A Tacit Understanding

It was botched, but not completely. Igola entered the hidden shelter in the seam of time, pondering what to do next. If Silver Lantern had died, he could have simply come clean and told the truth. Once she was dead anyway, everyone would at most sigh in lament; even if they wondered what she had been planning, they would never know the truth. Unless they happened to stumble upon Silver Lantern's sorcerer manual in the Void Realm, she would only ever have died as a villain with complicated motives. Their sole obligation would have been to leave behind a few words after Senluo turned into a living hell, letting posterity know that a great nation spanning four God Eras had once existed— That was the limit of what ordinary people could do... Yet Silver Lantern wasn't dead. Not only had she escaped, she had also destroyed the crucial clue, preventing anyone else from unlocking the third "Truth Link." In their eyes, she remained a murderous, walking natural disaster; they would never understand her, much less support her. Humans could never empathize with a monster. Furthermore, after the bloody battle just now, all they harbored toward her was disgust, fear, and hatred. Never mind Chikala, Gwen, and Black Crow—Igola noticed that even Harvey wore a grim expression. The necromancer had been silently gnawing his fingernails, muttering things like "turn her skull into a goblet" and "give her entrails to Alice as snacks." That was also why Igola hadn't stopped Silver Lantern from destroying the clue. Since she wasn't dead, she could go on living as a demonic monster, enduring everyone's hatred, and wreaking havoc across the world. After all, to her, everything was an illusion. Only... Igola looked at the shimmering golden "Truth Link" upon the third mist wall, frowning slightly. Did Silver Lantern truly intend to trap them here to die? If Igola hadn't pieced together the final puzzle himself, they would have had no chance whatsoever of passing through the mist wall. And the method to escape the Dead City could only lie beyond it. Even so, the Swindler still possessed an ultimate recourse: he could simply explain his line of deduction to Yaxiu and the others. Silver Lantern had now thoroughly severed all ties with Yaxiu; whether she was good or evil no longer mattered to him. From the moment she dealt Yaxiu that grievous blow, their debts were wiped clean, and they had returned to being total strangers. Even if Yaxiu learned the secret, he would feel little more than a passing regret. With the passage of years, he would come to see that it was nothing more than a pointless illusion. In any case, that was far better than being trapped in the "Shelter" to die over thirty thousand years. Yet unless there was truly no alternative, Igola didn't want to speak. To be frank, the Swindler was not the type to help others achieve their wishes. On the contrary, he preferred ruining meticulous plans. Watching people fly into a helpless, sputtering rage was one of the few enduring pleasures of his life. What could be more entertaining than shattering someone's composure? Because of that, Igola had never imagined that a chaotic Swindler like himself would one day help his enemy, Silver Lantern, reaching a tacit understanding with her to help conceal the secret sealed away in this Dead City. Silver Lantern was like a lonely gardener tending a beautiful flower—only it was planted in another nation, in someone else's garden. She clearly had the opportunity to pluck it, yet chose to let it remain in that clean, lovely garden, gazing at it from across a distant realm. Even when she had nothing left herself. How foolish. *And I, moved by such foolishness, am a fool as well. When did I become so stupid?* Igola sighed inwardly, then heard Yaxiu speak up beside him: "Would Grey Fox sorcerers really trap their own compatriots in the 'Shelter' to die? Just because they couldn't solve the three puzzles left behind, they'd have to stay here until death? Even if students in the Grey Fox God Era had no human rights, it couldn't have been this brutal, right?" Everyone froze, suddenly noticing the loophole. Even if the Grey Fox sorcerers wanted future generations to know the truth, they shouldn't have left a trial mechanism that offered no way out. If the Grey Fox God Era had been a dark, despairing age, that would be one thing. But according to historical records, the people of that era were generally optimistic, the social atmosphere was healthy, and they didn't even have basic infrastructure like prisons—whether because there were no criminals or because every crime carried the death penalty, no one knew. Yaxiu had actually been quite curious about the prison designs of the Grey Fox God Era; after all, with his wealth of experience, he was well qualified to critique the quality of prisons. Having traveled half of Senluo without finding any prison ruins, he had been rather disappointed. Even if the Grey Fox sorcerers had grown hysterical when facing the "Cataclysm," they wouldn't have been so cruel as to deny posterity any chance of survival. "But we aren't the Grey Fox sorcerers' compatriots," Chikala pointed out, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Many Grey Fox ruins require citizen status to enter; without it, they might even trigger security defense protocols. To them, only Grey Fox citizens count as their own. If there really is a way out, only someone with citizen status could trigger it... Ah! If a Grey Fox citizen came in to save me, I'd willingly serve as their chair!" A moment later, Yaxiu was sitting on the orc's back, staring at the Transcendence Prison card in his hand. As long as he could successfully achieve god-hosting, he could borrow the citizen status that the Transcendence Prison Great Method held in life. That convenience had already helped him overcome many obstacles, and he presumed it should work here as well. "God-hosting has a time delay, and mine is long-distance god-hosting to boot," Yaxiu pondered aloud. "In normal time, it takes a second at best, or three seconds at worst. If time here really is stretched to one second per year, then we have to be prepared to live here for one to three years." Compared to the terrifying scale of thirty thousand years, having their confinement reduced to three years was something everyone could accept. Not only that, at the thought of suddenly having three years of undisturbed free time, everyone's minds began to buzz with ideas. Black Crow said, "Once my injuries are healed, I can use this time to hone my combat arts. Rushing all over the place these past two months has given me plenty of insights, and I happen to need time to digest them." "Although there are no materials here, three years is enough for me to properly revamp Alice," the necromancer said. "And while I'm at it, I can try to unlock the 'Blood Moon Corpse King.'" Chikala, beneath Yaxiu's seat, said excitedly, "With so much time, I can completely merge my fire art and space faction! Let me tell you, I have a brilliant miracle concept—infuriating an enemy until they're consumed by their own flames of rage! Doesn't that sound amazing? Now all I need is a Mind Sanctuary to help..." Gwen remained silent. Igola looked over at Yaxiu, who was resting his chin in his hand with an aggrieved expression. "Three years, huh... While I'd like to take some time to organize my combat system, three years is way too long! I haven't even been a sorcerer for three years!" The moment Yaxiu said that, never mind Igola and Harvey, but Chikala, Gwen, and even Black Crow stared at the cult leader in astonishment. "Mr. Yaxiu, you reached Sanctuary in under three years?" Chikala was completely stunned. "One rank a year? Forgive little Chikala's impertinence, but is Heath the surname of some god? Or is the rumor about Mother Void Realm true, and you're the Void Realm's bastard child? By the way, Mr. Yaxiu, are you sitting comfortably? I can adjust my back's firmness. If it's too hard, just let me know—I suddenly discovered I have quite a talent for being a chair!" Yaxiu suddenly understood Sword Princess's situation at the academy a little better. *If I told you he was just an ordinary human half a year ago, would you immediately convert from the Four Pillar Gods and Slay All Crows to believing in Yaxiu...?* Igola complained inwardly. While they were chatting, he had drifted over to the mist wall and quietly reached out his hand toward it. He needed to confirm whether he could pass through the mist wall. If he could, that would serve as a backup if the "citizen status" route failed. But if he couldn't— Igola's pupils shrank. Staring at his hand blocked by the mist wall, a drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead. He had clearly solved the third "Truth Link," so why couldn't he pass through the mist wall?! Could his deduction have been wrong? Was it impossible without the key clue Silver Lantern had destroyed? But— "Igola." The Swindler turned his head to see Yaxiu walking up behind him. "What is it?" "I just saw you approaching the mist wall and came over to look." Yaxiu looked at the golden runes upon the mist wall and said, "Since Silver Lantern already destroyed the final clue, there's no need to keep agonizing over it. "Besides, even if you pieced together the truth, I doubt it would do any good." The Swindler froze. "Why wouldn't it?" "Because what the 'Truth Link' truly wants people to grasp certainly isn't the ending," Yaxiu said. "If it were just the ending, could it be that among all the people who stumbled into the Dead City over the past two hundred years, not a single one had decent mental fortitude? They couldn't possibly have been locked in a time cage to die just because they couldn't stomach an ending, right?" Indeed. With the notes left by predecessors, solving these three Truth Links was only a matter of time. In theory, anyone could escape the Dead City by their own power. Why hadn't a single person survived? "So there must be a bonus attached to this ending, and that's the key," Yaxiu surmised. "Only those who accept that gift can walk out of this time cage. While I don't know what that gift is, over the past two hundred years only one person accepted it, while the rest would rather die than take it... Clearly, we fall into the latter category." Igola exerted every ounce of effort to suppress any shift in his expression, brushing Yaxiu off as casually as he could. *So that's how it is.* *No wonder no one ever walked out of the Dead City.* *No wonder Silver Lantern destroyed that crucial information!* Because the ending didn't matter. What mattered was the method of salvation reflected by that ending— World destruction! Only someone who willingly accepted that mission, even embracing it as their life's ideal, could walk out of the "Shelter"! Because she had renounced shelter and chosen to face the storm head-on! This was no adolescent delusion or idle daydream during an afternoon nap; one had to embrace the concept from the bottom of their heart and dedicate the rest of their life to striving for that goal. It was entirely natural that no one in over two hundred years could accept such a mission. The weak were powerless to shoulder such a burden, while the strong could never accept such a life. Ruling the world for personal gain at the expense of others was one thing, but destroying the world was entirely burning oneself to scald everyone else. It offered no benefit whatsoever to oneself and demanded the sacrifice of one's entire life. That Silver Lantern could accept it only proved she was a lunatic! She was completely insane! Igola didn't know when Silver Lantern had previously entered the Dead City, but without question, she was the sole descendant who had passed the Grey Fox sorcerers' trial. And from that moment on, she had walked the path of the World-Destroying Silver Lantern! In a daze, he could almost envision that scene: a young temple nun crawling out of the Dead City within the deep crater. Before dawn, with the night sky as black as ink, Life-Snatching Strangling Green wrapped tightly around her neck yet was unable to taint her in the slightest. She tripped over the stones on the ground, but quickly rose to her feet again. Though bathed in darkness, her eyes were brighter and deeper than those of anyone in Senluo. This once-in-two-hundred-years willpower, through the mechanism of "Idealistic Senluo," could even subtly influence her reality. Beyond her extraordinary talent, she would encounter numerous fortuitous events; even if she never stepped out the door, people would take the initiative to offer her aid. Those who opposed her would suffer setbacks, and those she targeted would suffer misfortune and lose their wits... She would never hesitate to kill, for her life was more important than anyone else's. To protect herself, she would eliminate all threats—after all, that had been her mission all along. She incited wars, betrayed her sect, and once she was ready, began executing the mad, brutal plan in her heart... Thinking up to this point, Igola felt deeply fortunate that he couldn't pass through the mist wall: if he could, it would mean he had to accept this mission as well! *Better discuss with Yaxiu how to spend these three years...* Just as Igola was preparing to walk away, he saw Black Crow slowly approach the mist wall. The Swindler was puzzled; because Black Crow was illiterate, he hadn't even participated in the search for information, only standing guard on the perimeter. Black Crow seemed to hesitate slightly, but still reached out toward the mist wall. And then, his hand passed right through.