When Yaxiu reached the lowest hall of Sea Return Palace, he saw no spectacles, sorcery spirits, or resources. Instead, he saw only that this grand, solemn hall had been haphazardly cleared to make an open space. Chairs and bookshelves were all piled into the corners, and above the cleared space hung an enormous void rift.
"What is this?" Yaxiu asked. After waiting a long time without receiving a reply, he turned his head and saw Dead Frenzy leaning against the wall behind him, smoking a cigarette, as if she couldn't hear him speak at all. Her eyes didn't even meet his.
Yaxiu didn't press the matter. Flicking his fingers, he shot out eight beams of sword light, forming a cube that enclosed the void rift within. At the same time, a book materialized before him. As his origin power drained rapidly, inscribed golden lettering gradually appeared across its pages!
Spectacle: Gospel Book!
Before entering Hell this time, everyone—including Vichy—had offered to temporarily lend their gods to Yaxiu, but Yaxiu hadn't taken a single one. It wasn't that he insisted on making things harder for himself, but rather that wielding a god inherently required accumulated experience over time. Every god was a specialized tool holding infinite possibilities. Aside from the Shattered Lake God, which Yaxiu had some confidence in using properly, he wouldn't even know how to use the three gods Fairy Tale, Gospel, and Soul Lock even if he had them. They wouldn't be nearly as handy as his own spectacles. Still, Yaxiu hadn't come completely unprepared. Intelligence was the most important asset when exploring Hell, so he had asked his operators to help him construct a reconnaissance and prophecy spectacle. The Witch, Silver Lantern, and Vichy had spent more than half a month constructing the low-tier spectacle "Gospel Book" for him.
In a single phrase, the Gospel Book could be summed up as an avatar of the Gospel God. The premise for this spectacle's operation was that the Witch opened herself up to Yaxiu without restriction, allowing Yaxiu to channel the Gospel God's power through this spectacle to conduct reconnaissance and analysis.
Prophecy had always been one of the most difficult arcane factions, and they possessed hardly any prophecy sorcery spirits. If they were to construct a proper prophecy spectacle from scratch, the time required would be measured in years at the very least. It was far better to find a way for the Witch to assist remotely; as long as it worked, that was all that mattered.
It was worth mentioning that by virtue of helping Yaxiu construct this spectacle, all three of them—the Witch, Silver Lantern, and Vichy—had earned an opportunity to redeem any service from Yaxiu free of charge. In for a penny, in for a pound, they had immediately thrown a party. Only the Sword Princess, unable to help because she knew nothing of the prophecy faction, naturally couldn't join in. Before that, however, the Sword Princess had taken first place in their sorcery training for more than half a month straight, monopolizing Yaxiu entirely and giving the Witch and the others zero chance to approach him—making the Witch and the others practically green with envy. Thus, the three of them were clearly looking to spite the Sword Princess, and even Yaxiu had found it hard to object.
After a dozen-odd seconds of delay spanning from the mortal realm to Hell, the Gospel Book finally displayed the intelligence on the void rift. Yaxiu scanned it and exclaimed in surprise, "A Hell portal? Weren't we told that you can only travel through Hell using tribulations?!"
Dead Frenzy couldn't resist saying, "Only when more than one demigod expends tribulations at the exact same time to head to the Third Hell will the torn hell passages temporarily merge, forming a Hell portal that lasts for three seconds."
"Three seconds."
Dead Frenzy didn't reply to him, nor did Yaxiu mind. He scanned the surroundings to confirm nothing had been missed, then raised his left hand to glance at the eye marks on the back of it. Over the course of their scavenging, he had found a total of four tribulations; after one trip to the Third Hell, he would still have one left over. Sea Return Palace had amassed the vast majority of Deep Blue Hell's resources; now that they had swept Sea Return Palace clean, the Second Hell held no further value for exploration.
Yet just as Yaxiu prepared to tear open the spatial rift, Dead Frenzy suddenly spoke up: "Don't teleport here."
"Why can't we teleport to their stronghold?"
Dead Frenzy bit down on her cigarette, reluctantly letting several words slip past the corner of her lips. "There is another reason they gathered to teleport together: someone among them definitely possessed the spatial coordinates of a sorcerer stronghold in the Third Hell. Teleporting en masse allowed everyone to fix their destination to that stronghold. This spatial rift carries a homing effect. If you teleport from here, you'll tear open the rift anew and arrive directly inside their stronghold."
Yaxiu understood what Dead Frenzy meant. The coronation ceremony of the Divine Lord of Stars had been a grand pageant broadcast across the entire Void Realm. Countless people had witnessed him sharing the Supreme Holy Grail with Fanxing before she ascended to the Supreme rank. Yet despite possessing half of the Supreme Holy Grail, he wasn't even a God-Leader—he was practically a Lalafell clutching a blood diamond.
Hell's demigods had long coveted him. If he dropped into their stronghold, then under immense survival pressure and tantalizing gain, the sole reason the demigods wouldn't carve him up and devour him would be if they were picky eaters.
Dead Frenzy laughed out of pure exasperation. "Has your brain gone soft from soaking in white slime? Don't you know which is more dangerous to you—the Forgotten Ones or Hell's demigods?! If you're so eager to throw your life away, be my guest!"
Yet after thinking it over, Yaxiu decisively used his right hand to slice across the three eye marks on the back of his left hand. The marks rapidly expanded into a fissure that merged directly into the void rift. Before Yaxiu could even react, half his body was sucked inside.
"Can you stop being so childish?!" Beside herself with fury, Dead Frenzy spat out her cigarette butt and lunged forward to grab his hand, seemingly trying to pull him back. Yaxiu caught her wrist in reverse, cast a calm glance at her, and without offering any explanation, dragged her straight through the rift, departing the Second Hell.
This time, they didn't land in the deep sea or molten lava. The opposite side of the rift opened into the interior hall of a building as well—plush, opulent Rain Demon carpeting, a luxurious and exquisite starry chandelier, and a gentle, melancholy symphony washing over their ears. It was as though they had stepped into the ballroom of high aristocracy, preparing to dance a waltz together.
Yet the rotted food on the dining table made it starkly clear that this place had long been abandoned, without even someone left to clean up. Overturned chairs, shattered plates, fallen wine glasses—every single detail conveyed to Yaxiu's eyes that this had been a banquet abruptly cut short, one from which no one had ever returned.
Dead Frenzy picked up an unopened bottle of wine from nearby, drew her sword to slice off the neck, and took a swig of wine followed by a drag of smoke. "A welcoming banquet turned into the final meal before a military expedition," she said. "Presumably, demigods from Deep Blue Hell teleported over, and the people here hosted a banquet for them. Then something happened—if I'm not mistaken, Sea Return Palace fell completely, the Second Hell was fully digested by Ouroboros, and the army of Forgotten Ones began assaulting the Third Hell. This place is the front line of that war."
"Which means all the surviving demigods went to the Third Hell," Yaxiu murmured. "But if they could run, why did anyone stay behind?"
"Are you disappointed that you didn't get to wage an epic battle against the demigods of Hell?" She turned to look at Yaxiu with a cold sneer. "Makes sense. Quietly scavenging through Hell really is too boring; how could it compare to slaughtering your way through? If you don't butcher a few demigods to liven up the mood, wouldn't your shiny new toys and spectacles go to waste?"
Yaxiu ignored Dead Frenzy's mockery. He looked around to confirm there were no living souls in the vicinity, felt a twinge of disappointment, and walked straight out of the banquet hall.
When he pushed open the hall doors, what greeted his eyes was a castle coated in white frost—statues, ceilings, windows, and floors all dyed a ghastly, deathly white. The only things spared from the white frost were the glittering knowledge gems strewn across the floor... the ashes left behind by demigods upon death.
Dead Frenzy was right: this was the war's front line. The demigods had stepped into their graves the moment they walked out of the banquet hall.
"Don't waste time; just stuff them all into the refining bottles," Dead Frenzy remarked with a slight frown. "The war might not be over yet. There's danger in the air."
Yaxiu scraped a bit of the white frost off the wall. Surprisingly, it had the granular feel of salt, yet felt like fingernails to the touch. He crouched down to clean the frost off the knowledge gems and slipped them into the refining bottles one by one.
An inexplicable fury smoldered in his gut; if only to spite Dead Frenzy, Yaxiu was tempted to keep wasting time here. But he quickly suppressed this ill-timed defiance, abandoned gathering the remaining knowledge gems, and walked away with brisk strides.
Patience was not in her nature. When Yaxiu suddenly came to a halt, Dead Frenzy could no longer restrain the irritation in her voice, which reeked of the sulfuric stench before a volcanic eruption: "What is it now?!"
What had stopped Yaxiu in his tracks was a coffin.
Because it was covered in white frost and rested alongside the passage, Dead Frenzy had mistaken it for a rectangular sofa at first glance, but a closer look revealed it to be a coffin.
She saw Yaxiu staring at a few knowledge gems resting atop the sofa... No, that wasn't it.
Paying Dead Frenzy no heed, he reached out and wiped away the white frost atop the coffin, revealing the sandalwood beneath. Gripping the edge of the lid, he shoved it open with violent force. The lid crashed to the floor with a loud clatter, covering the knowledge gems on the ground.
The inside of the coffin was empty. There was nothing at all.
Dead Frenzy vaguely sensed something. Glancing at the empty coffin, she asked, "Can we go now?"
Yaxiu shook his head and turned his gaze toward the coffin lid on the floor.
"Hm?"
Dead Frenzy watched his back, the irritation in her eyes burning hotter and hotter.
Dropping onto one knee, he reached out to grasp a corner of the coffin lid. Dead Frenzy watched as he seemed to freeze in place, as though the wooden plank weighed thousands of jin, pinning his hand motionless.
A few seconds later, Yaxiu jerked his hand up, flipping the coffin lid over onto its back. With a sharp snap, it scattered the nearby white frost.
Dead Frenzy stepped over and looked down, discovering a line of text carved on the underside of the lid:
"Yaxiu and Annan are lovers. Annan and Qinna are mother and daughter. Qinna and Yaxiu are lovers. Qinna and Nuona are sisters..."
He took one look and instantly sprang to his feet, his center of gravity faltering as he stumbled backward several paces. His ankle caught on some debris and he nearly tumbled down; his back hit the wall and slid slowly downward until he sat collapsed on the frost-covered floor. He hung his head, looking down at the ground and gasping heavily for breath, as though something had seized his throat and clenched around his heart.
In an exceedingly rare display, Dead Frenzy did not urge him on, waiting quietly by his side.
Dead Frenzy cast a glance at Yaxiu, remained silent for a moment, and turned to walk back toward the banquet hall. A moment later, she returned carrying the wine bottle. Standing beside Yaxiu, she took a sip of wine and a puff of smoke.
A lit cigarette was held out to Yaxiu's lips. He raised his eyes to meet Dead Frenzy's blood-red gaze. After a moment of silence, Yaxiu didn't reach out to take it with his fingers; instead, he took the filter directly into his mouth and inhaled, letting the rich smoke sting his throat. It was the first time he didn't cough.
Once Yaxiu's breathing had eased, she handed the bottle over. Yaxiu took it and gulped down a mouthful, only to spit it straight out in the very next second.
"Not used to drinking?" Dead Frenzy chuckled. "Just like a child."
"If you want to mock me for being childish, go right ahead," Yaxiu whispered softly. "It's not like my mood could get any worse anyway."
"You're childish in so many ways," Dead Frenzy remarked, "yet in this one regard, you're actually rather mature."
Leaning against the wall, her voice softened: "I've been watching you all along. I know how much they mean to you."
Chapter 1143