"I see. I understand completely now."
Inside a lightless hotel room in Blind Town, two identical maidens were communicating mind to mind. They were Weise and the phantom from another worldline created by the Illusion Mirror Dragon.
After acquiring the Willingness sorcery spirit, Weise had created a minor miracle called "Mutual Willingness," which allowed high-speed information exchange between two souls. However, this miracle came with a severe side effect: the memories and personalities of the two people could easily become confused and intermingled. Yet for Weise and the phantom, this side effect was practically nonexistent, because the phantom was Weise's shadow to begin with.
Having obtained all of the other's sorcery knowledge, Weise felt her mind faction almost brushing against the threshold of the Sanctuary realm. She looked at the phantom in the darkness and said sincerely, "Thank you for the trouble."
"It was no trouble; I was the one who benefited the most," the phantom said. "If there is nothing else, I will head back."
"Still... are you truly going to carry out that plan?"
Weise said nothing, and the phantom spoke no further. She slowly dissolved into the air, vanishing without a trace.
"Illusion Mirror Dragon..." she murmured softly.
In the past, her sorcery attainment had been insufficient, leading her to believe that the Illusion Mirror Dragon had genuinely summoned a phantom from another worldline to interact with her. But looking back now, this so-called 'self from another worldline' was merely a phantom carelessly cobbled together by the Illusion Mirror Dragon, which had extracted her memories and blended them with other sorcery knowledge from the Void Realm.
Simply put, the Illusion Mirror Dragon was merely helping her steal knowledge from the Void Realm. As for the 'self from another worldline,' it was nothing more than a convenient persona crafted to help her absorb that knowledge.
How could other worldlines truly exist?
Whatever decision was made would produce only a single outcome, with no turning back and no room for regret.
Therefore, the phantom's final question had actually stemmed from the last lingering sliver of hesitation in her own heart.
Yet even that sliver of hesitation had completely vanished into thin air after Yaxiu obtained the Wish Heart Core and could retreat to the Thousand Wishes Kingdom of Heaven at any time.
"Conveniently, we cannot log into the Void Realm during this period anyway. Enough grand laws have been gathered, and everything is in place."
Weise opened the window to gaze out at this lightless city. As far as the eye could see, there was only abyssal darkness.
"Then taking advantage of this interval, I shall pay a visit to the Silent Spiral and begin Senluo's countdown."
***
"This nation... is truly fascinating."
Within the main hall of the Four Pillar Cult's Slay All Crows district.
All servants had been dismissed from the hall. Classified materials had been unearthed, and a handsome, cold man was skimming through them at breakneck speed.
Sitting across from him was Mercury Trojan. Even though she had descended using a secure vessel, and even though damage to the vessel could not harm her true body, she remained on pins and needles, not daring to make any eye contact with the cold man.
"No wonder He was so confident that the opportunity I need would appear in this country..." The cold man pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked, "To enter the Silent Spiral, must one possess a grand law?"
"Yes," Mercury Trojan answered immediately. "A grand law is an indispensable prerequisite for opening the Silent Spiral."
"Yet right now, someone named Silver Lantern is frantically plundering grand laws?"
"That is correct," Mercury Trojan said. "She is a deranged woman whose doctrine claims that 'reality is merely a fleeting illusion, while the Void Realm is the eternal future.' She believes reality is nothing more than a false dream, and her goal is to puncture that dream and destroy Senluo."
The cold man could not help pacing back and forth across the hall. After deep contemplation, he said, "Necessary expenditures truly cannot be avoided, after all..."
Mercury Trojan froze. The cold man's body went limp and collapsed to the floor—he had simply fallen asleep right then and there. Yet even so, Mercury Trojan did not dare take half a step closer, waiting in silence from her seat.
She did not have to wait long before the cold man rubbed his eyes and woke up, complaining, "As expected, without the Kingdom of Dreams, precognitive dreams cannot see very far into the future. Still, this is enough."
He ordered, "Next, you are to wage war against the Harp Sun Alliance and keep the front lines near the Silent Spiral, minimizing any obstacles to Silver Lantern entering the Silent Spiral as much as possible."
"Understood." Mercury Trojan dared not voice the slightest objection, for the Four Pillar Gods' oracle had commanded her to obey this man unconditionally.
Yet the cold man's earlier questions and final order stirred a curious line of thought in Mercury Trojan, and she could not resist asking, "Could Silver Lantern truly puncture the dream and destroy Senluo? If so, why are we helping her?"
The cold man glanced at her, and Mercury Trojan immediately lowered her head. "Forgive my presumption."
"No matter. Letting you grasp the truth and understand the situation is for the best, lest you commit an unforgivable, foolish blunder." The cold man was surprisingly amiable.
He sat down, picked up a document, and said, "I think this incident makes the best starting thread—do you recall that two months ago, the Calamitous Fire Sanctuary summoned the First Gospel?"
"I recall," Mercury Trojan said. "The First Gospel was named Yaxiu Heath, but he possessed none of the First Gospel's power and was defeated by Silver Lantern... Wait, could he actually be the genuine First Gospel, only hiding his capabilities all along?"
"Don't be so hasty," the cold man said. "In your view, what did the First Gospel come to Senluo to do?"
"To suppress the Four Pillar Cult," Mercury Trojan replied. "Captives from the Calamitous Fire Sanctuary said they heard the will of the Senluo Azure Lord: the First Gospel would come to save Senluo. That was why they summoned the First Gospel."
"You see, the First Gospel came to save Senluo, not to destroy the Four Pillar Cult," the cold man said. "You misunderstood from the very beginning."
Next, the cold man briefly explained the truth behind the Senluo Wasteland and the green beasts, as well as the fate of the Senluo Wasteland falling into eternal torment upon the death of the Senluo Azure Lord.
Mercury Trojan broke out in a cold sweat as she listened. It was not merely because everything the cold man said aligned perfectly with their intelligence, but also because despite being a prophecy sorcerer herself, she had perceived none of these secrets. This made her feel all the more keenly the terrifying power of a prophecy demigod—starting from the very same sources of intelligence, this man had uncovered the truth of the world in such a brief time!
"Therefore, not only did the First Gospel not come to destroy the Four Pillar Cult, he might even join it," the cold man summarized. "The nation of Senluo is already a bleeding wound on the Senluo Azure Lord. Slaughtering everyone here as quickly as possible is not only saving them, but also helping the Senluo Azure Lord stem the bleeding. The Four Pillar Cult is the First Gospel's finest butcher's cleaver."
Mercury Trojan suddenly realized something. "Then Silver Lantern..."
"If he were the true First Gospel, he would likely have allied with Silver Lantern immediately, helped her take control of the Four Pillar Cult, and then eradicated all living beings to destroy the world. The First Gospel's prophetic capabilities are at least equal to mine, if not superior. He would know beyond a doubt what the correct way to save Senluo is."
"Unfortunately, the First Gospel is a fake." The cold man shrugged. "We will just have to trouble ourselves to handle it in his stead."
Mercury Trojan trembled all over. "If Senluo is doomed to destruction, does that not mean we are walking toward certain death as well?"
"That would have been the case, but your luck is remarkably good," the cold man chuckled. "The Empty Door sorcery spirit gives you a chance to escape Senluo—merely a chance, of course."
"Yet the Empty Door sorcery spirit is exceedingly unstable! That is nothing short of courting death!"
Mercury Trojan had naturally conducted experiments with the Empty Door sorcery spirit, but aside from wasting several hundred cultists, she had gained nothing.
"As long as you reach the bottommost layer of the continent, the success rate of the Empty Door sorcery spirit will multiply exponentially." The cold man understood the workings of the Empty Door sorcery spirit intimately.
"As for where the continent's bottommost layer lies, you surely know better than I do."
Mercury Trojan sat dazed for a long while before suddenly asking, "Then why are you helping Silver Lantern?"
"That is something you have no need to know."
The cold man drawled, "Furthermore, although I am merely a negligible wisp of will at present, I am nonetheless a trading partner of your masters. Are you so stingy that you cannot even offer a respectful honorific?"
"My apologies, Lord Spectre Prophet."
"Do not use that title anymore. If I am not mistaken, quite a few Divine Lords have placed curses on that name. The more often you say it, the easier it becomes to draw their gaze." The cold man propped his feet up onto the desk, picked up the glass of red wine beside him, swirled it slightly, and poured it directly onto the ground beside him without taking a sip.
"Use my elven name: Weixi."
Chapter 697