At the same time Yaxiu launched his fierce assault, preparations were underway on the other side of the mountain ridge.
"My, oh my, everything is going just as I predicted!"
The pink-and-purple-haired girl, the "demon" Yinzhi, stood on tiptoe to peer into the distance at the besieged Silver Wing, shaking her head and sighing with apparent wisdom—even though she was perfectly capable of flight.
Igola asked, "And what, exactly, did you predict?"
"Huh?" Yinzhi blinked. "How could you ask such a question? Actually, I didn't predict anything at all, but doesn't saying a catchphrase like that make me sound brilliant? Amilo, what do you say?"
"Miss Yinzhi is the cleverest demon of all," the white tiger beastman Amilo replied placidly.
Igola neither agreed nor disagreed. He glanced up at the stray attacks splashing toward them. "Here it comes again."
"Since that's what everyone has decided, we can't fall behind!" Yinzhi threw up her arm and shouted with fiery passion, "Amilo, blast them to pieces!"
"By your command."
Amilo threw two savage punches toward the sea. The water remained undisturbed, but space shattered into fragments, tearing every monster within into severed chunks. He then drew a deep breath—the inhalation so loud that Igola felt as if all the surrounding air was being sucked away.
*Roar!*
With a thunderous bellow, Amilo's fists blurred into afterimages. There was no shattering of space, no dazzling display of colors, yet all the stray attacks splashing toward them were pulverized, and ripples cascaded through the space surrounding the Silver Wing!
Igola watched without blinking. Suddenly, Yinzhi's pretty face popped into his field of vision. "Are you curious about Amilo's sorcery spirit ability? Want to know? Become my follower and I'll tell you!"
The deceiver stepped back two paces, glancing from Yinzhi to Amilo. "You're standing rather close to me..."
"Of course I have to be this close! Amilo has his hands full right now, so I have only you to protect me." Yinzhi clung to Igola's arm. "If a monster suddenly charges at us, you have to jump in front of me, okay?"
"You know I belong to another faction," Igola said coldly. "Aren't you afraid I might kill you?"
"I'm so adorable, how could you bear to hurt me?" Yinzhi widened her innocent eyes. "Besides, I know you'll definitely protect me."
"Why?"
"Because... everything is within my predictions!"
Beaming, the pink-and-purple-haired girl leaned lazily against Igola's shoulder, pointing and critiquing the legendary fist-and-claw sorcerer: "Amilo, that's not how you throw a punch! First you have to go like this, and then like that... yes, just like that..."
***
"Junior, could you lend me a hand?"
Harvey looked down at the Black Sea below. It had already turned into a bloody purgatory where undead monsters and Void Realm creatures tore each other apart. Whenever a Void Realm creature was bitten to death, it transformed immediately into an undead creature, and the dark blood of the undead continually fouled the water, steadily turning this stretch of the Black Sea into a forbidden Dead Sea domain.
Even creatures on the level of Ruby Mountain were reduced to playthings before this "Death God Walker."
Harvey asked, "Is there anything I can still help you with?"
"Of course." The tall Tiramisu glanced back at him. Though she wore a blindfold, Harvey could see the Eye of Death on her forehead staring at him. "Your talent rivals my own, and you are younger than me. While I possess more experience, my sensitivity toward life cannot compare to that of a fresh, sweet youth."
She offered a gentle smile. "Moreover, I only recently awakened and missed eight hundred years of necromantic development. Perhaps your experience is even more practical than mine."
"That is true." Harvey conceded without hesitation. "Though the Necromantic Scourge you cast just now is a classic miracle, there are at least three key procedures that could be replaced with modern techniques. Without changing any sorcery spirits, your mana consumption could be reduced by five percent, and casting speed increased by fifteen percent. The first is..."
Watching Harvey ramble on, the young boy "demon" Yejian, perched on Tiramisu's shoulder, couldn't help remarking, "This guy is really interesting."
"I'm quite fond of him as well," Tiramisu said with a chuckle. "If this were the real world, I definitely wouldn't be able to resist taking a bite of him. Earlier, I was disappointed that he wasn't one of our kin, but now I'm glad. When we return, I'll give him the First Embrace myself—if he's willing, that is."
"He can only be willing." Yejian smiled faintly, a naive cruelty bleeding through his sweet expression. "No one can refuse me three times, and he has already refused me once. In all these years, this is the first time I've met someone who refused to become my blood kin."
"Little Yejian, let me try first," Tiramisu pleaded. "I'll do my best to convince him."
Just then, an incoming attack shot toward them. Tiramisu raised her hand, and billows of dark-green resentment rose from the Black Sea, forming a dense, dark-green forest in midair.
The dark-green forest could not block attacks directly, but as the strikes passed through it, they rapidly decayed and faded away, unable to escape the woods.
Harvey stopped talking at once. Gazing at the ethereal green canopy, he murmured, "A manifestation of the concept of death... This is no ordinary miracle—it is a divine miracle! And to construct a divine miracle of death using nothing more than corpse resentment corrupted by Necromantic Scourge as its core?"
"Want to learn?"
Tiramisu stepped in front of him and leaned down. "I can teach you."
"As a reward for assisting you?" Harvey countered. "Even sacrificing all my family members wouldn't be enough to repay knowledge of that caliber."
"It doesn't matter. I just like you as a junior, so I want to teach you," Tiramisu said.
"No. I don't want to owe you anything; I already owe someone else more than I can ever repay," Harvey said flatly. "At most, you may only give me the key procedures regarding the resentment component."
Tiramisu stared blankly at him, then asked out of nowhere, "May I bite you? It won't bleed, and there's no malice in it."
Harvey blinked and pondered for a moment. "You may."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Tiramisu pulled him into an embrace. She tugged open his collar to expose his collarbone, and the Death God Walker lowered her head to gently nip at his neck. Beside this two-meter-tall, statuesque woman, Harvey looked like little more than a young child.
"There." Tiramisu released him a moment later. "Thank you for the treat."
Harvey rubbed the teeth marks on his neck. "Is this some kind of necromantic ritual? May I take a bite of you in return?"
Tiramisu shook her head. "It isn't a necromantic ritual, just a gesture of intimacy among the Blood Saint clan. So you can—"
"Never mind, then."
The Death God Walker fell silent in thought for a second. "Actually, it's not entirely unrelated to necromantic rituals..."
"Hey," the young boy Yejian cut in. "I know you're in high spirits, but it's time to get to work."
Tiramisu nodded and unslung the red coffin from her back, lowering it onto the Black Sea. Without issuing any instructions to Harvey, she began casting on her own. Soon, a grand array of resentment rose from the sea, centered around the red coffin.
Harvey watched thoughtfully, then unstrapped his own coffin and set it into the waters, raising a slightly smaller Immortal Coffin resentment array.
As the resentment surged upward, a colossal phantom began to take shape.
"Little Yejian," Tiramisu asked, "do you want to do the honors?"
"Of course! How could I miss out on something so fun?"
Yejian leapt atop the red coffin and inhaled deeply. "Sweet death... It is intoxicating no matter the hour."
"Give thanks for death, for without it, there would be no immortality."
Under their combined casting, a towering immortal phantom rose above the Black Sea. It reached down into the dark waters and pulled out a spear forged from fishbone and spinal marrow.
Aiming at the Silver Wing, it hurled the spear with all its might, streaking through space like a bolt of black lightning.
Death descended!
***
"How is this possible?!"
Watching their ink marks fade bit by bit, Weixi's face was painted with disbelief. "Our offensive is actually falling behind the other fronts?!"
Judging the strength of their offensive was simple: if Heart Pen could reach the Silver Wing, it meant their power surpassed the other sides, leaving the others unable to handle Heart Pen within their firing line, much less splash their attacks toward Yaxiu's direction.
Now, Heart Pen couldn't even get close to the Silver Wing, which meant Yaxiu and his companions were failing to deal with the divine miracles from the other fronts within their range!
Yaxiu asked, "Could it be that everyone ramped up their attacks, so more of the redirected force shifted toward us? Maybe that's—"
"I'm a god, I can feel it clear as day!" The maid abandoned all pretense of cuteness and flared up at Yaxiu. "They're just plain stronger than us! The power of their divine miracles completely overwhelms your broken pen, which is why we're the ones taking a beating!"
Feili chimed in timidly, "B-But even if we can't beat them, does it really matter? We're all working together to bring down the Golden Fish anyway—"
"Only for now!" Weixi was on the verge of hysteria. "Once the Golden Fish is down, we'll immediately move on to fighting over the spoils! If we can't overpower them now, how are we supposed to fight them then?!"
Yaxiu said calmly, "Then let me take over. I have Observer Mode."
The maid's eyes widened. "Doesn't that mean I won't have a single chance?"
Yaxiu: "That's right. Isn't that wonderful, Weixi?"
Weixi choked on her words and instantly changed the subject. "Still, it makes no sense! Even if everyone is using divine miracles, I'm a demigod sorcerer! With me helping you manage the mana flow, we should be the ones drawing out the absolute peak power of a divine miracle! How could they possibly be stronger than us?"
Yaxiu suggested, "Maybe it has to do with their Spirit Transformation?"
"Possibly..."
"Could they be sorcerers even stronger than Sister Weixi?" Feili guessed.
Yaxiu and Weixi looked at the little lamb, shaking their heads in unison. "How could that be?"
Weixi was already a demigod. How could a sorcerer stronger than her possibly appear on Ruby Mountain?
As they spoke, a gigantic flash of sword light suddenly erupted from the west. Yaxiu recognized it at a glance—it was a swordsmanship miracle built around Wave Sword as its core.
There was another legendary sword sorcerer here?!
Yaxiu spared it only a brief glance before turning back. But the moment that sword light slashed across the Golden Fish, every sorcerer on the field froze.
In the next second, not only the shameless blasphemer Weixi, but even Yaxiu couldn't suppress a surge of wild ecstasy—the Golden Fish was giving out!
Almost everyone spread their wings and surged forward at once, but something moved faster than any of them.
*Whoosh!*
*Snap!*
White fog engulfed the wings, and the Black Sea surged violently over the mountains. This cage could wait no longer to swallow the Silver Wing whole!
In unison, every sorcerer cursed inwardly—*Divine Lord of Stars, you bastard, how dare you steal the kill?!*
Chapter 835