Four-Wing Balancing

Hell was still slowly descending. Those four void wings were clearly insufficient to hold it up, and the silhouette of light still condensing within them seemed to realize this as well. He caused the four void wings to continue expanding, swelling larger and larger, stretching out hundreds of meters, then thousands of meters, until they could envelop Hell! Yet at that exact moment, the soul silhouette abruptly turned silver. Moreover, with the exception of the Silver Void Wing, the other three void wings actually began to shrink. "The most perilous moment has arrived," Weixi said, quietly gazing up at the sky. "If he becomes lost in sorcery comprehension, he will never be able to accomplish the Four-Wing Balancing." "Four-Wing Balancing?" "You should remember how void wings are constructed, right?" Weixi said. "At their core, void wings are a fusion of knowledge and sorcery power. Therefore, his current expansion of the void wings means he is frantically absorbing the knowledge harbored within the Void Realm. While the void wings can only expand temporarily, the absorbed knowledge truly increases his sorcery realm." Yaxiu was somewhat confused. "Isn't that a good thing?" "It is indeed a good thing. When any ascending sorcerer discovers this, they wish they could expand their void wings infinitely, elevating each of their sorcery factions to the demigod realm. But do not forget, the Void Realm is hardly a great philanthropist allowing you to take whatever you please. On the contrary, a sorcerer ascending to demigod is actually stealing from the Void Realm. It is only because the sorcerer constructs a soul body that the Void Realm is fooled into believing the sorcerer has become its child. "The benefit of doing so is that the Void Realm will not obstruct the sorcerer's ascension. The downside is that since they are a child, the Void Realm will naturally attempt to seize control of the sorcerer. "To resist the Void Realm's control, a sorcerer must use the four void wings to counterbalance each other, as each void wing connects to a different layer of the Void Realm. As long as the balance of the four wings is maintained, it means none of the four Void Realm wills can gain the upper hand." Noticing the confusion in Yaxiu's eyes, Weixi nodded and continued, "Yes, it's just as you think—the Void Realm is not a unified whole; each layer of the Void Realm is relatively independent. As a feeler of the Four Pillar Gods, you should know that intimately." Yaxiu suddenly recalled that nothing unusual had happened to him in the Sea of Knowledge or on the Time Continent. Yet once he reached the Distant Sky Realm, he had abruptly been targeted constantly by the Void Realm, which rolled bizarre affixes for him in dream bubbles. Mercury Trojan had previously mentioned that the third and fourth layers of the Void Realm particularly detested feelers of the Four Pillar Gods. Had he not been pulled into the Country of All Stars, his adventure on Ruby Mountain likely would not have been comfortable in the slightest. "Only by keeping the four wings evenly matched can a sorcerer retain their own will. This is one of the most perilous phases of the ascension ritual: the Four-Wing Balancing." Weixi continued, "You must expand your void wings to the extreme to have any chance of surviving the ascension ritual, but once you expand them, it is all too easy to become intoxicated by the boundless pleasure of absorbing knowledge. Believe me, that is an incomparably sublime experience. Countless ascenders have died at this very step." "Can you only endure it through sheer willpower?" Yaxiu asked nervously. "No." Weixi's answer was unexpected. "In fact, it has a great deal to do with your primary sorcery path. "If your primary sorcery path is extremely flourishing—practiced by everyone from silver to legendary ranks—the difficulty of your Four-Wing Balancing will decrease substantially. That is because you will feel that all four layers of the Void Realm offer you equal pleasure, enabling you to effortlessly maintain the balance of the four wings. "The reason behind this is that the volume of knowledge in each layer of the Void Realm is tied to the active sorcerers within it. For instance, if you major in the space faction, you will find it very easy to expand the Rainbow Void Wing to the limit while neglecting the other three wings. This is because the highest concentration of space faction knowledge inevitably lies within the Distant Sky Realm connected to the Rainbow Void Wing. "When I underwent the Four-Wing Balancing back then, my primary paths were soul and prophecy. Prophecy sorcerers were rare, while the soul faction was the primary path that two-wing elf sorcerers of that era would switch to. Therefore, the Gold Void Wing, Rainbow Void Wing, and Heterochromatic Void Wing held roughly equal allure for me. Apart from having to pay special attention to the Silver Void Wing, the difficulty of balancing wasn't exceptionally high for me. "So..." Weixi looked up toward the Silver Void Wing that nearly blotted out the sky. "It seems the gunplay path hasn't been popular for very long." Although gun sorcery was currently a mainstream path, it had been popular for less than a century. More importantly, high-end sorcerers rarely majored in gunplay, which meant gun sorcerers were predominantly active in the Sea of Knowledge and on the Time Continent. Therefore, when Rajesh absorbed knowledge, the Rainbow Void Wing and the Heterochromatic Void Wing held almost no appeal for him. Only the Silver Wing and the Gold Wing pulled him in so deeply he could hardly extricate himself. His soul body was already dyed nearly entirely silver. If this continued... "What happens to a sorcerer if they fail the Four-Wing Balancing?" Yaxiu asked suddenly. "Honestly speaking, I don't know either," Weixi said calmly. "However, a popular theory among demigods is that whichever void wing causes your failure to balance, you turn into a void creature belonging to that layer of the Void Realm. If you ever see a Shadow Evil Dragon on the Time Continent that should only appear in the Distant Sky Realm, it's most likely some unfortunate soul. Now it looks like the Sea of Knowledge is about to get a void creature adept at gunplay." On the other side of the city, Lehuai looked at the silver wing in the sky enveloping Hell. He let out a soft sigh and turned his head away, unwilling to watch. Yet the curse elf girl walked over, shook his arm, and looked up at him with pleading eyes. Lehuai scratched his head. After pondering it back and forth, he reached into his waist pouch after all. From his Seventh Imaginary Wing, he plucked an orange feather. "Rajesh, you really are the first person capable of getting an advance on your wages from me." Lehuai blew upon the feather. "I'll only help you this once." As the orange feather dispersed in the air, Rajesh's Gold Wing suddenly expanded to the limit, assuming an evenly matched posture with the Silver Wing. His soul brilliance instantly became half-silver and half-gold. Rajesh seemed to be jolted awake by this. He slowly retracted his Gold Void Wing and Silver Void Wing while expanding his Rainbow Void Wing and Heterochromatic Void Wing, until the Four-Wing Balancing was achieved and his brilliance returned to a pure white. Yet Hell was still descending. He had no choice but to continue expanding the four void wings. However, having learned his lesson, he expanded them with great caution. Only when Hell was nearly crushing the high-rises did his four void wings expand into an intersecting cross, enveloping the spherical shell of Hell from below! When Hell stopped descending, the four colossal void wings radiated magnificent, blazing brilliance, coating all creation under the stars in vibrant color! "He did it," Yaxiu murmured. "He's successfully stepped into the divine domain!" Although mere minutes ago Yaxiu and Rajesh had still been mortal enemies, watching Rajesh undergo the ascension ritual made Yaxiu subconsciously root for his success. Watching someone overcome the Void Realm and break through their limits, even a mudblood sorcerer like Yaxiu couldn't help feeling a shared sense of pride. In the future, he could even brag to others that he had played no small part in Rajesh achieving demigod status, and so forth. "Oh, he succeeded," Weixi said lazily. "He successfully bore the weight of the first layer of Hell." "First layer?" Yaxiu snapped his head up. His vision pierced through the ceiling, pierced through the first layer of Hell, until he saw that in the deeper, further reaches of the sky, yet another layer of Hell was plunging downward!