exist?" Wen Sheng gave a breezy, indifferent smile and merely waved his hand. "Divine power and faith are nothing more than surface phenomena, just like this dream right now. No matter what occurs in a dream, it remains the Holy God's dream in the end. It doesn't even take much effort..." The instant Wen Sheng waved his hand, the frozen myriad phenomena suddenly sprang into motion. Only, in reverse. As if a rewind button had been pressed, countless broken tiles and ruins rose once more, reassembling in splendid grandeur, and a sea of angels that had turned to ash converged anew, clad in fierce armor. With effortless ease, everything was reshaped. Immediately following, a wail echoed from Paradise in the deepest depths of Limbo— The Sovereign Virtue system that had once pervaded the entire dream was unexpectedly partitioned off once more, compressed to its absolute limit, forcefully shoved back into Limbo and sealed away completely. In the blink of an eye, all the gains Ji Jue had achieved dissolved without a trace. Back to square one. And the culprit looked down on Ji Jue with casual ease, still smiling. "See? Setting things right is effortless." "Is that so?" Ji Jue glanced at that placid face, equally unshaken. "There's no one else here. If you ask me, you don't need to force yourself. Sounds great coming out of your mouth, but in truth, you're so bloated you're about to throw up, aren't you?" Even if the dream was ultimately an illusion, to an illusion, other illusions were just as real. Given the terrifying scale of the Sovereign Virtue system and all the souls connected to it, it was enough to occupy a vital share of the imaginary construct built by the Huangliang Relic. How could swallowing so much in one breath come without a price? "Perhaps. If you don't believe me, why don't you attack, Ji Jue?" "Right back at you." Ji Jue scrutinized his opponent before him. "I'm also curious what tricks you've been hiding up your sleeve after putting on such a grand show for so long." "Nothing at all. If I had to say... well, consider it a greeting for our first meeting, Ji Jue. I want to talk with you." Wen Sheng strolled through the ornate hall, speaking casually, "To be honest, I admire you. To think you were willing to break in here for the sake of a friend—Mercy is a virtue worthy of respect. "To win the acknowledgment of the Huangliang Relic, your talent is truly astonishing. No, rather, it's a pearl obscured by dust; if properly developed and honed, you would surpass even me. "Yet from start to finish, there is no irreconcilable enmity between us, is there? Why must we be at each other's throats? "Even if your workshop suffered losses, I can compensate you separately. Whatever goals you still harbor, or whatever feelings you still hold for that monster, none of it matters to me. "In fact, what do you say to joining forces with me? "I have already succeeded, and I don't wish to take unnecessary risks. If you're interested in these dreams, you may do as you please with them. That freak... ah, Wen Wen can be yours as well." [?] A tangible question mark slowly surfaced above Ji Jue's head. Under his tweaking, it grew steadily larger, flipped upside down, and flashed in all sorts of antics. A vivid expression of his utter bewilderment. "Ummm..." Ji Jue raised a hand and tapped his forehead. "Setting aside whether we join forces, and putting coexistence on the back burner for a second—did all that praying fry your brain?" Wen Sheng frowned, silently baffled. Then he saw Ji Jue ask with a solemn, thoroughly righteous look: "—By what right do you take what's mine and offer it to me?" "..." Wen Sheng fell silent, stunned and lost in bewilderment. For the first time, he felt like he had seen a ghost, getting another taste of the depths of Ji Jue's shamelessness. Even his yapping was so profoundly rousing... No—putting aside what was going on with that woman Wen Wen in the first place, how could this bastard take it so completely for granted that another human being belonged to him? Without even a shred of hesitation or shame! "As expected of Embers." He sighed with regret. "Greed and arrogance aside, this refusal to compromise with anyone in your overbearing pride is truly... the real deal." In an instant, heaven and earth inverted. All things overturned. Under the will of the Holy God, everything within the dream suddenly turned into a ship at sea—listing sharply, rocking, twisting, and rolling. The weight of all things converged toward the center! The weight of countless souls bore down upon Ji Jue! Like a mountain range. There was no need for further words. Then, since we cannot coexist, let us be enemies, Ji Jue. The moment he assessed the situation, Wen Sheng struck ruthlessly. Between us, no holds barred, to the bitter death!