Vichy had completely lost the ability to fight, yet no one could fault her in the slightest. Lacking a world secret realm and an exclusive wonder, and unable to share Yaxiu's supreme tail feather, she was arguably the weakest demigod in the party, falling slightly short of even the Witch. She was in no way qualified to trade blows with a Divine Lord. Yet it was she who had seized the fleeting opening created by the Sword Princess to tear Wind Flower Snow Moon asunder by sheer force, entirely altering the course of the battle.
Even Diya, who had always gotten along worst with Vichy, now held the maid tightly in her arms. Diya had revelled and caroused with Vichy before, admiring her blushes and infatuation at close quarters, but only at this very moment did she truly accept this evil-laden Spectre Prophet into the ranks of 'one of their own.'
Yaxiu had constantly chided Vichy for not cultivating good relationships with everyone, but he had wronged her. Sonia, Diya, and Weise were sharp, naive, or proud, but without exception they were all sorcerers with profound insight into human nature. Under their preconceived bias—though calling it bias was hardly fair—none of Vichy's overtures could ever win their favor. Even with Vichy having gone this far, they would still believe she might undergo a change of heart or betray them in the future. Even the Silver Lantern, who was most willing to indulge Yaxiu in forming a harem, would never accept Vichy as a lover. But beyond that... they were willing to accept Vichy as a member of the team.
Vichy was feeble and exhausted, and Diya was in little better shape. With no Silver Lantern and Vichy to share the burden, Diya had been completely powerless to resist the devouring force of Wind Flower Snow Moon. Her reserves of source crystals had rapidly dwindled to nothing, and the whispering blooms and cutting winds had scored countless bloody gashes across her soul body. Even so, she had kept Vichy shielded in her embrace, gritting her teeth and holding out until the very end. If a maid could defend her own dignity at any cost, how could an empress fail to give her all?
Just as the Wound of Wind slit the Witch's carotid artery, the exquisitely dazzling Wind Flower Snow Moon abruptly froze, halting its assault. The Witch hastily mended the wound on her throat with silk thread, glancing up to see that the Lord of Joy had actually drifted away.
Yet the lingering remnants of Wind Flower Snow Moon alone were already an impassable chasm for the Witch.
On the other side, Sonia, having plunged to the earth, leaned desperately on her longsword to prop herself up. Overwhelming sound waves blanketed her, as though placing a blurring filter over the world. The Battlefield Veil could ward off the destructive force of the sonic barrage, yet it could not stop the sound waves' psychic erosion; a myriad of demonic notes bored into her eardrums and drilled through her thoughts.
Locked in a fierce struggle against the Weaver until now, Sonia's mental strength was nearly exhausted. Had the Battlefield Veil not run purely on battle intent, she never could have held out this long.
The Weaver had accurately deduced her fighting style: whether fighting with the wind or against it made no difference to Sonia. If anything, the harder the battle grew, the braver she fought; pain and suffering only honed her edge, and the lower her health dropped, the greater her damage became. Hence, the Weaver simply refused to engage her in direct combat, relying on sound waves to seal off Sonia's movements and leaving her boundless bloodlust with nowhere to vent. Like a castaway drowning in the deep sea, she sank step by step in helpless suffocation.
Sonia was currently powerless to launch a counterattack, left to struggle in vain before the Ancient Battlefield's battle intent ran dry. Yet after several seconds passed without any further move from the Weaver, she dimly realized that the Weaver must have departed. She swung her sword to tear through the sound waves, but the sonic tide continuously battered and shattered her thoughts. Even activating a wonder took agonizing effort; there was no way she could break out of this sonic cage in the short term.
*Yaxiu...* In the exhausted, abyssal depths of the Sword Princess's mind, only a single thought stood unyielding. *Don't you...*
Above the sea of blood, Weise, her emotions swinging wildly, saw the Weaver and the Lord of Joy converging as well. But right then, Yaxiu pushed her away and pointed toward the distant pillar of silver light, gesturing for the Silver Lantern to return there and stay put.
Weise inwardly wished to argue and remain to fight by his side, but by the time her senses returned, she found herself already sitting inside the pillar of light, having teleported there. She sat stunned for a long while before realizing what had just occurred: Yaxiu had dominated her will and directly commanded her to go back!
After all, Weise was a god while Yaxiu was a sorcerer; for a god to be commanded by a sorcerer was only natural. Yet Weise had not opened her mind to Yaxiu just now, and still Yaxiu had penetrated her being with effortless ease... In truth, Weise could still teleport back to the battlefield to continue the fight, but for some reason, an inexplicable dread gripped her heart tightly. The Silver Lantern, who had spent her entire life scheming and acting with reckless abandon, chose at this moment to obey Yaxiu's command without a second thought.
What was more... Weise touched the ink crystal on her face and slowly lowered her head.
"Are you... Yaxiu Heath?"
Though it was plainly an unnecessary question, the Weaver's tone was exceptionally solemn and earnest. The gaze she directed at Yaxiu even carried a trace of cautious trepidation, as if she were looking upon an unknown monster.
He gave no reply, still examining the wonders within his soul's Kingdom of Heaven. In just a few breaths, he dismantled over a dozen idle wonders, even including Refraction Guard among them. Thousands of sorcery spirits fell bewildered into the kingdom. Sifting through them, he picked out one thousand and twenty-four sorcery spirits and constructed a brand-new defensive wonder in mere breaths.
As source energy boiled violently, a shifting radiance rippled across his skin. Any light falling upon him suffered chromatic dispersion, making him appear abruptly like a mirror, and yet like a brilliant lantern.
Wonder: Refraction Prism!
"Burning through your divided divine consciousness like this, you can't have much time left, can you?" the Mirror Demon remarked calmly. "Do you really have the leisure to make small talk with me?"
"Intriguing, very intriguing." The Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon wore a sinister grin, the sea of blood churning violently with his low growl. "That battle maniac Abyss will surely regret not being here."
"I hope that when we reach the end of the road, none of us will regret our choices," the Lord of Joy sighed softly, raising Wind Flower Snow Moon to enfold the world.
"After this battle, win or lose, I will ensure you live, and I shall reserve the seat of Vice-Sovereign of the Kingdom of Heaven for you," the Weaver stated with chilling solemnity. "Fanxing offered the vice-sovereign seat because of your Supreme Holy Grail, but I offer it because of you!"
Aerial Garden!
Wind Flower Snow Moon!
Mountain of Corpses and Sea of Blood!
To Diya and Daedalose, the only ones able to observe this battle, all that was visible was the breathtakingly gorgeous Wind Flower Snow Moon and the soul-snaring heavenly sonic waves.
Unlike the cataclysmic battleground just moments ago, not a single stray ripple splashed outward from the sea of blood. Even onlookers would not suffer damage to their divine souls from colliding laws—the contamination of scattered elemental turbulence was originally an energy leakage caused by an inability to perfectly control divine wonders. After all, the interaction between wonders and the world produced countless unpredictable effects; even the most elite combat angels could only unleash fifty percent of a wonder's might, with the remaining fifty percent depending on the environment and the foe.
Now, however, the Divine Lords drove their secret realms with the minds of six-winged beings. Both the world and the wonders were under their absolute mastery, with friendly fire calculated down to the smallest detail. Sonic waves, blood arts, and wind-blown blossoms—three completely different forces—meshed together flawlessly, coalescing into an exquisitely resplendent, utterly savage natural disaster that ground everything in their path to dust!
It was not that they had never considered fighting side by side, but in their conceptions, the enemy would have been either the Starry Supreme or other Divine Lords of equal standing.
Even the greatest prophecy sorcerer in history could never have guessed that the first time three Divine Lords joined forces in several millennia, their foe would be a mere demigod!
No one could survive the joint assault of three Divine Lords—unless it was a monster that surpassed Divine Lords.
The Mirror Demon casually lifted his twin swords. As though he had not touched a blade in ages, his swings were slightly awkward. Yet he strolled unhurriedly through the sorcery storm. His sword strikes of divine might accurately snuffed out the weakest nexus points of the miracles, either dismantling their momentum or redirecting their paths. The Divine Lords' cataclysmic celestial might was reduced to a plaything in his hands, kneaded and reshaped at will, even turned back to cancel out their own onslaughts!
He advanced with leisurely strides, swinging his swords with effortless ease, leaving all manner of disasters unable to touch his person for a time. Within the span of his blades lay untainted ground. One had to remember that if he suffered even a single wound or shed a single drop of blood, Blood Origin Curse Poison and Moon Crystal would activate immediately, completely petrifying his thoughts.
This time, the Divine Lords would never give the Silver Lantern another chance to interfere with the battle. Yet he made not a single misstep, perfectly dictating the rhythm of the war with unpolished divine swordsmanship alone. Even when the Weaver's sonic waves crashed upon him, they only raised shallow ripples of flowing light, failing to breach even a single layer of his barrier!
The Weaver knew the inner workings of Refraction Guard, which was why she had modified her sound wonders so that every sonic wave comprised hundreds of millions of acoustic vibrations. Had Yaxiu still relied on Refraction Guard, she could have pulverized his defensive line in an instant!
Yet what draped Yaxiu now was not Refraction Guard, but the Refraction Prism that the Mirror Demon had just constructed. Compared to Refraction Guard, the new wonder possessed only one extra property: a layer of refraction was consumed only when accumulated damage reached a certain threshold; and even if instantaneous damage exceeded that threshold, only a single layer would be consumed.
What had already been an immensely practical refraction was now patched of its final vulnerability.
Like a traveler strolling through a torrential downpour without catching a single raindrop, the Mirror Demon guided the Divine Lords' attacks in an unfathomable manner. Wind Flower Snow Moon could not halt his footsteps; the myriad sonic waves could not disturb his mind; and the Mountain of Corpses and Sea of Blood became a smooth highway before him.
Yet the Divine Lords were unconcerned. Setting aside the fact that Yaxiu could not sustain this invincible state of divine might indefinitely, even if he never revealed a single flaw, his source energy would continue to drain away. Meanwhile, not only did the Divine Lords possess ample reserves of source crystals, more importantly, they did not need to expend source energy at all—once eternal wonders hit their stride, all upkeep was borne by the world secret realms. Unless the secret realms ran dry, this sorcery storm would never cease!
Even with victory firmly in hand, a lingering puzzle troubled their minds:
Where on earth was he trying to go?
Initially, they had thought Yaxiu wanted to regroup with the others since his trajectory pointed toward the Ancient Battlefield, yet his route would not cross paths with the Sword Princess or the Witch.
The Mirror Demon continued to shatter techniques with unhurried blade work, dispersing the earth-shattering sorcery storm into elemental turbulence that formed a hazy, multicolored aurora behind him. Compared to the three Divine Lords, at this moment he seemed far more like the mortal projection of a supreme sovereign, marching toward the Ancient Battlefield to draw a scepter capable of turning the tide and execute every treacherous vassal who dared challenge his majesty!
Soon, the Divine Lords discerned his destination: the Werewolf Divine Palace!
After the werewolf perished, his sorcery divine palace had crashed onto the soil of the Ancient Battlefield. However, the three eternal wonders had already vanished without a trace; because Sonia had seized the Ancient Battlefield, the eternal wonders had naturally shifted to her sorcery divine palace. Eternal wonders were not bound to a sorcery divine palace, but shifted alongside the transfer of the world secret realm.
Though they did not know why Yaxiu was heading toward an empty werewolf palace, that did not stop the Divine Lords from putting an early end to his scheme—the Weaver unleashed a boundless wave of sound, grinding the Werewolf Divine Palace into rubble!
The Mirror Demon abruptly accelerated. His twin blades of divine might spun like windmills, scattering wind-blown blossoms, sonic waves, and the sea of blood into hazy silhouettes of light as he carved an unstoppable path through the sorcery storm. But when he arrived at the Werewolf Divine Palace, the sight before him was even more desolate than anywhere else on the Ancient Battlefield—fearing the Weaver had not been thorough enough, the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon and the Lord of Joy had each bombarded the palace several times over.
In life, the werewolf Vister could never have imagined achieving such an unprecedented, unrepeatable feat: being the only demigod whose grave was repeatedly dug up by three Divine Lords.
Yet the Mirror Demon seemed completely indifferent to whether the Werewolf Divine Palace remained intact. Thrusting one sword heavily into the palace ground, he held off the relentless sorcery storm of the three Divine Lords with only a single blade. Opening his left palm, he began to chant an ancient ballad, initiating an unprecedented sacrificial rite.
Under the Divine Lords' astonished gazes, the shattered sorcery divine palace responded to the pull of unknown laws. Countless streams of information hidden within the cracks of bricks and tiles converged into Yaxiu's hand, weaving together little by little into a cover, pages, a spine... Only when it had fully materialized into form did the three Divine Lords dare believe what Yaxiu was doing.
He was crafting a Sorcerer's Handbook!
Chapter 1177