Sometimes having no way out wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In Shattered Lake Prison, for instance, had Heath not committed unforgivable, heinous crimes, and had Schilling not pressed him step by step, Yaxiu would never have made up his mind to break out. If he had felt he wouldn't be voted to death in the Blood Moon Trial, he might well have contentedly retired right there in Shattered Lake Prison—chatting and goofing off with Sword Princess by night, shooting the breeze with the medical officer by day. Wouldn't that have been far cozier than braving the elements outside with a bunch of men?
Of course, having a way out wasn't necessarily a bad thing either. For example, precisely because Lisi was now the Gospel Empress, Yaxiu and his companions had pursued a way to cross between realms with such enthusiasm. Even when tossed into a wasteland—a place not recommended for reincarnation—they felt little despair. After all, they knew that as long as they could make it back, endless wealth and honor were the baseline guarantee, and someone like Yaxiu could even sample premium perks like calling a stag a horse or meddling in state affairs from the inner court.
The point of having an escape route was that it earned you the right to tell life: "Screw you, I'm not playing with you anymore." It meant *I haven't lost; I just don't feel like playing with you anymore.* But what if you had already lost?
Yaxiu glanced at Silver Lantern, then looked at Weixi holding Fire Cat in his hand. Bloodshot streaks of fury flared in his eyes, and his teeth ground together so hard they nearly shattered from sheer indignation!
He would rather have had no way out at all. Then he could have fought the Spectre Prophet to the bitter end without a second thought, not hesitating even if it meant dying together. If Hell truly existed, it would merely be the start of a new journey; Yaxiu wouldn't be lonely there either, with plenty of company to raise hell alongside him.
He had never loathed anyone this deeply. Weixi had ruined everything. Just moments ago, the situation had actually reached the optimal resolution: the three gods were bound here to plug the doomsday rift. Though many Senluo people had perished, far more could have survived and migrated elsewhere.
More importantly, that had been Yaxiu's last hope—the only hope of saving Igola and the others!
While Silver Lantern was treating his wounds earlier, Yaxiu had kept his eyes wide open, staring at the rain of people falling from the sky. He dreaded missing them, yet feared seeing them. In truth, he had already fallen into despair; Igola and the others were inside the Silent Spiral to begin with, so how could they possibly survive? Yet when the three gods began sealing the breach, hope had reignited in Yaxiu's heart. Perhaps there was still time. Perhaps they could hold on until then...
Yet for his own selfish desire, Weixi had stolen Fire Cat, forcibly aborting the ritual. Doomsday would inevitably descend upon Senluo.
Earlier, carried by a surge of battle intent, Yaxiu had had no room for distraction. Now, turning it over in his mind, his thoughts were nearly overwhelmed by boundless rage, sorrow, and self-reproach. His heart felt clutched tight in a vice, as if someone were wringing it dry to squeeze out ingredients for a medicine of regret.
He was the one who had insisted on coming down to save Tamashi! He was the one who had wanted to stop Silver Lantern from destroying the world!
That was why everyone had separated; that was why he was trapped on the eighteenth floor of the Silent Spiral, utterly unable to go back and save the rest!
If, the moment doomsday struck, he had seized everyone and fled into the Thousand Wishes Kingdom of Heaven... Or even earlier, if he had killed Silver Lantern during the Divine Fire Trial...
Without realizing it, Yaxiu gripped Weise's wrist in return, blue veins bulging on his hand, digging into her fair skin until dark purple bruises formed. Weise said nothing, merely letting go of her own grip on his hand in silence. Pain—perhaps old wounds had not yet healed, or perhaps new injuries had struck; a gut-wrenching ache seemed to tear Yaxiu's internal organs to shreds, suffocating him with agony. He had believed that as long as he maintained a posture of indifference, the world could never truly hurt him. He had believed he always had a fallback, and that fallback was "death."
So what if I transmigrated straight into being a cult leader? So what if I faced execution within days? So what if I could never go back? The world didn't love me, and I had no intention of loving this world either.
Yet he cared after all. That rainy night at the Yisu Imperial Palace had been the first time, and now was the second. He truly didn't care for this world, but there were people in this world who cared for him, and so this world cared for him too. Caring gave a person armor, but it also gave them a soft underbelly.
Igola, Harvey, Tamashi, Chikala, Gwen... Yaxiu could disregard the Senluo strangers he had never met, but he could not disregard the companions who had walked between life and death at his side—especially when he clearly had the chance to save them!
Especially the Deceiver and the Necromancer... Yaxiu had always felt at a disadvantage. Shattered Lake Prison was the starting point of his new life, whereas to those two, Shattered Lake Prison was merely one bumpy stretch of road they had crossed. To them, Yaxiu was perhaps just an ordinary friend—not even someone they would lend money to. But to Yaxiu, those two bastards were the entirety of his new life. Almost every major milestone had been experienced alongside them!
Yaxiu had originally assumed he had long prepared himself for parting ways. After all, Harvey possessed a deadpan face that looked ready to hold a funeral for himself at any moment, right down to having his coffin ready. And it would have been entirely normal for Igola to vanish without a word someday to become an uncrowned king in the underworld—in the man's own words, if a deceiver warned you before leaving, it only meant he planned to screw you one last time.
The cult leader had also quietly grumbled about why he couldn't have friends with more conventional morals. While being as rigidly righteous as Tamashi wasn't ideal either, at least normal friends wouldn't rattle off trivia about corpses during dinner, nor would they possess such piercing insight paired with a venomous tongue.
Nowadays, Yaxiu found his appetite whetted whenever he looked at a corpse, and a cynical edge crept into his words without him noticing. He felt he was already beyond saving.
Yet such were the cards life had dealt him, and such were the friends he had made. What could he do? Igola had nothing in common with a good person, and Harvey had successfully ruined his sense of smell, but Yaxiu still didn't want to lose them. Even if they were pieces of trash, they were *his* indispensable trash.
So how could Yaxiu be willing to scrape by just to save his own skin? The others might well be waiting for him in Hell. And yet—
"Go!" Beside him, Weise summoned a gate of mist and tugged him toward it with all her might. "Even if you want to go back and search for the others, go, quickly!"
"You aren't planning to stay here and die alongside someone like me, are you?" she said coldly. "Instead of spending the rest of your life with the person you love?"
Only now did Yaxiu truly understand how Tamashi had felt. Tamashi's reckless disregard for his own life in pursuit of vengeance wasn't born of a genuine desire to die; it was simply that everything he cared for was in Hell, and he didn't want them to wait too long.
Only, unlike Tamashi, Yaxiu hadn't lost everything yet. He still had a home to return to, and people waiting for him.
Staying behind served no purpose beyond exacting revenge on Weixi. Senluo's doomsday could not be averted; the world was on the brink of extinction. And for the current Yaxiu, vengeance was far too expensive. What was more, could they really defeat the Spectre Prophet armed with Fire Cat? Better to leave for now, grow stronger, and return for vengeance later. Wait until later... wait until...
Weise watched Yaxiu's hands tremble, hearing him murmur an inexplicable apology to someone: "Tamashi, I'm sorry... and thank you."
"I'll leave," Yaxiu said, turning his head to look at Weise. He released her hand, fire blazing in his eyes. "If I am about to die."
Weise froze, nearly laughing out of exasperation. "You think Weixi will conveniently batter you into near-death? And that you can seize that exact moment? You're gambling with your life right now?"
"If I don't gamble, how do I make him lose everything?" Yaxiu gripped Honeyed Words with a Dagger, gritting his teeth. "If I win the bet, at least I can vent this fury. If I lose—then I'll die right alongside you."
"Madman!" Weise cursed under her breath. Throwing her strength into both hands, she shoved him straight toward the gate of mist. Even if Yaxiu could return to the eighteenth floor later, at least it would give him a chance to cool down—
Yet when Yaxiu was pushed against the gate of mist, he didn't pass through.
The two stared at the gate of mist in astonishment. Relief surfaced on Yaxiu's face, while Weise's expression grew complicated.
Just then, the surrounding mist thickened once more, and Weixi's leisurely voice drifted down from the sky: "I don't believe I mentioned why Fire Cat suddenly burned herself out. What exactly happened in the future that forced the Knowing-Fire god into self-destruction?
"In the future I dreamt, you were truly extraordinary. Though the three gods carried out the sealing ritual just the same, you didn't attack them. After all, if the three gods sustained injuries they couldn't endure, the ritual would automatically abort. And endowed with the ability to learn, they naturally knew they had to purge all living beings on the eighteenth floor before they could conduct the sealing ritual.
"The method you chose was: make it so the three gods couldn't seal it in time! You seemed capable of directing the Four Pillar Cult, and through a series of manipulations, you gathered fifty percent of Senluo's entire population near the Silent Spiral. The moment doomsday was unleashed, over half of all Senluo people perished.
"The speed at which the three gods could seal the breach couldn't keep up with the Senluo people's death rate at all!
"Thus, the Knowing-Fire god sacrificed herself, unleashing the full might of Keeping Fire to turn the eighteenth floor into a sea of flames, temporarily plugging the doomsday rift! That way, only two of the three gods remained, making them far easier to deal with."
Ignoring Weixi's wildly distorted version of the future, Yaxiu and Weise extracted only the vital piece of intelligence. Then, both looked up toward the rift in the sky.
Yet the scene they hoped for did not appear. Though it had thinned considerably, the rain of people continued to fall!
"Hahahaha, look at your faces! How hilarious," Weixi chuckled mockingly. "Pay attention to the lesson! Only if Knowing-Fire sacrificed herself completely could she hold the eighteenth floor. But I stopped her after she burned through barely more than half—so how could she possibly plug the breach? Still, using it to obstruct spatial movement is child's play.
"Until this conflagration, which could burn for years, is extinguished, don't dream of escaping—none of you, except me." Weixi sneered coldly. "Once I thoroughly master Knowing-Fire, I'll take my time breaking the two of you. Ciqingji and Ruyuan are already in the bag, and you two seem to possess quite a few extraordinary fortunes of your own. We'll have plenty of time for a long chat. Trust me, once you become vengeful spirits, you'll prove quite talkative."
"Is that so?!"
Weise's submachine gun suddenly roared. Dozens of bullets slammed onto the rim of the crater, kicking up a furious gale that tore the dense mist apart in an instant, exposing Weixi clutching Fire Cat inside! Weise's eyes turned almost into transparent glass beads—she had transformed her Thousand Mechanics sorcery spirit into the ultimate scouting sorcery spirit: Clairvoyance!
At the same time, Fangwu emerged upon her shoulder. The Square Cicada let out a stridulating cry, and the mighty power of the Golden Stream brought every attack Weise would make over the next three seconds crashing down upon Weixi in this very second!
Future Kill: Three-Second Cicada Metamorphosis!
Miracle—Angry Sword!
There was no need for a sorcery spirit to convert emotion; the moment Yaxiu struck, he unleashed the maximum might of Angry Sword. The sword light crossed dozens of meters in a fraction of a breath, sweeping toward Weixi's throat!
Yet what posed the greatest threat to Weixi was not the two sorcerers.
It was a cane.
Ciqingji's cane!
White Dove broke through the dense mist, raising his cane without fanfare to thrust at Weixi. Yet with that seemingly ordinary thrust, Weixi was pinned entirely in place—even leaning his head forward on his own accord toward the tip of the cane!
Weixi had been right: the gods were indeed learning. And now they knew that everything else could wait—first, they had to kill this bedbug Weixi!
Chapter 736