On the way to Sea Return Palace, Yaxiu and Dead Frenzy remained silent throughout the journey, as though the earlier harmony had merely been an act put on at a masquerade. Now that their masks were off, they naturally returned to their respective stances. They were observer and victim, schemer and pawn, future mind and past body—perhaps even king and mount.
Yaxiu didn't know why he wanted to get on good terms with Dead Frenzy either. Perhaps it was because Dead Frenzy cared about Sonia, and he happened to be Sonia's boyfriend-fan—shared affections could always bridge gaps imperceptibly. Or perhaps it was because when he had entered Shattered Lake Prison like drifting duckweed, it was Dead Frenzy who had appeared before his eyes, dispelling the confusion and loneliness in his heart like a blazing sun.
So even though Dead Frenzy told him, "We will replace you," Yaxiu still believed there was room for leeway, that there was still the possibility of coexisting. This wasn't arrogance on his part, but because aside from Dead Frenzy's blunt malice, he could also sense a faint benevolence.
Even now, Yaxiu believed Dead Frenzy genuinely cared about Sonia. Although one could view it through the cynical theory that Dead Frenzy merely wanted her future vessel to develop properly, he disliked thinking that way about the mortal world—there was always unprompted love, and sudden encounters.
Yet precisely because her goodwill was completely undisguised, her malice was just as brazen.
Because she disliked Vichy, and because "Silent Drizzle" suited Vichy, she destroyed the spectacle without caring in the least how much help it could have offered Yaxiu and the others, as if waiting to enjoy Yaxiu's fury to gratify her spiteful heart.
Only then did Yaxiu realize that although Dead Frenzy seemed easy enough to communicate with, she was in fact the exact same kind of person as Nether Demon and the others. Not in the sense of where their morals lay, but because they were all thorough egoists. Walking against the flow of time through endless vagrancy with no end in sight, they had witnessed the birth and demise of world after world and buried countless glorious civilizations. In their eyes, life was merely foam upon the sea; without anyone doing a thing, it would vanish on its own. All the beauty in the world would dissipate like mist, and the only thing they could hold onto was themselves.
It sounded a lot like Vichy. Perhaps it wasn't that people inevitably turned into that if they lived long enough, but rather that only by being like that could one live for so long. For people like them, the only justice they recognized was their own will. To please themselves, they dared trample upon all laws in the world.
Sword Princess and the others showed signs of this now too, but even the most self-centered Silver Lantern still agonized over the living beings of Senluo who had died because of her. While Vichy was an irredeemable egoist, Yaxiu could at least hold the chains to restrain her actions, injecting emotion and tinting her soul, like a cage keeping Vichy confined within his embrace. He knew he could never rebuild Vichy's moral compass in this lifetime, but at least Vichy had begun to care about his opinion.
Even so, Vichy still occasionally blurted out outrageous remarks that pushed his boundaries. Yaxiu didn't know whether she spoke carelessly or was testing him, but whenever she did, Yaxiu would immediately discipline her relentlessly. Initially the educational discipline worked quite well, and Vichy consciously watched her words and actions, but recently she had grown brazen again, taking the initiative to adopt the imposing aura of the Spectre Prophet to provoke Yaxiu, only to beg for mercy pitifully after being disciplined—which always gave Yaxiu the feeling that a custom-tailored form of interaction had developed between them.
He would become Vichy's second chain.
Dead Frenzy, however, never had any chains. She was an unrestrained demon king who did whatever she pleased. Yaxiu didn't want to waste precious Hell time, so he chose silence.
To love someone is to wish them life; to hate someone is to wish them death.
Because if he continued talking to Dead Frenzy, he could hardly guarantee he wouldn't draw his sword and fight her to the death. Sometimes it was just like that: friends who should have hit it off at first sight became irreconcilable enemies in another time and place.
"We're here," Dead Frenzy suddenly said.
A hazy glow appeared in the deep sea ahead. Yaxiu thought it was a light source inside Sea Return Palace, but as he flew swiftly through and burst through the water's surface with a splash, dry air rushed against his face.
This was the only island in Deep Blue Hell... if something not on the sea surface could also be called an island.
He looked up. His gaze passed unobstructed through a circular opening in the deep sea three thousand meters above, clearly seeing the inverted celestial canopy of the outside world. It was as if they had arrived at the bottom of a three-thousand-meter-deep abyss, except this abyss was not set amidst towering mountains, but in the depths of tens of millions of tons of seawater, its walls waterfalls formed of black seawater... Yaxiu landed on the ground, treading cautiously upon the soft, damp sea mud, as if afraid of disturbing the walls of seawater standing all around.
Yaxiu looked up and saw the palace built above the trench ahead—or rather than a palace, a giant fortress—now left in broken ruins and crumbling walls, far more dilapidated than any palace he had seen along the way.
Dead Frenzy had once said that Sea Return Palace's core defensive spectacle, "Sea Return Ocean Current," integrated the barrier with the ocean, boasting that as long as Deep Blue Hell did not dry up, it could never be breached. But seeing it now, there had been no need to evaporate the sea; cutting off Sea Return Palace from contact with seawater had been enough to break it. Compared to evaporating the whole sea, creating an island three thousand meters deep in the ocean was indeed much simpler.
Vines coiled like tentacles around the palace complex, preventing it from touching the sea mud, while seawater surrounded it like walls without letting a single drop of water touch it. This hell fortress, regarded as the "Pearl of Deep Blue," had concentrated the water sorcery essence of Hell's demigods over thousands of years, yet in the end it had died of thirst in the deep sea like a salted fish.
"Merely cutting off contact between Sea Return Palace and the seawater above would have been meaningless, because Sea Return Palace could still connect to the water through the seabed, yet even that was breached," Dead Frenzy pointed at the thick vines in the sea mud and said calmly. "A super-large-scale miracle of Flora excavated Sea Return Palace from below. Whether toward the sky or into the earth, 'Sea Return Ocean Current' had its connection to the sea completely severed."
It seemed as though a design flaw of Sea Return Palace had simply been targeted and broken, but the problem was that it being broken at all was already unbelievable—could the demigods inside not fight back? By estimation, most of the demigods in Deep Blue Hell were probably gathered inside Sea Return Palace. A single demigod could alter the geography of the land; a group of demigods was enough to turn Hell upside down.
As Yaxiu and Dead Frenzy approached Sea Return Palace, what first caught their eye were silhouettes of monsters upon the walls. Most were common Void Realm creatures like Shadow Evil Dragons, Foxlantern Dragons, and Fish-Slaying Dragons, but a few looked like guardian spirit creatures such as Resentful Blazing Dragons and Bronze Dragons. Though called silhouettes, they looked more like the scorched marks left behind after being baked to death by a blazing sun.
"Looks like they didn't want to run anymore and intended to defend Sea Return Palace to the death," Dead Frenzy glanced at them and said. "The Owlcat Palace Master's Heavenly spectacle, 'Grafted Wings,' allows sorcerers to directly drain the origin of Void Realm creatures, converting it into Void Wings to temporarily augment themselves. Sea Return Palace was already the largest sanctuary for Void Realm creatures, and when everyone retreated to Sea Return Palace, quite a few Void Realm creatures must have followed them. They were probably all drained dry, leaving only these lingering traces of resentment."
"They..." Yaxiu's lips parted slightly, but he stopped after just one word.
He fell silent for a moment, then asked, "Will Sword Princess and the others' guardian spirits be in danger?"
Dead Frenzy shook her head. "Their guardian spirits have all undergone Metamorphosis. Other demigods can tell at a glance that those guardian spirits are pets with masters and will generally steer clear. There are so many Void Realm creatures anyway; there's no need to mess with someone else's pet, and demigods don't want to make enemies either."
She paused, then added, "When these species accepted the shelter of sorcerers, they were destined to be sacrificed in moments of life and death. Almost all of them signed master-servant contracts and cannot resist. Otherwise, why would they willingly serve as mortal sorcerers' guardian spirits? Isn't it precisely in the hope that sorcerers would treat them better once they stepped into Hell?"
The two stepped into the central courtyard and saw the crystals of knowledge left behind after the demigods' deaths everywhere. Yaxiu roughly estimated that at least dozens of demigods had died here. In the center, several massive storage pools had been temporarily constructed, filled with a large amount of source crystals. These were strategic resources that even demigods normally had to budget meticulously, yet now they were left here for anyone to use freely. Yaxiu walked over and took a look; although most had already been consumed, several hundred source crystals still remained.
The Deep Blue demigods truly went all out; even at the cost of everything they owned, they sought to defend the final bastion. What a pity that up to the moment of their deaths, they hadn't used up all these resources. Were they unable to escape, or unwilling to leave their home?
"What did they encounter?"
"The Forgotten Ones." Dead Frenzy paused, then added, "Tens of thousands of Forgotten Ones."
"Why?" Yaxiu put the gems into the Extraction Flask and stored the source items into his Soul Kingdom of Heaven, like an undertaker collecting bones. "Why were they attacked by the Forgotten Ones? I thought the moment the World-Devouring Serpent swallowed Hell, it was already over."
"Sea Return Palace is finished," Dead Frenzy said calmly.
Yet in the end, they could only watch helplessly as Sea Return Palace fell. The fall of Sea Return Palace was not the beginning of the war, but its end.
"Ouroboros needs to clear Hell empty before it can complete the swallowing. Shad is the most delicious fish I've ever eaten, but unfortunately full of bones," Dead Frenzy said calmly. "Do you pick out the bones to eat the flesh, or smash the fish to mush just to get rid of the bones?"
Yaxiu understood immediately. Ouroboros could indeed directly slaughter all demigods in the Sixfold Hell, but doing so would destroy or heavily damage the Sixfold Hell. The Forgotten Ones were simply the bone-picking tools it sent to pluck out every stubborn demigod bone that refused to die obediently.
He said, "I thought Ouroboros had the power to directly eliminate all demigods in Hell..."
Dead Frenzy was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Do you think the Void Realm has a consciousness?"
Yaxiu glanced at her. "Does the Prime Angel count as the Void Realm's consciousness? If not, then no."
"The textbook answer is no," Dead Frenzy said. "The Void Realm is merely a giant chaotic system. Even if it occasionally shows favoritism or dislike, that's just a fleeting peak of a chaotic system. That's why the Void Realm can't resist being swallowed by Ouroboros, just as grass can't resist being eaten.
"But the reality is, it does have a consciousness. In areas where its consciousness roams, the world is like a thrashing octopus. Even if Ouroboros eats it, it cannot digest it, and must first purify its consciousness."
Yaxiu caught on immediately. "Sorcerers are the Void Realm's consciousness?"
"I prefer that phrasing, but the Observer leaned toward 'sorcerers are the Void Realm's parasites,'" Dead Frenzy said. "In the process of stealing from the Void Realm, sorcerers naturally forged an unimaginably tight connection with it. The clearest evidence is that the development of sorcery directly affects changes in the Void Realm's environment—sorcerers are like external brains of the Void Realm, drawing sustenance from it while feeding back knowledge.
"The Void Realm doesn't care about small parasites, but large parasites above demigods severely threaten its health, which is why the chaotic system evolved mechanisms like tribulations to purge them. Yet precisely because these large parasites exist, Ouroboros cannot completely swallow the Sixfold Hell; the Void Realm still holds sway over this world."
Yaxiu felt a tremendous sense of absurdity—the diseased lesions that the Void Realm wished nothing more than to eradicate, the 'sorcerers,' had instead become the vanguard resisting Ouroboros. Ouroboros was like a cannibalistic doctor who feasted greedily on each treated part while healing the Void Realm.
Dead Frenzy looked at him, took a deep drag, exhaled a smoke ring, and said, "Take out the twenty-sided die."
Yaxiu paused, rummaging through his inventory for a while before finding the Prince of Joy's Twenty-Sided Die. This item had been used during operative training so that assigning operatives to entertainment could still grant them sorcery experience. However, after Senluo, Yaxiu had stopped meddling in Sword Princess and the others' training plans, so this item had naturally been forgotten deep in the warehouse.
The moment he brought it out, the numbers on the die lit up one by one. Seconds later, all twenty faces were illuminated. At the same time, phantoms of sorcerers appeared around him: a weathered elf warrior, a cold human archer, a mad two-headed ogre, a despairing orc... The final moments of their lives replayed before Yaxiu's eyes. Coincidentally, there were exactly twenty demigods, and numbers from one to twenty floated above them.
"Roll the die, and you can obtain all the sorcery experience of one of the demigods. All of it is stored within the die, up to twenty at most. You can absorb it yourself, or share it with others." She paused, then added, "You're the Four Pillar Gods' feeler. If you have someone chosen in advance, tell the die directly, and it will probably listen to you."
Yaxiu froze, then looked around at the sorcerer phantoms surrounding him, his gaze finally focusing on the elf sorcerer numbered 16. Holding the die to his lips and murmuring silently, he cast it. The die bounced in the air several times until "16" appeared on top, where it abruptly halted.
Dead Frenzy watched as the elf sorcerer's phantom was sucked into the die, dyeing the number "16" an eerie blue. She turned her head away and scoffed, "A soul demigod after all. You really do love her."
Yaxiu probed into the die with his mind and immediately sensed the vast ocean of soul sorcery knowledge within. Naturally, he wouldn't absorb it right now. Stowing the die away, he asked, "Why are you only telling me the die's proper use now?"
"Because you need at least twenty dead demigods to use the die once." Dead Frenzy crossed her arms over her chest. "Not enough people died in Barren Hell."
"Do you have many items like this die?"
"Of course. When you bury civilizations often enough, you naturally invent all sorts of tools to improve the efficiency of extracting marrow from bones."
Yaxiu watched this scene and suddenly asked, "The power of the Four Pillar Gods can still interfere with the Sixfold Hell?"
"Did you think that everything you drew from Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook was deliberately arranged by us?"
Dead Frenzy shook her head. "We only intervene at critical moments. Otherwise, it really comes down to your luck, randomly drawing from the massive reward pool we prepared for you. Items like the die and the Extraction Flask were drawn entirely by yourself. After Ouroboros arrived, the reward pool was shut down." Dead Frenzy casually flicked off the cigarette ash. "If every timeline is an isolated island, the reward pool is a treasure hidden on another deserted isle. An item you draw yourself is like fishing up treasure with a rod; it won't attract any attention. But for us to forcefully intervene and shove something to you is smuggling, which leaves traces. Every single smuggle draws Ouroboros's attention, so we've always carefully controlled the frequency of our smuggling. Now Ouroboros has surrounded your world, like an isolated island placed under total blockade. Whether fishing or smuggling, neither is possible anymore."
Yaxiu said, "If I draw now—"
"If you're counting on them, you might as well count on Supreme Stars blowing up Ouroboros."
Yaxiu sighed inwardly. Composing himself, he explained, "The soul knowledge in the die, I intend for the four of us to split equally. Ascending to God-Leader purely through sorcery realm isn't possible; strengthening our shortcomings as much as possible fits our survival needs far better."
"Why tell me this?" Dead Frenzy cut her eyes at him. "Though Vichy's soul faction isn't a shortcoming—"
"You were the one who said to strengthen our shortcomings."
Yaxiu looked bewildered. "Did you expect me to distribute soul knowledge only among Sword Princess's trio, leaving Vichy out?"
Dead Frenzy's expression turned cold. "Try using that excuse in front of Sonia and see if she's satisfied."
"Then I'll just give her my share, alright?" Yaxiu couldn't help but raise his voice. "Are you satisfied now?"
Dead Frenzy froze, staring wide-eyed at his back.
The two locked eyes for a moment. Yaxiu took a deep breath to suppress the annoyance in his heart, turned his head away, and continued scavenging. "I wasn't asking for your advice."
Yaxiu nodded and asked no further. He pushed open the grand doors of Sea Return Palace and saw it stacked full of all kinds of sorcery resources: mana-conducting seaweed, spirit-fiend stones, spellmark pearls... Although water sorcery predominated, once placed into the Extraction Flask, they could all turn into non-elemental knowledge essence. Inside the cavernous palace, only the sounds of rummaging through boxes and cabinets echoed. The demigods had moved most of Deep Blue Hell's accumulated wealth to Sea Return Palace, so Yaxiu only had to sweep it all up, like a scavenger picking through trash in the wasteland. To him, the greatest significance of the Soul Kingdom of Heaven was its near-limitless capacity; he truly was a literal garbage bin.
The Extraction Flask could aid the condensation of hell wings, and the twenty-sided die could extract demigods' sorcery experience. Just these two items alone could allow Yaxiu and the others to advance by leaps and bounds in their cultivation. Furthermore, the Doomsday Quartet not only possessed even more body-harvesting items, but had also buried the civilizations of many timelines... Even purely relying on stockpiled resources, they could approach the theoretical limit of a sorcerer.
Yet the more Yaxiu understood the immense might of the Doomsday Quartet, the harder it was to imagine the terror of the World-Devouring Serpent. Could the Stars he placed such high hopes in truly save this world that had already had a bite taken out of it?
"Actually, there's no need to go through all this trouble. When my exploration time is almost up, just ask me for it, and I'll give it to you," Yaxiu added a Tribulation to the back of his hand and said coldly. "Consider it the price I pay for my own naivety."
"Can't you just summon millions of Forgotten Ones to besiege me?" Yaxiu opened a Tribulation Treasure Box and murmured, "Then I'd have to surrender another 25% of my mind."
"Aren't you going to give it to me?"
Dead Frenzy fell silent for a long time, not uttering another word. She merely took a quiet drag on her cigarette, and half the stick turned to ash in an instant, falling to the ground.
"Then shut up." Dead Frenzy relit a cigarette. "I have no interest in listening to your nonsense anyway..."
"Why haven't the Forgotten Ones appeared yet?" Yaxiu suddenly murmured to himself.
"They only appear if you stay too long," Dead Frenzy said casually. "Give it another moment and they might—"
Chapter 1142