The Sanctuary Cannot Be Insulted!

"Witch, can you hear me?" "I hear you! We can actually communicate inside the Spectre Inheritance!" Sonia and Diya had been teleported to the underground halls of the ninety-fifth and ninety-sixth trials, respectively. Under normal circumstances, they should have faced trials of their own. Upon arrival, however, they discovered a stone throne rising from the floor of each underground hall, with two stone spheres embedded in its armrests. Once they sat upon the thrones, a series of messages flooded their souls: [The Spectre Inheritance is under invasion by foreign enemies.] [Expelling every last one of them will be deemed passing this trial.] [You are now guardians of the Spectre Inheritance. Temporary control authority over the Ghostly Dreams has been granted. You may control one Ghostly Dream to move and attack.] When both of them gripped the stone spheres with their hands, the underground halls suddenly turned transparent. Looking up, they could see over a thousand Sanctuary sorcerers within the dim dream realm, as well as countless black spheres colliding and hurtling through the air! It felt as though they were pilots sitting in the cockpits of the black spheres! Not only that, but through their fingers, they could sense other black spheres. With a mere thought, the other black spheres would shift directions accordingly. Seeing this, no further explanation was needed: the Sanctuary sorcerers were attacking the black spheres to plunder the inheritance, while Sonia and Diya's objective was naturally to control the black spheres and send every last one of those Sanctuary sorcerers flying! The Spectre Prophet's decision to place control authority after Trial 95 had clearly been deliberate. Any Sanctuary sorcerer resorting to brute-forcing the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams to loot the inheritance surely believed they stood no chance of passing the trials legitimately, which was why they were willing to flip the table and fish in troubled waters. Yet if a sorcerer had already cleared past Trial 95, they would definitely believe they had an immense chance of claiming the inheritance. In their eyes, everything within the Spectre Inheritance was already as good as in their own pocket, so they naturally would not tolerate outsiders destroying it! This was a blatant open scheme: the interests of invaders and trial-takers were completely antithetical. To defend their own future gains, the trial sorcerers would undoubtedly pour everything into driving out the intruders! However, this mechanism harbored a massive vulnerability: what if no sorcerer had managed to reach Trial 95 by the time the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams was invaded? The Spectre Prophet had clearly known of this loophole, yet had possessed no solution. Lowering the threshold—allowing challengers who had reached Trial 90, 85, or even 80 to become guardians—would indeed have ensured an ample supply of hands, but the risk of traitors emerging would have skyrocketed in tandem. If a guardian colluded with the intruders from within, it would be tantamount to handing over the Ghostly Dream black spheres for free! Only sorcerers who had progressed past Trial 95 could be counted on to defend the Spectre Inheritance without fail! Furthermore, the Spectre Prophet had made precise calculations. He knew the extent to which the God-Lords could interfere in the Distant Sky Realm, allowing him to estimate how long it would take for the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams to be breached. In his calculations, by the time the sorcerers dispatched by the God-Lords invaded, someone should have already cleared past Trial 95. Yet there was one factor the Spectre Prophet had failed to account for: the decline of the soul faction! In his era, elves were the darlings of heaven and earth, and the soul faction was their trump-card sorcery. The Spectre Prophet's estimates were predicated on the assumption that a genius soul Sanctuary sorcerer would emerge in the future. Yet after his demise, the Six Nations gradually arose, and the elven race swept up in the tides of history continually fractured and transformed—to the point where Blood Moon elves and Gospel elves were practically two distinct species. More importantly, the soul faction was similar to the frailty faction in that it was far too arduous and exhausting for sorcerers. If the frailty faction at least bolstered survivability, the soul faction was purely suffering for the sake of power. When there were plenty of other factions to choose from, why subject oneself to such torment? It was worth noting that one reason Qinna was subtly revered as first among the Six Crest clan heads in Fanmula was precisely that she was a soul Sanctuary sorcerer—someone capable of being that ruthless toward herself naturally earned the awe and dread of others. Once social competition softened and people began pursuing stability and comfort, the decline of the soul faction and the rise of the mind faction became entirely natural historical fluctuations. The Spectre Prophet could calculate human nature down to the finest detail, yet he could not foresee the broader tides of history. Furthermore, the Thousand Wishes Inheritance on Ruby Mountain was far more vital than the Spectre Inheritance. The true battlefield for the God-Lords was Ruby Mountain, so they had only spared a sliver of their attention for the Distant Sky Realm. The Spectre Prophet had originally projected that the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams would be broken within half a month. Yet nearly a month had passed, and there wasn't even a challenger who had made it past Trial 9! This massive vulnerability should have been the catalyst for the ruin of the Spectre Inheritance, but the Dream Demon lurking in the shadows had stepped forward to clean up the Spectre Prophet's mess. *Boom!* Sonia and Diya tested the waters, and twenty Ghostly Dream black spheres abruptly whipped around, hurtling toward the dense cluster of Sanctuary sorcerers in the distance. Although they could have steered their own black spheres over as well, there was no reason to put themselves in harm's way unless they had a penchant for admiring up close the unsightly flailing of Sanctuary sorcerers being knocked around. The test went swimmingly. Faced with the reckless black spheres, even the overbearing Sanctuary sorcerers could only scatter in evasion; otherwise, they would undoubtedly be slammed hundreds of meters away. Sword Princess and Witch observed for a moment and quickly spotted their primary targets for expulsion: the three cohorts of Blood Moon, Curse Elf, and parasite sorcerers who had pinned down a black sphere and were battering it relentlessly! Compared to the scattered rabble traveling in twos and threes, these three groups were small in number, but they were professional teams capable of coordinated action and unified force. No one understood better than Sword Princess and Witch just how much explosive power a coordinated team of sorcerers could unleash—they were beneficiaries of teamwork themselves. Moreover, the Dream Demon had forewarned them that three teams possessed miracles capable of breaking the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams. These three groups were unmistakably the plunderers dispatched by the God-Lords to wreck the Spectre Inheritance. After a brief exchange, Sonia and Diya acted simultaneously, controlling twenty Ghostly Dream black spheres to crash into the three teams! Though occupied with attacking their target sphere, the three teams had kept a close eye on their surroundings. Spotting the tight barrage of incoming black spheres, they scattered in haste. Those skilled in flight even darted effortlessly between the black spheres, weaving through them as gracefully as butterflies. This time, however, the black spheres could turn! Sonia and Diya clenched their fingers, and the twenty black spheres pulled off bizarre, abrupt turns in midair. As if rebounding off an invisible wall, their momentum poured undiminished toward a single target— The Blood Moon team! Indeed, they had never entertained the thought of wiping out all three teams; in truth, taking down even one would have been an uphill battle. Sanctuary sorcerers were far from fools, and their Sanctuaries ensured they could not be killed in one blow. Even if the girls could command twenty Ghostly Dream black spheres, inflicting lethal damage was difficult. Thus, their goal was to severely cripple one team, creating an imbalance of power! Turning a three-way standoff into two strong factions and one weak one would trigger severe internal attrition through scheming alone. If they could take it further and make the teams suspect one another of having seized control of the Spectre Inheritance, Sonia and Diya would not even need to lift a finger—they would tear each other apart. As for why they chose the Blood Moon team, they had simply picked the squad whose miracle effects looked the flashiest—focus fire on whoever had the most special effects! Seeing themselves suddenly enveloped and compressed by twenty black spheres, leaving no room to dodge in any direction, Baiyu and the other Blood Moon Sanctuary sorcerers showed little panic. Their forms flickered as they swiftly transformed into small bats and wolves. The bats then turned into blood-shadows darting at breakneck speed, while the wolves leaped forward, shifting into moonlight to phase through space. Before the spheres could close in, they slipped through the gaps and completely escaped the collision zone! Many sorcerers from other nations were seeing the Blood Saint and Moon Shadow clans for the first time—two sorcery races continuously refined and reshaped by the Blood Moon Overlord, naturally possessing extraordinary gifts. In the Sea of Knowledge, the Blood Saint clan could turn into bats to fly across the ocean; on the Time Continent, the Moon Shadow clan could turn into wolves to disguise themselves as Void Realm creatures and roam freely. Upon reaching the Sanctuary stage, Blood Saint bats and Moon Shadow wolves could briefly dissolve into blood and light, not only evading harm and moving at extreme speeds, but also developing many exclusive miracles! This was the first time Sonia and Diya had encountered Blood Saints and Moon Shadows, so they naturally hadn't foreseen this trick. Even though they immediately redirected their barrage at the neighboring Curse Elves, they could no longer form a tight encirclement—not because the Ghostly Dream black spheres were incapable of it, but because they themselves were. Their method of controlling the spheres was exceedingly crude, roughly equivalent to selecting all the spheres and firing them at a single target. In the Spectre Prophet's design, a sorcerer capable of reaching Trial 95 ought to be able to divide their mind six ways, if not ten; coordinating ten black spheres would have been more than enough to drive intruders to utter despair. Yet Sword Princess and Witch had only passed Trial 5 not long ago. Furthermore, they worked as a team, so whenever a trial required intricate maneuvering, Yaxiu and Weise usually handled it—and neither of them was here! Diya had it slightly better, since she could switch to the White Queen to divide her focus three ways, while Sonia could manage two at most. Under these circumstances, though the black spheres surged with thunderous momentum and fierce attacks, their effect was mostly intimidation rather than actual lethality. Meanwhile, Baiyu and the others also realized the black spheres were being manually piloted. Her three wings fluttering, Zhuozhou slipped past the crashing black spheres by hairsbreadths time and again, moving with the poise of someone gliding through a ballroom. Her lips parted slightly, her voice echoing throughout the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams: "Devils, or angels?" "Impossible!" Baiyu replied with absolute certainty. "If this were an angel or devil born of the Spectre Prophet, their operational finesse would never be this crude! Even the lingering will of the Spectre Prophet could turn this place into a graveyard with ease!" "The Spectre Prophet had no chance to become an angel or devil," Bad Omen stated blithely. "Before our departure, the Heavenly Lord informed us that the Spectre Prophet's death was scrutinized by many factions. Leaving behind an inheritance was his absolute limit; his Sorcerer's Handbook was carved up and torn to shreds long ago. None of the demigods or God-Lords were willing to let him live on—in any form whatsoever." "A prophecy demigod is someone even a God-Lord fears." "Which means these black spheres are being piloted by Sanctuary sorcerers." Baiyu surveyed the other black spheres across the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams. "Their skill is clumsy, but they can still interfere with us. If we don't root out the operators first, we won't be able to keep destroying the spheres..." *Boom!* As the three teams dodged the pursuit of the black spheres, a sudden explosion rang out. A parasite sorcerer in mid-flight suddenly froze in place, instantly battered by multiple miracles at once before three black spheres bowled over him. His Sanctuary shattered entirely, his soul suffered severe trauma, and he was expelled directly back to reality. When Baiyu, Zhuozhou, and Bad Omen looked over, a vast empty space had opened around where the parasite sorcerer had just been. The sorcerers on the perimeter floated silently in the air, over two thousand pairs of eyes staring wordlessly at the teams being hunted by the black spheres. A sharp chill crept down the spines of Baiyu and his companions. This was merely the beginning; more would surely follow. Could ordinary Sanctuary sorcerers truly have no grievance against Baiyu and the others destroying the Spectre Inheritance on the God-Lords' behalf? Hardly. A grand event that was meant to offer steady opportunities—and perhaps even a colossal grand prize—had suddenly been sabotaged, and the grand prize was destined to be stolen by these teams. Even if the Sanctuary sorcerers hadn't harbored outright resentment, they at least wished for the teams to drop dead. The black spheres were not useless. They could not deal effective lethal blows, but they had separated Baiyu's teams and created openings for the perimeter sorcerers. The parasite sorcerer's downfall just now had been the work of more than a single sorcerer. More importantly, once casualties appeared and Baiyu and the others failed to retaliate immediately, the malice in everyone else would only swell. Baiyu's judgment was entirely correct: even if the perimeter sorcerers hadn't harbored ill will initially, there were schemers actively manufacturing it! "With the black spheres disrupting them, these God-Lord lackeys can't fight as a unit! Our chance is here!" "Kill them! Force them back to reality, and the Spectre Inheritance will be ours for the taking!" "Why should an angel's inheritance be yielded to the God-Lords? This is the inheritance the Spectre Prophet left for us!" "So what if they're God-Lords? Can they hunt us from the Void Realm into reality?" "The Distant Sky Realm belongs to Sanctuary sorcerers! If the God-Lords dare reach in, we'll chop off their hands!" "Those Sanctuary sorcerers willingly serve as lapdogs because they receive the God-Lords' blessings, giving them a shot at reaching Ruby Mountain or even the Divine Realm. We ordinary sorcerers who grind away in bitter cultivation finally stumbled upon a chance at the Spectre Inheritance—how can we just hand it over on a silver platter?" "It's time to show the God-Lords that we aren't livestock to be taken from at whim!" "The Sanctuary cannot be insulted!" Igola, alongside dozens of mind Sanctuary sorcerers, whipped up the crowd with calculated incitement. Fierce fighting intent and long-simmering resentment swept through the thousand-odd Sanctuary sorcerers like wildfire. To be frank, most of the Sanctuary sorcerers had not cared that much about the Spectre Inheritance being taken; after all, they had never genuinely expected to claim it themselves. What truly sparked their apprehension and hatred was the sheer audacity of these three teams storming the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams to seize the inheritance by brute force. To use an analogy: there was a prize locked inside a safe, accessible only to the victor who earned the key. Most people accepted that they wouldn't win, and would feel little grievance seeing someone else claim it fair and square. Yet when a gang came along, ignored the rules of the game, and simply blew the safe open, it ignited universal fury! Their experiences exploring the Void Realm naturally fostered a simple conviction: opportunities in the Void Realm were fair, and everyone had to rely solely on themselves. Sorcerers had seen plenty of injustice and inequality in reality, which made the equal ground of the Void Realm all the more precious. By leveraging the God-Lords to invade the Spectre Inheritance, the three teams were undeniably trampling upon the sanctity of the Void Realm, shattering the sorcerers' cherished illusions! It turned out that even in the Void Realm, opportunities were not equal after all! Had the three teams met with smooth sailing, that would have been one thing. But now that their progress had stalled, the malice of the perimeter sorcerers naturally flared and detonated. They were no longer fighting just to loot the Spectre Inheritance—they were fighting to protect the pristine Void Realm of their ideals! Even God-Lords could not rule over the Void Realm! Even if they were an unruly mob, they were an unruly mob composed of Sanctuary sorcerers! They might struggle to build something, but did anyone think they were incapable of tearing it down? *Bang!* A Curse Elf suddenly felt a gunshot blast strike her Sanctuary. When she turned to look, she was greeted by a torrential storm of miracles blotting out the sky. She melted almost instantly, leaving only scattered soul fragments to flee back to reality. Sonia and Diya stared dumbfounded at the Sanctuary brawl suddenly erupting across the Kingdom of Heaven in Dreams. The rain of hundreds upon thousands of miracles was more dazzling than any fireworks. After a long pause, Sword Princess snapped out of her daze. "Quick, put on your cloak, and don't take it off again! We cannot let anyone know we were the ones who started this war!"