Contending for a World

"Finally inside..." Composed of pinkish-purple specks of light, Yinzhi gazed at the endless expanse of collectible bubbles, momentarily dazzled. "The Prime Angel's Dream Treasury!" She reached out to touch a bubble nearby. Though it looked ready to burst at a mere poke, the film put up a surprisingly resilient resistance. Still, Yinzhi's hand pierced straight through, retrieving the golden collection inside—Radiant Lockdown. "Took two whole seconds..." she mused. Fast as she was to pierce the bubble, an ordinary sorcerer might not even be able to puncture one at all. The Prime Angel's Dream Treasury was hardly a free-for-all promised land open to just anyone. On the contrary, even Sanctuary sorcerers would find claiming spoils here excruciatingly difficult. Every collectible bubble here originated from miracle arts conceived by countless sorcerers over tens of millions of years. Whether due to absurd difficulty or the lack of key sorcery spirits, those arts had never been completed, remaining buried in obscurity within the cracks of history. The Prime Angel had gathered these "flawed arts" in its dreams and used the power of dreams to make them whole. More than merely completing them, the Prime Angel continuously refined and modified them as eras shifted and sorcery advanced, keeping every miracle art adapted to the current era. Throughout the entire process, the Prime Angel acted without conscious intent; nor could it possibly have done so consciously—it was not even a sorcerer. To make an analogy, flawed arts were like seeds cast down by sorcerers, the Prime Angel's dream was the earth, and the advancement of sorcery was the abundant rain and sunshine. The earth nurtured the seeds to sprout and grow, but could one say the earth deliberately made them blossom and bear fruit? Yet while the Prime Angel refined the arts unconsciously, it had deliberately hidden them away. It had not hidden them far—only within the Distant Sky Realm, or more precisely, within the inner dreamscape of the Distant Sky Realm! If even mortals could layer their dreams, how could the Prime Angel fail to do so? As for why the Prime Angel hid them, Yinzhi would not make wild guesses, but she faintly sensed that doing so was indeed more beneficial to sorcery civilization. Sorcerers had already taken far too much from the Void Realm; if even sorceries could be perfected with the help of the Void Realm, the inventive drive of sorcerers would inevitably atrophy with each passing generation. Those who forget battle face danger; those who obsess over war suffer harm. The clearest examples were the Gospel Realm and Senluo. Gospel was too comfortable, leaving its top-tier combat power in the lower ranks among the six nations; Senluo was so perilous that its high-end combat power never had the chance to develop. Moreover, having figured out the mechanics behind the collectible bubbles, Yinzhi believed the Prime Angel never intended to seal these arts away forever. It was likely waiting for the right moment to update the Void Realm's version and release them. That was because the bubbles could only be burst by someone possessing the corresponding sorcery attainments. Take the Radiant Lockdown she had just obtained: bursting it required Sanctuary-grade attainments in both the space faction and the light sorcery faction, and the item itself had to be crafted using space and light sorcery spirits. Evidently, if the Prime Angel never intended for sorcerers to claim these collections, there would have been no need to impose such a mechanism. The only ones capable of popping every bubble here were likely the demons and the Spectre Prophet. As for the other sorcerers, popping two or three before the end would already count as a bountiful harvest. Yet what Yinzhi was after was not these collections. She darted swiftly through the air, popping bubbles one after another and continually drawing in the radiant glimmers contained within. Once she had burst ten bubbles, she could faintly feel a fragile connection forming between herself and the entire inner dreamscape. This was Yinzhi's true goal! This was the demons' true objective! What she wanted was the entire Dream Treasury! Having lost its rainbow virtual wings, the Prime Angel naturally lost control over the Dream Treasury. Now, the treasury had become ownerless! By all rights, without the Prime Angel to anchor it, the Dream Treasury ought to have collapsed along with the Distant Sky Realm. Yet the treasury was not sustained solely by the Prime Angel; these tens of millions of collections served as its foundation just as well! Conversely, as long as one plundered enough collections, one could seize authority over the Dream Treasury and take a massive bite out of it! Thus, the demons did not care about the miracle arts themselves. What they were fighting over was the dream world left behind by the Prime Angel! *Lucky that Little Zhan is dead...* Yinzhi thought as she devoured collection after collection. *If she were still around, we might as well just surrender this round. Not even Little Fa could outcompete her. The dream realm was Little Zhan's home turf; she even turned her own country into a dream...* *Little Fa truly was cautious, insisting on waiting until Little Zhan had completely perished before launching the angel hunt. Back when Little Zhan suddenly saved those sorcerers from the Thousand Wishes Kingdom of Heaven, I thought she might be having a final burst of vigor before death, and I couldn't help shedding a few happy tears... To think she still died after all. What wonderful news.* *Without Little Zhan, I should be able to stay ahead of the others. The only variable is the Spectre Prophet.* *Still, even if the Spectre Prophet can take a bite out of this cake, just how big can her appetite be?* *** "So that's how it is... So that's how it is! Why am I only finding out now?!" The moment Vichy successfully absorbed her tenth bubble, she instantly understood why the demons were so bent on killing her. If their positions were reversed, she too would want nothing more than to eliminate someone in her position on the spot! This was an entire layer of the Void Realm! Even if one combined all the world secret realms stolen by the gods of the six nations, they might not fill a single layer of the Void Realm! Though the comparison was somewhat flawed, Vichy truly could not quantify the value of an entire layer of the Void Realm. Before a treasure of such magnitude, even her experience spanning three lifetimes felt shallow. The blue specks of light composing Vichy trembled and flared by turns—trembling from sheer excitement, flaring from bitter regret. Had she discovered this Dream Treasury realm earlier, she could have quietly claimed it as her own, raised a divine kingdom, and become the Seventh God! She truly had that chance, because the thinnest connection point between the Dream Treasury and the Distant Sky Realm was Dream Heaven! If the Distant Sky Realm was the first floor and the Dream Treasury was the second, Dream Heaven was the mezzanine between them! Put plainly, if Vichy had simply slept once in Dream Heaven back in the day, she would have had a very high chance of entering the Dream Treasury. Even if the Prime Angel kicked her out immediately, she would have had endless time to excavate this world bit by bit, like a treasure-seeking rat slowly making off with the hoard. But the problem was, what sorcerer ever slept?! Aside from Yaxiu, she had never seen a single sorcerer who gave a damn about the quality of their sleep! Furthermore, when she ruled Dream Heaven, she was already a demigod, and demigods had no physiological need for sleep. As for Sanctuary sorcerers, even if they slept in Dream Heaven, their limited knowledge would never allow them to comprehend the profound significance of the Dream Treasury. The Prime Angel's trick of hiding beneath everyone's noses was truly brilliant, leaving Vichy so filled with regret she could practically gnaw on a handkerchief. Still, she quickly reeled in her emotions, darting through the darkness like a fish and swiftly bursting bubbles one after another. She was not relying on sorcery attainments to pop them, but rather on her faint, lingering connection with Dream Heaven. She had managed Dream Heaven for over a thousand years. Even if she was no longer its master, Dream Heaven was practically laid bare before her eyes; she could easily spot its flaws and sensitive points, and could even alter its environment to a certain degree. Earlier, she had managed to hold her own against Longyuan for so long solely by slightly shifting the terrain of Dream Heaven to buy breathing room. She had initially intended to repeat the trick after regrouping with Yaxiu, but Yinzhi had determined their location with pinpoint accuracy, completely negating her small advantage. As for these collectible bubbles, the Prime Angel had not created them out of thin air; it had manifested them with the help of Dream Heaven. In other words, these bubbles were all part of Dream Heaven! To their former mistress, Dream Heaven might firmly refuse any overreaching demands, but when it came to a trivial matter like bursting a bubble, Dream Heaven had no way to resist! In theory, any master of Dream Heaven could have done this, but the only master of Dream Heaven still alive today was the Spectre Prophet, Vichy! Not even the gods had ever controlled Dream Heaven! Hence, Vichy needed no sorcery attainments whatsoever to plunder every collection here! Everything was hers for the taking! Leaving a blue streak in her wake, Vichy slipped past bubble after bubble in the darkness, forging an ever-deepening connection with the Dream Treasury. *Demigod! God! Supreme!* Blazing ambition nearly set Vichy's soul on fire. She could hardly wait to claim the Dream Treasury for herself, undergo the Hell trial to ascend to demigod, raise her divine kingdom to become a player at the grand board, and finally contest for the sole throne to wield the supreme scepter! Supreme in sorcery, immortal and everlasting! Everything bending to my will, all creation colored at my whim! When that time comes... Only then did Vichy remember she still had a master. Recalling the "care" and "affection" of these past months, her blue light dimmed with indignation, but thinking of that fellow's bizarre expectations of her, she could not help letting out a soft scoff. *I am a demigod sorcerer who has roamed for a thousand years. A mere mortal thinks he can change me?* *Still,* Vichy thought, her blue light flickering as she flew merrily through the darkness, *I suppose I can keep my promise just this once.* *Thump!* The moment she absorbed another collection, Vichy felt as though a sledgehammer had slammed into her soul, freezing her midair. Nearly a hundred complex miracle arts churned and roiled in her mind, forcing her to assimilate knowledge that far exceeded her limits. Her blue specks of light began scattering uncontrollably; had it not been for her superhuman willpower and ambition, she might have completely collapsed then and there! She realized what was happening—in her rush to absorb the miracle arts, she had forgotten that these arts spanned thousands of sorcery factions, many of which she had never touched! Absorbing them by force was like making an elementary schooler master advanced calculus! One or two would have been fine, even ten would have been manageable, but she had just absorbed nearly a hundred! She did indeed possess a home-field advantage surpassing even the demons, but her appetite... had a limit! *** Sonia's purplish-red specks of light darted through the darkness. She tried touching the bubbles, but could not pop a single one—her sorcery attainments were simply not high enough. *Looks like I can only look for collections related to swordsmanship...* she calculated in her mind. Scanning her surroundings, her gaze was suddenly drawn to a particular collection. It was a ruby necklace. The bubble encasing it rippled in waves, signaling that bursting it required immense attainments in the space faction. Sonia's space faction was only at the gold tier, yet she flew over without the slightest hesitation and reached out with a light tap. The bubble shattered instantly, and the ruby necklace dropped into her hand. Sonia was not surprised in the least. For this was the golden collection, Crimson Blessing. It was the collection Yaxiu had personally fastened around her neck on the very first day they formally explored the Distant Sky Realm.