Distant Sky Realm, the Broken Dream Kingdom, Stage 34.
"Press close to me."
The moment Yaxiu's words fell, Sonia, Diya, and even Weise pressed tightly against him. At this moment, not a single monster spawned in the subterranean hall. Only several wisps of pale violet, shimmering smoke drifted out from various corners, floating unhurriedly toward them.
Yet it was this very violet smoke that had completely stonewalled Yaxiu and his companions for three whole days!
As early as three days ago, Yaxiu's group had advanced through the trials like a hot knife through butter, reaching Stage 34. Aside from the seamless coordination among the four of them, it was also because Aurora's Dream Vault actually recognized their clears in the Spectre Inheritance!
As long as they passed five stages in the Spectre Inheritance, they were guaranteed to draw an auxiliary relic!
This was far easier than exploring dream bubbles. After all, the bubbles varied in difficulty, and clearing five of them typically took about ten minutes. Yaxiu and the others generally explored thirteen bubbles a night, meaning they could only obtain two additional relics.
In contrast, the first five stages of the Spectre Inheritance were generally on the lower end of difficulty. Once Yaxiu and the others gradually grew accustomed to the soul faction and wielded their Origin Soul sorcery spirits with greater ease, clearing the first twenty stages was practically a breeze, allowing them to draw at least four extra relics!
Moreover, the relics' innate ability to bypass the inheritance's restrictions helped them clear the stages even better! Whenever they happened to draw a potent colored relic like "Night Comet"—which launched a torrent of comets with every single hit—they could even sweep through the early stages with zero resource consumption.
Yet even with the boost from relics, certain stages could not be brute-forced. Stage 34's trial was one such example: the inheritance ordeal known as "Soul-Tethering Dream"!
The first time they fell prey to this technique, they had been left utterly powerless to resist. Trapped within a prolonged dream, their souls were whittled away continuously. If not for the fact that Weise's soul faction had already attained the Silver rank at the time, allowing her to wake on the verge of death and use a Spectre Secret Key to escape the inheritance, every single one of them would have perished right then and there!
Even Sanctuary Sorcerers were frail as paper in an angelic inheritance, meeting their ends without ever realizing what had transpired!
Yaxiu and the others still shuddered in lingering dread. To make matters worse, even after escaping, they had no idea how to overcome this trial. Just as they were about to remain hopelessly stuck, Weise managed to find a breakthrough within the Spectre Manual.
As mentioned before, the Spectre Manual contained countless records, though most had no relevance to modern sorcerers, and people generally forgot what they read after skimming it. Quite a few chapters, however, chronicled the Spectre Prophet's battle records from back when he was still an ordinary sorcerer.
Among these combat logs, Weise discovered that the Spectre Prophet had once employed a soul miracle known as "Soul-Tethering Dream." Both its description and its effects bore a striking resemblance to the ordeal in Stage 34. Only then did they realize what technique had nearly claimed their lives.
However, the Soul-Tethering Dream documented in the Spectre Manual was merely a Sanctuary miracle capable of lulling targets into a deep slumber. Formidable as it was, it certainly lacked the effect of grinding down souls. Therefore, the Soul-Tethering Dream in Stage 34 was in all likelihood an enhanced version created after the Spectre Prophet advanced to Legendary Sorcerer—or perhaps even a divine miracle further augmented after he ascended as a demigod angel!
Naturally, Soul-Tethering Dream could not be endured through sheer endurance, but the method to unravel it was likewise found in the Spectre Manual. In it, the Spectre Prophet had written that this miracle could even corrode Sanctuaries. The vast majority of sorcerers stood no chance of withstanding it—they could not even mount a defense, as the technique invaded through sight, sound, smell, and touch on every sensory front. The instant a sorcerer laid eyes on the pale violet, shimmering smoke, their soul had already been tethered.
Yet if a sorcerer possessed a soul that was dense, heavy, and profound, they could remain entirely unaffected. No matter how tenaciously Soul-Tethering Dream entangled them, their soul would stand firm and unyielding!
And the method to temper the soul lay within the Spectre Inheritance itself!
The Spectre Inheritance offered two standard rewards: one was "soul experience," and the other was "temporary sorcery spirits."
Indeed, aside from the Origin Soul spirits they manifested themselves, most sorcery spirits obtained inside the inheritance could not be taken outside. It was hard to say whether the Spectre Prophet had simply been too impoverished to grant permanent rewards, or if he loathed the thought of incompetent interlopers scoring free windfalls from his legacy.
Among the temporary sorcery spirits rewarded, many acted directly upon a sorcerer's soul—such as the "Battle Soul," which grew stronger the longer one fought; the "Sword Soul," which amplified blade damage; the "Vile Soul," which strengthened in proportion to malice; and the "Dark Soul," which grew mightier as light diminished.
Among them was a "Soul Refining" sorcery spirit that could purge impurities from the soul and compress its density, rendering it far more solid and substantial! However, that alone was not enough, as it was impossible for them to find four Soul Refining spirits. Thus, after three days of scouting and experimentation, Yaxiu had also selected two other spirits: "Soul Raiment" and "Slumber Soul."
The former was exceptionally practical, cloaking the soul in a layer of defensive armor whose defensive strength scaled proportionally with soul mass, complementing the Soul Refining spirit perfectly. The latter was a healing spirit that accelerated the recovery of soul trauma through slumber.
Facing the pale violet, shimmering smoke of Soul-Tethering Dream, Yaxiu had long since activated Soul Refining. Following an agonizing pain akin to being chiseled and pared by chisels and blades, his frame had thinned considerably, yet his face and skin gleamed with a taut, lustrous elasticity, as if his physical body had descended into the Void Realm!
Then, the combination of Soul Raiment and Slumber Soul!
Miracle: Slumber Under the Overcoat!
A pale blue greatcoat materialized over Yaxiu, draping over the Sword Princess and the other two girls. Almost instantly, Sonia, Diya, and Weise struggled to keep their eyes open, promptly leaning against Yaxiu as they sank into a deep slumber.
At this moment, the shimmering violet wisps of Soul-Tethering Dream wound around them in several loops. Not only did they fail to affect Yaxiu in the slightest, but they were also utterly incapable of whittling away the souls of the three girls.
This was the countermeasure Weise had devised: the essence of Soul-Tethering Dream was to draw out the target's soul and grind it down over time. Aside from resisting the pull through a dense, grounded soul, tethering the soul beforehand with another miracle served equally well to withstand Soul-Tethering Dream!
The miracle Slumber Under the Overcoat relied on Yaxiu's enhanced soul density after Soul Refining to forcefully tether the souls of Weise and the others. Simply put, Yaxiu "swallowed" them first; so long as Soul-Tethering Dream failed to pry open his maw, it could not touch the girls inside.
Five minutes passed in this fashion. By the time Yaxiu began feeling a bit fatigued from holding them up, the pale violet smoke finally dissipated, and three reward orbs materialized in the hall.
Yaxiu immediately dispelled Slumber Under the Overcoat. Weise was the first to awaken. Stepping back two paces, she let out a soft breath. "We finally cleared it."
"I didn't expect it to succeed on the first try," Yaxiu said, brimming with delight.
In truth, Yaxiu had already gripped a Spectre Secret Key, fully prepared to withdraw from the Void Realm the moment Slumber Under the Overcoat failed. After all, Soul-Tethering Dream was a legendary secret art, if not an outright divine miracle, whereas their Slumber Under the Overcoat was a hastily cobbled-together creation; failing to counter it would have been entirely normal.
However, effortless as the counter seemed, it required obtaining the three sorcery spirits—Soul Refining, Soul Raiment, and Slumber Soul—from the rewards. Moreover, sorcery power could not be used inside the Spectre Inheritance, meaning Yaxiu had to drive both spirits using his soul alone to weave the miracle.
This was hardly a lighthearted, trivial task. The miracle was not a crude stacking of two spirits; rather, it required permeating the effect of Slumber Soul into Soul Raiment, and then releasing the slumber potency through the raiment... Had Yaxiu's soul faction not attained the Silver rank, he wouldn't have been able to cast the miracle at all.
This was also why they had delayed tackling Stage 34 for three days. Over that span, they had farmed soul experience in the earlier stages. Once the three girls broke through to the Silver rank in the soul faction, Yaxiu naturally ascended to Silver through experience sharing as well. That way, even if they ran into unexpected snags further along, they would at least possess some measure of self-defense.
As for why Yaxiu was the one to cast Slumber Under the Overcoat, it was because he was the only unassigned member of the party.
The Sword Princess pursued the "Sword Soul" path, continually augmenting her close-quarters prowess; in most combat stages, she was the first to charge in and carve up the opposition.
Weise followed the "Soul Master" path, expanding her soul's computational capacity to control multiple adversaries, which shone brilliantly whenever the enemy count climbed into the double digits.
The Witch focused on paths like "Retainer Soul," "Martial Soul," and "Battle Soul." Although sorcery spirits were unavailable inside the inheritance, her fist and claw faction was genuinely at the Gold rank, allowing her to provide decisive follow-up damage alongside the Sword Princess's frontal assault.
This was precisely why they insisted on tackling the trials as a quartet to this day—no matter what rewards dropped in a stage, there would always be an option tailored to at least one operator's build, whereas a solo sorcerer stuck with unsuitable rewards had no choice but to settle for arbitrary picks.
Yet this arrangement left Yaxiu in an awkward position. Though he was proficient in numerous sorcery factions thanks to experience sharing, his actual combat style was geared toward ranged sword techniques.
If he walked the Sword Soul path, he would not only compete with the Sword Princess for resources, but their overall damage output would also become redundant.
Only after breaking down the Soul Refining and Soul Raiment combination did Yaxiu finally lock in his role within the Spectre Inheritance—the Guardian.
Put simply, whenever the enemies prepared to focus fire, he would have to charge forward and take the beating.
Chapter 645