Logically speaking, having once stood at the zenith of sorcery and shone upon the world like suns, moons, and stars for thousands of years, the Divine Lords should have been intimately familiar with the Sorcerer's Handbook. In truth, however, even for the youngest among them, the Lord of Joy, the last time he had read a Sorcerer's Handbook was already several thousand years ago.
The Divine Realm was the dividing line. Below it, across the four layers of the Void Realm, every mortal possessed a Sorcerer's Handbook. Above it, in Hell and Heaven, the Void Realm no longer summarized a sorcerer's life.
To mortal sorcerers, it was taken for granted that a handbook would appear when someone died. Yet this common sense did not apply to demigods and above—the vast majority of demigods left behind no Sorcerer's Handbook upon death!
It seemed that for this very reason, the Prime Angel crafted a Sorcerer's Handbook summarizing the first half of life for sorcerers who reached Ruby Mountain. Without the Prime Angel producing one on their behalf, many demigods would leave no trace behind in the world until their dying day.
Every demigod had researched the shifting mechanisms behind the Sorcerer's Handbook, yet none had ever uncovered the underlying reason. The most widely accepted theory at present was that the Void Realm eliminated the Sorcerer's Handbook to curb the growth of demigods.
The Sorcerer's Handbook was a shortcut for any sorcerer; simply by reading, one could absorb the knowledge and experience of predecessors. It was nothing short of a boon from the Void Realm.
The Void Realm's attitude toward sorcerers was polarized. For those below the legendary rank, the Void Realm permitted and even encouraged their growth—the principle of "every trial brings a reward" reflected its stance clearly. But for sorcerers at the demigod rank and above, the Void Realm suppressed and targeted them in every conceivable way. Not only was it exceedingly difficult to descend to the mortal realm, but year after year brought tribulation and mortal perils. Only the Divine Lords fared slightly better, perfectly corresponding to Hell for demigods and Heaven for Divine Lords.
The root cause was perhaps that the Void Realm shared a symbiotic relationship with mortal sorcerers; their growth helped refine the laws of the Void Realm, much like beneficial bacteria. With demigods, however, it was a parasitic relationship. Demigods and Divine Lords frantically plundered the Void Realm's resources to replenish themselves, acting as outright parasites.
A resource like the Sorcerer's Handbook, which accelerated growth, was naturally withheld from demigods by the Void Realm. If handbooks appeared when demigods died, the demigods in Hell would surely slaughter and devour one another, eventually nurturing even more Divine Lords in Heaven to further plunder the Void Realm's resources. The Void Realm's removal of this mechanism was essentially the natural regulation of an ecosystem.
Yet saying the vast majority of demigods left no handbook upon death conversely meant that an exceedingly rare few did. This was no secret, because as long as a demigod willingly embraced oblivion, a demigod-level Sorcerer's Handbook would naturally form.
It sounded as though a parasite committing suicide brought immense relief to the Void Realm, prompting it to voluntarily organize the traces left behind in the world.
However, a demigod voluntarily embracing oblivion was exceedingly rare. Demigods were immortal beings; who would willingly die if they could go on living? Even the Divine Lords had never laid eyes on a demigod-level Sorcerer's Handbook. Even in Hell, it was a rare prize that appeared once in a thousand years and was never circulated.
Yet under the watchful eyes of the three Divine Lords, Yaxiu had conjured werewolf Vister's Sorcerer's Handbook out of thin air!
No, not entirely out of thin air—after all, he had come to the Temple of Sorcery left behind after Vister's demise... But they had never heard of any method to convert a Temple of Sorcery into a Sorcerer's Handbook! Not a single word of it was mentioned even in ancient tomes!
Yet the Divine Lords were certain Yaxiu had not activated any divine miracles or wonders. It was more like he had triggered some preexisting hidden mechanism, causing the werewolf divine palace to automatically transform into a Sorcerer's Handbook.
Of course they had never heard of such a method, for this was a duty the Dramatic Poet would only entrust to the Doomsday Observer at the very end. The chant the Mirror Demon had just recited was Nether, the world's primal sound, also known as the "Song of Origin." Reciting this chant at any Temple of Sorcery would gather the lingering remnants of a demigod and generate the corresponding Sorcerer's Handbook.
The Mirror Demon was not afraid of the Divine Lords hearing the chant; apart from the Four Pillar Gods and their feelers, no one could hear the primal sound. And precisely because they mastered the primal sound, the Doomsday Quintet had been able to bury civilizations, lay worlds to rest, nourish themselves with the resources of an entire realm, and compile Sorcerer's Handbooks to enrich their wisdom!
To the Dramatic Poet, however, all it wished was for the Doomsday Observer to take its place in chronicling the actors who had graced the stage of the world, continuing to appreciate the never-ending epics played out beneath the spotlight.
With one hand, the Mirror Demon flipped open the werewolf handbook. Vister's magnificent, tumultuous life experiences instantly surged into his mind. Yet to the Mirror Demon, who had once buried worlds, a handbook of an ordinary demigod was nothing more than a vulgar essay not worth mentioning; he possessed not the slightest interest in the werewolf's past.
What he needed was the concept within the werewolf handbook.
Because a demigod's Sorcerer's Handbook condensed hundreds or even thousands of years of the sorcerer's life essence, there was an extremely high probability of a concept being born. Werewolf Vister did not disappoint the Mirror Demon's expectations; within the handbook, a concept resembling a little gray wolf had indeed formed. Only the size of a palm, it curled into a ball upon the Mirror Demon's hand.
Concept: "Wolf Fang."
"Passable, I suppose..." The Mirror Demon pondered for a moment, then began rearranging and restructuring thousands of idle sorcery spirits in the Soul Kingdom of Heaven—including even Yaxiu's most important sorcery spirit, the Heart Sword sorcery spirit!
Throughout this process, the three Divine Lords did not ease their offensive in the slightest; instead, they grew all the more frenzied. They could all see that Yaxiu's deliberate act of condensing a Sorcerer's Handbook meant he possessed the means to turn the tide against all odds!
Yet in mere seconds, the Mirror Demon constructed a stable sorcery arts formation from 2,048 sorcery spirits... No, this was no longer a sorcery arts formation. He completed the spirit convergence of 2,048 sorcery spirits, extracting the factors of their respective sorcery factions and piecing them together into godhead fragments!
This was a virtual godhead—a virtual godhead constructed in just a few seconds of thought, utilizing the resources at hand!
He had the little gray wolf burrow into the virtual godhead, and the virtual godhead began a concept resonance with the concept: 1%, 20%, 50%, 80%... ultimately stopping at 95%. There was little more the Mirror Demon could do; to use the current resources and the Wolf Fang concept to targetedly summon a completely different god, achieving a 95% resonance was already the limit.
If all the sorcerers throughout history who had practiced the virtual godhead school knew what the Mirror Demon was thinking, they would probably curse in outrage. A resonance rate of 25% was considered exceptional for a normal virtual godhead; 50% made summoning a god very likely; a 95% resonance rate was pure fantasy!
Yet to the Mirror Demon, a 95% resonance rate meant he had to wait for the concept and the virtual godhead to finish the final 5% of their fusion before the god could be summoned.
Taking advantage of this lull, he noticed that Dead Frenzy had never once chanted the "Song of Origin" to help Yaxiu collect Sorcerer's Handbooks. But on second thought, that seemed quite normal; compared to the endless plunder of wonders and resources, Sorcerer's Handbooks were hardly a high priority.
In truth, reading a demigod's Sorcerer's Handbook carried a slight risk: it directly poured the demigod's life into the reader's mind. If the reader's own life experiences lacked sufficient depth, then even if their consciousness was not overwhelmed by the demigod's life, their personality could easily be corrupted. The Doomsday Quintet naturally had no such issue, but the present Yaxiu...
Had Dead Frenzy refrained from creating Sorcerer's Handbooks out of efficiency, or out of protection?
The Mirror Demon's eyes shifted, the corners of his mouth curving slightly in a complicated smile. At that moment, the little gray wolf finally fused completely into the virtual godhead. A vortex of laws manifested beside the Mirror Demon—even a world sealed off by the sorcery storm could not rob the majesty of its descent!
Faced with this familiar scene and tremor, the Divine Lords naturally recognized at a glance what the Mirror Demon was doing. Incredulity was written across each of their faces; the arrogant masks they had maintained until now seemed on the verge of peeling away. They could never have imagined that anyone in such circumstances could take a freshly acquired sorcery concept, construct a corresponding virtual godhead on the spot, and summon a god in a single stroke!
Yet if one could not create miracles, how could one conquer a desperate impasse?
As the virtual godhead shattered with a roar, a graceful and divine figure leapt out from the Soul Kingdom of Heaven, like an unsheathed blade chilling the world with its brilliance!
In appearance, it resembled a six-year-old girl clad from head to toe in silver-white heavy plate armor, holding aloft with both hands a shining greatsword taller than itself. Beneath its war skirt trailed five sword-like tails. Majestic and valiant, it stepped forward to guard the Mirror Demon, raising its head with the determination to crush every enemy for its master!
Yet the moment it caught sight of the world-annihilating sorcery storm and the three Divine Lord Walkers capable of tearing heaven and earth apart, it shrank its head back, turned right around, dove back into the Soul Kingdom of Heaven, and squatted with its head in its arms.
The Mirror Demon was somewhat surprised. He had assumed the god he summoned would take after himself—its female appearance seemed proof enough of that. But perhaps due to the soul body, a part of the god's personality had actually taken after Yaxiu.
"...Heart Sword God?" the Weaver suddenly asked.
"Yes. My luck wasn't bad. The Heart Sword God fell over two months ago, yet no one had resummoned it," the Mirror Demon said calmly. "Now, the Heart Sword God belongs to me."
B-But wasn't the concept from the werewolf handbook 'Wolf Fang'? The Weaver was genuinely at a loss. Using the completely unrelated concept of Wolf Fang to targetedly summon the Heart Sword God?
Yet she soon paid no mind to such trifles, for the Mirror Demon casually uttered an even more shocking truth: "Now, I finally have a god."
The Weaver, the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon, and the Lord of Joy all froze in unison. But when they thought carefully about it, they realized Yaxiu truly had never displayed the might of his own god! He had always relied on divine might wonders, and it was only after sharing the power of the Sword Princess and Vichy that he had temporarily borrowed their gods!
A profound sense of absurdity flooded their minds. Yaxiu hadn't possessed a single god until now? And up to this point, they hadn't even been able to bring down a demigod sorcerer who lacked a god?! What kind of joke was this?!
In the next second, they heard a joke that no one could laugh at: "Now that I have a god,"
The Mirror Demon drew the sword embedded in the ground, the silver light in his pupils deepening. "Then next, it's my turn."
The corners of his lips curved up into an arrogant, sinister smile. "Until my turn ends, don't you dare flee back to Heaven."
Chapter 1178