Was it really Little Zhan?
Even amidst this fierce battle that would decide the future, Yinzhi still had the spare leeway to ponder the sole variable in this war. There were very few things she did not know; the other God-Leaders could not even guarantee that their secrets would remain undiscovered by her. Most of the time, whether Yinzhi learned a secret depended entirely on how great a price she was willing to pay.
As a prophecy sorcerer who bridged the past and future and stood at the very pinnacle, as long as she wished it, everyone was transparent to her.
Yet All Stars was a black box about which Yinzhi knew nothing, because she could not afford the price. This price was not a matter of how many resources would be consumed, but rather that she could not bear the consequence—daring to use prophecy miracles to infiltrate All Stars was tantamount to opening an escape loophole for the Prime Angel.
To this day, they still had not figured out the Prime Angel's true strength, but even assuming the weakest possible scenario, the Prime Angel was at least an omni-factional God-Leader.
More precisely, every single achievement of sorcerer civilization up to this exact minute and second—apart from the tiny fraction sequestered away by the God-Leaders with golden apples—all knowledge that had ever appeared throughout the long river of history was the Prime Angel's personal estate.
Its power was equivalent to the sum total of sorcerer civilization. In terms of sorcery attainment alone, the former six God-Leaders could only infinitely approach it within a single faction, never surpass it. It could mobilize all mana from the first four layers of the Void Realm; the Knowledge Sea, Time Continent, Distant Sky Realm, and Ruby Mountain were its virtual wings.
As long as a sorcery faction's level of development allowed for the emergence of a God-Leader, it automatically became the God-Leader of that faction. As long as a sorcery faction had emerged, even if not a single sorcerer had crossed its threshold, it automatically possessed that faction's most advanced level.
It was not only the source of all sorceries, but also the terminus of all sorceries.
Theoretically, it was impossible for any sorcerer to defeat it. In truth, countless sorcerers throughout history had coveted it, and nearly every God-Leader had attempted to hunt it, yet all had met dismal ends; it was not even uncommon for them to perish in the attempt.
That they had succeeded in locking the Prime Angel into a cage only in this generation was both inevitable and accidental. Inevitable, because the six God-Leaders had reached a consensus. The Country of All Stars was built upon Ruby Mountain; without the tacit approval of every single God-Leader, this could never have happened. If anyone caused the slightest sabotage, it would be equivalent to opening an easy door for the Prime Angel.
Moreover, in order to hunt the angel, the number of golden apples forged by the six God-Leaders far exceeded all golden apples ever created in the past.
The conditions for creating a golden apple were exceptionally harsh. It required a God-Leader to be the sole possessor of specific knowledge before they could spend precious resources to fashion it into a golden apple, thoroughly monopolizing that knowledge. One of the reasons the modern Six Nations came to be was precisely to make it convenient for the God-Leaders to forge golden apples.
Only by monopolizing civilization could they monopolize knowledge; only by monopolizing knowledge was it possible to hunt the angel.
To facilitate the Divine Lord of Stars in constructing the cage, the God-Leaders had even yielded a large portion of knowledge—among the Six Nations, the Blood Moon veiled the night sky, the Abyss lay underground, Paradise and Gospel guided through education, and the entire world of Senluo was neither real nor false. Under these various arrangements, the star sorcery faction withered away to the extreme, providing the Divine Lord of Stars the opportunity to monopolize star sorcery. And because the Divine Lord of Stars monopolized star sorcery, the star sorcery faction was all the more unable to develop.
Though it might seem the Divine Lord of Stars gained an immense advantage, at the level of a God-Leader, they were intrinsically linked to civilization; the development and progress of civilization translated into their own advancement. To them, monopolizing via golden apples was equivalent to trading the future for the present. Only when sorcery was open-source and a hundred flowers bloomed could they make progress.
Star sorcery was the Divine Lord of Stars' primary discipline; with star sorcery withering away, it meant that the Divine Lord of Stars' growth over the past millennium had lagged far behind the other God-Leaders.
Yet as the number of golden apples grew and the Divine Lord of Stars hoarded more and more star sorcery knowledge, the Prime Angel's knowledge of star sorcery steadily degraded. Once past a certain threshold, the Divine Lord of Stars could surpass the Prime Angel in attainment. Thus, the success of the Cage of All Stars was virtually inevitable.
Yet triggering the Angel Hunt at this very moment was purely an accident.
Even the Divine Lord of Stars might not have known when she would overpower the Prime Angel, and Yinzhi was even less certain. Yinzhi possessed few prophecy golden apples, which meant that all her prophecies would be known to the Prime Angel; consequently, she dared not interfere at all and could only wait for events to unfold naturally.
Their sole infiltration of All Stars had been quietly turning believers of the Four Pillar Gods into demon vessels, and then stealthily projecting demonic shadows into the interior of All Stars.
Yes: Yinzhi, Yejian, Longyuan, Lehuai—no matter who—their original hosts were inevitably devout believers of the Four Pillar Gods. It was simply that the original hosts did not know they had already been turned into demon vessels.
As for why believers of the Four Pillar Gods had to be used... because in the eyes of the Void Realm, sorcerers were thieves, servants, parasites, and crops, but the Prime Angel was family.
Even though they were God-Leaders, if they took action against the Prime Angel in the Void Realm, the Prime Angel wouldn't even need to do anything—the Void Realm would bring down the iron hammer of judgment upon them.
The Four Pillar Gods were different; the Four Pillar Gods were also family to the Void Realm... or at least, they used to be.
Only by relying on believers of the Four Pillar Gods did they qualify to raise the butcher's knife against the Prime Angel. In truth, they could have used the feelers of the Four Pillar Gods, but they discovered that the Prime Angel would target feelers in the Void Realm—meaning that feelers came with an innate taunt in the Prime Angel's eyes, making the risk far too high.
More importantly, feelers were directly connected to the Four Pillar Gods. Although they did not fear the Four Pillar Gods, connecting directly with them was far too revolting.
Therefore, Yinzhi was absolutely certain that Feili's true body in reality was definitely a believer of the Four Pillar Gods. The question now was: whose vessel was Feili?
Little Zhan, or Little Xing?
Regardless of which one it was, what Yinzhi found most incredible was that Feili truly was an indigenous consciousness of All Stars. In other words, without any outside intervention, she had arrived at the final battlefield purely by chance!
Furthermore, it was impossible to replace Feili on short notice now—not even Little Xing could! The sole opportunity to descend into a vessel had been before All Stars was sealed. Before the Prime Angel completely fell, anyone who dared to tear open the lockdown on All Stars had to die!
Ruin the God-Leaders' millennia-long plan, and that might still be one thing, but if the Prime Angel escaped, it would become even more vigilant—that was the unforgivable sin! If Yaxiu had truly let the Prime Angel escape just now, even if he fled into Hell, the God-Leaders' wrath would be enough to incinerate the Six Hells!
Thus, though Yinzhi could reach no conclusion, she paid Feili no mind. Never mind that Feili was merely a mortal—even if she were a demigod, she wouldn't have the power to sway the outcome of this battle.
Yinzhi could even deliberately spare her to repay the favor she owed Igola and Harvey. After all, if she didn't repay it now, it would be too late. They actually dared to take part in the operation to breach All Stars—did they really think a God-Leader didn't hold grudges? Even Yinzhi wasn't sure if her true self would be willing to take them under her wing.
Just then, a sword tip thrust out from the void once more, pointing straight at their wrists.
Yinzhi raised an eyebrow: *She grows so fast, her timing is excellent, and she knows not to aim for vitals, but rather for mobile joints like wrists to minimize our intuitive reactions as much as possible. Such combat awareness is already comparable to ours!*
*Unfortunately, without the hard strength to back it up, having good instincts is meaningless—*
*Clang!*
The battleaxe tore through the rushing wind; the delicate hand parted the curtain of rain. Longyuan and Yinzhi stepped back simultaneously, their leather shoes and woolen boots skidding across the carriage roof with a harsh, grating screech. The demons' wrists were severed so deeply that they hung by barely a flap of skin, yet they were restored to normal almost instantly via healing miracles.
An insignificant wound, yet enough to prove that this intruder had earned the right to step onto this stage.
Standing before the demons, the young girl leveled her longsword with calm composure, her gorgeous blonde hair billowing wildly in the wind and rain. She was not alone: a hazy, purplish-red phantom quietly possessed her body, making this delicate little sheep appear as though clad in the ferocious hide of a big bad wolf.
Chapter 985