Transcendence District, underground skyscraper base.
“Not just what is before your eyes, but the future as well.”
Gazing at the revelation coalescing from the foam on the mirror, Igola pondered for a moment, rinsed his mouth with a vigorous swish, wiped away the foam, and left the room carrying his waterproof satchel.
Arriving at the bathhouse on the 51st floor, the swindler spotted his two companions already soaking in the small pool at their usual spot. He sat down and asked, “Where's Tamaxi?”
“He's not a sorcerer, and his schedule is different from ours. Why would he get up this early?” Yaxiu pulled the hot towel off his face and replied, “Besides, he hasn't been infected by you. He doesn't have that bad habit of getting up early in the morning to soak in a bath. At most, he washes up in his room.”
“The highest-class hotel room here doesn't even have a bathtub,” Igola said, soaking languidly. “Still, it's better than that food factory town—they didn't even have a communal bathhouse.”
“The fact that there's even a hotel here is surprising enough,” Yaxiu said. “A single building actually contains an entire, functioning society.”
“Normal,” Harvey said while chewing on a piece of chocolate. “A single corpse gives birth to a civilization of scavengers.”
Among the three of them, Harvey's vitality drained the fastest. In the battle a few days ago, half his body had been incinerated in the gas station explosion. Fortunately, he was in the 'cold flowing fire' state at the time, sharing the damage with Alice, though he had also sacrificed half his body to reconstruct Alice—Yaxiu even suspected that the flesh and bones on Alice were on the verge of being entirely replaced with Harvey's own.
The price was that Harvey was now thin as paper. Compounded by the ongoing curse of the blood seed, he had to eat constantly over the past few days just to slowly recover.
Come to think of it, Harvey's situation was like an elementary school math problem—if a swimming pool drains water on one side while filling water on the other, when will the pool be full?
“We can only stay in this building for two more days at most,” Igola said. “No matter how much money we have, we can't extend our stay... If Silver Lantern doesn't make a move within these two days, we'll have no choice but to flee to the nearest town and wait.”
Camping out in the wilderness was out of the question; nobody wanted to test whether they could survive the Strangling Green of the night.
“Speaking of which, I have a big plan.” Yaxiu gestured for them to lean closer and lowered his voice. “I think Silver Lantern wants to seize the Transcendence Cult's grand law.”
Igola started slightly before realization struck—of course. If she were merely on the run, Silver Lantern could have fled overnight; there was no need for her to linger here at all.
While replenishing supplies was a possibility, she had just restocked in the food factory town and didn't need to do so again so soon. And the most valuable things enshrined in this hundred-floor skyscraper were undoubtedly the two grand laws!
“But she already has several grand laws herself,” Igola frowned. “Why would she—”
“In the battle three days ago,” Harvey suddenly interjected, “she didn't use the power of a grand law to attack us. Instead, she blew up the gas station. She's stingy.”
Why would she be stingy with the power of a grand law?
Igola had an epiphany. “Without believers to replenish them, her grand laws deplete with every use. She has to find a way to plunder other grand laws, or she risks exhausting all possibilities of her grand laws along the way! That's it—she really does have a reason to snatch the Transcendence grand laws! But when will she strike?”
“During worship hours, from 7:00 to 9:00 in the evening,” Yaxiu said. “At any other time, the grand laws are heavily guarded; even if she disguised herself under another identity, she wouldn't be able to get close. But during worship, believers can approach the grand laws. That's her chance.”
“So we attend the worship, wait nearby, and wait for Silver Lantern to take the bait?” Harvey asked.
Just as Igola was turning over the operational details, he saw Yaxiu shake his head. “No. The worship could assimilate us. We'd better wait outside. Once Silver Lantern seizes one grand law, I'll immediately rush in to host the second grand law and stop her.”
Hm?
The swindler looked up at Yaxiu, feeling rather puzzled. “Why do you plan to do it that way?”
Yaxiu blinked. “Is there something wrong with this plan?”
The swindler considered it carefully and found the plan surprisingly sound. To begin with, they were not on good terms with the Transcendence Cult. If they rashly asked to attend the worship, the Transcendence Cult might not even agree. Furthermore, the worship would assimilate everyone, making attendance far too risky.
And yet...
“Did you come up with this plan yourself?” Igola asked solemnly. “This question is very important.”
He can even tell that?!
Yaxiu was genuinely astonished. “It's guidance I received from a fortuitous encounter in the Void Realm. Does it really not look like something I'd come up with?”
Of course it doesn't look like something you could come up with, the swindler thought.
Because there was a major catch to this plan—once Silver Lantern seized the first Transcendence grand law, the other cultists would inevitably swarm her en masse. The sinister and insidious Silver Lantern would naturally host the god immediately, wielding the power of the Transcendence grand law against the Transcendence believers or even slaughtering them outright. In an instant, the believers' minds would shatter.
At that point, if Yaxiu rushed in to host the second Transcendence grand law, helping the believers repel or capture Silver Lantern, he would instantly attain towering prestige within the Transcendence Cult. Capable of flawless god-hosting, so long as Yaxiu did not attempt to usurp the grand law for himself, the cultists would revere him as the grand law's spokesperson—a savior sent by fate!
The crux of this plan wasn't capturing Silver Lantern; it was stealing the Transcendence Cult!
And this happened to resolve the very worries Igola had been agonizing over for the past several nights.
Capturing Silver Lantern was merely the first phase.
The second phase was confronting the Four Pillar Cult.
The third phase was finding a way to locate a teleportation gate that could take them out of Senluo—given the technological prowess of the Grey Fox Divine Era, there ought to be fantastical creations capable of traversing between different realms.
Yet whether for the second or third phase, relying solely on their three Sanctuary-level combatants was far too stretching. Not only did the Four Pillar Cult possess more Sanctuary combatants, but Mercury Trojan undoubtedly wielded other Grey Fox legacies. If another 'Dragon Blood Cultivation System' appeared, Igola and the others wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance.
Collecting Grey Fox legacies was even more troublesome. Currently, most of those legacies were tightly held by the various cults. First, they would have to determine which cult possessed an item like a spatial gate; second, they would have to find a way to acquire it—whether by seizing it, stealing it, or swindling it away.
However, if they were not wandering stragglers but the representatives of a major power, the difficulty of all this would plummet.
A major power meant having the standing to trade with other factions—in the Senluo wastelands, wandering Sanctuaries like them would never be traded with by others unless they could wipe out the other cult, as outsiders were regarded as heretics.
A major power meant gaining access to vast amounts of intelligence, and even mobilizing other cults to gang up on the Four Pillar Cult!
Furthermore, if they took control of a faction, they could not only hunt down Silver Lantern far more efficiently, but also obtain large quantities of high-energy food, offsetting the effects of the blood seed's curse through sheer consumption!
Not just the present, but the future.
Fuel their desires, grant what they need.
If they wanted to seize the cult's power as saviors, they had to let disaster toll the cult's death knell first.
“Do you think this plan needs any tweaking?” Yaxiu asked, looking at the contemplative Igola.
“No,” Igola replied with utter certainty. “We'll proceed with this plan.”
Chapter 549