Within Yaxiu's Kingdom of Heaven of the soul, a spherical wonder composed of six concentric rings operated ceaselessly. The innermost layer was a silver ring, the second a gold ring, the third a multicolored ring, the fourth a colorless ring, and the fifth a gradient-colored ring; only the sixth ring was damaged and incomplete. If one looked closely, one would discover tiny sorcery spirit scripts carved into every ring. Added together, the six rings bore well over ten thousand characters—more words than Yaxiu even knew.
The six rings rotated in different directions, and the pure-white flame of light at the center dimmed and brightened, flaring and fading like a beating heart. Every second, different words on the rings lit up: on the silver ring, the illuminated characters read "Time"; on the gold ring, "Location"; on the multicolored ring, "Major Characters"; on the colorless ring, "Minor Characters"; on the fifth ring, "Event Details"; while characters on the sixth ring rarely ever lit up at all.
His Four-Wing sorcery spirits, including Stand-in, were all squatting beneath the spherical wonder, attentively watching the words on the rings like a classroom of children attending a lesson.
This was the very wonder Dead Frenzy had insisted Yaxiu snatch from the Necro Ark at the critical moment when the Black Downfall Hell was about to be submerged by the Great Deluge—"False Promise"!
Back then, Yaxiu had known from Dead Frenzy's unusually agitated tone that this wonder was of extraordinary significance. Fortunately, Yaxiu had only realized what an incredible treasure he had picked up after returning to reality; otherwise, in his excitement, he certainly wouldn't have stopped at just kissing Dead Frenzy once.
"False Promise"
"Unique · Fate · Wonder"
"Active Effect · Promise: Transforms the target's fate into falsehood for 10 seconds. Delays all statuses on the target until the falsehood ends (including healing, buffs, curses, etc.). All damage effects suffered by the target during the duration of the falsehood will be settled after the falsehood ends."
"Restricted Effect · Keep: Can only be activated on a target currently in the state of falsehood. The target receives health healing for 10 seconds. Any overflowing health healing forms a Fate Barrier, which can only be used to offset delayed statuses and damage settlement. The healing potency scales linearly with the caster's soul foundation, and each activation of Keep consumes 1 palace of the caster's soul foundation."
"Passive Effect · Awakening: When False Promise is situated within a divine palace, sorcery spirits within the divine palace will slowly evolve, increasing the likelihood of sorcery spirits ascending to gods."
Come to think of it, among the famous three mystic factions—Fate, Prophecy, and Truth—Weise belonged to the Truth faction, Weixi belonged to the Prophecy faction, and only the Fate faction had not yet been collected into Yaxiu's repertoire. In fact, the only sorcerer Yaxiu knew who had grasped the Fate faction was none other than the paramount figure of the present age, seated upon the seventh floor of the Void Realm: the peerless Divine Lord of Stars. Yet even she had merely grasped it, not mastered it.
Among the other divine lords, only the Weaver was suspected of also having grasped the Fate faction. Looking back now, Yaxiu clearly realized that the Gospel Board was the fruit of the Weaver using prophecy to deduce and manifest fate. Thus, even if the Weaver had not grasped the Fate faction, the Weaver could at least manifest the might of fate.
Previously, Yaxiu had never understood the concrete difference between the Prophecy faction and the Fate faction, feeling they were mostly the same—both aimed to control the future. But from this Fate wonder, False Promise, Yaxiu finally caught a glimpse of the two factions' starkly different mindsets:
Prophecy was: "Let me see what the future is like, then alter the future into what I want."
Fate was: "This is what I deem the future to be, and I shall bestow upon the future the shape I desire!"
"Ten seconds of invulnerability." Diya took a sharp sip of pineapple juice. "Even without using it for healing, just using it in combat could decide the entire battle."
Weise asked, "Is the settled damage inflicted as a single instantaneous hit?"
Yaxiu immediately grasped her train of thought. "It should be. When we have time, we can test it out. It might synergize with my 'Refraction Protection.'"
Ten seconds of unstoppable super armor where one didn't fear taking any damage meant you could unleash all your attacks without restraint for ten seconds, while the enemy was left with only two choices: flee or fight desperately to the death. Even if Yaxiu didn't activate the restricted effect Keep for healing, the recipient could calmly prepare a defensive wonder during those ten seconds to withstand the damage settlement. And if paired with Yaxiu's Refraction Protection, it was downright shameless—whether it was a colossal amount of damage or a minor scrap, it would consume only one charge of Refraction Protection!
Everyone could picture the exact scene in their minds: Yaxiu casts False Promise on Sword Princess; Sword Princess battles an enemy for ten seconds, hacking the foe half to death while accumulating a lethal mountain of delayed damage herself without showing a scratch; but right before the settlement, Yaxiu casts Refraction Protection on Sword Princess again. Consequently, a monstrous burst of damage sufficient to obliterate a demigod would be completely nullified at the cost of a single charge of Refraction Protection. Even if the enemy wasn't sliced to ribbons by Sword Princess, seeing that unfold would be enough to kill them of sheer rage.
"Being able to temporarily disperse curses is far more important than you think," Weixi said. "If Yaxiu had possessed this wonder before, he wouldn't have had to spend two months slowly nursing his soul body back to health. In fact, a soul-targeting curse like the Shadow Sword Curse is one of the rare curses capable of healing on its own. Had it come from other sorcery factions, it would very likely have persisted indefinitely, becoming permanent if no remedy were found.
"The vast majority of demigods carry one or two curses; their quality of life might not even match that of mortals. If a curse's effects become too severe and no treatment can be found, a demigod might even have to sever their own tail to survive by discarding their soul body. But that is the price of immortality. The soul body frees us from the limits of lifespan, yet forces us to endure even graver agony.
"Even without activating the restricted effect Keep, merely using falsehood to temporarily suppress curses gives us far more room to maneuver, allowing us to counteract or weaken curses through diverse means—to say nothing of Yaxiu being able to activate Keep to thoroughly purge curses and withstand incoming damage for us," Weixi said. "This is enough to fundamentally transform our combat doctrine. A soul body is easily injured and slow to heal, so other demigods are bound to focus heavily on defense, fighting with tied hands to avoid damage. We, however, can go all out on offense without the slightest hesitation."
"Still, activating Keep once consumes one palace of soul foundation." Sonia sounded somewhat hesitant. "Surely this can't be used as a routine method of healing?"
Weixi looked rather speechless. "Our divine palaces are all over a thousand palaces in scale, while Yaxiu possesses six layers in his soul's Kingdom of Heaven, each layer larger than our divine palaces... A normal demigod's divine palace only spans around a hundred palaces. Burning one palace would certainly sting for them; after all, expanding a divine palace is exceptionally difficult, and using it once is akin to carving off a piece of flesh. But for Yaxiu..."
"It's not even as much as what he spent last night," Diya provided an accurate description.
"However, False Promise isn't without its limitations either," Yaxiu hastily steered the topic back. "Leaving aside the massive amount of source mana it consumes, the wonder itself cannot be used continuously. Forcing consecutive activations would cause the wonder to collapse. This is a unique wonder that nearly formed a secret realm; once it's gone, it's gone for good."
Speaking of this, Yaxiu also felt a twinge of regret. False Promise had existed aboard the Necro Ark for at least several millennia. Once its sixth ring had fully condensed, it might have formed a new secret realm, and a Fate secret realm at that. But because Yaxiu had stuffed it into his own Kingdom of Heaven, it had completely lost any possibility of advancing into a secret realm, destined to remain forever a unique wonder.
Since Yaxiu had taken the finest wonder, naturally no one raised any objections to the remaining distribution of wonders.
Sonia took the two wonders "Water Moon" and "Biting Cold." The former was the water-sword wonder recommended by Dead Frenzy, while the latter was a water sorcery wonder that manifested swordplay through frost. However, she did not pick the "Sword Robe" Yaxiu had prepared for her, opting instead for a water sorcery movement wonder, "Wave Trace."
Diya took the unique wonder "Warm Winter" and the fire sorcery wonder "Blazing Flame." The former manifested the mind through wind and snow, making it ideal for Diya in her role as a sorcery battery; the latter was merely a very ordinary mid-tier wonder whose effect was wreathing the body in flames, but Diya said she had a sudden stroke of inspiration and felt this wonder could synergize with her Witch Domain.
Weixi took only the soul wonder "Exile," but she requested to dismantle three water sorcery wonders, as she needed the sorcery spirits inside. Unlike Yaxiu and the other rookies, as an ancient veteran starting an account anew, Weixi already possessed many wonder spells of her own; she only needed materials rather than other people's finished products.
"'Water Moon' suits your combat system very well too," Sonia said. "Once I've finished studying it, I'll pass Water Moon to you and construct a new wonder for myself."
"Why can't you construct a new wonder for me?" Yaxiu blinked. "You've changed. You're not willing to put in the effort for me anymore."
"Because I'm keeping the best for myself, and you only deserve the wonders I cast aside," Sonia retorted in exasperation. "Got a problem with that?"
"Tsk." Yaxiu thought to himself that Sword Princess's resistance was very high in public; he'd better save acting cute and clingy with her for private.
Felix watched from the side. Naturally, she knew that Sword Princess wanted to pass the Water Moon wonder to Yaxiu as soon as possible, while Yaxiu wanted Sword Princess to keep it... What a bizarre team. The captain who held all the resources wanted to distribute as much as possible to his operators, while the operators wished the captain would keep more resources for himself... Was it because they were lovers that they were so considerate of one another?
No, only when they were both lovers and companions could such a situation arise. Lovers were mindful of each other's hardships, while companions understood each other's difficulties. Understanding without mindfulness led to no initiative; mindfulness without understanding was merely torment. Mutual thoughtfulness and mutual understanding—neither could be lacking.
But could this sort of tenderness truly last forever? They could share hardship like this, but could they share prosperity the same way?
Felix suddenly understood why Yaxiu had insisted on distributing the knowledge essence to everyone else... Though Yaxiu couldn't bring himself to say it, in his heart he was terrified that the girls would no longer understand him. That was why he had to pull the girls forward so they could progress together.
Did Father... ever pull Beverly and Mother along to progress together?
"So then," Daedalose asked, "where is our next destination?"
"We've already retraced my past route across Senluo," Yaxiu said. "I'll spend the next couple of days searching the Transcendence Building once more, and then..."
"Only the Silent Spiral is left."
The atmosphere abruptly grew quiet. Sonia and the others all looked toward Weise, their lips parting as if wanting to speak, yet hesitating. Weise suddenly asked, "Is the Gospel God ready?"
"It's ready. The spatial portal formula leading to Gospel has been completely calculated," Diya said immediately. "It's just that spatial storms are frequent in Senluo, so even if an ordinary spatial portal is successfully constructed, it can easily collapse..."
"I'll resolve it as soon as possible." Weise stood up. "I'm finished eating. I'm going to cultivate first. See you tonight."
Without waiting for a reply, Weise dissolved into a streak of flowing light and vanished.
Sonia sighed. Turning her head, she found Yaxiu gazing at her with pleading eyes, his hands clasped together in supplication. "May I go have a chat with Silver Lantern?"
The Paw-Stretching Sword Saint looked utterly conflicted. Only after quite a while did she say reluctantly, "Go on."
"No way, I don't give permission," the Witch huffed. "You definitely won't stop at just chatting."
"Objection overruled. Keep making noise and I'll spank you."
"You only care about Sword Princess..." The Witch suddenly paused, realizing something. "For real?"
"Wait a moment." Daedalose called out to Yaxiu, walking back from the kitchen carrying a plate of cream cake. "Lady Silver Lantern hasn't had her dessert yet. Viewer, take this to her while you're at it."
Chapter 1158