"There is a devil living in the Liwan District of Azura. Offer up a Sunseeker sorcery spirit, and you can trade with the devil for a wish."
Cecelia honestly recounted the urban legend she knew. Yaxiu rubbed his temples. The information was mostly accurate, but somehow the rumors had strayed a bit off course. "Shouldn't something that grants wishes be a benevolent being like a genie? Why do you all think it's a devil?"
"That being said, I'm neither a genie nor a devil. I can't grant any wish of yours; at most, I can try my best to fulfill a reasonable request."
"Then... can I refuse the trade?" Cecelia hugged the box in her arms tightly.
"No."
Seeing Cecelia's expression, which practically screamed *And you still say you aren't a devil forcing sales on people?*, Yaxiu could not help feeling a bit awkward. Still, the Sunseeker spirit was critical to everyone's injuries; even if it meant forcing the transaction, he wouldn't hesitate. He was hardly a strict moral paragon to begin with—a flexible moral baseline was an essential quality for a cult leader.
Besides, he was confident that the price he offered would satisfy the girl. But before that...
"How did you come by this Sunseeker spirit? Is it yours?"
*Why do you care so much...* Cecelia badly wanted to snap back. She was normally the type to pick a fight with the whole world, with a temper fiery as a chili pepper; if a stray dog barked at her, she would chase it down three streets just to kick it. But facing a devil far beyond a Sanctuary Sorcerer, she chose to follow her heart and back down. "Is... is it really that important?"
"Very important to me, and to you as well." Yaxiu reached out a finger and pressed it against her forehead. "Speak."
As if a switch had been flipped, Cecelia honestly confessed the origins of the Sunseeker spirit. The words spilled directly from her throat without passing through her mind, completely unvarnished and unhidden. The Sunseeker spirit naturally did not belong to Cecelia—as a mere Silver Sorcerer, how could she have any avenue to obtain a Time-type sorcery spirit? Yet it wasn't exactly ill-gotten gains on her part either: the Courier Agency had ambushed five teams from the Sandfire Agency, and the team Cecelia attacked happened to have the Sunseeker spirit hidden away. The moment she discovered it, she claimed it for herself, broke away from her squad, and rushed to Azura to make a deal with the devil.
It sounded as though the Sandfire Agency were the victims, but the problem was that Sandfire was originally a 'Yatonokami' of Gospel's underworld—a bandit syndicate purely composed of rogue sorcerers who specialized in raiding other agencies' convoys to plunder resources. Compared to Sandfire, even a violent syndicate operating in the grey zone like the Courier Agency seemed quite orderly; at least they earnestly ran legitimate sorcerer business.
"Why are they called Yatonokami?" Yaxiu interrupted.
Cecelia replied, "Because the original and largest rogue sorcerer agency was called Yatonokami. It nearly swept across the entire underworld. Supposedly, they had several Sanctuary Sorcerers holding down the fort, and hardly any agency dared cross them. But a month ago, the government struck hard and wiped them out in a single blow. The surviving members who escaped made a resurgence, opening numerous smaller agencies to keep robbing other crooks, so we took to calling all bandit agencies 'Yatonokami' by default."
Yaxiu was thoroughly amazed. It had only been about four months since the Starry Kingdom established permanent sky gates connecting the five nations, yet in such a short span, Gospel's underworld had already witnessed the rise and fall of a criminal syndicate, and had even spawned underworld jargon like 'Yatonokami'... Give them a ray of sunlight and they bloom; give them a trickle of water and they flood. Life truly finds a way.
The Sunseeker spirit had undoubtedly been stolen by the Sandfire Agency from someone else, then the Courier Agency robbed Sandfire, and Cecelia had betrayed Courier. In short, it was dog-eat-dog Russian nesting dolls.
Only after she finished speaking did Cecelia realize her mind had just been manipulated effortlessly in his palm. Terrified, her metal arms trembled with a creaking rattle. "I... I'll give you the Sunseeker spirit. Will you let me go?"
"Don't be nervous. Although you didn't obtain the Sunseeker spirit through legitimate channels, it can barely pass as your spoils of war." Yaxiu pointed to Gregory beside them, whose eyes had been pierced through. "At least you aren't like them, using your strength to bully the weak."
In truth, Yaxiu and the others hadn't intended to spawn any rumors about a devil. They were simply lying low in Azura to heal. Because they needed to collect Sunseeker spirits and couldn't be bothered to run all over the place, they had spread the word that anyone with a Sunseeker spirit could come trade with them. Over time, word of mouth had warped them into a devil capable of granting any wish. Causing non-stop conflict outside was bad enough, but now even a Sanctuary Sorcerer had gone out of his way to seize every Sunseeker spirit entering Azura just to trade with them, attempting to monopolize the market to 'contact the devil'—treating them like some Void Realm game mechanic.
Yaxiu couldn't help recalling the 'Farmer Hypothesis' he had heard before: a farmer fed his chickens every afternoon, so the chickens came to believe that grain falling from the sky in the afternoon was a law of nature.
This was precisely what Divine Lords frequently encountered: a need casually mentioned by them would be treated by countless people as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Legendary and Sanctuary Sorcerers would scramble to treat it as their life's calling. Years later, perhaps the Divine Lord had long forgotten their fleeting whim, yet its repercussions remained deeply etched into societal culture, turning into historical traditions and cultural customs whose origins were impossible to trace.
Cecelia also recalled the notorious Sanctuary Sorcerer beside her. Her eyes shifted as an idea struck her, and she asked cautiously, "He offended you so badly, and piercing his eyes is enough?"
Yaxiu raised an eyebrow, looking at her with a half-smile. "Why, do you have a better suggestion?"
"If you don't mind, I'd be very happy to help." Cecelia could barely suppress the glee in her voice. She was hardly a saint who repaid malice with kindness. Gregory had nearly killed her moments ago; now that she had a chance for revenge, how could she pass it up? At the thought of having the chance to ravage a Sanctuary Sorcerer, her eyes sparkled with excitement, and her metal finger joints clicked crisply.
Yaxiu smiled. "Is that what you want for your trade? If so, I'm willing to leave their fate to you."
Cecelia snapped out of her vengeful mindset in an instant, shaking her head repeatedly. "Forget it, forget it. No need to lower myself to their level."
*This little girl...* Yaxiu glanced sideways at her and explained, "It's not out of mercy. Keeping them alive serves as a warning to others that no one is allowed to monopolize the Sunseeker spirits in Azura. I can't control other places, but at least in Azura, I don't want to trade with vile, shameless sorcerers.
"Though trading with scoundrels like them would give me an excuse to take their spirits with a clear conscience and slaughter them all, I'm not the Spectre Prophet. I don't have a hobby of entrapment.
"Alright, tell me what you want." Yaxiu tilted his head, looking at Cecelia. "While I can't grant just any wish, as long as you make a reasonable request, I should be able to satisfy it."
Cecelia hesitated for a moment and asked, "Can I ask a few questions?"
"What questions?"
"Don't you have to reach Liwan District to trade with the devil? And I heard that while the devil's appearance changes constantly, they are always beautiful women. Do you appear as a beautiful woman in front of men, and in front of women as a hand... handsome man?"
The corner of Yaxiu's mouth twitched. "My apologies for not being handsome enough."
Afraid that the devil might lose his temper, Cecelia hurriedly tried to smooth things over: "It might just be your hairstyle. If you combed your hair a bit, you'd definitely look much better."
Yaxiu grumbled peevishly, "I *did* comb it!"
In recent days, Yaxiu had also been among the severely injured. The task of acquiring sorcery spirits had been handled by Sword Princess and the others, so the 'devil' traders met was naturally female. The Witch had had the Gospel God set up an alert mechanism in Liwan District, notifying them whenever a Sunseeker spirit entered the area. Had Yaxiu not stepped out for noodles, Cecelia might well have collapsed a few hundred meters short of the destination.
Naturally, Yaxiu wouldn't disclose any of this. He casually remarked, "If you want a pretty older sister to trade with you, it will be deducted from your trading quota."
"No, no, no, I think you're just fine."
"Then what do you want to trade for? Restoring your body to completeness?" Yaxiu glanced at her metal limbs, his gaze softening at once. "I can give you a discount."
"No!" Cecelia shook her head resolutely. "I don't need you to restore my body. I'm great as I am right now!"
"Ah?" Yaxiu blinked. "Are cybernetic prosthetics better than your original body?"
"That's right." Cecelia nodded, clasping her metal hands into fists. "I have congenital heart disease. Without metal prosthetics with built-in actuators, I couldn't fight at all, and even everyday life was a struggle. Besides, metal limbs don't fear blade cuts or gunshots, and I can spend money to upgrade them further. They're much better than flesh and blood."
Yaxiu said, "I can cure your congenital heart disease."
Cecelia froze slightly. She looked down at her silvery metal hands, but still shook her head. "No need... besides, if I obtain power, I can heal myself too! That's right, I want power. My wish is to become strong!"
"Let me emphasize: I can only fulfill your request within limits," Yaxiu said. "You're only a Silver Sorcerer right now... I can tell you how to smuggle your way into the Time Continent, and give you a few useful sorcery spirits to guarantee you become an elite among Two-Wing Sorcerers."
Cecelia glanced at the frozen Gregory, greed breaking through her fear of the devil. "Only a Two-Wing Sorcerer? Can't you make me a Sanctuary Sorcerer?"
"I know how to smuggle someone onto the Stairway of Dreams, but the difficulty is far greater than reaching the Time Continent. Telling you would only harm you," Yaxiu said. "The power I can grant you is limited to the Two-Wing level, and you must actively fight for it to grasp that power."
"What about status and power then?" Cecelia asked. "In my entire life, I've hated wealthy and powerful people the most. Make me into the kind of person I hate the most!"
Yaxiu pondered for a moment. "I can give you a complete set of technical documents and some seed funding. As long as you successfully open a factory and establish sales channels, in a few years you should be able to become one of the nation's top ten young entrepreneurs. How about that?"
"I still have to run a factory myself?" Cecelia was bitterly disappointed. "Can't you just make me the head of a conglomerate or a city archon directly?"
"Setting aside the fact that I wouldn't do that, even if I really helped you eliminate an archon and hypnotized everyone around to believe you were the archon herself, could you hold onto that seat?" Yaxiu chuckled. "Power flows either bottom-up or top-down, but either way, it hinges on two things: either you can bring others profit, or you can inflict loss upon them.
"Profit earns you respect; loss makes others fear you. If you were suddenly dropped into an archon's seat, would you have the confidence to discern who is trustworthy and capable, or the ability to stabilize the city's factions and make everyone willing to carry out your orders?"
Cecelia was dumbfounded. "Subordinates would disobey me?"
Yaxiu laughed. "What a question. You're a member of the Courier Agency—are you fiercely loyal to your superiors?"
"Then make everyone obey my orders..." Cecelia's voice grew quieter and quieter, clearly realizing how absurd her wish was.
Yaxiu said, "If you just want to live comfortably, I can give you a very precious gemstone. You could exchange it for millions of gold coins, enough to live a carefree life."
Cecelia shook her head. "Having money without the strength to defend it just makes you someone else's coin purse. Besides... I don't want that kind of life either."
"Then what do you want?"
Right. What did she want?
Cecelia sat blankly on the pavement, looking up at the curtain of rain frozen midair. She had only known that she had to seize this chance to trade with the devil, but had never stopped to think about this question: What did she actually want?
Yaxiu was in no hurry either. He squatted beside her and waited, like a shop owner waiting for a child to pick out a toy.
"...I just want to solve all my problems in one go."
"Specifically, what problems?"
"So, so many," Cecelia murmured. "I just don't know how to say it."
Yaxiu looked at this dejected metal doll. Having a vague inkling in his heart, he asked, "How did you lose your limbs?"
On any normal day, if anyone dared ask about her disability, Cecelia would have beaten them senseless if she was in a bad mood, and certainly wouldn't have given them a kind look regardless. But perhaps out of fear, or perhaps for some elusive, inexplicable reason, she calmly recounted her past.
Stripped to its bones, it was just a classic, traditional tale of revenge: A family was ambushed by rogue sorcerers. Only the sickly little girl was spared, after the rogue sorcerer intentionally severed all four of her limbs, seemingly wanting to watch how this pitiful creature would linger on the brink of death. Yet the girl survived tenaciously, adopted by a friend of her father. Fitted with metal prosthetics, she trained hard in combat arts, pushed past the limits of her sickly body, and successfully resonated with the Void Realm to become a sorcerer.
Her father's friend was the director of an agency skirting the grey zone. When the girl turned sixteen, the friend was killed in a conflict. While sorting through his belongings, the girl discovered that this very friend was the rogue sorcerer who had slaughtered her family—all because he harbored a secret love for her mother, and in a moment of reckless impulse, had committed that monstrous atrocity.
"So for you, your target of revenge and your adoptive father died at the exact same time?" Yaxiu asked.
Cecelia was silent for a moment. "Actually... I had long forgotten about revenge."
The slaughter of one's family was indeed an irreconcilable blood feud, but not everyone could brood over hatred day after day for a decade. Over a dozen years, time had washed away the edges, almost letting the little girl forget the hell she had witnessed—only for an accident to drag her back into that hell once more.
"After that, I joined the Courier Agency and stayed until now. Having spent so many years learning techniques to kill, killing was the only way I knew how to survive." Cecelia suddenly gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Right now, the most pressing problem I need to solve is probably the Painter hunting me down, isn't it? Can't you just make me a Sanctuary Sorcerer? Even if I become a Two-Wing Sorcerer, I might not beat the Painter."
Yaxiu shook his head. "No one can casually raise a sorcerer's tier. The Void Realm is utterly impartial; even if I teach you how to smuggle yourself across, you must walk the path yourself.
"However, I think I know what you truly want."
Cecelia froze, lifting her gaze to look at Yaxiu.
"No past, no future, no friends, no family. The only thing propelling you forward is pure biological inertia. You can't find any meaning in living; you live simply to stay alive.
"Your whole being is as light as a balloon, anchored to the ground by only a single, slender thread.
"You chose to betray the Courier Agency, strained every nerve to flee to Azura, and refused to surrender even when facing a Sanctuary Sorcerer... Perhaps without even realizing it yourself," Yaxiu said, enunciating each word, "you were actually deliberately courting death."
Cecelia was startled, then shrugged. She seemed to want to give a scornful smile, but in the end, the smile never formed. She stared blankly at the puddles reflecting neon lights on the pavement.
"...You really are a devil, aren't you?" she murmured suddenly. "Devils always love to toy with mortals' minds."
"No, I just have a bit of experience." Yaxiu smiled. "What is your name?"
"Cecelia. Cecelia Aricado."
"Hello, Cecelia." Yaxiu took hold of her right metal hand and pulled her up with a firm tug.
Cecelia hadn't been slumped on the ground out of laziness. Gregory's gravity field had fractured her ribs and internal organs, rupturing numerous blood vessels. While she looked fine on the outside, her insides were riddled with trauma, and the slightest movement had made her break out in cold sweat from pain. But now, pulled up by Yaxiu, she found that she was completely unharmed, entirely unaware of when she had been healed.
"Hungry?" Yaxiu walked into the eatery and waved at her. "Do you like noodle soup?"
Chapter 1186