He ran, They pursued, and he had nowhere left to fly.
Whenever he thought of the Four Pillar Gods, for some inexplicable reason, sappy background music from domineering CEO romance dramas echoed in Yaxiu's mind. The pity was that the domineering CEO was the Four Pillar Gods, while Yaxiu was merely the poor, helpless darling who couldn't sprout wings to fly, couldn't escape his doomed fate, and had all their doting affection lavished upon him.
—Except a domineering CEO only wanted love from the object of their affection, whereas the Four Pillar Gods wanted to exploit Yaxiu's surplus value!
Yaxiu had originally assumed that becoming a feeler for the Four Pillar Gods would at most mean They possessed his body. He never imagined They would want his heart as well, insisting on unlocking more of his hidden content and turning him into Their feeler inside and out!
When Weise took her own life, it wasn't as if Yaxiu hadn't considered the matter of the feeler. After all, he and Weise were the only two candidates. Now that Weise was gone, the Four Pillar Gods would naturally designate him. Yet he hadn't been particularly worried, mainly for three reasons:
First, aside from him, there was also Mercury Trojan, and the transfer of the feeler position wouldn't necessarily happen so quickly. As long as there was a time gap, Yaxiu would surely have slipped away long before any forced promotion took effect. From the looks of the illusion, however, Mercury Trojan had likely departed before Weise; he just didn't know whether she had been slaughtered by Black Crow and the others or swallowed by the cataclysm.
Second, Senluo was on the brink of extinction now, and countless Senluo people had already perished. Even if They turned Yaxiu into a feeler, what good would it do? Have him help collect corpses for the people of Senluo? He wasn't Harvey. Whatever purpose the Four Pillar Gods had, Senluo's value to Them ought to have plummeted dramatically. It was already too late to trim Their position—why on earth would They double down and add more?
Third, there were actually quite a lot of bugs on the wasteland; Sanctuary sorcerers simply had no need to fear them. Whenever Yaxiu occasionally stomped a bug to death, he would deliberately shout blasphemies like "The Tyrant burst its juices!", "The Treacherous Chancellor got the shit squeezed right out of him!", "Burn the Benevolent Father at the stake!", and "The Prince has turned into a painting!"
If he pulled stunts like that in Blood Moon Country, he would be sued for "infringing on personal reputation rights," even if the ones he insulted were evil gods. Notably, Black Crow had been extremely appreciative of this behavior; every time Yaxiu stepped on a bug, Black Crow would pause and applaud.
Therefore, for a probationary employee whose utility value had sharply plummeted, who frequently insulted management, and who wasn't even the only candidate, Yaxiu naturally hadn't believed he was worth the Four Pillar Gods squandering Their energy on. Who could have known the Four Pillar Gods would truly convert him into Their most crucial feeler? This weighty sense of trust honestly made Yaxiu want to cry his eyes out.
Weise most likely hadn't forgotten about the feeler business either. But with the apocalyptic situation having deteriorated to this extent, becoming a feeler was still better than turning into a green beast. Furthermore, Yaxiu's legendary track record of escaping the Four Pillar Gods' clutches time and again gave Weise ample reason to place her trust in him.
Yet without external aid, it was like the tide going out—and Yaxiu, swimming naked, was instantly surrounded by the Four Pillar Gods.
Although Yaxiu had escaped the illusion by "refusing to admit my wives are 2D paper cutouts," he still hadn't slipped free of the Four Pillar Gods' gaze. At this moment, his senses felt as if they were loaded with some sort of plugin; the world he perceived was entirely different from before. Gaudy, chaotic colors danced before his eyes, sinister demons lurked everywhere, and even Silver Lantern had turned into a blur of color blocks.
Perhaps the very next second, perhaps moments later, he would be dragged right back into the illusion until he could no longer tell illusion from reality.
It wasn't that Yaxiu had no solutions. The simplest was to flee the Senluo Kingdom. Now that the flames of Zhishou Fire had died out, he could use the Heart's Wish Hub to return directly to the Thousand Wishes Heaven.
Yet this solution wasn't guaranteed to work. If Yaxiu returned to the Thousand Wishes Heaven only to find his condition unimproved, or worse, ended up ushering the high-end, cutting-edge Four Pillar Gods straight into the Thousand Wishes Heaven, wouldn't he become a collaborator leading the enemy in?
Still, doing nothing wasn't an option either.
Pressing his fingers to his temples, Yaxiu took rapid, shallow breaths. In his throat and mind echoed the voices of Suozai, Lezi, and his older brother. Without question, his former company didn't have four bosses, nor was Everlasting Presence among his coworkers, but...
Everyone else had felt so real.
Given his circumstances, the only time he could ever meet up with his former roommates would be at an occasion like a wedding. Every time his brother called, he would indeed ask after his dating life, and mid-call, his brother really would chat with their parents, passing along their latest instructions...
Their voices, tone, and reactions were identical to those in Yaxiu's memories. In a daze, Yaxiu couldn't even be certain whether that wedding had been an illusion concocted by the Four Pillar Gods, or a reality he had forgotten...
If he had a way to break out of the illusion, could he go home for a visit... even if it was only a home within the illusion... even if it was just to see his family in an illusion...
The moment the thought took root, it grew like wild summer grass—impossible to mow down, impossible to burn away. At the slightest gust of wind, the wild weeds stretched across the horizon.
Yaxiu bit down hard on his thumb, yet he still couldn't stem the spreading thoughts: he had deliberately sought out loopholes earlier to exit the illusion. Conversely, so long as he was willing, he could remain inside the illusion forever, return to a normal, peaceful life, and become a successful corporate drone...
Was it possible that everything he had experienced over the past year... was... the illusion?
Suddenly, Yaxiu released his bite, watching as a silver block of color pulled his right hand away. Looking down, he realized he had bitten his thumb until it bled.
The silver block seemed to be saying something, but he could no longer hear. The entire world was turning into a kaleidoscopic blur, chaotic and indistinct, so dizzying that it felt as though everything were urging him to escape this illusion as quickly as possible.
Yet at that moment, Yaxiu snapped back to his senses instead. Exhaling a breath of turbid air, he said to the silver block, "I'm fine. Just haven't fully woken up yet. Give me a moment."
The Four Pillar Gods' illusion struck straight at the softest, most vulnerable spot in the human heart. It didn't merely threaten to drag you in at every passing second; even if you were fortunate enough to escape, you couldn't help yearning to return. Reality held far too many regrets and was overwhelmingly immense—so immense that it made people want to cower and run away. Most people simply had nowhere to flee and were forced to face it. Yet even then, they still dug countless holes to escape into temporarily: Blood Moon's hole was "carpe diem," Gospel's hole was "obey the Gospel," and Senluo's hole was "faith above all."
The power of the illusion lay in granting you a safehouse you could hide inside forever. As long as you longed to grasp the sand that had already slipped through your fingers, you would unconsciously open the safehouse door.
If the Four Pillar Gods had tested him with this kind of treatment right after he transmigrated, Yaxiu could only have admitted, "Four Pillar Gods, you sure have an eye for people."
It was just that now, besides the sand slipping through his fingers that he couldn't grasp, he also had gentle bonds wrapped around his fingers that he could never let go of.
Yet what could he do to shake off the Four Pillar Gods' gaze?
...Were the Four Pillar Gods truly "actively" watching him?
Yaxiu recalled his two previous encounters with the Four Pillar Gods; both involved a process of "sinking into the deep sea." It might be connecting to the Void Realm, or perhaps to Heaven, but regardless, turning him into a feeler required making him "sink into the deep sea" first.
If someone claimed that the Four Pillar Gods watched a live stream of Yaxiu and Weise every single day, waiting for one of them to die so They could hurry and drag the other into the deep sea to meet Their annual KPI, Yaxiu wouldn't believe it for a second. Neither Yaxiu nor Weise would ever actively summon the Four Pillar Gods. Thus, only one possibility remained: a detection mechanism existed in Senluo. Once it detected that either Yaxiu or Weise had died, the survivor would be dragged into the deep sea for a five-way summit with the Four Pillar Gods.
The current distortion of Yaxiu's senses was this very mechanism at work, relentlessly pulling him down into the deep sea.
Even if Yaxiu could briefly escape the illusion, he currently stood no chance against the Four Pillar Gods. In this entire sequence, the only point he could tackle was the unknown detection mechanism. Whether this mechanism was a miracle or a divine miracle, Yaxiu had repeatedly used "Sever Self" and "Joy Sword" without dispelling the curse upon him, which meant brute-forcing the detection mechanism was out of the question.
He could only deceive the mechanism into abandoning him.
How could he make the mechanism give up on reporting him to the Four Pillar Gods?
The correct answer practically leapt unbidden into Yaxiu's mind: as long as the second candidate, Weise, still existed, the mechanism wouldn't trigger.
Have a substitute turn into Yulanweise? Or...?
Amid his thoughts, Yaxiu suddenly remembered a note he had picked up from Yulanweise inside the illusion, which read: "Death is merely an illusion."
Thinking carefully, that detail was actually quite bizarre. Weise had never said such words to him, nor could Yaxiu find any corresponding memory in his mind. It had been inserted into Yaxiu's illusion almost out of nowhere, just like the head of the Starlight project team and the game's new event, "Hunting Angels"—both thoughts inserted by the Four Pillar Gods.
Yet Yaxiu was certain that only "Hunting Angels" was of the Four Pillar Gods' subjective intent. They seemed to want Yaxiu to carry out this mission, sparing no effort to paint grand pictures of bonuses and career prospects within the illusion to deepen Yaxiu's impression of it. Conversely, the Starlight team lead and Weise's note were probably just unintentional byproducts on Their part...
Or perhaps...
Yaxiu suddenly remembered something Mercury Trojan had said when they first met: feelers shared a symbiotic existence with the Four Pillar Gods; the Four Pillar Gods could reach into reality through feelers, and feelers, in turn, could come into contact with the Four Pillar Gods' "truth."
The Four Pillar Gods had no reason to suddenly insert the Starlight project lead or Weise's note; they had nothing to do with the mission. Therefore, this strange information could only be Yaxiu's reinterpretation of "reality" after touching the Four Pillar Gods' "truth"!
Although he had never seen that Starlight project lead, he might have heard about her from Sword Princess. And Weise's note was likely a higher-dimensional truth observed by Yaxiu through the perspective of the Four Pillar Gods.
Death is merely an illusion.
To mortals, turning into a green beast might be more terrifying than death, and becoming a grand law might be nobler than death, but both were still forms of death. Yet to entities on the level of the Four Pillar Gods, did turning into a green beast or a grand law truly count as death?
Back on the Time Continent, Yaxiu had learned that Divine Lords possessed the means to gather soul fragments in Hell to resurrect someone. Divine Lords could evade even absolute death, let alone lesser deaths like turning into green beasts or grand laws!
More crucially, Weise's status in the illusion had merely been resigning!
Even the Four Pillar Gods didn't consider her completely dead!
Yaxiu grew suddenly excited. He summoned Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook and opened Operator Management, but his heart went cold the very next second: Yulanweise's operator portrait had turned a lifeless, pale gray.
To Yaxiu, Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook was far more authoritative than the Four Pillar Gods. Yet just as he was about to close the interface, he noticed a pulsing diamond-shaped sigil had appeared within Yulanweise's portrait.
He tapped the sigil, and a new notification promptly popped up on the interface:
"Your operator has entered a deceased state. Inherit her legacy?"
Chapter 744