Vermilion Water Moon

"Do the demigods here... all take up an obscure school of sorcery on the side?" Yaxiu suddenly asked. Dead Frenzy cast him a slightly surprised glance and nodded. "That's right. After all, the more obscure a sorcery is, the more exclusively one can monopolize resources. Almost every demigod who dares to stay in Fantasy Hell has cultivated an ancient sorcery that was lost long ago, and many have even created an entirely new school from scratch... There's a joke that if all the demigods in Fantasy Hell suddenly dropped dead, the total number of sorcery factions would be cut by at least half." Yaxiu was somewhat puzzled. "Is it really that extreme? An obscure sorcery is obscure precisely because it couldn't keep up with the times and became obsolete. Even if piled high with enough resources, wouldn't its effectiveness still pale in comparison to mainstream sorceries?" Dead Frenzy shook her head. "No. That might be true anywhere else, but in Fantasy Hell, the power of obscure sorceries far surpasses mainstream ones. That is also one of the reasons why the demigod warfare in Fantasy Hell is the fiercest of all... Demigods cannot see sorcery miracles they do not recognize!" "Huh?" "Demigods can only see the world they imagine, so naturally, they can only detect sorceries they can comprehend," Dead Frenzy explained. "For instance, a demigod who has never researched time cannot identify any time miracles here. Only when his soul body suffers damage will he realize he has been hit. "The older and more obscure a sorcery is, the more insidious and difficult to guard against its effects become. The sorceries capable of running rampant in Fantasy Hell are either utterly novel or ancient; the mainstream and mediocre merely bring high competition and low returns. "Fantasy Hell is the most fascinating place in the Six Hells, not only because of its mechanics, but also because it reflects how the Void Realm seems consciously bent on thwarting sorcerers. Here in Fantasy Hell, the 'depth of sorcery' yields to the 'breadth of sorcery' for the first time. The rewards of inventing sorceries far outweigh those of delving into sorcery realms. If a demigod fully adapts to Fantasy Hell's way of survival—obsessively creating and cultivating niche sorceries—their cultivation realm will very likely stall at demigod forever, leaving them no chance of glimpsing the vistas of a Divine Lord. For the rest of their days, they merely contribute to the diversity of sorcery." Yaxiu blinked. The more he thought about it, the more chilling it felt. Fantasy Hell had none of Blackfall Hell's cataclysms, and its resources were richer and more varied than Deep Blue Hell's. Yet its constraints on demigods far exceeded the first three hells—because rather than driving you into a corner, it coaxed you into willingly settling for mediocrity. "Can't the sorcerers see that?" "Of course they can." Dead Frenzy pointed toward the burning night sky. "This is how mainstream sorcerers fight back against Fantasy Hell." Looking at the dazzling fiery trees and silver flowers in the distance, Yaxiu had a faint realization. "Fixing the world's image across an entire area?" "Fixing a world requires only two conditions: enough demigods, and a high degree of uniformity in their sorcery factions," Dead Frenzy said. "Nevernight is the work of fire sorcery demigods and dark sorcery demigods. Over ten demigods overlapped their fantasy worlds, completely anchoring this region's reality. Now, anyone who comes here can see only Nevernight. "At the same time, Nevernight yields only fire and dark sorcery resources, and 'phantasms' no longer appear. Though the demigods of Nevernight still have to venture out to compete for resources, they at least possess a stable means of production and an invincible home turf. "It's about time for you to head back," Dead Frenzy glanced at Yaxiu. "We can talk about other intelligence later—provided you still dare to come to Hell in the future, without fearing that I'll summon tens of thousands of Forgotten Ones to mob you." "...Tens of thousands is a bit much..." Yaxiu chuckled sheepishly, thinking that Dead Frenzy truly held a grudge. A single sarcastic remark from him, and she was still holding onto it. "Come here." Dead Frenzy flew up to the mountain peak. "Before leaving, take a look at what your fantasy world is like. Don't tell me it's a palace fit to house a crowd of girls?" Yaxiu followed her to the peak and saw the canopy of Nevernight abruptly cut off several kilometers away, its blaze of fiery trees and silver blossoms halted at the edge of the darkness. Nevernight was like a private room constructed by demigods in Hell, and now Yaxiu could finally see the true Fantasy Hell. Color. Infinite colors. The entire world melted completely before Yaxiu's eyes as space and time turned into a canvas splashed with spilled paint. Boundless, dazzling colors flowed ceaselessly. Billions of colorful streaks twisted and tangled, and light and hues evolved and transformed like living creatures, bursting forth with an unsettling vitality. Drained of strength, Yaxiu collapsed. Cracks fractured across his soul body like porcelain, and luminous mist drifted out from within, as though something could not wait to flee his shell. Dead Frenzy caught his body just in time, her face flooded with shock. "How... how could this be...? Wake up! Don't let yourself be drawn in—that's the divine realm! You won't be able to come back!" She had never imagined that Yaxiu could directly see the reality of Fantasy Hell—the divine realm! During the demigod promotion ceremony, apart from outliers like Vichy, who had forcefully shouldered Hell with her soul body, the vast majority of demigods entered the divine realm to achieve the metamorphosis and sublimation of their sorcery, summoning their gods from the boundless torrent of laws. Thus, in demigods' understanding, the divine realm truly existed, yet was omnipresent and existed nowhere in particular. It was more like a realm, a state of being that allowed a sorcerer to perceive the essence of the flow of laws—a serendipity that could be stumbled upon but never sought. Yet the divine realm was not truly impossible to seek; it existed in one concrete place, and that was Fantasy Hell. The entire layer of Fantasy Hell was a world manifested by the divine realm! And only the divine realm could embody the law of "allowing will to define the world." In theory, a sorcerer only had a single chance in their entire lifetime to step into the divine realm—when advancing to demigod. Only then would a sorcerer's consciousness shatter into the finest streams of information and perceive the truest colors, naturally becoming drawn toward the divine realm before reassembling with the aid of the Void Realm. Indeed, it was not sorcerers who pursued the divine realm, but the divine realm that collected sorcerers. The divine realm was like a sewer at the very bottom: all things in the world were kept from plunging into it only because the Void Realm acted as a filter. But once you laid eyes on the divine realm, it meant the Void Realm's filter had failed, and your only destination would be that sewer—just like Yaxiu right now! Even with the Void Realm's assistance, stepping into the divine realm was an exceedingly perilous venture. Many legendary sorcerers had perished within it, their consciousnesses fully assimilated into the laws, their souls dispersed. Now, Yaxiu had no aid from the Void Realm, nor any operators beside him to share the burden. If he fell in, he could never return! "Damn it..." Dead Frenzy fumed inwardly. "What a completely pointless thing to do!" It was anyone's guess who she was cursing. Just then, three demigods flew over from deep within the fiery trees and silver flowers. Spotting the trench-coated Yaxiu on the mountain peak from afar, each readied their wonders and miracles, calling out tentatively across the distance, "Excuse me—" At that exact moment, they saw a red-haired woman suddenly materialize beside the trench-coated figure. She turned her eyes slightly toward them, her turbid, blood-red gaze brimming with malice born of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Even across the vast distance, the Nevernight demigods felt an abyssal, hellish pressure! Even though they immediately halted their virtual wings, trying to plead and retreat, the most violent sword in the world had already been drawn. Drip. The Nevernight demigods seemed to hear the sound of crimson blood falling into a sea of blood, stirring ripples of scarlet across the canvas of space-time. The ripples slowly expanded outward, brushing past their soul bodies and unsettling their spirits. Defensive barriers, protective miracles, life-saving items—all shattered amid the undulating ripples. Their soul bodies were first ground into bloody pulp by the first ripple, then gathered and folded by the second, and finally obliterated by the third, reducing them to a gust of light wind that dissolved into the burning night. Supreme Sorcery... Vermilion Water Moon! In the blink of an eye, the three Nevernight demigods vanished without a trace, as if they had never existed. Dead Frenzy sheathed her sword, her figure growing increasingly translucent. She glanced around. Unlike her last attack, no Forgotten Ones descended upon Nevernight... She had anticipated this; after all, Ouroboros was still digesting Blackfall Hell, and the Forgotten Ones had not yet managed to invade Fantasy Hell. But once Ouroboros finished digesting, tens of thousands of Forgotten Ones would inevitably pursue the traces of Vermilion Water Moon. That Serpent of the End—which in theory possessed only an instinct to devour—had been battered by them into genuine fury, learning how to hate. By then, however, Yaxiu would long be gone, and only the demigods of Nevernight would suffer. Dead Frenzy could not care less about the consequences. All she knew was that if she did not pull Yaxiu back before he returned to reality, all would be lost. Yet with Yaxiu's consciousness currently dragged into the divine realm, how could she wake him?