So Close

So close. Above the ruins of the Dead City, Weise spread her gold-and-silver wings and flew out from the tall building, closely pursued by a terrifying, grotesque black crow monster. Black Crow stomped violently on the edge floor tiles, reducing an entire tile to fine powder in an instant, yet it retained its square shape, condensed without scattering inside the fissure of time. Relying on the recoil, he turned into an afterimage and crossed over a dozen meters in an instant. A Grey Fox blade flicked out from his sleeve, and his whole body shot forward like a sharp arrow hunting down an evil raven! Snap! The Grey Fox blade pierced the sanctuary, but it still could not reach Weise in the slightest; Black Crow himself remained barred outside the sanctuary. Weise reversed her grip with her right hand. The Thousand Machines sorcery spirit transformed into the Wind Blade sorcery spirit, and all the surrounding air turned into razor blades swirling toward Black Crow! Black Crow was faster than the casting speed of the sorcery spirit. Using the recoil of striking the sanctuary, he shifted his position rapidly, and at the same time, he casually threw out in all directions over a dozen pebbles he had just crushed into fragments. The pebbles froze in midair after traveling merely a meter. Black Crow then kicked hard against them, shifting the pebbles another meter or so while propelling himself forward through the air once more to strike at Silver Lantern! After creating a ripple against the sanctuary, Black Crow continued using the frozen pebbles to reposition, dodging Silver Lantern's counterattack. He became a flitting raven silhouette darting back and forth across the sky, like streaks of black ink sealing Silver Lantern in! Even Weise could not help but be astounded by Tamashi's combat genius in this moment. In theory, as an "ordinary person," Black Crow could at most displace himself briefly in the air and had zero aerial combat capability. Yet after being pulled into the Shelter, he had keenly noticed that the property of "inanimate objects freezing in midair" could be exploited as a combat factor! Once the thrown pebbles entered the normal time scale, their speed was slowed down to 1/31,536,000, freezing them in midair. At that point, colliding with them again gave him footholds in the sky. As long as there were enough pebbles scattered across a wide area, Black Crow's art of combat allowed his midair maneuvering to far exceed even that of flight sorcerers! Weise was certain that this was definitely Black Crow's first time entering the Shelter, and until just moments ago, he had not thought of this tactic at all—otherwise, he wouldn't have needed Yaxiu to carry him while flying. Therefore, this had to be an idea Black Crow had struck upon on a whim just now, which he immediately applied in actual combat. It was a monstrous combat talent. Yet you have angered me. Weise was exceptionally skilled with reconnaissance miracles. One reason was that she needed to identify her enemies' weaknesses, but the other was... her reconnaissance also served as the prelude to her attacks! Miracle: Wind-Coiling Threads! A tornado abruptly materialized around her. Black Crow naturally could not avoid it, and as the wind whipped past him, wisps of mist-like threads clung to his clothing. Without even looking, Weise yanked with her right hand. Miracle: Retract Threads! Just as he seemed about to be strangled into pieces by the threads, Black Crow's body bent as limber as a cat's, sliding through the gaps between the wind threads as though liquid. Only his arm took a harsh slash, and dripping blood fell and froze in midair. Having escaped death, Black Crow did not retreat. Instead, he continued darting through the air. Even though his expression was hidden, Weise knew that beneath that mask, a pair of eyes filled with murderous intent was glaring right at her. Seeing Yaxiu rush up to Black Crow's side, Weise couldn't help but bite her lip gently, an irrepressible pang of sourness and grievance rising in her heart. She hadn't wanted to expose herself at all. She had stayed invisible the entire time; it was only Black Crow who could see through her disguise and invisibility... If not for Black Crow, everything would have gone so smoothly! "I saw Silver Lantern wiping away the writing on the wall just now," Black Crow said. "She wanted to destroy a crucial clue for the third link." She hadn't! She had only wanted Fangchan to rub against it so Yaxiu could find that vital puzzle piece more easily! As long as that puzzle piece was found, as long as the third Truth Link was deciphered, Yaxiu would be able to understand everything about her! "Silver Lantern!" Chikala appeared on the other side, flame light swirling all around his sanctuary, the fur on his upper body almost entirely ignited into flickering flames. Having directly entered a state of battle, his voice was filled with both tension and excitement: "I knew you'd show up! Seeing that we were about to decipher the Dead City's secret, you couldn't hold back and had to stop us! I knew that clan-slaying Silver Lantern would never just hand over the Shelter's treasures like this! I knew it!" You don't know shit, "Fire of Ignorance" Chikala! Even if I hadn't wiped you all out, with that brain of yours, the Killing Calamitous Fire under your command would have been the first faction in the temple to fall! Wiping out the Killing Calamitous Fire was practically my easiest victory! If being wronged by Black Crow merely left her feeling a little aggrieved, Chikala's false accusations made Weise truly furious—does an orc whose brain isn't even fully developed have any right to predict me? Whoosh. Weise dodged to the side, evading a streak of flashing starlight. Turning her head, she saw the female star sorcerer who served as Mercury Trojan's stand-in actually charging toward her on her own initiative. Seeking death— Right at that moment, however, Chikala and Black Crow attacked her simultaneously, forcing Weise into a swift retreat. Although Black Crow was immune to her illusions, Chikala was not, nor were Chikala's sorcery spirits! And what she excelled at most was chaotic melee! Illusion Miracle: Strike Reality with Illusion! Her silhouette flashed between Chikala and Black Crow, and then Chikala's violent fire explosion took an uncanny curve and blasted straight toward Black Crow! Black Crow was well prepared, however. Having clashed with Silver Lantern many times before, their greatest takeaway was that in battle, they had to beware not just Silver Lantern's strikes, but even more so "friendly fire" from those around them! Shaking his cloak, Black Crow first shook out a cloud-like wave of air to cushion the flames, seizing the momentum to evade Chikala's sanctuary miracle! At this moment, Yaxiu pulled Gwen back. "Get back, this isn't a place where you—" Yaxiu's words broke off halfway, because he saw the timid, cowering star sorcerer—whose sorcery spirits were mostly gone and whose combat ability was meager—gazing ahead with an expression of fanatical, desperate hatred in her eyes. Though he had no evidence, Yaxiu sensed with overwhelming clarity that within the Four Pillar Cult, Gwen's beliefs likely leaned toward the Lord of Countless Radiance. Yet unlike the marksmanship Sanctuary sorcerer burning with fury, what burned in her was hatred down to the bone. No wonder Mercury Trojan had chosen her as a descent vessel; no wonder she had never spoken ill of Mercury Trojan and had willingly submitted to death, even when about to be choked to death by Black Crow. Because Mercury Trojan had given her an opportunity. An opportunity to take revenge against Silver Lantern. Perhaps when Silver Lantern led the Four Pillar Cult to lay waste to the land, she had massacred Gwen's cult; perhaps when Silver Lantern fled the cult, she turned Gwen's friends into blood seeds as well; or perhaps even back when Silver Lantern was still in the Calamitous Fire Temple, she and the Silver Lantern Saintess stood on opposing sides... But in truth, none of that mattered. Gwen was not the only person who hated Silver Lantern, nor were Silver Lantern's enemies limited to the Four Pillar Cult. Could the Transcendent Cult ever forget the Resonance Strings Grand Law that was stolen from them? Could the Twin Cult ever forget how the previous Nightfall had fallen? Could the remnants of the Nature Cult, aside from hating the Twin Cult, ever forget the mastermind behind the scenes, Silver Lantern? And there were so many more... They had pursued and hunted Silver Lantern for nearly two months, spanning half of Senluo, and in doing so, had brought disaster to half of Senluo as well. The Mobile Natural Disaster, Silver Lantern—that title did not merely point out her combat strength, but pointed even more to her... deeds. Yaxiu released his grip. Gwen silently spread her wings. To maximize her power and accuracy as much as possible, she disregarded the danger and drew as close to Silver Lantern as she could, firing off her feeble, fragile star sorcery miracle. At that moment, the deceiver and the necromancer finally arrived. Harvey merged with Alice, entering the cold flowing fire state to assume his "Nether Knight" form—in a chaotic melee, the aging breath of the "dracolich" was far too prone to harming allies by mistake—and raised high the decapitating full moon scythe, slashing toward Silver Lantern's sanctuary! Igola unleashed "Visualization Superposition" without holding back. In an instant, Silver Lantern's sanctuary seemed to be struck by a violent tempest, churning with countless ripples! Yaxiu closed his eyes and drew Honeyed Words with a Dagger from his mouth. By the time he gripped Honeyed Words with a Dagger firmly, not a trace of hesitation remained in his eyes. A flash of light and shadow flew out from within him, racing toward Silver Lantern like a meteor. Boom! Weise once again used "Strike Reality with Illusion" to make Harvey and Chikala attack each other. Yet when she saw the Heart Sword slash across her sanctuary, the bitterness in her heart grew so overwhelming that it almost choked her, and she nearly bit through her lip. Most of Yaxiu's miracles were executed using the Heart Sword; nothing could represent his heart's will more than the Heart Sword. So close... She had clearly been so close, and he would have known everything. Why did it have to fall short by just that little bit... Weise took a deep breath. No longer dodging as she fought, she plunged directly into the fray, taking on all six people single-handedly! If you want war, I will give you war!