Sorcerers of Paradise

Bang, bang, bang. The first two shots paralyzed its body; the final shot pierced clean through its mental center. The lion attempting to close in on Rajesh dropped dead in an instant. Even though Rajesh could easily guarantee piercing an enemy's mental center on the very first shot, he still preferred this three-shot burst method. It made him feel as though he were back in Paradise, where triggering his passive skill, "Triple Shot," would deal true damage to the enemy. Paying no heed to the members of the Six Nations Legion attempting to climb up and attack him, he casually turned his head toward the window, gazing out at the metropolis shrouded in a golden downpour. On the other side of the city, a legendary war was raging. A steel hurricane tore everything apart, eruptions of molten magma incinerated all in their path, and raw death walked among mortals, painting the funeral in the most magnificent colors. How many would die this time? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or hundreds of thousands? Unlike those from other realms, sorcerers hailing from Paradise never treated the people of the Nation of Stars as phantoms from the start. Watching a legendary war erupt across Jiashi, Rajesh felt genuine sorrow for the lives extinguished in this man-made catastrophe, even experiencing a profound empathy. For he, too, had once been a phantom, a mere bystander, a helpless background extra. The social order of Paradise was exceptionally unique: from the moment they were born, everyone lived in "Reality Paradise." In Reality Paradise, no one needed to work, and there were no mandatory obligations whatsoever. Studying, playing, making friends—whatever you wished to do, an android was there to guide you. Every child was assigned a dedicated android to cater to their every whim. Aside from obeying the law, people faced virtually no restrictions in their daily lives. This arrangement lasted at most until age thirty-five, when their souls were uploaded to "Eternal Paradise" to achieve immortality. Before attaining immortality, however, the citizens of Paradise were granted limited logins to Eternal Paradise to experience the life of an immortal, whereupon they were deeply captivated by that magnificent eternity. Every immortal possessed a personal world entirely their own. You were the sole sovereign of that world, free to do whatever you pleased, taking anything and everything at will, even directly boosting dopamine secretion to push the limits of sheer euphoria. Yet login quotas were exceedingly scarce; before age thirty-five, the total allotment never exceeded sixty minutes. Consequently, if the people of Paradise wished to taste the joys of immortality before turning thirty-five, their only option was to farm various achievements to earn quota. These included higher-threshold technical achievements such as "Silver Sorcery," "Event Organizer," "Inventor," "Singer," and "Bestselling Author," as well as simpler life achievements like "Sower" and "Reproducer," and even Void Realm achievements such as "Vortex," "Hut of Destiny Inquiries," and "Footsteps of the Dramatic Poet." In Reality Paradise, everyone's daily life revolved around achievements; the rarer the achievement, the greater the quota rewarded. Rajesh grew up in such an environment. Before turning thirty-five, he had already racked up three hundred achievements, entering Eternal Paradise with the status of a Sanctuary Sorcerer. The Lord of Paradise had not lied. Rajesh truly received a world of his own, where all things under heaven served his every desire. What the Lord of Paradise had omitted was that the free trial for a personal world lasted only one year. What the Lord of Paradise had omitted even further was that once the free period ended, whether heaven or hell awaited an immortal depended entirely on whether they had turned their personal world into heaven or hell. Those immortals who could not wait to vent their bestial desires upon their personal worlds, drowning in endless hedonism and depravity without treating others as human beings—once their free trial expired, they were cast into the reincarnation cycle of someone else's world to serve as tools for another person's indulgence. Those who craved war were turned into frontline soldiers; those who enjoyed toying with others became playthings; those obsessed with building wonders were made into forced laborers whipped mercilessly by overseers. These were merely ordinary people with wicked desires; once their penance was paid, they still had a chance to start anew. But the sinners who truly turned their personal worlds into living purgatories were judged beyond salvation by the Lord of Paradise. They were cast straight back to Reality Paradise, their souls stuffed into the bodies of androids so they could contribute to nurturing the next generation of Paradise's budding flowers. Yes—Paradise never possessed the technology to manufacture androids, and the so-called personal worlds were a lie. Androids were the life sentences of unforgivable sinners, and every passerby in a personal world was an immortal working off their penance. What if an immortal transformed their personal world into a heaven during the free period? The Lord of Paradise's requirements for this were ruthlessly exacting. First, the immortal had to possess the competence to build a heavenly society; second, they could harbor no selfish desires throughout the entire process; and finally, they had to produce substantial sociological achievements within that single free year. Over the past 1,668 years, Paradise had produced only two saints. In the end, with the Lord of Paradise's assistance, both ascended to demigods and became the Lord of Paradise's angels. Rajesh was naturally no earthly saint. As a Sanctuary Sorcerer, his desires were even fiercer than those of ordinary men, so the punishment he received after the free period was far more severe. Nevertheless, his three hundred achievements greatly mitigated the intensity of his penalty. Even so, Rajesh endured three years of reincarnation cycles. The Lord of Paradise sealed his sorcery power and physical body, reducing him—a dignified Sanctuary Sorcerer—to a helpless mortal. Even his appearance and gender were altered, turning him into an instrument of pleasure in someone else's paradise. At first, Rajesh naturally harbored deep resentment toward the Lord of Paradise. He felt that the Lord of Paradise's deliberate deception was executing without warning. Had he been told the truth in advance, he surely would have striven to cultivate his personal world into a paradise. He clearly could have become a good person, yet the Lord of Paradise had deliberately steered them toward sin. Yet during those three years of cycles, Rajesh witnessed far too many immortals overflowing with bestial lust, and far too much remorse from penitents. Slowly, he began to change. When encountering brutal immortals, he bravely stepped forward to dissuade them, even if inhuman torture awaited him; when encountering benevolent immortals, he did his utmost to assist them, offering encouragement from the sidelines not to lose heart whenever setbacks arose in doing good. Gradually, he ceased to resent the Lord of Paradise, began to understand him, and ultimately even came to revere him with gratitude. What the Lord of Paradise did was very simple: rip off their masks, slap their sanctimonious faces raw, and force them to confront the dark human nature buried deep within their wounds. In this world, no form of education could ever match those two words: true empathy. Only after his cycles ended did Rajesh finally set foot into the true Eternal Paradise. All immortals who completed their penance lived together in a single shared world; the Lord of Paradise could not be bothered to waste resources crafting individual personal worlds for them. Yet Eternal Paradise truly lived up to its name, functioning almost indistinguishably from a game world. The Lord of Paradise concealed all sorcery instruction within the game system; sorcerers needed only to cultivate and cast spells according to the game prompts to trigger various effects—for instance, "Triple Shot" could deal 5% true damage to living beings. With a combat system naturally came enemies. And their enemies were none other than other immortals. Paradise had not achieved immortality in the true sense. An ordinary person's physical body decayed after a century at most. The time varied slightly across different races, but mortal flesh inevitably perished, leaving only the soul in Eternal Paradise. Without a physical vessel to anchor it, a soul could survive for roughly another fifty years. Beyond that, mutations set in, gradually transforming them into monsters akin to Void Realm creatures, devouring one another until terrifying entities powerful enough to shake the realm of the immortals were born. Sorcerers of Paradise explored the Void Realm by night to grow their void wings and hunted mutated immortals in reality by day to hone their sorcery. Guided by the Lord of Paradise, they naturally developed a tradition of mourning the mutated immortals; because the Lord of Paradise mandated it, they were required to undergo reincarnation cycles lasting anywhere from three to thirty days each year. For the first thirty-five years, the Lord of Paradise told them, "You are free." For the following hundred years, the Lord of Paradise reminded them every moment, "Never forget that you are merely mortals." Thus, to Rajesh, this journey to the Nation of Stars was hardly different from a reincarnation cycle. In fact, the Lord of Paradise had issued their mission under the description: "High-Difficulty Reincarnation Mission: Legendary Sorcerers Only." The three Paradise legends who had infiltrated the Nation of Stars had all adapted to their mortal identities with remarkable ease, even finding ordinary jobs to work like common mortals. They respected the people here just as they respected themselves. Therefore— *Crash!* Rajesh shot clean through the chandelier in the center of the building. The ornate fixture crashed downward, knocking off the climbing members of the Six Nations Legion, then slid all the way to the lowest level of the building, allowing the mortals asleep there to pass away quietly in their slumber. *Forgive me.* *Yet in this world, only the Lord of Paradise can forge a true paradise for all living beings. To reach true heaven, we are willing to shoulder all sins for the Lord of Paradise, even if it means suffering in hell for ten thousand years.* *Sorcerers who cling so desperately to life, show me your resolve as well.* *Boom!* The members of the Six Nations Legion digging through the building's rubble were pelted squarely in the face by exploding debris. Yaxiu burst out wielding a short sword, slit the throat of the foremost Star Swordsman, seized his longsword, and hurled it back to Niya. Just as the Six Nations Legion was drawn toward Yaxiu and Niya, another section of the ruins erupted with a roar. From the flying shards of stone, a spiked steel rod thrust outward, skewering the head of the nearest Bloodmad Hunter. Weixi and Feili stepped out from the crater. Even covered in injuries, not an ounce of the demigod's ferocious aura was diminished. Yaxiu and Weixi exchanged a glance, instantly grasping each other's tactical intentions through a simple look. Niya and Feili also looked at each other at that moment, but Niya immediately averted her gaze and silently fell into step beside Yaxiu. Feili started slightly, sensing that Niya had changed a bit, though she couldn't pinpoint what was different. The four regrouped, quickly carved their way through the encirclement of the Six Nations Legion, and reached the shortcut to close in on the demigod gunner—the western fire escape! Yaxiu and the others had noticed during their earlier escape that although the floors had almost entirely collapsed, the fire escape remained virtually undamaged, proving its structural stability. And the demigod gunner was stationed on the eighth floor of the west wing; as long as they fought their way up, they could drag him into close-quarters combat! What puzzled them was that although they had moved fast, it had still taken at least a dozen seconds. Why hadn't the demigod gunner launched an attack during that time? "A wise choice." Rajesh pulled open the fire door and looked down from the stairs. Though they were not yet in sight, the hurried footsteps of Yaxiu and his three companions echoed up the stairwell. To Rajesh, however, this was simply four Holy Grails walking right into his hands. Indeed, while a Holy Grail bearer lived, the Holy Grail could only be shared with specific individuals. But what if the bearer died? Rajesh suspected that the Six Nations Legion would immediately seize and drink from the Holy Grails the moment their bearers fell. Therefore, if he wanted to claim the Grails, he had to let them draw close to him first. "Complete strangers, yet forced to slaughter one another—the world is truly like hell." Rajesh shoved the magazine into the well with a crisp click. "The question is, can you crawl your way out of hell?"