Let us turn back the white ox of heaven a few paces.
Around the time the supreme authority was being divided between the two sorcerers, the Dream Staircase was also welcoming an ascension ceremony destined to mark the beginning of history. In the chaotic, turbulent third layer of the Void Realm, four female sorcerers were about to inaugurate a new legend of secret poisons.
The ritual where Yaxiu and Stars shared the Supreme Holy Grail was broadcast across the entire Void Realm, so Freya and her companions on the Dream Staircase naturally saw it as well.
In fact, because Ruby Mountain sat right at the summit of the Dream Staircase, they had the best seats in the house. They bore firsthand witness as Yaxiu, aided by Rose and Silver Lantern, wrenched back half of the Supreme Holy Grail from Stars, contesting a God Lord for a feast as a mere mortal.
Watching this spectacle, the four women wore distinctly different expressions.
None was more worried than Freya; it was as if she could feel Yaxiu's emotions across the layers of the Void Realm, her eyes welling with mist from heartache.
Annan stood on tiptoe in excitement, her gaze fixed on Yaxiu's back brimming with adoration.
Tamashi gripped her shield with an irritated scowl, inwardly cursing that she wasn't on that battlefield herself.
Xifulin gazed calmly up at Yaxiu's coronation, lightly clapping her hands.
When the unprecedented ceremony finally ended and everything returned to normal, Freya let out a long breath. Her taut nerves relaxed all at once, and drained of strength, she slumped limply onto the ground. "Yaxiu is safe... Thank goodness..."
"A supreme sorcery authority transcending the limits of a God Lord... The only sorcerers qualified to set foot on the seventh layer of the Void Realm right now, aside from Stars, are Yaxiu." An inexplicable gleam danced in Annan's eyes. "He will become the greatest sorcerer in history..."
"He's already on a battlefield far beyond my reach." Tamashi's expression was full of unwillingness. She stamped her foot resentfully and let out a heavy sigh. "When will I ever catch up?"
Squatting beside Freya, Xifulin asked with a radiant smile, "Do you really think that's good? Yaxiu is returning to reality now, you know."
"Of course it's good! If he's back in reality, he's safe!" Freya said at once. "After all, in reality he has... has..."
The Veela choked up. She suddenly realized what was waiting for Yaxiu in reality.
"On one side is the Sword Princess, who has waited nearly half a year, filled with love and longing; on the other is Yaxiu, who chased his beloved from the Blood Moon all the way to Stars, braving countless trials and tribulations just to be entwined with her."
The little bat leaned close to the Veela's ear, whispering softly like a demon, "They can finally meet in reality. It'll definitely be like a dry grassland on a midsummer night—a celestial spark igniting subterranean fire, setting the whole prairie ablaze. The second they meet, they'll surely embrace and kiss, won't they?"
"*Wuu wuu...*"
"And after traveling so far covered in dust and fatigue, taking a bath together would be completely natural, right?"
"*Wuu wuu...*"
"At night, they'll certainly sleep together too. After all, they have endless topics to talk about and boundless sweet nothings to whisper. When passion peaks and they blend into one, they'll definitely do everything you're picturing right now, won't they, Freya?"
"I—I'm thinking of very wholesome things!" Freya lowered her head, pressed her legs tightly together, and bit her lip, whimpering, "Xifulin, stop saying that..."
Xifulin's lips twitched. If only she had a mirror handy, she would have loved to make Freya look at her own face. They were talking about the person she loved engaging in the most wanton, passionate lovemaking with someone else, yet aside from crying tears of sorrow, the Veela actually had a look of yearning on her face, and her skin was flushing an ambiguous peachy pink.
Although she knew the Veela was already broken, the girl managed to expand her horizons every single time—even when she wasn't the heroine of her own fantasy, this Veela could still get aroused!
She had intended to gross the Veela out with this, but it seemed she had only provided her with more fuel for her private fantasies...
"Blood Concealment, haven't you given up yet?" Annan chuckled. "Whatever you do will only increase the Veela's affection for that guy. From the moment he slipped the ring onto her finger, her affection for him was already locked at maximum."
"But that was a ring Bewitching Heart prepared herself!" Xifulin said testily. "What's there to be touched about?!"
Freya shielded her ring protectively and murmured weakly, "But he gave me the Affection Sword too..."
"Don't you remember how many sorcery spirits you gave him?! He only gave you one back!"
"Giving him a gift makes me happy, and him giving me a gift makes me happy again—that's double the happiness!"
Freya summoned the Affection Sword sorcery spirit. In an instant, all her sorrow vanished like smoke. Filled with hopeful yearning, she said, "Now that he's back in reality, maybe he'll come to the Blood Moon to find me... We'll be able to meet very soon!"
Xifulin clutched her head and arched backward into an artistic gymnast's bridge; only by contorting her body like this could she alleviate her throbbing headache.
The little bat's voice was practically trembling. "It clearly has nothing to do with me, so why am I the only one who feels hurt here...? Purple Resentment, Black Crow, don't you feel any frustration at all?!"
"I'm fine." Annan clasped her hands behind her back and smiled smugly. "After all, I've already claimed the future supreme sorcerer's first kiss!"
"Why should I be upset?" Tamashi said calmly. "Everyone has their own obsessions and beliefs. I can physically eliminate my enemies, but I will not question another person's devotion."
The others glanced at Tamashi, thinking that this heavily armored black crow might actually be the most competitive contender among them. Still, it wasn't a pressing issue, because the love rival the black crow had to deal with first wasn't them, but that Miss Sword Princess—who was practically flawless aside from her intense possessiveness.
"Fine, fine, let's keep exploring," Xifulin said irritably once she caught her breath. "Right now, they could ascend to demigod and enter Hell at any moment, while we aren't even legendary yet. Let's see how you intend to catch up with him."
"Why wouldn't we be able to catch up?"
Annan asked curiously, "Even if he ascends to demigod, as long as he doesn't throw his lot in with the Kingdom of Heaven to become an angel, he can only wander the lands of the six nations. Aside from that, there's nowhere else he can go."
Xifulin paused, startled, then muttered, "Right. Strange... Why did I think just now that you wouldn't be able to catch up?"
"It's probably because of the Dream Staircase." Tamashi glanced at the smoky, misty fantastical colors around them. "Everything here is chaotic; our minds might be affected."
They stood upon an ivory-white staircase. While called a staircase, its expanse was absurdly vast—virtually equivalent to a white continent. Even flying at full speed, it took an entire minute to reach the edge and find the next step up.
It sounded simple enough—why not just fly straight across? But the Dream Staircase's greatest peril came from the colorful mist that lingered incessantly around them. The higher one went, the denser the mist grew; anyone daring to fly more than five meters off the ground would crash straight into it.
The mist would pull a sorcerer's consciousness into a dreamscape riddled with restrictive affixes. Sorcerers had to defeat the enemies inside to claim the spoils within the mist—indeed, the mist was essentially an aberrant version of a dream bubble.
In theory, Sanctuary sorcerers should have adapted quickly to a new map that differed little from the old version. However, because the Dream Staircase had been born so recently, every aspect remained unstable, giving rise to all sorts of unexpected hazards—such as mists materializing out of nowhere, or the difficulty of a mist spiking to appalling heights.
More importantly, sorcerers in a dream bubble could return to reality at any time, requiring only a brief countdown. But once pulled into the chromatic mist, a sorcerer could not return to reality until the mist was completely vanquished.
If a sorcerer was defeated by the mist, their soul would even be completely devoured by it!
In other words, sorcerers on the Dream Staircase no longer enjoyed the privilege of being ejected upon severe injury; failure meant absolute death!
Beyond that, the Dream Staircase suffered from temporal anomalies, fluctuating sorcery mana recovery rates, and other erratic phenomena. Sometimes, exploring the Dream Staircase for ten hours corresponded to just one minute passing in reality, while the reverse was equally common.
Under the sway of these factors, Sanctuary sorcerers were generally unwilling to explore the volatile Dream Staircase; only those reckless, supremely confident in their strength, and utterly impatient would dare to venture here.
Freya and her companions fell into this category. After all, no matter how difficult the chromatic mists became, the four of them could team up to clear them. Waiting, on the other hand, was intolerable. While Annan and Xifulin were content with their current strength, Tamashi and Freya longed to ascend to the legendary realm immediately.
If only to narrow the distance by the slightest fraction... If only to get a little bit closer...
At least the next time we meet, I can stand confidently by your side.
And shove that red-haired sword sorcerer to the side.
Freya and the others collected their emotions and resumed exploring the Dream Staircase.
Yet after joining forces to dispel another patch of mist, the female sorcerers looked at one another in dismay. Xifulin spoke up: "Did your secret poisons also...?"
"Yes." Annan's expression darkened slightly. "The Colorless Dream Secret Poison has failed."
Just moments ago, they realized that Colorless Dream had completely ceased functioning, incapable of converting into chromatic sorcery mana. They had learned of this secret poison from copies of Yaxiu's diary. Though they had never seen it in action personally, Yaxiu's credibility—matters of romance aside—was exceptionally high, so they had infected themselves with the poison directly.
Even when the Distant Sky Realm met its end and the Dream Staircase was born, the Colorless Dream Secret Poison had not disappeared, proving that escaping from the Prime Angel's dream to Ruby Mountain via 'Awakening from the Dream' was still possible. But now that the poison had failed, it was evident that the Prime Angel's complete demise had rendered the method entirely unviable.
"What are we going to do...?" Freya cried with a downcast face. "If Colorless Dream doesn't work, how are we supposed to scale Ruby Mountain?"
Xifulin suggested, "Raise our sorcery realms to legendary?"
"I'm so clumsy; it'll take me at least ten years to reach that level!" The Veela bit her lower lip. "By then, who knows how many children Yaxiu will already have..."
*Damn it, if other mind sorcerers knew you could reach legendary in just ten years, they'd probably all want to change their race to Veela.*
However, Xifulin was more curious about another point: "Can't Sanctuary sorcerers have children?"
"I want to be in my best state... you know." Freya's eyes sparkled with longing. "He's a legendary, so I should at least be a legendary, right? Even better would be demigod, or God Lord, and if I could become a supreme sorcerer..."
If this world had a leaderboard for 'Most Absurd Reasons to Become a Supreme Sorcerer,' the Veela's reason would indisputably take first place, the little bat thought to herself.
"Aside from elevating our sorcery realms, we truly have no other way," Annan pondered. "Although I asked Gospel, and there is indeed an Origin Road leading to Ruby Mountain on the Dream Staircase, Gospel only knew that 'Ruby Mountain is at the summit of the Dream Staircase,' with no further details."
Anyone could deduce that Ruby Mountain was at the summit of the Dream Staircase just by thinking about it. The issue was that the Dream Staircase stretched infinitely, veiled in heavy mists; ordinary Sanctuary sorcerers found it arduous to climb even a few tiers of the staircase, let alone traverse it to its end.
Freya and the others had also encountered the Golden Fish Secret Poison and the Rainbow Tail Secret Poison. They knew that an Origin Road was a special domain utterly unreachable through normal means; every piece of information on paper was a riddle. Without cracking the solution, any effort was wasted effort.
Thus, they knew they were at a dead end—they were the very first generation of explorers on the Dream Staircase, without any legacy or records to draw upon, unable to follow the paths forged by predecessors.
If they wanted to tread an Origin Road, they would have to discover a new secret poison from scratch and become pioneers for later generations to follow!
The sheer difficulty of such a feat was hair-raising. They would be better off diligently delving into their sorcery realms, where at least a tangible hope of achievement existed. As for researching secret poisons, unless one found the single correct direction, it was an abyss that would swallow an entire lifetime in vain.
After all, their smooth ascensions thus far had relied entirely on Yaxiu's gifts, but this time, even Yaxiu couldn't help them.
Just as the female sorcerers fell into disheartened silence, a rumbling tremor suddenly echoed through the Dream Staircase. Countless golden threads of liquid cascaded from above the mist, piercing the white staircase as if stitching heaven and earth together.
Freya and the others were hardly surprised; because the Dream Staircase had not yet stabilized, new laws were frequently integrated into it. While this carried risks, it could also yield unexpected windfalls. For instance, when soul laws seeped in, Annan had not only pilfered part of the Spectre Prophet's legacy, but with the aid of the Void Realm, had constructed a composite soul-gunplay miracle: 'Strike to the Soul'!
Such was the benefit of playing an early-access version: danger lurked everywhere, but so did opportunity.
"Soul? Mind? No, this is... yearning."
Xifulin touched a golden thread and leaned in to sniff it. "This is the scent of yearning... But does this world even have a law of yearning?"
While the others contemplated how to exploit this opportunity, the opportunity was thrust right before them—as the golden threads pulled taut, the white ground cracked open, revealing the world hidden beneath!
The Dream Staircase could actually be destroyed?!
The four women looked at each other in astonishment. All of them had struck the stairs with full force before, but had failed to leave even a scratch, so they had never conceived of exploring beneath them. Now, however, it seemed the Dream Staircase harbored realms they had been unable to reach.
So, should they go in?
Exchanging glances, as Freya and Tamashi nodded, a reluctant Annan and a hesitant Xifulin had no choice but to follow. Black Crow could take care of herself, but the Veela... they simply couldn't leave her to her own devices.
By now, the gap had already begun to shrink. With no time left to deliberate, the female sorcerers leaped right in. Yet the long fall they anticipated never occurred; instead, it felt as though they had simply jumped in place, landing lightly back upon the ground.
Stretching out before them was still a long flight of stairs.
Except, unlike before, not only was there no chromatic mist shrouding their vision, but the entire world had turned into an inverted color scheme. It wasn't colorless, but color-inverted—black became white, red became cyan. If the Dream Staircase was vibrant and kaleidoscopic, this place was visually disquieting.
"Look below," Xifulin said.
They looked down. The ground was like a mirror, reflecting a mirror world of opposite colors—and they saw that within the Dream Staircase, a color-inverted version of each of them had appeared.
"If we call this place the Inverted-Color Staircase, then the inverted realm and the Dream Staircase are mirror reflections of each other. Jumping in meant we swapped places with our inverted reflections." Annan crouched down, and the inverted Annan on the other side of the mirror crouched down in tandem. "The greatest difference between the inverted realm and the Dream Staircase is that there is no chromatic mist blocking our way forward here. What's more..."
One after another, they raised their heads and gazed toward the end of the staircase, at that mountain range glowing with red radiance.
"We can climb directly to Ruby Mountain from here!" Xifulin murmured. "We've found the Dream Staircase's Origin Road!"
Chapter 1028