Screeech—
From the curtain of rain ahead came the tooth-grinding screech of groaning steel, as if the spine being twisted and bent belonged to whoever was listening.
The sports car had already reversed as far as it possibly could. Ten meters behind them lay the ceaseless Flowing Gold River. If they backed through that single thin sheet of rain, the crushing weight of time would instantly obliterate their souls.
Time was the most terrifying monster of all—omnipresent, never-ending, chewing up all living beings and devouring entire civilizations.
Only three colors remained on the Void Realm Map: the green safe zone marking Yaxiu's position, the red "court death" zone painted by the Heroic Spirit Legion, and the golden zone where the Flowing Gold River flowed.
The Empress Heroic Spirit had claimed she would grant them time for lovemaking, but she had never promised to give them enough room. The Heroic Spirit Legion was pressing forward in unison, leaving Yaxiu with zero leeway to maneuver.
Ten meters away behind the curtain of rain, the hideous, nightmarish Heroic Spirit Legion was poised to strike, ready for its midnight snack.
Yet they lingered just beyond the veil of rain, their figures thoroughly hidden by the reverse golden rain. Yaxiu and his companions could only hear rustling movements, gnashing teeth, and scratching claws. This proved far worse than a direct charge—imagination staged a splendid rebellion within their minds, impatient to overthrow the dictatorship of reason and welcome the imperial host of terror and carnage.
Beyond the rebel army of imagination, the palace of the mind saw intense intrigue waged by the instinct for survival. That gossamer curtain of rain allowed the survivalist faction to swell without end. It marched triumphantly along, thrashing the guards of dignity, crushing the minister of courage, dragging reason down from the throne, and forcing it to kneel in humiliating surrender.
Between life and death lay ultimate terror.
This was no game. The Empress Heroic Spirit would definitely unleash her retainers in a ravenous swarm, stripping them down to the bone mouthful by mouthful. At best, a mere wisp of soul-skin might escape back to their physical bodies—yet just as a hundred milliliters of blood could never power a human body, a few stray fragments of a soul could never reboot the operating system of consciousness.
Even without offending local powerhouses as they had, sorcerers dying in the Void Realm was hardly a rare occurrence. The Void Realm was neither a charity nor an accommodating client. It was simply an indifferent filter, selecting melodies adapted to the environment and wiping out any dissonance that did not belong to this era—whether an antiquated aria or avant-garde rock.
The Secret Incarnation was a power far beyond what people at their level could touch. A noise that raucous naturally invited universal condemnation—and while there might not be a thousand of them, at least a hundred armed units were hemming them in.
There was good reason for the academic faction of sorcerers to dominate. The adventure faction never knew when they might end up dead without a grave, whereas academic sorcerers could trade time for safety, steadily advancing their realms and factions step-by-step as they climbed to the higher layers of the Void Realm... Yaxiu couldn't stop his mind from wandering.
*Splat!*
A glob of unconditional malice struck the outer protective barrier of the Refraction Curtain Wall. The dark-green stench of rot nearly melted their souls through their respiratory tracts. The sorcerers tensed all over in fright, yet the Empress Heroic Spirit merely giggled. "My apologies. My spider had a bit of an itch in its throat and accidentally coughed up some phlegm. We didn't interrupt you, did we?"
Enraged, Yaxiu yelled, "You did interrupt! We were just getting into the mood, and now the whole vibe is ruined! How are you going to make it up to us?!"
"Mmh~ How about I offer myself to you as compensation?"
"Great! We're one short for a full party anyway. Hurry on over, you're just in time!"
"I'm sorry, but I prefer to take the initiative. How about I send someone over to bring you back?"
Yaxiu's heart stirred, but the Sword Princess beat him to the punch: "We only accept multiplayer games. No solo affairs allowed."
"My, times have truly changed. Sorcerers these days are far more open-minded than in my era." A teasing lilt touched Denzel's voice. "What a pity. So vibrant, so beautiful, so sweet and delicious..."
"Hearing one's own eulogy while still alive is quite a novel experience." Sonia let out a cold huff. Turning toward Yaxiu, she kept her voice low. "Don't you dare think about going over there to take the Empress hostage! You don't have enough lives to throw away!"
"Huh?" Diya blinked. "So the Watcher was hesitating just now because he was planning to assassinate the commander? I thought..."
"What else? Could there possibly be any other reason?!" Yaxiu interrupted the Witch with righteous indignation.
He glanced at Diya's hair, which was beginning to turn murky, and his heart sank slightly.
"Last time we got the upper hand against the Empress, it wasn't because of how formidable we were; it was because the cabin of lost memories gave us a massive advantage," Sonia said. "This time, the Empress came prepared. Any flaw she shows is just a trap. We have no openings to exploit."
"Then what do we do?" Diya's voice drifted slightly. Though she had not entered her duet state, her tone was already starkly different from before, the corners of her mouth curling into a disdainful sneer. "Are we supposed to just wait here to die? The two of you might be satisfied with that outcome, but in reality, someone is waiting for me to return."
"We fight our way out!" Sonia ignored Diya's hostile tone, speaking with resolute certainty. "The Refraction Curtain Wall hasn't broken, and the sports car has the Wicked Edge to clear a path. Our combat strength remains intact! The Empress spent days laying this trap; any trick we try is just a bubble she can pop at will. Our only option is to break technique with sheer force, using everything we have to carve a path through with blood!"
By the end, though the village girl's composed face showed no trace of anger, her right hand had already gripped the hilt of her sword, the crimson in her eyes turning deep and dark.
The Witch's hair grew dirtier and dirtier, but her eyes shone brighter and brighter. An intensely vivid madness surfaced on her pure, lovely face. She even threw an arm around the Sword Princess's shoulders and snickered. "Haha, I like this plan. Who knew that under all your usual little schemes, you could still be so cute when it counts?~"
Where was the cute factor in a plan that consisted purely of reckless charging?
Though Yaxiu grumbled internally, the operators' condition brought him a wave of relief. What he feared most was the Sword Princess and the Witch losing their sanity and judgment in the face of mortal terror. Subduing the rebel army of imagination and the survivalist faction in his own mind had already drained an immense amount of energy; if he had to carry one or two liabilities on top of that, his mentality would crumble.
No matter how pretty the Sword Princess was or how adorable the Witch was, if they dragged their feet and turned into monsters of negative emotion right now, Yaxiu would have downgraded their trust tier in his heart.
Nothing was more exhausting than terrible teammates, especially at a project's most critical juncture. A Void Realm team needed reliable partners they could entrust their lives to, not mascots or decorative vases.
Yet not only were the Sword Princess and the Witch not liabilities, but Yaxiu felt like he was the accessory hanging on their coattails. In the face of mortal danger, each was braver than the last, itching to cleave the gates of life and death with a single strike and tear through right and wrong with both hands. Negative emotions like fear, regret, despair, and cowardice had all mutated and merged within them, surging into decisive, unyielding killing intent. Standing beside them, Yaxiu felt as though he commanded an army of thousands.
Even so, Yaxiu pressed both of them back into their seats. "Hold on a second. Let me see if there's another way."
"Lover!" Yaxiu shouted aloud. "I have a gift I'd like to give you!"
"What gift?" The voices of Diya, Sonia, and Denzel rang out simultaneously.
Yaxiu patted the operators' heads and called out, "My Soul Summoning sorcery spirit. Do you like it?"
"It's so-so, nothing to write home about," Denzel said quite pickily. "Still, since it's a gift from you, I suppose I can reluctantly accept it."
"Once you accept it, could you be magnanimous and let us go?" Yaxiu spread his hands. "We don't really have any blood feud between us. Why not just act like nothing happened? From now on, you fight your wars, and we explore our Void Realm."
"Whatever are you talking about, my lovely little lover?" Denzel chuckled softly. "If you don't die, how am I supposed to reclaim the Soul Summoning sorcery spirit? Surely you haven't forgotten that once you discard a sorcery spirit in the Void Realm, it disappears instantly? Only when a sorcery spirit drops upon a sorcerer's death does it retain the lingering aura of its master's soul brand, allowing it to remain for a brief moment so another sorcerer has the chance to capture it."
"Wait, doesn't the contract state that if you capture me, I have to willingly hand over the Soul Summoning sorcery spirit...?" Yaxiu was a bit baffled. If he couldn't hand it over at all, why had the Empress included that clause in the contract?
"Which means the true meaning of that clause is that once I capture you, you will obediently commit suicide without resisting." Denzel spoke briskly, her voice as cheerful as a song. "Every clause has a hidden trap beneath the literal wording. To think you accepted every single one without changing a thing! I had to try so hard not to burst out laughing back then. Little lover, you really are so considerate."
"Except you still have misgivings."
Faced with the Empress's ridicule, Yaxiu didn't get angry at all. He said calmly, "If all you needed to do was catch me to make me obediently kill myself and yield the Soul Summoning sorcery spirit, you wouldn't be wasting so much time and effort chatting with me. You would've charged straight over to strip my skin and snap my bones."
The laughter beyond the rain gradually ceased.
"You're using an army to hunt me, using taunts to wear me down, using a legion to terrorize me, and using sweet talk to toy with me. Just watching it makes me tired for you. If you want to eat me, wouldn't it be simpler to just come over and peel me open? Why go through all this trouble? Is this whole routine going to grade up my marbling to Wagyu status?" Yaxiu said. "You're doing everything you can to erode my will to fight for one reason and one reason only: to make me completely lose my judgment."
"If I'm not mistaken, once our minds collapse and we descend into hysteria, you'll offer us a very generous proposal. It would go something like this: as long as I willingly die at your hands, you'll spare my companions, and you won't thoroughly destroy me—you'll only extract the Soul Summoning sorcery spirit from my soul... Right?"
Chapter 394