"Repeat after me: In the event of the following circumstances, I am willing to transfer the divine wish to Annan Dolan."
Inside the hotel room, Igola spent nearly half an hour reading through this new contract, which stretched across thousands of clauses. Giving Annan a deep, lingering look, he pressed his fingerprint onto the contract and recited, "In the event of the following circumstances, I am willing to transfer the divine wish to Annan Dolan."
Annan turned to Harvey. "Repeat after me: In the event of the following circumstances, I am willing to transfer the divine wish to Annan Dolan."
Harvey did not seem to care in the slightest. Without even glancing at the document, he pressed down his fingerprint and spoke the identical oath.
The Purple Moth breathed a sigh of relief, then turned toward the cult leader beside her.
Yaxiu looked a little surprised. "Me too?"
"It's just in passing anyway. Besides, both of them signed it. If you don't, I'm worried they might ostracize you."
"Oh, so now you care about my relationship with my colleagues? Earlier when you were feeding me..."
"It's just going through the motions anyway. Can't you just humor me to give me a little sense of security?" Annan tugged at his sleeve as if acting coy. "Though I don't have any more contract paper left, so just repeat after me: Regardless of the circumstances..."
Yaxiu: "Regardless of the circumstances..."
Annan: "I am willing to dedicate the divine wish to Annan Dolan..."
Yaxiu: "I am willing to dedicate the divine wish to Annan Dolan..."
Annan: "And to love her, respect her, and cherish her forever."
Yaxiu: "And to love her forever—"
"Wait, there's a problem here, a huge problem!" Lisi immediately jumped out to interrupt the incantation, crying angrily, "Aunt Annan, you're sneaking in your own agenda!"
Lines of exasperation ran down Igola's face as well. "Interfering with free will and extending the duration of the contract—both of those severely violate our initial contract, don't they?"
"Tsk." Annan touched her earring. "It was just a joke. Even if Yaxiu agreed, it wouldn't take effect."
After returning from viewing the Culprit Board, the first thing Annan had done was further reinforce her contracts with her employees.
Right now, Annan was no longer the Echoer with the highest priority in the Weaving Ceremony. In truth, she should still have held the top priority, but unfortunately, her first-place ranking on the Culprit Board had been invalidated by 'Gospel Yaxiu'. If they succeeded in assassinating the princess, both Igola and Harvey would be more qualified than her to claim the divine wish.
To ensure that Igola and Harvey would transfer the wish to her once they received it, she had to deepen the contract terms. Although under normal circumstances the two would obediently surrender the wish as long as Annan ordered them in advance, a divine wish was clearly no ordinary circumstance.
No one knew how the process of "making a wish" actually worked. Did the Omniscient Weaver delve directly into the deepest recesses of your heart? Did it pull the wisher into a special space to inquire? Or did a sheet of paper appear before the wisher, allowing them to write whatever they wished... There were simply too many possibilities.
Leaving aside whether Igola and Harvey might exploit a loophole to wish away their contracts, what Annan worried about even more was that the Omniscient Weaver might shield them from the contract's influence, granting them full autonomy in making their wish. To a god, that wouldn't even count as lifting a finger—perhaps a miracle achieved with a single thought—but to Annan, it would be a catastrophe that negated all her efforts.
Annan never counted on Igola and Harvey to make the wish on her behalf; she hadn't even entertained the thought. This could no longer be called "testing human nature," but rather "testing intelligence"—testing her intelligence.
To be fair, even when passion had run high last night as she exchanged bodily fluids with Yaxiu, Annan had never for a single second considered trusting Yaxiu in this matter.
The final step of blaspheming the Gospel had to be carried out by her own hands; it could never be entrusted to anyone else.
To that end, she needed the two men to sign a supplementary agreement.
However, "signing multiple contracts" was a major taboo. As a swindler, Igola had naturally thought of this long ago. Back when they signed the "initial contract," he had already discovered that Annan had left many huge traps in the terms. When Annan was in a good mood, she could play the happy family of boss and employees with them; when she was in a bad mood, she could force Yaxiu to lick her toes at any moment.
Even though Igola had argued fiercely to eliminate many clauses, Annan still retained a great deal of authority, such as these "deepened contract terms."
Put simply, within the framework permitted by the initial contract, Annan could sign supplementary agreements with them to specify certain actions in greater detail—for example, "under condition X, I must perform action Y."
"Deepening contract terms" also had limits. For instance, the validity period of this new contract could not exceed that of the initial contract. Otherwise, if Annan renewed their slave contracts every three months like an endless refill, they might as well all change their surname to Doran.
Furthermore, it could not compromise individual free will. Otherwise, if Annan commanded them to "be Doran's devoted hounds with all your heart," they would probably still be willing to work for Annan for free even after the contract expired.
Of course, contracts were not omnipotent. Leaving aside a mind sorcerer like Igola, even Yaxiu could put up slight resistance against Annan's enslavement; Annan couldn't physically force them to do things they completely refused to do.
Now, however, Igola and Harvey had signed a more detailed secondary contract. No matter how reluctant they were in their hearts, once any of the nearly one thousand "prerequisites" in the secondary contract was triggered, they would immediately utter their oath.
If even this failed to secure the divine wish from their hands, then Annan could only accept defeat.
"What would have happened if my oath just now actually took effect?" Yaxiu asked curiously. "Would it directly influence my heart's will?"
"A contract isn't a mind miracle; it doesn't have such immediate results," Annan said. "It would probably give you constant psychological suggestions, making you focus more of your attention on me—looking only at me, minding only me. Even when you didn't see me, your thoughts would find roundabout ways to bring me to mind..."
"Sounds quite similar to consulting the Gospel to find a partner," Yaxiu remarked. "Giving you no other choices, so you can only love one person for the rest of your life."
Annan froze. After a moment of silence, she said, "I'm sorry. That joke crossed the line."
"It's fine." Yaxiu looked toward Harvey and Igola. "Speaking of which, what do your rewards from the board do? The Cursed Seven-Colored Tail Feather... could it be...?"
"That's right, it's the Ox of the Sky Carriage's Seven-Colored Tail."
At this, Igola's expression turned somewhat complicated. "Though rather than calling it a reward, it's more like a trap. It feels like..."
"It feels like the Gospel is paying us protection money, but hid counterfeit bills inside." The necromancer's voice dripped with mockery.
[Cursed Seven-Colored Tail Feather of the Ghost King and Rust Crow: Usable only on the Time Continent; usable only by the recipient. Upon use, the Golden Wings will fully coalesce, and the user will ascend directly to the third floor of the Void Realm. Concurrently, permanently closes the sorcerer's sorcery power channel with the fourth floor of the Void Realm.]
Incredible!
Yaxiu had thought the "Rust Crow's Golden Feather" was outrageous enough—allowing an ordinary person to directly attain a Gold rank faction realm, after which they only needed to steadily explore the Void Realm to ascend. Yet the Seven-Colored Tail Feather was even more outrageous: it fed golden sorcery power right to your mouth, then carried you straight up to the third floor of the Void Realm! Even kindergarten childcare wasn't this considerate!
If the golden feather let someone win at the starting line, the seven-colored tail feather placed the finish line directly over the starting line—all you had to do was take a single step (use this item) and you would become a Sanctuary Sorcerer!
"But what does 'permanently closes the sorcerer's sorcery power channel with the fourth floor of the Void Realm' mean?" Yaxiu asked, puzzled.
"Literally what it says," Banjie replied. "In daily life, we consume sorcery power, but that power quickly replenishes itself. Where does this sorcery power come from? There is no sorcery power in the air, and we sorcerers can only provide knowledge as the raw material for sorcery power—we cannot generate sorcery power directly either.
"Although we do not directly enter the Void Realm at all times, we remain connected to it continuously. Ordinarily, after we expend sorcery power, our void wings automatically draw sorcery power from the Void Realm to replenish it. That is the sorcery power channel."
"Then what does closing the sorcery power channel with the fourth floor of the Void Realm do?" Yaxiu was still somewhat confused. "Even if they use the Seven-Colored Tail Feather, they'd only be Sanctuary Sorcerers of the Void Realm's third floor. They wouldn't be able to absorb fourth-floor sorcery power anyway."
"If you break through your faction realm and want to summon a higher-grade sorcery spirit to advance into a higher floor of the Void Realm, you must channel the sorcery power of the next floor up," Igola explained calmly. "Simply put, when I want to ascend to the fourth floor of the Void Realm in the future, I must channel fourth-floor Void Realm sorcery power in order to summon a four-wing sorcery spirit—because the fourth wing of a four-wing sorcery spirit is formed from the colorless sorcery power of the Void Realm's fourth floor."
Yaxiu understood instantly. "In other words, if you use this reward, wouldn't it completely sever your hopes of ever becoming a Legendary Sorcerer?"
"Hence why it is a cursed seven-colored tail feather," Igola sneered. "I can only say that the Gospel truly thinks highly of us, willing to spend so precious a bait as 'Sanctuary' just to cut off any chance of us achieving Legendary status in the future... Now, even I'm curious as to just how much trouble I'll cause the Gospel in the future for it to be this wary of me."
Yaxiu said solemnly, "Then all the more reason you shouldn't use it. If even the Gospel acknowledges and fears your potential, reaching Sanctuary is only a matter of time. There's no need to rush—"
"I've already used it."
Chapter 475