Healer 222 was right.
The Blood Moon Trial truly was the only chance for condemned prisoners to trade sorcery spirits.
Looking down at the three sorcery spirits in his hand, Yaxiu could almost still see Valkas's cold, gaunt face.
Hidden within the blade that had pierced his throat were five sorcery spirits whose contracts Valkas had just severed.
Had Yaxiu moved just a bit slower, or had his consciousness faded just a bit faster, all three spirits would have fled at top speed. Even though Yaxiu had acted as quickly as possible, two sorcery spirits had still managed to escape. Who knew whether they were currently riding finger sharks and enjoying the freedom of surfing across Shattered Lake?
As for why Valkas had done it, there were far too many possible reasons.
Because Yaxiu had defeated him;
because he wanted revenge on Xilin;
because he was grateful for Yaxiu's end-of-life care;
or perhaps simply because he loved watching chaos unfold and stirring up drama...
Whatever a dying elf might do wouldn't surprise Yaxiu—except for having his own throat run through by Valkas. Yaxiu strongly suspected the elf harbored a grudge and wanted payback for having his own throat slit during their deathmatch.
Yet in doing so, Valkas had presented Yaxiu with a difficult problem.
Though it hadn't been long since his transmigration, Yaxiu was acutely aware that he was completely out of place in this world.
Then again, he had no intention of blending in.
He couldn't change this world of sorcerers, nor did he intend to let it change him.
His family wasn't here, and everyone he met going forward would be a stranger.
While the powers of sorcerers were unpredictable and bizarre—and there might well be some sorcery spirit miracle capable of sending him home—Yaxiu held out no hope for it.
He wasn't the kind of person who needed hope to survive.
Add to that the mortal threat of the Blood Moon Trial and the suffocating absolute control of Shattered Lake Prison, and Yaxiu had actually been harboring a subtle mindset of "every day alive is a bonus."
Besides, if he could transmigrate once, who was to say he couldn't do it a second time? This time he ended up in a world of sorcerers; next time, maybe he'd land in a world of technicians. Yaxiu was blindly optimistic about his multiverse journey.
Perhaps this optimism stemmed from suddenly no longer having to go to work, but because of it, Yaxiu maintained a "bystander" mentality toward everyone he encountered. He would sympathize with others' plights, and he would sigh over matters of life and death, but he'd turn around and forget about it soon after, just like watching a movie.
Watcher—the name actually suited him quite well.
Watching without acting, watching without speaking, watching without remembering.
He was like a solitary boat adrift on the open sea, drifting with the waves, looking toward the mainland with trepidation.
Yet now, the solitary boat carried an extra bundle, and an imprint had been etched into his memory.
Although sorcerers had no need for sleep, Yaxiu felt certain that whenever midnight stirred old dreams, he would see Valkas's final gaze.
Naturally, he didn't believe he bore any responsibility for Valkas's death, but the elf's parting gift made him feel obligated to do something in return.
He didn't like people owing him, nor did he like owing others.
He had to break out of prison, find Professor Xilin, and survive.
Otherwise, he would feel as though he had wasted Valkas's goodwill and the three sorcery spirits gifted to him.
Perhaps this was his true revenge?
At the cost of his life, with death as the ritual, silence as the incantation, and sorcery spirits as the bait, Valkas had spent everything to curse Yaxiu to live.
For death row inmates in Shattered Lake, there was no curse more venomous than "survive."
"He was a true sword sorcerer."
After listening to Yaxiu recount his bizarre Blood Moon Trial experience tonight, Sonia couldn't help sighing. Then she added, "And a generous, good elf."
"Generous, yes, but definitely not a good elf. He earned his way into Shattered Lake Prison fair and square through sheer track record," Yaxiu said. "Still, whether elf or human, people can't be simply split into 'good' or 'bad.' Only gods or devils possess pure good or pure evil... Those wavering between the two are human."
"So sentimental. Is this the first time you've seen someone die since losing your memory?"
Memory loss? Right, the old Heath had caused plenty of deaths with his own hands... Yaxiu nodded. "I should say, it's the first time I've seen someone die right in front of me."
"So you didn't get any information on the Heart Sword Stance either?"
"Of course not."
"Damn it!" Sonia stared begrudgingly at the Heart Sword sorcery spirit in Yaxiu's hand. "Such an amazing sorcery spirit, utterly wasted on you... Still, doesn't that mean your Severing Self miracle is only missing one last spirit?"
"That's right. With any luck, I might assemble all the required spirits tonight."
Yaxiu let out a quiet breath. "Only then will there be even a sliver of hope for a jailbreak."
The Severing Self miracle required three kinds of sorcery spirits in total, and each kind had multiple secondary alternatives rather than being locked to one specific spirit. Most miracles could achieve similar effects by substituting spirits of the same type, with differences limited to power, potency, or area of effect.
If sorcery spirits were building blocks, then a miracle was a structure with a specific design. As long as the structure could be assembled, it didn't matter whether the blocks used were cubes, triangular prisms, or cones—the miracle would still take shape.
Both Heart Sword and Substitute met the requirements. Substitute was a fairly standard choice, whereas Heart Sword was like using a butcher's cleaver to carve a chicken. Presumably, whoever created the Severing Self miracle never dreamed someone would be extravagant enough to use one of the Five Matchless Secret Sword Spirits as a component.
Once he found the final sorcery spirit, Yaxiu would be able to use the Severing Self miracle to purge the chip in the back of his neck.
"A jailbreak..." Sonia murmured. "Which means your true body is in a prison in the Blood Moon Country, threatened by the Blood Moon Trial, and has no memories of the past..."
No past memories? Well, he truly had none of Heath's previous memories.
Hearing this, Yaxiu gave her an odd look. "Didn't you know that already? My original body was pegged as a Four Pillar Gods cult leader and rounded up on the spot by hunters while holding an illegal gathering in a basement. But this body is so frail, it was definitely just a scapegoat."
Indeed, the Watcher had mentioned before that he was locked in a prison. She had assumed it was some secluded, divine dungeon, not a prison in the Blood Moon Country. Although the Blood Moon Country was also a distant name found only in books, she had at least heard of it, which gave Sonia a sense that it wasn't all that mysterious after all.
"With your strength, you can't even escape a prison in the Blood Moon Country?"
"What do you mean 'with my strength'? Don't you know I'm useless?"
"Heh, useless? A useless person who can force me to challenge Leonie? Then what does that make me—a pathetic wretch controlled by a useless bum? A plaything you could drag to her death at any moment?"
Though a blessing in disguise had let her learn the Water Moon miracle, Sonia was still furious deep down.
Challenging Felix last time was one thing—after all, the gap between her and Felix wasn't massive, so she'd had a glimmer of a chance. But this time, the gap between her and Leonie was absurdly wide. If Leonie hadn't intentionally held back, Sonia wouldn't even have had the chance to unleash Water Moon.
She got lucky this time facing Leonie, but what about next time?
And the time after that?
Ruthless, cutthroat figures were far from rare among sorcerers. Young sorcerers like students were fine, but many older sorcerers had experienced so much danger and death during long, solitary Void Realm explorations that their consciences had been whittled into grotesque shapes by the harsh, biting winds of the Sea of Knowledge.
They gradually lost the ability to distinguish reality from the Void Realm, reflexively showing no mercy to enemies as if expecting loot to burst from their corpses. Worse still, some turned straight into "fallen fiends," treating reality like the Void Realm and going on killing sprees everywhere.
Although Sonia took serious issue with the forced training, she could at least convince herself it was for her own good and stomach it. But now the Watcher was making her seek out dangerous battles on her own initiative. At this point, Sonia could only talk herself out of preemptively bashing his head in—mostly because she suspected she wouldn't win in a fight.
"Is it really that serious...?" Yaxiu tried to brush it off.
"I'm the one fighting for my life, I'm the one getting hurt, and I'm the one hanging by a thread! Only I get to say whether it's serious or not!" Sonia repressed her anger as best she could. "Do you have to watch me become a corpse before you finally sigh and say, 'Looks like I misjudged'?"
How could it be that bad? It's not like you can die... Just as Yaxiu felt dismissive, a thought popped into his mind: Can Sword Princess really not die?
It wasn't unheard of for mobile game characters to permanently die after defeat. If the game company wanted to force players to pay, they might very well program such a feature and then sell resurrection coins or something to milk the players.
Moreover, Sword Princess had stated multiple times that she didn't exist as an appendage to Yaxiu. She had her own life, a university where she lived, friends she knew—she was real... And reality was the concept furthest removed from immortality.
Even if Sword Princess could be revived after falling in battle, would the resurrected Sword Princess still be the one he had spent all these days getting to know?
Yaxiu couldn't bear the risk of losing Sword Princess.
Not merely because of power.
Even more so because Sword Princess was the only person he could trust and confide in.
No matter how small a solitary boat was, having only one passenger made it feel far too empty.
"All right, you make a lot of sense. I apologize," Yaxiu said, choosing his words carefully. "But you must know I had your best interests in mind. Without my arrangements, you wouldn't have created the Water Moon miracle so quickly, would you?"
"What does that have to do with your arrangements—"
"Because I knew that when you fought that Leo-whatever, the overwhelming gap in strength would push you into an awakened state, enabling you to create your own miracle without being in any real danger. Everything went according to my plan."
"You couldn't even remember her name!"
"That's not important. The point is, I was confident you'd reap tremendous gains at minimal cost."
Seeing that Sword Princess still looked unconvinced, Yaxiu thought for a moment and said, "How about this: if I want you to take part in high-risk battles in the future, I'll discuss it with you beforehand. How does that sound?"
Now that's more like it.
Seeing the Watcher finally willing to concede, Sonia was already quite satisfied. In reality, even if the Watcher stubbornly insisted on messing with her, there was nothing she could do about it anyway. Besides, where there was a first concession, there would be a second. One day, Sonia would have the Watcher thoroughly under her thumb.
Sonia was also quite reassured by the Watcher's promise. Although he was usually obnoxious and flippant, he was fairly reliable when it mattered. Coupled with his suspected background as a reincarnated legend, his judgment should be trustworthy.
Had Sonia known that Yaxiu's method for assessing danger was simply checking the event card's description—and that the duel with Leonie had merely been rated as medium risk—she probably would never have found peace of mind again.
"Speaking of which, how did you find me?" Sonia suddenly remembered to ask.
"I entered the Void Realm through the Gate of Truth you left behind, then tracked you down along the way."
When Yaxiu had returned to his cell and opened the light screen, he'd found that Sword Princess hadn't waited for him; her status had been "Exploring the Void Realm."
Yaxiu had assumed he'd missed the boat, but luckily there was a "Join Midway" option. It hadn't dropped him right next to Sword Princess, however, but at the starting location where she had entered the Void Realm tonight.
Entering and exiting the Void Realm required passing through a Gate of Truth—that was the rule. Had it not been for their bond, Yaxiu wouldn't have been able to slip into the Void Realm through the Gate of Truth she had left behind.
Sonia wasn't surprised that the Watcher could track her down, but she had one question: "Still, I was swimming in the Void Realm for nearly two hours. How did you catch up so quickly?"
"Two hours? But you were only one zone away from the starting point. It took me a little over a minute of sailing to find you."
"How is that possible?!"
"Why would I lie to you? Wait... you said you swam for two hours. Could you have... been swimming in circles around here the whole time?"
Sonia blinked, sat down calmly, and turned her face toward the distant white mist. "I just assumed you wouldn't miss our meeting without good reason, so I kept exploring the nearby area."
If your face weren't flushed all the way to your ears, I might have actually believed you.
Yaxiu snorted with amusement and, under Sonia's resentful glare, opened the Void Realm map.
Equipped with the Void Realm Telescope, he could now inspect the details of the twenty-four surrounding grid tiles. Most were labeled "Fruitless Effort," while one was marked "Worth a Visit." In no hurry, Yaxiu decided to sail slowly and wander around first.
"Then what about your miracle from before?" Sonia suddenly recalled. "Valkas gave you sorcery spirits, but he didn't give you a miracle sorcery procedure, did he?"
Yaxiu replied casually, "I saw him use it once before, so I just combined Earth Sword and Wind Wall to cobble it together. I'm not a Two-Winged Sorcerer, though, so the defense is nowhere near his authentic version."
He saw it once, cobbled them together, and made it work?
Was that miracle really that simple?
Earth Sword belonged to the swordsmanship school, while Wind Wall belonged to the wind school. Cross-discipline miracles had always been notoriously difficult...
Sonia felt that something wasn't quite right. Just then, Yaxiu spotted a glittering golden legendary prompt on the map—"Vortex."
"Do you know what 'Vortex' means?"
Sonia froze. "You found a vortex?"
"Probably—"
"Go there! Hurry, head over there!" Sonia lunged forward and shook Yaxiu frantically, ecstatic like someone who had picked up a lottery ticket in a bathroom only to realize it was the jackpot. "With any luck, we might be able to condense our Silver Wings tonight!"
Chapter 64