The Devil

Gregory finally understood what kind of person he was dealing with. The Sanctuary Sorcerer could not help bursting into laughter. "And here I thought you were someone of exceptional nerve. Turns out you're just an idiot." "A year ago in Gospel, no Sanctuary Sorcerer would be robbing people in the street," the young man remarked quietly. "The world is no longer what it was a year ago! This is an era of chaos, an era of opportunity! Even an ordinary mortal like you should have read the *Spectre Manual* and learned what true sorcerers are really like!" The young man's expression soured instantly, as if he had swallowed a fly. "I don't think every sorcerer is keen on having the Spectre Prophet represent them..." "Yet that is reality! Only unscrupulous sorcerers who stop at nothing can ride the wave and rise in this era!" Gregory waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever, why am I wasting my breath on a fool..." *Crack!* In an instant, an immense gravity pulverized the round table into splinters. The noodle dish shattered as well, sending sauce-drenched noodles and chunks of meat splattering against the ground with a wet slap. Still holding his chopsticks, the young man looked down at the midnight snack he had barely eaten a few bites of. "If you don't want to end up like that bowl of noodles, get lost right now," Gregory said coldly. "Don't think I wouldn't dare kill a mortal." "...I won't hold you accountable for wasting my food," the young man replied, "but if you continue bullying that girl, I'll call the police and report you to the Red Hats." "Could you just hurry up and get the hell out of here?" The young man blinked, turning to look at the trembling metal doll pinned to the ground—Cecelia. "All your self-righteous blabbering isn't helping in the slightest..." Cecelia gritted her teeth, her voice trembling. "If I could move, I'd beat the crap out of you myself!" "I'm quite fond of Gospel, so I wish it could be a decent realm—where people speak up when the weak are bullied, and where the strong don't plunder the weak's possessions." The young man sighed. "We can't all just take after the Spectre Prophet and believe we must trample others to survive, can we?" "What a joke! I came here precisely to make a deal with the devil, so that I can trample everyone underfoot!" With a violent burst, Cecelia exploded into motion. Scalding steam blasted from her metallic limbs as she whipped a spinning roundhouse kick straight toward the back of Gregory's neck! Driven by the built-in actuators of her mechanical body, she had forced her way right through the suppression of his gravity field, looking every bit like a ferocious, elegant metal doll! She was already inside Gregory's Sanctuary, meaning he could not use it to block her kick— *Clang!* The mantis-like scythe extending from her steel leg slammed hard into a transparent barrier, and the drizzling rain spattered against Cecelia's face—Gregory had actually retracted his Sanctuary in an instant, shrinking it tightly around his own body! "Two morons." A murderous glint flashed in Gregory's eyes as he pressed his hand down fiercely. "Die!" An even more terrifying gravity crashed onto Cecelia like an iron hammer, slamming her flat against the pavement. A muffled groan escaped her lips, every inch of her body screaming in agony as though she were about to be crushed into paste. Yet in what felt like the final moment before death, she found surprisingly little despair in her heart. Instead, her thoughts drifted to that blabbering fool. Knowing that an idiot with such an overabundance of righteousness was about to die alongside her somehow offered a strange comfort to the darkest corners of her mind. Yet the crushing tens of thousands of tons she braced for never fell. Cecelia's ears twitched. She realized the surroundings had suddenly fallen dead quiet. Even the gentle patter of raindrops had vanished, and the crushing weight on her body was gone. She could even push herself up with her arms and sit on the ground. The world had stopped. Raindrops hung frozen in the air, suspended like countless transparent crystals. The haughty, callous Gregory, the sneering subordinate leader, the row of surrounding Voodoo operatives... everyone was frozen in time, exactly like a painting. No, not everyone was frozen. The young man emerged from the shop carrying a fistful of chopsticks. As he walked through the curtain of rain, it looked as though he were shattering countless crystals, the suspended water bursting into delicate liquid blossoms around him. He strode over to the nearest Voodoo member and shoved a chopstick straight into the man's eye socket. Cecelia could not help squeezing her eyes shut, fancying she could hear the sickening pop of a crystalline lens rupturing. "I don't like seeing the strong trample the weak, nor do I like resolving problems with violence," he said, as if offering an explanation. "Because preying on the weak and fighting fire with fire are addictive habits, and I don't want to become the Spectre Prophet." Before long, he had gouged out the right eyes of more than a dozen Voodoo members, leaving each of them with only their left eye intact. By the time he walked up to Gregory, only two chopsticks remained in his hand. "No one stays the strongest forever; everyone has their moments of weakness." He drove the pair of chopsticks straight into the Sanctuary Sorcerer's eye sockets, plunging them in until the tips poked out the back of his skull. With a quiet sigh, he murmured, "Is it really so hard not to trample on other people?" He stood blankly before Gregory for a moment, as though admiring his handiwork. Cecelia sat on the wet ground, scarcely daring to breathe. Her mind was in utter turmoil, completely unable to process what was happening. She had believed Gregory to be the most terrifying entity here tonight, never imagining an absolute monster capable of casually annihilating him would be standing right here—could he be... one of the legendary Legendary Sorcerers?! "It really could be like that... Perhaps that's the real truth of it." Cecelia heard the young man muttering to himself, and goosebumps instantly erupted all over her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself, curling into a tight ball, praying that the monster wouldn't notice her. "Ah, forgive me. I just suddenly figured something out," he said, turning around to smile at Cecelia. "I used to think the six Divine Lords shaped different social systems purely in pursuit of distinct interests. But looking at it now, They might not be so utilitarian after all. "What actions They despise, what deeds They admire, whom They don't wish to see, and whom They do... They must have formed their own worldviews throughout their journey. Back when They weren't powerful enough, They had to put up with phenomena in society that They couldn't stomach. But once They became Divine Lords, there was no longer any need to endure or compromise. Even if there were no benefits to be gained, They would still do it—after all, who wants to share the same sky with the vermin they loathe?" "Alright." He smiled. "Time to talk about your business." Cecelia swallowed hard, unable to resist asking a question that had nothing to do with her situation. "Did you... freeze the world?" "How could that be? If I had truly frozen the world, you wouldn't be able to see anything right now, since even light would have stopped... I only froze the physical matter within this area. Real time is still flowing." The young man shook his head. "A true world freeze would be an unimaginable divine miracle. All I'm doing is bullying ordinary mortals." *Even a Sanctuary Sorcerer is just an ordinary mortal to you?!* Cecelia huddled tighter. If her voice had trembled earlier from pain, it now shook from sheer terror. "Wh-what do you want from me?" "You have it backward. You were the one looking for me." Yaxiu squatted down and tilted his head slightly, saying, "If I'm not mistaken, I'm the devil you wanted to make a deal with."