Yaxiu and the others immediately turned away to look down the empty passageway, averting their eyes from the scene of worship inside.
They had already witnessed the potency of worship back at the hospital camp; even if one wasn't inside, merely watching from afar risked drawing someone in.
Only Tamaxi could occasionally spare a glance. The searing ideal he carried in his heart not only allowed him to withstand the bitter, strangling-green winds of the night, but also kept his own inner radiance undimmed even when facing other lights.
"What is the Transcendence Cult's worship like?" Igola couldn't hear any movement. "Why isn't there any sound at all?"
"Hard to say," Tamaxi replied.
"Then what are they doing?"
"All sorts of bizarre patterns have appeared in midair, and everyone is just staring blankly at them."
"What kind of patterns specifically?"
"Inconceivable to describe. They look simple, yet utterly esoteric."
"Can you trace them on our palms?"
Tamaxi did not refuse. He traced the patterns he had seen onto the palms of Yaxiu and Igola. As his strokes formed, the expressions on Yaxiu and Igola grew stranger and stranger. Finally, the two exchanged a look and fell into deep thought.
Igola asked again, "How are these patterns arranged?"
Tamaxi said, "They're divided into grids by vertical and horizontal lines. Some groups have sixteen grids, some twenty-five, some thirty-six. Most of the grids have these patterns inside, but some are left blank..."
"Sudoku!" blurted Yaxiu at once. Back in junior high, bored out of his mind, he had been obsessed with such brainteasers for a time.
"What's sudoku?"
Following Tamaxi's question, Harvey understood the reason behind Yaxiu and Igola's silence. However, he wasn't close enough to Tamaxi to worry about saving the man's pride, so he calmly explained, "It's a puzzle game involving combinations and permutations of numbers. You have to deduce the missing numbers based on the patterns between them."
"Oh." Tamaxi paused, then gave a self-deprecating chuckle. "I see. That's the type of game I'm worst at."
"Strange. The Transcendence Cult's worship is just a bunch of people playing sudoku together?" Yaxiu quickly moved past the topic, pondering aloud, "This is a far cry from what I imagined worship would be..."
"To outsiders, almost every cult's worship seems utterly absurd," Tamaxi said. "I once saw a cult whose worship was just everyone sleeping together, because they followed the Floating Clouds Grand Law, and their ideal was for everyone to live a life of leisure.
"Worship isn't merely worshiping a grand law; it is worshiping an ideal. Every cult's worship is tied to what they aspire to."
Realization dawned upon Igola. "Worship is the believers envisioning the future once their ideal is achieved, thereby evoking the grand law's resonance!"
Yaxiu understood as well—for a cult pursuing a life of leisure, worship was sleeping soundly; for a cult bent on slaying all villains, worship was gathering together to rest and enjoy themselves; for the Four Pillar Cult, worship was boundless debauchery...
"What connection does transcending consciousness have to playing sudoku?" Harvey asked, puzzled. "Is the future after transcending consciousness just playing sudoku?"
"Because they don't know what a future beyond consciousness looks like either. They can't even conceive it," Igola analyzed. "Yet worship requires the participation of every believer, so they substitute intellectual puzzle games instead. Sudoku is just one form; there might well be other options for worship.
"Still, this situation works heavily in our favor," the Swindler continued. "All the Transcendent believers are rooted to their seats. Any unusual movement will stand out immediately. If Silver Lantern tries to snatch the grand laws, she will undoubtedly be intercepted on the spot.
"All we need to worry about now is whether Silver Lantern might abandon tonight's operation. But worship in the Transcendence Cult is likely this stationary type every night, so waiting longer won't do her any good. On the contrary, if we leave, she won't even have an easy scapegoat to pin the blame on."
The reason Yaxiu and his companions believed Silver Lantern would act soon was precisely the location of the Transcendent Grand Laws—they were kept on the lowest floor. Escaping after snatching the grand laws would be no simple feat; it would be equivalent to fighting her way up a hundred floors to reach ground level. But with a scapegoat to draw attention, the difficulty would drop significantly.
Without a doubt, Yaxiu and his group were the prime scapegoats.
Why didn't Yaxiu and the others leave the Transcendence Building and lie in wait outside?
Because worship took place at night. If they didn't stay inside the building, they wouldn't dare camp out in the wilderness after dark. If Silver Lantern truly made off with the grand laws, they would have to wait in a nearby town until daylight before resuming their pursuit, effectively forfeiting this round of the battle.
Tamaxi asked, "If Silver Lantern really disguises herself as us and frames us for snatching the grand laws, have you planned an escape route?"
Yaxiu shot a surprised glance at Igola. Igola didn't look back at him, instead directing his words toward the Slay All Crows attendant. "There's no need to flee. Once Silver Lantern successfully seizes a grand law, chaos is bound to erupt. Capable of god-hosting, she will surely do so immediately, using the power of the Transcendent Grand Law to carve a path through the encirclement. When worship is disrupted and pandemonium breaks out, our role will be to block the exits while Yaxiu finds an opportunity to host the other Transcendent Grand Law. Then we pincer Silver Lantern together. When that time comes, we are guaranteed to capture that woman."
Only now did Igola reveal the plan to Tamaxi.
"Aren't you worried the Transcendence Cult will treat Yaxiu as a thief as well?"
"As long as he makes no attempt to make off with the grand law and assists them in stopping Silver Lantern, why would the Transcendence Cult view him as an enemy?" Igola chuckled. "Besides, unlike Silver Lantern, Yaxiu can achieve one hundred percent god-hosting. You ought to understand what that signifies to the Transcendence Cult."
Tamaxi saw the light. In any cult, one hundred percent god-hosting made someone the equivalent of a 'grand law's mouthpiece'—an undeniable cult leader, an avatar of their ideal. If Yaxiu demonstrated perfect god-hosting and made no move to carry off the grand law, the Transcendence Cult might not hate him, though they wouldn't adore him either; so long as Yaxiu did not follow the Transcendent Grand Law, he remained a heretic.
On that premise, if Yaxiu helped intercept Silver Lantern and preserved the grand law for the Transcendence Cult, even as a pagan, his reputation with them would soar to the ceiling! The orderly Transcendence Cult would have no choice but to repay his kindness!
However...
"There's a massive hole in your plan," Tamaxi said. "After Silver Lantern takes the first Transcendent Grand Law, she'll either immediately seize the second, or the Transcendence Cult will protect the second. In neither scenario could we get close to the second grand law, not to mention that once unrest breaks out, the Transcendence Cult will certainly assign people to keep a tight watch on us."
"First, rule out the possibility of her taking both at once," Igola said. "If that really happens, there's nothing we can do, but the Transcendence Cult, whose reactions are faster than conscious thought, is unlikely to give her such an opening.
"As for the likelihood of the Transcendence Cult guarding the second grand law, that is indeed very high." The Swindler held up three fingers. "Yet once you grasp three premises, that obstacle ceases to exist for us.
"First premise: god-hosted combat strength far surpasses the Legendary tier. We managed to wound Silver Lantern earlier only by relying on your Grey Fox heritage, Tamaxi. Otherwise, no matter how clever our schemes, the moment Silver Lantern hosted a god, she could shatter every crisis through sheer brute force.
"Second premise: Silver Lantern needs to escape the building, but the Transcendence Cult, constantly eroding their individual consciousness, will throw away their lives to obstruct her. Within the cult, there are bound to be believers capable of partial god-hosting, and they pose a genuine threat to her.
"Third premise: Silver Lantern is an insatiably greedy zealot, and this is an unobstructed open interior."
Tamaxi's distorted voice grew even raspier. "Could she—"
"There is no better battlefield than this," Igola said. "Silver Lantern will most likely try to use her god-hosted prowess to seize the second grand law, wearing down the Transcendence Cult's high-tier combatants in the process. Even if it truly proves impossible, she must still eliminate those god-hosters capable of threatening her—while conveniently dumping the blame onto us—before she can safely escape.
"As casualties mount, the Transcendence Cult will sooner or later be unable to spare attention for us. We only need to wait quietly for our chance." The Swindler smiled. "Even if Silver Lantern fails to destroy the second grand law's defenses, it won't matter. Tamaxi, your Grey Fox blade is enough to punch through that barrier, and then Yaxiu can reach in, touch the grand law, and complete the god-hosting. What follows after will be our time to save Transcendence and stop Silver Lantern."
Tamaxi said, "But many people will die."
"Yes, Silver Lantern will kill many people." Igola stressed the name 'Silver Lantern.' "Yet many people will also survive because of us. If the Transcendence Cult hadn't posted men to keep an eye on us, and if we could approach the grand laws more easily, all of this would be far simpler... but there are no 'ifs.'
"Just as we warned them two days ago that a god-hosting villain capable of disguising herself was hiding within the building, yet compared to heretics like us, they preferred to trust their own security systems.
"Had they been willing to trust us and conduct a floor-by-floor sweep of the building, Silver Lantern would have been caught long ago, and they wouldn't have met with such calamity."
The man beneath the black crow mask parted his lips to speak, but the words caught in his throat.
The Slay All Crows Cult had witnessed plenty of such matters. Though their sole purpose was eradicating evil, worldly affairs were rarely that simple; not everyone was willing to believe them.
Furthermore, they weren't always right either.
There were pitiful souls who didn't believe them and ended up with their entire families slaughtered; there were also unfortunate souls who trusted them, only to suffer devastating losses.
Compared to a few outsiders, the Transcendence Cult naturally placed more faith in their own judgment.
When handed the exam paper of fate, everyone held their own answers. Until the results were posted, who would ever think their own answer was wrong?
Tamaxi had seen it all too often in the past, except back then, he had never faced these things alone.
And so, just as he used to, even though the ones beside him were no longer Kalan, Yelu, or Tanomu, he still voiced his confusion: "When we've already foreseen everything, is there truly no better way?"
"The world won't be that gentle with us," Igola said. "Even this outcome that leaves you with unresolved resentment is already the best conclusion within our power."
"Yes."
Yaxiu spoke up as well. "Thinking it over carefully, we truly have done the best we can within our capabilities."
The Swindler glanced at the cult leader with some astonishment. He genuinely hadn't expected Yaxiu to agree with him, even though this plan had originally come from Yaxiu's own mouth.
"Is it that we're unwilling to help the Transcendence Cult? Not at all. It's the Transcendence Cult that refused to believe us, treating us like heretical traveling merchants and brushing aside the information we provided. If anything, they brought this on themselves.
"If Silver Lantern doesn't strike, we can't make a move either; the Transcendence Cult would only treat us as outsiders harboring ill intentions. Only after Silver Lantern attempts to snatch the grand laws and causes heavy casualties will we have a chance to approach the Transcendent Grand Law, achieve perfect god-hosting, and save them like saviors, combating the evil scourge of Silver Lantern.
"That way, not only can we catch Silver Lantern, but we can also earn the Transcendence Cult's friendship and safe passage through the Harp Sun Alliance..." Yaxiu looked at Igola. "Isn't that right?"
Igola met his gaze openly. "That's right."
"This truly is the best course of action. It lives up to being guidance I received from... from the Void Realm," Yaxiu said. "Even though we foresaw everything, we aren't colluding with Silver Lantern to harm the Transcendence Cult; it's simply the most helpless choice available. The Transcendence Cult isn't in the wrong either. It's only natural they wouldn't trust us, and they couldn't possibly let outsiders near their grand laws. Besides, what does the Transcendence Cult have to do with us anyway? The only one at fault is Silver Lantern. She is a walking natural disaster, the root of all evil. We're all just her victims.
"It's just..."
Yaxiu knitted his brows tightly and closed his eyes. His lips moved, but his voice grew fainter and fainter. After a brief silence, he took a deep breath, opened his bright eyes, and stared straight at Igola. "It's just, how can this world be like this? How can they be like this? How can we be like this!"
With each question Yaxiu voiced, his Sanctuary quietly expanded, enveloping everyone within. Before they could register their shock, Yaxiu turned to Harvey and said, "Ghost King, draw everyone's attention inside for me. Disrupt their worship."
Harvey said nothing. He directly summoned Alice, activated 'cold flowing fire' to enter their merged state, and strode toward another passageway.
At that moment, Yaxiu suddenly recalled the conversation he had shared with Harvey that afternoon, mocking himself internally for being slower on the uptake than a necromancer. Yet thanks to Harvey's questions, he could act now without the slightest hesitation.
"Slay All Crows, throw me in with everything you've got."
Tamaxi clenched his fists, knuckles cracking with a sound like explosive fractures.
"Rust Crow." Yaxiu looked at Igola. "You should know how to back me up, right?"
"Naturally." Igola lowered his brow. "It's always been me accommodating you, never you accommodating me."
"Next time for sure," Yaxiu smiled. "This time, just come with me and treat this world gently."
Tamaxi scooped Yaxiu up into his arms. Yaxiu froze. "Didn't I tell you to throw me over?"
"I run far faster than you can fly."
"Still, I'm a Sanctuary Sorcerer after all. Can you at least change the posture—"
The instant Harvey transformed into the Nether Knight and spread despair, seizing the attention of all the Transcendent believers to shatter the worship, explosive thunder cracked beneath Tamaxi's feet. In barely the span of a breath, he sprinted to the railing before the spectator stands and hurled Yaxiu outward!
Yaxiu spread his gold and silver wings to adjust his trajectory, plummeting from a height of a hundred meters straight toward his target—
The Transcendent Grand Law!
He would seize the grand law one step ahead of Silver Lantern, walking her path so that she had nowhere left to go!
Chapter 553