Igola had deduced early on that if Yinzhi could summon more than once, he should have appeared alongside Amilo.
The fact that he was alone meant the summoning privilege was strictly one-time.
It wasn't a matter of them needing Yinzhi—Yinzhi needed them!
"Actually, I don't need your help at all," Yinzhi said leisurely. "When condensing the holy grail, I'll be teleported to an uninhabited stage, which is completely safe. Bringing you along was just an insurance policy against accidents. But if you're asking for that much, I think I'd rather take the risk."
"One third. Any less, and we'd be better off going home to sleep."
"Six drops."
"One fifth. We're not budging any further."
After a brief round of bargaining, they finally struck a deal at fifteen drops.
Yet seeing Yinzhi's suppressed snicker, Igola felt as if he had taken a terrible loss.
Yinzhi released Harvey's Sorcery Spirit Transformation and turned to apply it to Igola instead.
Igola had also happened to seize three holy grail fragments. How a mind sorcerer had managed to pull that off was anyone's guess, but conveniently, each of them held one fragment, making it easy to teleport together in a moment.
Now, condense the holy grail!
As ambrosia began to well up from the rainbow holy grail, Yinzhi and Igola vanished without a trace. Yet Harvey wasn't left behind where he was either—he was whisked away to an entirely different stage, looking around in complete bewilderment.
Within the Starry Metropolis stage, Yinzhi and Igola suddenly appeared on a street. Igola immediately looked around, his expression hardening. "Harvey's gone!"
"We're in trouble..."
"He has zero combat ability! Of course he's in trouble!"
"I mean *we're* in trouble."
Igola followed Yinzhi's gaze and noticed a shimmering outer web of starlight extending beyond the sky curtain and below the earth.
It was bizarre. It clearly lay outside heaven and earth, yet was plainly visible to the naked eye.
Even stranger was that Igola was no stranger to this astral web. Back during the chaotic brawl over the Spectre Inheritance, he had witnessed it once before.
"A divine miracle of the Divine Lord of Stars...?" he muttered. "What is He trying to do?"
"Whatever it is, it's definitely going to ruin our quiet afternoon tea," Yinzhi replied. The moment her words fell, an innumerable net of stars suddenly enveloped them both.
The astral web practically rewove their soul bodies. Within mere seconds, the two transformed into deep blue figures of starlight, their original appearances completely unrecognizable.
Igola opened his mouth to speak, but not a single sound could escape his throat! Not only that, he was automatically ejected from the Sorcery Spirit Transformation, severing his connection with Yinzhi!
"Starlight bodies."
Yinzhi's voice echoed directly in his eyes. "This is a new race conceived by the Divine Lord of Stars. Once turned into starlight bodies, we can only communicate through light and cannot make any sound.
"As for our broken connection, that has nothing to do with the starlight bodies. The Divine Lord of Stars raised the threshold for condensing the holy grail. Anyone condensing it must not only cup it with both hands, but their soul must also be pristine and undefiled—meaning I can't stay linked with you while condensing the grail!"
"Even so, that won't stop you from condensing it," Igola blinked back. "It's not like we have any enemies—"
Right at that moment, a red portal flared to life before their eyes.
A second, a third, a fourth... Soon, Igola gave up on the futile effort of counting them. Within just a few breaths, hundreds of red portals materialized all across the area!
As sorcerer after sorcerer emerged from the red portals, eyes gleaming as they locked onto the radiant, nearly complete rainbow holy grail, the two finally realized what the Divine Lord of Stars had planned.
"He didn't stop us from gaining new privileges; he just seized the chance to add new rules of his own," Yinzhi blinked gently.
"I can search and summon anyone, but both I and the person summoned are transformed by the astral web into unrecognizable, mute starlight bodies. That way, we can't find any allies. To everyone else, we're just two enemies carrying the rainbow holy grail.
"The new stage is an uninhabited zone, but only I and the summoned person can teleport here—even Harvey couldn't follow.
"All sorcerers' locations have been scrambled, but portals leading to the grail's location appear in every stage. Any sorcerer who wishes to join the battle for the grail can enter directly.
"The player cap per stage has been lifted. When we've become a treasure in everyone's eyes, this rule turns into nothing but a nightmare for us."
Yinzhi had to admit that the Divine Lord of Stars' maneuvers were thoroughly disgusting. Not only had they been turned into faceless mutes forced to face a siege by thousands of sorcerers, but their demonic powers were sealed as well. They would have been better off just condensing the grail the honest way!
The Divine Lords had painstakingly carved out a shortcut for the demons, only for the Divine Lord of Stars to toss in a few twists, turning the shortcut into an inescapable ambush—costing them secret territories and sacrificing demons to boot!
What was even more terrifying was that, whether anticipated or purely coincidental, the astral web the Divine Lord of Stars had invested heavily in installing over Dream Heaven was now dismantling the allied schemes of the Divine Lords at this exact moment!
No, wait.
Yinzhi suddenly remembered the Gryphons, Fortresses, and Starshot legions she had encountered earlier.
Although the Divine Lord of Stars had left a backdoor for the Starry sorcerers to enter Dream Heaven, he had never found a good opportunity to gather them. Now that all sorcerers could converge on the holy grail's location, the Starry sorcerers could naturally seize this chance to regroup their armies!
He wanted to wipe out all the sorcerers in one fell swoop!
Yet other demon sorcerers could come as well. So long as they weren't condensing the holy grail, they could maintain their Demonization and Sorcery Spirit Transformations. Demon sorcerers capable of unleashing their full sorcerer prowess were more than enough to steamroll everyone here...
Yinzhi abruptly slapped her forehead, thinking that living as a mortal for too long had dulled her wits.
Whether many sorcerers died or many demons died, it was all good news to the Divine Lord of Stars! He didn't want any holy grail condensed at all—that was the only way he could claim the largest share of the Prime Angel's legacy!
As for whether the Starry sorcerers or the demons raised the butcher's blade, he couldn't care less!
Still, the other demons should be close to assembling their grail fragments by now, and they most likely wouldn't step into this muddy mess... Damn it!
Right now, the largest crowd of sorcerers was gathered at her holy grail site. If the other demons took advantage of this to condense their own grails, wouldn't they be piggybacking on her sacrifice?
The thought made Yinzhi go completely numb. She was always the one taking advantage of others; who had ever taken advantage of her?!
Igola took a step back as he watched the sorcerers swarming toward them in droves. "Yinzhi, it was a pleasure knowing you. I'll miss you. Farewell."
"In their eyes, we're in this together. Do you think you can run?" Yinzhi countered. "Besides, I definitely run faster than you. If you protect me while I condense the grail, you might still have a chance to survive."
"Aren't you supposed to be a great fighter?"
"I have to hold the grail with both hands, so..." Yinzhi blinked, slipping behind Igola. "Good luck, Igola!"
"The holy grail is mine!"
Amidst the greedy roars of the sorcerers, the first Holy Grail War officially erupted.
***
"Does Yaxiu want to condense a holy grail too?"
"Yeah."
Sonia looted a holy grail fragment from a corpse and asked, "You said he knows this is the Distant Sky Realm. Has he thought about using this chance to find a way back to our world?"
"He did," Niya said. "But he can't."
"Why can't he?"
"I don't know."
"Huh?"
"Once I heard he wasn't planning on leaving, I stopped paying attention," Niya wrinkled her nose. "The way you sorcerers talk is way too hard to understand."
The longer they spent together, the more Sonia felt that Niya was remarkably similar to herself on the whole, yet vastly different in the details.
Both suffered from an inferiority complex, but Sonia had developed vanity and an excess of pride, whereas Niya was more inclined to give up and shut herself away. However, they shared one trait—both wished for someone to love them, flaws and all.
"If he's not leaving, then so be it," Sonia smiled faintly. "Still, we need to work hard to condense a rainbow holy grail. That might give Yaxiu a chance to travel freely between the two worlds. At the same time, we should eliminate as many demons as possible. Every faded holy grail a demon condenses makes it that much harder for Yaxiu to leave your world."
Niya glanced at Sonia, hesitating as if wanting to say something.
"I know you don't want Yaxiu to leave," Sonia shrugged. "But when we run into demons, I hope you'll at least stand by and do nothing."
"No, that's not the only reason."
"So that means you really don't want Yaxiu to leave?" Sonia blinked. "Could it be..."
Niya's face flushed crimson with anger, and she turned her head away, falling silent.
Sonia felt a complex mix of emotions, but she still patted the girl's head reassuringly. "Just kidding. What did you want to say?"
Sonia's hand met empty air.
In a fraction of a second, she was abruptly teleported to another stage, and Niya was nowhere to be seen.
The Sword Princess drew her blade instantly, dropping into a combat stance. Yet after several moments, no attack came. At the same time, a red portal slowly manifested on the street before her.
Chapter 912