The cigarette butt sizzled in his palm, sending up curls of smoke. Just a moment ago, Xifulin hadn't been able to leave a single mark on Yaxiu's soul body no matter how hard she tried, yet now Dead Frenzy burned him with casual ease, leaving Yaxiu pursing his lips and trembling slightly.
"Does it hurt?"
"No!"
"Then let's do another five minutes."
"Hey, hey—" Yaxiu jerked his hand back and rubbed it, groaning in agony. "Hasn't that been enough?"
"A Veela and a vampire combined are only worth five minutes to you?" Dead Frenzy tossed the cigarette butt aside and sneered. "I knew it. To you, they're nothing more than playthings to pass the time and stave off loneliness, aren't they?"
Yaxiu froze. After a moment of conflicted agony, he thrust both hands forward with a look of suicidal resolve. "Both hands, another five minutes!"
"Only five minutes?"
"Then... ten minutes?"
Dead Frenzy flicked his forehead with a finger, tapped a cigarette out of its pack, and said coldly, "What do you take me for, a priest granting redemption to the world? If you want to atone, go find Sonia later and take your punishment properly. I'm just tormenting you because looking at you annoys me."
Yaxiu hurriedly lit her cigarette for her. The shreds of tobacco crackled crisply. He had always suspected the cigarettes Dead Frenzy smoked might be some kind of wondrous relic; otherwise, there was no explaining why a cigarette could burn straight through a soul body and scorch the soul itself. Every time, Yaxiu tried using various healing miracles to alleviate the pain, only for the agony to bite deeper the more he resisted. In the end, all he could do was take his punishment submissively.
"Each shred of tobacco is woven from the souls of ten thousand living beings. A single cigarette has eight hundred shreds, totaling eight million souls. Every puff burns hundreds of thousands of souls to ash."
"What?!" Yaxiu stared dumbfounded. He had taken a few drags of Dead Frenzy's cigarettes before.
"Still, I'm not a pervert who eats souls like Nether Demon," Dead Frenzy said languidly. "Soul products hold no appeal for me."
Yaxiu breathed a sigh of relief. "So you're making it up?"
Dead Frenzy gave him a sidelong glance, a playful curve tugging at the corner of her lips. She took a deep drag, blew a smoke ring right into his face, and offered a mischievous smile. "What do you think?"
*If you're not going to tell me, why bring it up in the first place?!*
Whether it was an illusion or not, Yaxiu felt as though he could hear the wailing of souls coming from the burning tobacco. He quickly banished the thought from his mind and looked down at the remains of the Four Pillar Gods resting quietly on the floor.
There was an extremely crude, grotesque full-coverage helmet with four sharp horns; a simple yet eerie mask painted with a black-and-white theatrical face; a frail, brittle glass skull; and a bizarre human visage stitched together from dozens of patches of skin belonging to living beings of different races, sexes, and ages.
Without needing any tests, Yaxiu was certain these were the bones of the Four Pillar Gods, perhaps even their true forms. He had assumed their true forms would be intensely evil, radioactive sources of terrifying pollution, but in reality they felt surprisingly "clean." For instance, a high-explosive round could blast someone's upper torso into a chaotic mess of bloody pulp, yet the anti-materiel sniper rifle firing that round was exquisite... The remains of the Four Pillar Gods gave Yaxiu the exact feeling of an anti-materiel sniper rifle—tools suffused with an orderly aesthetic.
They were the embodiment of concepts, completely beyond description by moral notions like good, evil, righteousness, or villainy concocted by sentient beings. Violence, pursuit of knowledge, life, indulgence—concepts that ought to have existed only on paper—could now be seen operating within the remains of the Four Pillar Gods with crystal clarity. It was almost like—
"Do they look a lot like sorcery spirits?" Dead Frenzy remarked. "Or perhaps I should say gods?"
Yaxiu was startled. "The Four Pillar Gods are gods?"
Dead Frenzy countered, "Then do you consider the Golden Fish and the White Bull gods?"
Yaxiu shook his head thoughtfully. "They seem more like... phenomena?"
"The difference between the Four Pillar Gods and the fish or the bull is that they are phenomena with self-awareness. They are not gods, because gods are the embodiments of rules. That is to say, when a god appears, it signifies that the corresponding 'rule' has been fixed in place. It's said that before the birth of the fire god, it was possible for fire to freeze... Phenomena, on the other hand, are not rules. Rules can produce phenomena, but phenomena don't necessarily have rules. Like the fish, the bull, and the Four Pillar Gods—none of their authorities can be explained by specific rules."
Dead Frenzy paused and shook her head. "No, that's not quite right. Actually, there are many rules that can explain their authorities. For instance, blood magic and soul magic for the Tyrant; prophecy and truth for the Crafty Chancellor; frailty and necromancy for the Loving Father; mind and dominion for the Prince... Some factions were developed by sorcerers themselves, but others were born under the inducement of the Four Pillar Gods. In that terrifying era when the Four Pillar Gods descended upon the earth, because sorcerers were drawn too close to them, they instinctively investigated their phenomena and established their rules, which in turn suppressed the gods' authorities.
"You can think of it as a perpetual tug-of-war between the Four Pillar Gods and sorcerer civilization. The Four Pillar Gods want to drag sorcerer civilization down into the abyss of desire and usurp the Void Realm from the bottom up—have you forgotten? Sorcerers are the feelers of the Void Realm. By controlling all sorcerers, one can control the Void Realm." Seeing the bewilderment in Yaxiu's eyes, Dead Frenzy promptly added the explanation.
"There were indeed multiple eras in history where the Four Pillar Gods held the upper hand. But once sorcerers became feelers of the Four Pillar Gods, they probed deep into their phenomena and created their rules. Once rules were created, the Four Pillar Gods lost that portion of their authority, allowing sorcerer civilization to pull the rope back and reclaim the advantage.
"Though it might not count as the main storyline, this tug-of-war between the Four Pillar Gods and sorcerer civilization has indeed spanned all of history up to this day."
Yaxiu pondered this and grew somewhat confused. "Wait, that doesn't add up. Sorcerer civilization has been advancing constantly, continuously creating new rules. The Four Pillar Gods' authorities should have been compressed into something tiny by now. Yet it feels to me that while they dare not contend against the Divine Lords, they aren't weak either."
Dead Frenzy glanced at him. "The Four Pillar Gods might not have much of a brain, but when sorcerer civilization advanced, it dragged them along for the ride.
"Take the Prince's authority of indulgence, for instance. Was the entertainment you looked forward to back in Shattered Lake Prison the same as the entertainment you look forward to now with a whole crowd of lovers? It's the same for sorcerer civilization. Extravagance tens of thousands of years ago versus the debauchery and decadence of today—which do you think reaches greater heights?
"The more rules of violence sorcerers create, the more cruel forms of violence are born; the more truth they pursue, the more unknowns they discover; the more they chase immortality, the more deficient they find themselves; the more they indulge, the harder it is to satisfy their desires.
"That is why the Four Pillar Gods don't count as gods. They always linger in the darkness beyond the periphery of sorcerer civilization, whereas only rules within civilization count as gods. Occasionally they serve as beacons pointing forward, but far more often they are lures for corruption. They are history, the present, and the future—eternal phenomena."
"Then how did you kill them?" Yaxiu asked.
"I simply walked into the Realm of the Gods, grabbed them like Lalafells, and cut off their heads with a single sword slash."
Yaxiu was somewhat at a loss for words. "Is messing with me really that fun?"
"You have a problem with it?" Dead Frenzy glared at him coldly.
"No!"
Dead Frenzy kicked the helmet by her feet aside, took a drag of her cigarette, and said slowly, "The Four Pillar Gods are eternal phenomena, but the consciousness of the Four Pillar Gods is not an eternal life. In fact, the Four Pillar Gods have gone through several generations already. For a Divine Lord, entering the Realm of the Gods to slaughter those four revolting beasts might be troublesome, but it's not impossible. For me, it's even simpler. In basically every new world line we reach, our very first step is to slay the Four Pillar Gods—"
"Wait!" Yaxiu suddenly caught on, staring blankly at Dead Frenzy. "You entered the Realm of the Gods... Have you already descended into this world?"
Seeing Yaxiu looking completely flustered, an inexplicable irritation flared within Dead Frenzy. She took a sullen puff of her cigarette and snapped, "Didn't you just kiss Sonia? Did you taste cigarette smoke on her lips?"
"So...?"
"You paid three-quarters of your mind. While we cannot yet descend into this world, entering the Realm of the Gods through you is easy enough," Dead Frenzy said calmly. "You are our feeler."
Yaxiu let out a long breath, finally putting his mind at ease. "So that's how it is..."
"Continuing on the Four Pillar Gods—"
"What about Rose?" Yaxiu asked nervously. "You didn't hurt her, did you?"
"Rose?" Dead Frenzy raised an eyebrow. "You don't mean... the Fifth Pillar God, do you? She hasn't awakened yet, so of course I haven't dealt with her... Then again, are normal people no longer enough to satisfy you? Exactly which trash bin did you crawl out of that even evil gods fall within your hunting range?"
"Rose isn't an evil god," Yaxiu said earnestly. "I am her sole believer, and she is my sole faith."
"She will be sooner or later," Dead Frenzy scoffed. "A fishmonger will always smell of fish, and a carnivore will inevitably have blood on its maw. This has nothing to do with her wishes. As long as she occupies the seat of a Pillar God and dwells in the darkness on the fringe of sorcerer civilization, she will inevitably become an evil god luring all living beings into corruption... How could direction diverge from an arrow? How could sunlight diverge from the sun? How could a Pillar God defy increasing entropy?"
"Then we'll deal with it when the time comes," Yaxiu said firmly.
"If only there really were a 'when the time comes.'" Dead Frenzy tilted her chin up, a trace of malice surfacing in her eyes. "I'd actually love to see the look of regret on your face. However much you love them now is how much you will detest them in the future... I would truly love to see the end you deserve."
"Why would I ever detest them?"
"You only dare ask that because you're currently in the passionate honeymoon phase, coupled with massive external pressure forcing you all to unite," Dead Frenzy said. "Rather than saying you compromise with one another, it's more accurate to say you have no conflicts of interest at all. Even Sonia's behavior is just possessiveness at work... It's like puppy love on a school campus, always on the move, always looking ahead.
"But sooner or later, you'll settle down. The girls won't stay lovestruck forever, and neither will you. That is when the real torture begins." She sneered. "Once the novelty fades, the relationship turns dull, followed by growing sick of each other, and finally outright mutual resentment, staying together solely out of shared interests and inertia... What, do you dare claim you can treat her as you did at first forever?
"Even if you dare promise it, who can claim they will never change? Lisidiya can cling to you like a silly little girl now, but can she still be this innocent and naive in a few years? Youlan Weise only wishes for you to embrace happiness right now, but once you're truly steeped in that honey pot, will she really not make plans for herself? And Vichy... when possessing you allows her to achieve both 'love' and 'ideals' simultaneously, nothing she does would surprise me.
"I won't even mention Sonia. The only reason she's willing to tolerate all this is that your adventure hasn't ended yet.
"And the best part isn't even that they will change—it's that you'll realize you've changed, too."
Dead Frenzy spoke almost like someone pronouncing a curse. "When you realize you no longer love them, everything from the past will become too unbearable to look back upon. Everything you think is important right now will turn laughable... Even that question you just asked will look like high comedy.
"I really wish I could see just how pathetic you'll look when that day comes... Too bad I won't get to see it."
Yaxiu had remained silent the whole time. Only when Dead Frenzy finished did he speak up: "I've actually thought about everything you just said, but I'm not particularly worried, because I already have a preliminary solution."
"What solution? Using miracles?"
"No. For example, regarding your point about novelty fading, I completely agree. Even with someone you love, spending every single day together can get stale," Yaxiu said. "However, I have four operators—tentatively just the four of them for now. By arranging them into combinations of singles, pairs, trios, and quads, there are fifteen combinations in total. That means if we do a different combination every day, I can rotate through them every half month. That way, not only does everyone get their personal space, but every single day will be slightly different..."
Dead Frenzy stared blankly as Yaxiu rattled on eloquently. In the end, she let out a helpless sigh and beckoned to him. "Hold out your hand."
"If you don't think it works, we can talk it over!"
"I don't want to talk. I just want to torment you. Looking at you annoys me."
When Dead Frenzy grabbed his hand, Yaxiu pulled back his smile and said earnestly, "I know we can't stay as we were at the very beginning forever, but I don't believe we will head toward the end you described either. Don't forget, before we ever became lovers, we were already teammates hacking our way through thorns and brambles together. If one day the passion truly fades, it just means it's time for us to find a more suitable way to be together.
"The only thing I can promise is that I will never let go of Sonia, and I believe she will never let me off the hook either.
"So please, entrust Sonia to me!" Yaxiu grabbed Dead Frenzy's hand in return and said with utmost sincerity, "I will definitely make her happy...!"
The corner of Dead Frenzy's mouth twitched around her cigarette. "Were you about to call me Mom?"
"A-Auntie? No, Big Sis, Big Sis, Big Sis—!"
Yaxiu clutched his palm, curling his toes in sheer agony as he stared at Dead Frenzy with a thoroughly dejected look. Dead Frenzy took a leisurely drag of her cigarette to calm her mood, coldly forcing out a few words: "I couldn't care less about your business."
"Thank you." Yaxiu was rather pleased to receive Dead Frenzy's acknowledgment, but his spirits soon sank again. "Even though there are only two months left, I still have the confidence to keep Sonia happy for those two months..."
Dead Frenzy asked calmly, "Do you know why I went to kill the Four Pillar Gods?"
"Does slaying them buy more time for this world?" Yaxiu guessed. "If our vacation gets extended, I might really have to take them to challenge the Divine Lord of Stars..."
"I told you earlier: the Four Pillar Gods exist in the past, present, and future. Even if the River of Flowing Gold dries up, the Void Realm collapses, and the world is destroyed, they will still exist; only their form of existence will change. For sorcerers seeking to traverse world lines, there is no medium better suited to serve as a beacon than the Four Pillar Gods.
"The Four Pillar Gods have another property. In the interval between their death and rebirth, their authorities enter an unclaimed state that anyone can seize. However, only feelers of the Four Pillar Gods can possibly steal their authorities. And if a feeler steals enough, they can even become the new Four Pillar Gods.
"In other words..."
Dead Frenzy enunciated each word: "We are now the Four Pillar Gods."
Chapter 1258