"The people here really didn't flee. They couldn't move so much property in time. After all, 'Wind Erosion' was considered a top-tier faction in the First Hell—not only did they boast thirteen demigods, but they also had an offensive and defensive alliance with the largest rain demon clan. They thought they had the strength to resist... and the result was their complete annihilation."
Across the boundless Gobi, howling winds blew through honeycomb rock pits and castle-like crags, unleashing shrill, ghostly shrieks. Without defensive wards, the wind's sound alone was enough to bewilder the mind and shatter one's sanity, causing a person to literally drown in their own terror.
Nearly all demigod strongholds in Hell were sprawling domains pieced together from multiple Temples of Sorcery. Demigods did not actually need to live in such vast spaces, so they had universally reshaped their perimeter environments into permanent 'cursed landforms.'
Deceptively ordinary terrains like 'wilds' and 'gobi' were not only rife with hidden lethality, but they also alerted the demigods inside the moment an uninvited guest set foot on their land. Beyond that, Yaxiu had seen lakes filled with murky black fluid and plains strewn with skeletons that formed veritable forests of bone, all radiating undisguised malice toward outsiders.
At the center of the Wind Erosion Gobi stood a fortress carved directly out of a colossal rock stratum.
At the fortress's center stood an exceedingly tall, long cross-spear, around which the whistling sound of thrusting spears periodically broke the air. Atop the fortress was a statue of an eagle with wings spread wide like a giant roc, its screech ringing even louder and clearer than the howling wails outside. Along the fortress walls ran a row of deep-blue, lightning-bolt engravings. A single glance made Yaxiu's hair stand on end; staring for just a few seconds longer felt as though his eyeballs might be shattered by thunder and lightning!
Just from the natural phenomena radiating from them, it was obvious these three wonders were vastly more formidable than 'Overturned'!
With a casual wave of Dead Frenzy's hand, the knowledge gems scattered across the ground swirled up like a swarm of bees and gathered into the extraction bottle in Yaxiu's grasp. Yaxiu gauged the amount. "Isn't this a bit too much?"
"That's because this isn't just thirteen demigods, but also the crystal cores of the entire rain demon clan," Dead Frenzy said. "Just like demigods, demigod creatures leave behind crystal cores similar to knowledge gems upon death. However, aside from the Supreme Alchemist who can refine crystal cores into knowledge essence, other alchemists can at most use them to bolster the power of their sorceries... See, just like this."
Dead Frenzy flicked her toe, snagging an engraved staff embedded with six crystal cores off the ground. With a light flick of her fingers, she popped every crystal core free. "Sorcerer and staff—doesn't that carry the flavor of an ancient epic? But most of these demigods are relics from prehistoric eras. In their time, a staff really was standard equipment for a sorcerer.
"In eras long vanished into oblivion, sorcery spirits couldn't be fed with gold and silver. Magical beasts roamed the land everywhere, and a single mistake by Sanctuary legends could trigger an ecological disaster across an entire region, simply because sorcerers wanted to test a miracle... For these ancient demigods, Hell might feel much closer to their past than the Six Countries."
"And the price is that all living beings become playthings of the God Lords," Yaxiu remarked with a sigh. "Then again, even without God Lords, mortals were still the playthings of other sorcerers. By comparison, that might still count as progress, right?"
Dead Frenzy chuckled softly. "Have you ever heard Vichy praise the civilization of your era?"
Yaxiu paused.
"Prehistoric eras were darker than you imagine, but also far grander than you imagine," Dead Frenzy said. "The reason is simple—back then, gods were born in reality.
"Nearly every top-tier regime, faction, and organization was founded upon a god, relying on divine miracles to elevate the developmental level of an entire region... You're surely thinking of the Gospel God's influence on the Gospel Country, but that's not comprehensive enough. The Weaver locked away many of Gospel's authorities, and Gospel's promotion of actual productivity was minimal."
"Minimal?" Yaxiu almost doubted his own ears. "The entire Gospel Country today is built upon the Gospel system's overall planning to achieve the theoretical maximum productive efficiency with the lowest internal friction. Doesn't that prove its productivity?"
"Let me give you an example," Dead Frenzy said. "There was a group of necromancers who believed in Häagen-Dazs. Relying on the god 'Ghoul,' they created a necromantic nation where all manual labor required no human effort at all. They relied on infinite ghouls to complete every repetitive job you could possibly imagine... Do you still think the Gospel God possesses high productivity?"
Yaxiu fell silent. The Gospel system at most allowed people to expend the least effort to achieve the right result, but a ghoul system allowed a civilization to march directly into a glorious era of extreme material abundance. The former still required exploiting oneself, while the latter meant everyone exploited the dead together. How could cheating ever beat freeloading entirely?
Could Harvey have been telling the truth—was the seventeenth century truly the century of necromancy?
"In the 1,668 years since the birth of the Six Countries, no natural god has ever been born into the world," Dead Frenzy said leisurely. "Apart from the fleeting divine age of the Senluo Country, the other five nations haven't even caught up to the average level of prehistoric civilizations... They might never reach it no matter how many years pass, because mortals cannot surpass gods."
Yaxiu nodded quietly in his heart. Although a romantic who had undergone nine years of compulsory education shouldn't agree with the assertion that human effort could never overcome gods, looking at gods as resources instantly made everything clear.
It was like an island that lacked quality timber; its people could never build a ship capable of long-distance voyages, trapped on the island for eternity, making whatever development they achieved nothing more than holding a festival inside a snail shell. For mortals, gods were the equivalent of ships that could carry them to other lands abundant in resources, triggering explosive growth in civilization.
The God Lords kept all living beings cooped up inside the Six Countries, granting them peace while taking away their future. There was no right or wrong to such a thing, just as one could not judge gravity to be right or wrong. Over the past 1,668 years, the God Lords were the rules of the world.
Yet in the future, ambiguous justice would meet its definition, and only a single standard would remain in the world: the will of the Sorcery Supreme!
Just then, the extraction bottle produced a vial of starlight-speckled potion.
'Super-Large Knowledge Essence: Drinking condenses a massive volume of knowledge void wings.'
Dead Frenzy said, "Drink this bottle, and it will be enough to condense your first-tier Hell void wings, with plenty to spare."
Yaxiu found it incredible. "That easy?"
He had only been in Hell for a single day, and he was already hitting the minimum threshold to clear it?
Dead Frenzy poked him with the staff. "This contains the lifelong accumulation of thirteen demigods, plus the crystal cores of an entire clan of rain demons. If a good deal hadn't naturally dissipated over the past week or so, it would definitely have refined into knowledge essence capable of condensing second-tier void wings straight away."
Yaxiu casually moved to snatch the staff, yet his fingers passed right through Dead Frenzy's palm. Dead Frenzy shot him a disdainful look, the corner of her lips curling slightly into an expression that said: *The moment you lift your tail, I already know what business you're about to do.*
She spat out her burnt-out cigarette butt, which happened to scald the back of Yaxiu's hand, though it vanished before it even hit the ground. She could do whatever she pleased to Yaxiu, but Yaxiu couldn't touch her no matter what.
Then she lit another cigarette and said, "Drink the essence. Don't worry about Sonia and the others missing out. Once we ransack a few more strongholds, there won't be any problem getting all of you second-tier void wings.
"This is the fun of salvaging a civilization," she chuckled softly. "The resources of an entire civilization used to nourish just a few individuals. What you should worry about is whether you have enough time to digest such a massive accumulation."
Yaxiu nodded and downed the knowledge essence in one gulp.
He felt his heart thump violently, and then a wave of agony struck him as if his body were being pulverized into countless fragments by an iron hammer, or being torn apart alive into shredded pieces. But as the knowledge essence flowed, his shattered pieces glued back together. The spiritual agony was instantly replaced by the supreme ecstasy of the soul reuniting. Furthermore, because of this reconstruction, the knowledge essence integrated fully into his soul, transforming into his power.
Fortunately, he was in a soul projection rather than having descended with his soul body. Experiencing ultimate agony followed by ultimate pleasure in the span of a single second triggered such an intense physiological reaction that Yaxiu clutched his arms and panted heavily, his earlobes flushing a soft peach pink, nearly losing his footing and collapsing into a squat.
Dead Frenzy watched him out of the corner of her eye and said casually, "You could try drinking knowledge essence together with the girls. You might spend a wild night together... though it's just as likely they'd beat you up out of embarrassment."
"I would never do that!" Yaxiu snapped crossly. With a flick of his right hand, void wings unfurled one after another across his back! Silver void wings, golden void wings, rainbow void wings, sword-colored void wings, variegated sword wings resembling a tail, and a pair of pitch-black, flame-draped Hell wings covered in four-colored fractures!
This was a sorcerer's fifth set of void wings—Hell void wings! In just one night, he had condensed his first-tier Hell wings!
Although a first-tier Hell wing was barely the threshold—stackable up to six tiers or even infinitely—in the literal sense, he was now officially a demigod sorcerer!
"Sure enough, your Hell wings are multicolored," Dead Frenzy observed.
"Multicolored?"
"When you condense Hell wings using knowledge essence, the essence automatically allocates feather attributes based on your sorcery realms," Dead Frenzy explained. "Your attainments in swordsmanship, time, truth, and soul factions are practically neck and neck, with swordsmanship only having a slight edge. As a result, the colors of your Hell wings are almost evenly divided, preventing you from specializing in any single one.
"While it's virtually impossible for a demigod's Hell wings to be monochromatic, they typically have one primary color and one secondary color while ignoring the other stray tints. But you're advancing four colors simultaneously. In theory, your wings would need to be four times longer than other demigods' just for a single sorcery's power to match someone else's equivalent level."
"Isn't that because of the bond system you created, making me share sorcery experience with everyone else and leading to advancing four colors together?" Yaxiu said, feeling somewhat helpless. "Honestly, I don't even need that many sorcery factions. Swordsmanship is basically enough."
Dead Frenzy glanced at him. "We didn't expect you to actually raise everyone's bonds so high either. In our initial assumption, aside from reaching Bond 4 with Sonia, you were supposed to be at Bond 2 with everyone else.
"Even if you didn't like Sonia and preferred Diya, Weise, or even Vichy, it still should have been a situation of one primary and three secondaries. Your sorceries would still have had a dominant color that wouldn't impede the condensing of your Hell wings. And now..." Speaking up to this point, Dead Frenzy herself felt somewhat helpless.
Yaxiu rubbed his cheek, feeling a bit bashful. "I'm not that amazing..."
This time, Dead Frenzy didn't just want to spit a cigarette butt at him—she wanted to spit right in his face. "Do you actually think I'm complimenting you?!"
Yaxiu asked, "Wait, what about the soul faction? Vichy's soul realm didn't level up, did it?"
Dead Frenzy threw up her hands. "When Vichy summoned the god, she gained a massive amount of soul comprehension. At that moment, your bond with her temporarily spiked to Level 5, causing your soul realm to shoot up instantly as well... Did you forget that her Soul Lock God was summoned with your help?"
Yaxiu's face flushed red. He took two quick strides past Dead Frenzy so she wouldn't see his expression, stiffly changing the subject: "You mentioned earlier that besides demigods, there were also rain demons... What are rain demons anyway?"
"Demigod creatures of Hell. They resemble giant bears, walk upright, and are born with 'Dark Ruin Claws' that can tear through any defense—as long as their gaze locks onto a target, they can easily rip open even space-time barriers. Under rainy weather, their movement speed reaches supersonic velocities, and they can move while ignoring any barrier. Paired with Dark Ruin Claws, a demigod who isn't careful could very well be torn to shreds on the spot, which is why they are called rain demons." Dead Frenzy paused. "Their weaknesses are that they move slowly, rely entirely on melee attacks, and depend strictly on rainy conditions. But for demigod sorcerers, changing the weather is child's play. Thus, rain demon clans have to ally with sorcerers, or hostile demigods would easily wipe them out.
"Still, regardless of whether demigod creatures have weaknesses or not, sorcerers can drive them to extinction whenever they wish. That's why every creature clan in Hell shelters under a sorcerer organization, differing only in the degree to which they are exploited. There might be solitary, wandering demigod creatures, but there are never independent, self-governing creature clans."
"It feels kind of like Hell's natives getting invaded by demons from the outside..." Yaxiu mumbled.
Yet he knew this was entirely normal. For instance, the Time Continent originally harbored an ancient elf clan that could cultivate into sorcerers themselves, but in the end, sorcerers slaughtered them to extinction.
The Knowledge Sea, Distant Sky Realm, and even Ruby Mountain probably had native races as well. But under the ceaseless, ruthless exploitation of sorcerers, they either went extinct or dutifully migrated to reality to scramble for living space with mortals. What could have been a wonderfully fantastical Void Realm filled with diverse races had been slaughtered until nothing remained except sorcerers engaging in endless rat races among themselves.
He pushed open the castle gates. Though the grand hall inside was in complete disarray, a great deal of treasure had been left behind—such as several crates packed full of source crystals!
Dead Frenzy chuckled softly. "Your luck isn't bad. They hadn't used up all their source crystals before dying."
"How come there are only a hundred or so?" Yaxiu took a quick inventory and raised an eyebrow. "Isn't this a major faction in the First Hell? Only this much liquid capital?"
Dead Frenzy shrugged. "That's already pretty good. Source crystals are strategic resources for every demigod, and wars in Hell are frequent. Every battle burns through source crystals. Add to that their low output, and hoarding this many shows that 'Wind Erosion' hasn't faced serious challenges from other factions for over a century."
"Speaking of which, how are source crystals actually produced?" Yaxiu recalled the question. "Is there something like a source crystal mine or resource node?"
Dead Frenzy looked at him, thought for a moment, and said, "If you put it that way... you wouldn't be entirely wrong.
"You know, humans can produce resources themselves," she said suddenly. "Take bodily waste, for example; with certain processing, it can be turned into biogas energy."
Yaxiu froze, staring at the source crystal in his hand with a face full of horror. "Could it be—"
"No, it's not that disgusting," Dead Frenzy laughed. "Source crystals are born from the respiration of Hell wings."
"The respiration of Hell wings?"
"Ordinary void wings can replenish sorcery power by drawing directly from the Void Realm, but Hell wings cannot restore source power that way. Source power doesn't exist in the Void Realm at all; it's a law energy refined from knowledge by Hell wings," Dead Frenzy explained. "And refining inevitably incurs loss. When that loss accumulates, it forms source crystals. It's just like Hell wings breathing—inhaling knowledge, exhaling source crystals, and retaining source power.
"So, demigods themselves are source crystal resource nodes. If you were willing to stay in the same place for several decades, one day you'd discover source crystals cropping up around you.
"Besides that, although creature clans cannot produce source crystals, when sorcerers live together with them, they increase the sorcerers' efficiency in generating source crystals," Dead Frenzy added. "That's another reason why demigod sorcerers tend to form small organizations and are willing to harbor creature clans—large organizations have high crystal production rates, but your turn never comes, whereas a small organization has steady crystal production and guarantees you get a share."
Yaxiu blinked. "So sorcery spirits really can't be exchanged for source crystals, huh..."
"Did you really think there'd be such a bargain?" The corner of Dead Frenzy's mouth twitched.
Yaxiu looked at the clusters of plants in the wooden crates beside him. Although he couldn't identify them, anyone could see that these glowing, light-entwined flora were no mere decorations. "What are these, then?"
"Wolfblood Swordgrass, Twin Flowers, Half-Rim Leaf, Dragon Lily..." Dead Frenzy glanced at them. "Alchemical materials. They can serve as rations for gods, or be refined into knowledge essences of specific sorcery factions. Shove them all into the extraction bottle."
Yaxiu sighed from the bottom of his heart. "The alchemy faction really is useful in so many places..."
"Alchemy has been a prominent, top-tier discipline since ancient times—until a God Lord primarily specializing in alchemy appeared, the Lord of Gold, after which it fell into decline."
"Huh?" Yaxiu was taken aback. "An alchemical God Lord appeared, yet the sorcery faction declined instead?"
Dead Frenzy nodded. "The Lord of Gold inherited the legacy of the ancient God Lord of Commerce, rising at an unbelievable speed within thirty years and elevating her Kingdom of Heaven. She summoned a god that altered the entire world—'All-Powerful Money.'
"Once that god was born, the world's rules shifted accordingly. From then on, all mystic elements in reality converged onto gold and silver, allowing sorcery spirits to be fed purely on gold and silver. But the price was that reality basically stopped producing alchemical materials altogether. Wielding the All-Powerful Money god, the Lord of Gold could even cause enemy gods to defect simply by scattering money."
Yaxiu felt puzzled. "Why have I never heard of her name?"
"Because the moment she elevated her Kingdom of Heaven, she was slaughtered by Blood Moon, Stars, and Endless."
Dead Frenzy stated calmly, "The Lord of Gold rose to power through management and commerce, yet forgot that sorcerer battles always draw blood with every blade. A sorcerer who lacks combat power can only ever march from one hell into another."
Chapter 1062