You Can Leave

Yaxiu seized Silver Lantern's hand, and both of their soul strengths instantly skyrocketed, reaching the thousand-person soul level simultaneously! Soul Theft Manual—Burning Soul! They had no defensive sorceries capable of unraveling Weixi's soul miracles, but an inherently powerful soul could resist soul miracles on its own—a truth they had witnessed countless times in the Spectre Inheritance. Although each activation of Burning Soul consumed a source crystal, in a battle between life and death, Yaxiu could not afford the slightest hesitation. Weise had experienced Yaxiu's support links before, so she naturally was not surprised. In contrast, when Weixi saw this scene, unspeakable shock showed in his eyes. A divine miracle? To amplify soul strength tenfold—even as a temporary effect—unquestionably fell within the realm of divine miracles. After all, the vast majority of soul faction sorcery spirits scaled linearly, or even exponentially, with soul strength. In his previous life, Weixi had only strengthened his soul to the thousand-person soul level during the Legend stage. Back then, he was practically invincible within his tier; other Legend sorcerers could not withstand even a single one of his soul miracles. Having a divine miracle was one thing; after all, it was all too normal for sorcerers to encounter fortuitous opportunities—Weixi himself had seized or stumbled across dozens of them. Even having a divine miracle that strengthened the soul could be written off as a coincidence. However, the design behind this divine miracle could not just be called identical to the divine miracle he had created in his past life, "Kindling Soul"—it was outright superior! Kindling Soul could temporarily boost soul strength sixfold, and Weixi had thought he had reached the absolute limit of its development, beyond any further refinement. Yet this divine miracle appearing before his eyes not only shared a broadly similar approach with Kindling Soul, but also elevated the amplification multiplier to tenfold! Yet he had never passed down the Kindling Soul divine miracle... Could a soul demigod more powerful than him have arisen over these past few thousand years? Had their divine miracles collided by coincidence? Though utterly perplexed, Weixi showed no mercy whatsoever. The Weixis produced daggers and suddenly slashed open their own throats, chanting in a bizarre, bellow-like rasp that resounded from all directions, erupting instantly into a tempest of sound waves! Miracle: Requiem of the Soul! Even though Yaxiu and Weise immediately intensified their Sanctuaries to block the acoustic vibrations, they still could not prevent the sound of the soul from entering their ears. The medium of sound was air; as long as their Sanctuaries continued to filter fresh air, the sound could ride in on it! Under the influence of the bizarre sound waves, Yaxiu and Weise could practically see their souls being squeezed out of their bodies bit by bit. If struck directly by the sonic waves, their souls and bodies would likely be torn apart—the soul left with nowhere to reside, the body with nothing to inhabit. Even if they could protect their souls, Weixi could easily destroy their physical flesh! Yet the strength of thousand-person souls acted like heavy anchors, holding their souls firmly within their flesh. Although their souls were being enticed by the singing, it was like an ordinary person with a budding crush awkwardly trying to flirt with someone out of their league—the progress was agonizingly slow, and Yaxiu and Weise barely needed to mind the song's effects. As Weixi launched his assault, Yaxiu and Weise struck back simultaneously. Yaxiu summoned his Substitute before him, pressed both hands on its shoulders for a moment, and then smacked its rear. The Substitute immediately darted forward and crashed into the cluster of Weixis! Boom! The Substitute detonated violently, splattering ink marks across the surrounding area. The nearby Weixis dissolved like phantoms upon contact, yet the ink marks lingered without dissipating, like splashed ink on paper, slowly spreading through the space until the entire area was turned into a desolate domain of ink marks. Miracle: Substitute Splashing Ink! During the month spent traveling, with nothing else to do on the road, Yaxiu had begun sorting through his combat repertoire. He had realized he lacked an area-of-effect attack; after all, Heart Sword was applied stroke by stroke, sword by sword. If he wanted to create dense ink marks quickly, he had to paint them slowly—a repetitive chore utterly intolerable to a lazy person. Thus, after much deliberation, Yaxiu conceived the idea of storing up ink marks and splashing them out in one go. With his space faction foundation as a bedrock, the early development of the miracle went smoothly enough, but Yaxiu soon ran into a serious problem: he could produce a ball of ink, but how was he supposed to splash it? That ball of ink required an ink bottle to hold it; Heart Sword was at best a pen nib and could never shoulder such a task! Yet miracles were miracles precisely because sorcerers possessed wild imaginations and dog-like relentlessness in execution. Yaxiu had browsed his sorcery spirit storage and realized the Substitute sorcery spirit looked a lot like an ink bottle. Spending a few days to finally beat the Substitute sorcery spirit into submission so it was willing to drink ink, a fresh Legend miracle was born. Yaxiu had originally thought up an elegant name: "Ink Scholar." But the visual effect was simply too hideous, resembling nothing so much as a Substitute's massive explosion, so he compromised and named it Substitute Splashing Ink. The move's actual efficacy was middling—its damage radius wasn't large, and it was easy to dodge—but its strength lay in its persistence. The ink marks would cut into anything that entered. Unless the ink marks could be cleansed, the splashed area became a no-go zone for movement for a short time. Meanwhile, Weise raised her submachine gun and sprayed bullets furiously at the Weixis! Bang! Bang! Bang! Within three seconds she emptied a magazine, flicked her wrist to snap in a fresh one, and kept up the storm of barrage. Practically every bullet carried a different attribute: blaze, ice, wind blades, extreme heat, corrosion... Not only that, whenever her bullets hit the Weixis, "?" symbols popped up over their heads—some large, some small, with practically distinct colors. Yet after being bombarded by the pair, Weixi's singing did not weaken in the slightest, and even more phantom Weixis emerged from the mist; their numbers swelled rather than diminished. They had anticipated these Weixis were phantoms, but the speed at which they replenished made their expressions turn slightly grim. If they did not find a way to reduce the total number of phantoms, locating Weixi's true body would be impossible. "Wind," Weise said suddenly. "The mist is the true origin of the phantoms. We have to disperse the mist with wind." Weise hadn't been firing blindly earlier; she had been using "Thousand Mechanics Trial and Error," a scouting miracle formed by the Thousand Mechanics sorcery spirit and the Illusion sorcery spirit. Each of her bullets was imbued with a different property, and depending on the damage and effect inflicted, the resulting question marks varied in size, allowing her to swiftly determine which attribute was truly effective. "I don't have a wind sorcery spirit," Yaxiu said dejectedly. "I do." Weise swapped in another magazine. With a swift shift of thought, her Thousand Mechanics sorcery spirit transformed into a Wind Scythe sorcery spirit. This was her combat style: never clashing head-on, but finding a weakness, targeting that weakness, and then... Exterminating the enemy completely! Bang! Bang! Bang! Muzzle fire flared as rounds plunged into the mist and burst, whipping up an explosive torrent of wind scythes that blew the dense fog apart! The phantom Weixis vanished in smoke right away, and none respawned for a long while. Striking while the iron was hot, Weise let loose another chaotic flurry of bullets, sweeping all the phantoms clean! Yet they still could not see Weixi's true body, and the soul-reaping singing continued loud and unbroken. Worse still, they discovered the soul in their fingertips was nearly peeling away. At this rate, they could hold out for at most an hour. But just moments ago they could have endured for a day and a night, yet now it had shrunk to an hour, proving that while this song was luring their souls, it was also eroding their resistance! The protection of their thousand-person souls was deteriorating rapidly! Amidst the bizarre song, they could clearly hear Weixi's voice: "Aha, you figured out the correct countermeasure so quickly. Not bad, not bad at all... But the mist of the Twilight Glow Dragon is exceptionally volatile. "Did you know? In mist or dust, light forms distinct beams, like lines painted across the world by a god. That's basic knowledge in the light sorcery faction. "My mastery of the light faction isn't much to brag about—only at the Legend tier. I'd be embarrassed to show it off usually, but it's passably fit for a little performance. "Please enjoy my original inspiration trick... Shadow of Death." Even before Weixi finished speaking, Yaxiu and Weise had already turned back-to-back, facing the ground with eyes tightly shut, not daring to look outside at all. The vast majority of light sorcery miracles took effect through retinal ganglion cells; shutting their eyes meant voluntarily blinding themselves, but that was far better than taking the hit head-on. Even with their eyes closed, both could feel waves of ripples brushing lightly across their bodies, like feathers stroking their skin. They had a powerful premonition—if they opened their eyes, those gentle caresses would burrow into them through their eyes, stuffing and bursting their physical husks like tentacles! Perhaps because their eyes were shut, Yaxiu and Weise suddenly found the bizarre song sounding even clearer and sweeter. The singing pierced their eardrums, wedging into their thoughts like a viscous tongue churning through their cochleas and stirring their brain matter! Their souls were accelerating their escape from these bodies tormented in sight and sound! Weixi's two miracles were complementary killer moves! Vision blocked, hearing disordered, the two almost instinctively clasped their hands tightly together. Only the warmth of a fellow human could slightly ease the fear and cowardice in their hearts. Weixi hadn't even deployed a divine miracle yet, and Yaxiu and Weise were already teetering on the verge of defeat; death was merely a matter of time. But they hadn't lost yet. As long as they guarded the vicinity of the three gods, as long as the three gods completed the ritual to seal the doomsday breach, and as long as Weixi failed to disrupt it, things would naturally take a turn for the better. So they still had a chance. For Weixi to seize the gods, he had to get close to them. As long as they continued to hinder him, they could welcome the dawn of victory in the dark. "You two... are quite stubborn. Ordinary Legend sorcerers wouldn't last long under these two attacks," Weixi's voice echoed leisurely inside their cochleas. "It seems I have no choice but to use my strongest move. "That's right—Daydream." Yaxiu and Weise's hearts sank. "You weren't wronged in the slightest by falling under Daydream's control earlier. Not just now—even in my previous life, Daydream was a divine miracle of the highest tier," Weixi said. "Its true power lies in the fact that it isn't merely a soul or dream divine miracle; it is also an offensive prophecy divine miracle." An offensive prophecy divine miracle? Confusion welled in both of their minds: How could a prophecy divine miracle attack? "It requires the coordination of another of my divine miracles, 'Prophetic Dream.' Any target I see within Prophetic Dream can be made, through Daydream, to reenact the future I foresaw. "Therefore, Silver Lantern, why you activated the apocalyptic sorcery procedure, and Yaxiu, why you defended Silver Lantern as she activated it—those were both predetermined futures," Weixi chuckled. "I simply made them happen ahead of time." "Impossible!" Yaxiu and Weise said in unison. "It's precisely because you think it's impossible that it's called a daydream," Weixi chuckled, adding, "You probably thought shutting your eyes would protect you, but how could a trump card I rely on be broken so easily? "Requiem of the Soul and Shadow of Death were weakening your resistance while creating the perfect environment to trigger Daydream! "So, let me ask once more. "Fire Cat, have you ever had a daydream?" Yaxiu and Weise froze, and instantly a chill rushed straight to their heads. Boom! The next second, an unexpected, catastrophic explosion from the side blasted them more than ten meters away, rumbling ceaselessly in their ears. They tumbled across the ground several times, their heads ringing and their ears taking several seconds to recover, feeling like a bottle of orange juice that had been violently shaken. Yaxiu immediately applied Joy Sword and Severing Self to himself, barely regaining clarity before grabbing Silver Lantern's hand to heal her. Supporting each other as they stood up, they only dared slit their eyes open a crack to see what had happened. Where the three gods had originally stood was now a colossal crater, ringed outside by an endless sea of fire. White Dove and Blue Bird had also been blown outside the crater, battered and bloodied, their expressions blank, seemingly unable to comprehend what had just transpired. The doomsday rift, which had been on the verge of closing, was torn apart once again. The sole victor was Weixi, standing at the center of the crater. Dangling from his hand was a slumbering, cat-eared little girl—strikingly, a super-shrunk version of the Fire Cat god. On Weixi's face was an uncontrollable frenzy of joy, his voice dripping with exultant triumph: "Knowing-Keeping Fire... is mine!" Yaxiu suddenly remembered what Weixi had said not long ago: "...Knowing Fire is a rule of prophecy, and Keeping Fire is a rule of truth; it's virtually impossible for you to harm her through either of these two rules..." Fire Cat could be harmed by prophecy sorceries! From the start, Weixi had never intended to target them. Requiem of the Soul and Shadow of Death were both meant to weaken Fire Cat and pave the way for Daydream! If what he said was true, then in the future he had foreseen, Fire Cat chose to self-destruct—which was how he was able to capture Fire Cat with such ease! An unspeakable wave of humiliated rage surged in Yaxiu's heart. Trembling all over, he clenched his teeth and glared at Weixi, on the verge of raising his Sword of Honeyed Words and Belly Dagger to charge and fight the Spectre Prophet to the death. Just then, Silver Lantern suddenly grabbed his wrist. "Fire Cat has been taken," she said without preamble. Yaxiu stared at her with wide eyes, his expression clearly saying: I have eyes. "Fire Cat has been taken," she repeated. "I know!" Yaxiu said through gritted teeth. "We have to take her back, and then the three gods can—" "No." Weise shook her head. "Earlier, you couldn't leave because you were imprisoned by Fire Cat's Keeping Fire. "Now that Fire Cat has been taken, you can leave."