You Are My Feeler

From the very beginning, every insider had wondered about one thing: What, in the end, was the reason behind the Four Pillar Gods' participation in the Angel Hunt? The Divine Lords acted to ascend to the Supreme, yet the Four Pillar Gods showed no desire for the Supreme Holy Grail. They had not even dispatched demon-like avatars to contest it. And yet, the Four Pillar Gods had laid their groundwork earlier than almost any Divine Lord; even the Cult of the Four Pillars of the Stars existed solely to serve this purpose. Heath had begun infiltrating the Nation of Stars eight years ago. Had it not been for the unexpected variable that was Yaxiu, the Four Pillar Gods would have held a nearly insurmountable advantage in the Nation of Stars. One could say this Angel Hunt was a millennial conspiracy orchestrated jointly by the Four Pillar Gods and the six Divine Lords against the Prime Angel. What on earth did they want to do? What did they hope to gain? Now, everyone finally saw the answer. "Rose...?" Yaxiu stared blankly at the young woman beside him. Rose used to wear professional business attire—plain, capable, decisive, possessing an intense, austere beauty. But now, she was resplendent to the extreme: pure white lace gloves and lace garter stockings, an elaborate dress short in the front and long in the back, a firework headdress that was lavish and brilliant, with tiny sequins pasted near her eyes. She was as pure as a songstress preparing to take the stage, yet as bewitching and charming as a lover under intimate, dim lighting. The only two things that still felt familiar to Yaxiu were the ribbon bow hairband pinned to her head and her expressionless gaze. "I am the Princess of Resplendent Fireflies, governing longing, memories, and will." Her slender fingers slid down to Yaxiu's chest, and her delicate, porcelain-like face gently rubbed against his cheek. This gesture seemed to relax her, causing her eyes to narrow slightly. "Still, Feeler, you may call me whatever you like. You have the right to define my form. Since you said so, then I am the Princess of Resplendent Fireflies, Rose." "Feeler?" Yaxiu murmured. "I'm your feeler too?" "You are the first sense organ I used to perceive the world, so of course you are my feeler." Rose glanced toward the Knowledge Sea, the Time Continent, the Dream Stairs, Hell, and Heaven. The Void Realm creatures swept by her gaze lowered their humble heads. The Golden Fish churned, the White Ox resumed its stride, the gods of Hell fell silent as cicadas in winter, and the Divine Lords of Heaven wore inscrutably complex expressions. She looked again toward Fanxing standing atop Ruby Mountain. For some reason, an uneasiness crept over her. Clinging tightly to Yaxiu from behind, she tilted her head to look at him and asked softly, "Is this our world?" At this moment, Yaxiu also understood completely: she was not the Prime Angel Rose; she was the Fifth Pillar God, Rose. The Prime Angel was dead, and in her place was born the Fifth Pillar God—a newborn infant, an ignorant yet great existence. No wonder the Four Pillar Gods wanted to kill the Prime Angel; no wonder the Prime Angel was hostile toward them! So that was why! That was why! Yaxiu recalled the message he had seen in an illusion when the Four Pillar Gods completely turned him into a feeler: "Once upon a time, there were eight." "The first died, its corpse lying in a pool of blood." "Then the second died, its corpse lying atop the first. It did not bleed, but from a wound beneath the corpse crawled a small white soul, which held the second corpse aloft." "The third died; its soul was eaten by the fifth, but its corpse escaped." "The fourth died; its corpse turned into mountains, but its soul escaped." "The fifth, having consumed the third's soul, sat atop the mountains and slept. The sixth tried to ambush it, only to be slain instead; its corpse split into six pieces, but its soul escaped." "The corpse of the sixth was held aloft by the fifth." "The seventh died as well, its corpse split into eight pieces, but one piece escaped." "The eighth vanished." "Now, it is time to kill the fifth." The Prime Angel was the fifth! The corpses and souls that escaped had become the Four Pillar Gods, while the corpses left behind had turned into the Void Realm! No wonder the Four Pillar Gods claimed to be the masters of the Void Realm—that was actually an understatement. They were simply the Void Realm itself! Constrained by intelligence and perspective, Yaxiu had previously never linked the Prime Angel to the seven layers of the Void Realm. But according to the information from the Four Pillar Gods, now that the Prime Angel was dead, it meant the seventh layer of the Void Realm was about to be born! This also explained why every Divine Lord sought to murder the Prime Angel—not merely for the void wings and realms of attainment, but because without a seventh layer of the Void Realm, even exhausting tens of millions of years would never allow them to ascend to the true Supreme rank! The Void Realm was inherently a world built of piled corpses! Though he had no idea what manner of existences those eight truly were, it was precisely because they died that the current seven layers of the Void Realm, the Five Pillar Gods, and the sorcerer civilization came to be! Yaxiu also noticed a secret that perhaps not even the Divine Lords knew: when the first and second died, no corpses or souls escaped, so no Pillar Gods were generated. Yet law creatures like the Golden Fish of the Knowledge Sea and the White Ox of the Time Continent could hardly be found anywhere else; it was very likely that the Golden Fish and the White Ox were existences that had narrowly missed becoming Pillar Gods. If the sorcerers merely sought to seize power and authority in a dispute of interest with the Prime Angel, the feud between the Four Pillar Gods and the Prime Angel was utterly irreconcilable. For unless the Prime Angel died, the Four Pillar Gods could never welcome their new companion! No matter what realm of cultivation sorcerers reached, a vast chasm separated them from these entities. Even the Prime Angel was merely their precursor—just as a butterfly would not view a caterpillar as one of its kind. Only the Princess of Resplendent Fireflies was the new member they had awaited for tens of millions of years! As for why the Prime Angel was hostile toward the Four Pillar Gods, beyond the Four Pillar Gods' malice, it might also have viewed them as a form of sacrilege. If it possessed a concept of kin, then the Four Pillar Gods born from the corpses of its kin might, in its eyes, be something like maggots. Yaxiu remembered the Prime Angel Rose mentioning that she had four dolls meant to be stepped on. And so, the Prime Angel was doomed to die. Sorcerers desired the birth of the Void Realm's seventh layer, while the Four Pillar Gods desired the birth of a new member. Only this Prime Angel—who had guarded the summit of Ruby Mountain for countless ages, composing half a sorcerer handbook for every sorcerer who reached the peak via the Path of Origin, possessing no name, no past, and no future—had never been needed by anyone from the very start. She had been imprisoned in the Cage of All Stars for so long without a single person coming to save her, nor had she ever expected anyone to save her. She did not care in the slightest about her own life or death, drifting with the tide and resigned to fate. She had lived even longer than Vichy, yet had never even learned how to hate. When she drove Yaxiu and the others to break her own silver void wings, golden void wings, and rainbow void wings, what had she been thinking? When the Supreme Holy Grail was forcibly extracted from the Canaan, what had she been enduring? When she tried to grasp Yaxiu's fingers, had she dared to hope for anything? Now, this reunion was so beautiful only because the regret ran so deep. "Could you call me Yaxiu?" Yaxiu said, his voice hoarse. "I don't like the name Feeler." "No." Rose shook her head unexpectedly. "You are my feeler. You're not allowed to become anyone else's Yaxiu." "You must protect me well, and I will shelter you well too." Yaxiu stared at her blankly, then pressed his lips tight, his expression hovering between laughter and tears, looking as aggrieved as if the Fifth Pillar God had also stolen his girl away. He rubbed Rose's cheek with the back of his hand, pressed his forehead against hers, and murmured softly, "If only you'd said words like that a little earlier." Rose tilted her head, her black hair cascading like water. A faint hint of bewilderment touched her face, as if wondering whether she hadn't said it early enough. She hadn't even spoken ten sentences to him yet—what a strange feeler. "While I don't mind you being intimate with other women," Weise chimed in, "that's on the condition that I get to join in too... If you don't have any other backup plans, the source crystals you left me are about to run out!" Fanxing's star sword miracle was no mere single strike. Even though Weise had successfully blocked it, the star sword instantly transformed into countless stellar trails that coiled around the silvery barrier, reshaping their surroundings into a starry sky. Combining attack with the creation of an advantageous battlefield, its assault only grew fiercer as time passed. Weise's Silver Lantern Domain had managed to block the initial torrent of the inverted starry river, but under the blazing radiance of ten thousand stars, it was now teetering on the verge of collapse! Yaxiu nodded and said to Rose, "Fanxing destroyed the world of All Stars, snatched away the Supreme Holy Grail, and ruined our final memories. Do you have a way to help us?" "Memories cannot be ruined. Longing is the most resplendent firefly in this world, dyeing everything we possess with our color." Rose reached forward from behind to cover the back of Yaxiu's hand, lacing her fingers between his as though preparing to fight in his stead. "What does not belong to you will slip away no matter how tightly you clasp your fingers; what belongs to you will remain yours no matter how your grip may falter." Her singing sounded so distant, yet it effortlessly plucked the heartstrings of destiny: "May fireflies be resplendent, as I will." Rose gripped Yaxiu's hand and pulled—and from the entire world, threads were drawn forth by their grasp! The canopy of heaven, the earth, sorcerers like Igola, and even the now-empty void were all drawn by Yaxiu and the Fifth Pillar God into threads wrapped thick with memories. No matter how great the distance, no matter whether they had ceased to exist, at this moment all had to surrender their hidden traces—for longing could pierce all time and space, forcing even destiny to yield. These threads, delicate as if they would snap at a touch, played out the cities they had visited, the people they had met, the delicious foods they had tasted, and the events they had joined. On the cable car, in the alleyways, in the souvenir shop, along with countless memories that stirred late autumn and blued the sea, that touched early winter and silvered the city—like an army ten thousand strong, rushing toward their battlefield. The demon maid turned her head and saw threads being drawn even from the place where Niya had vanished. She gazed up at the mountain summit where the threads converged. Though she knew full well their opponent was a Divine Lord capable of destroying heaven and earth while Yaxiu was merely a sorcerer with potential, she could not help hoping for a miracle. "In the end, is the person who chases a phantom more pathetic, or the phantom who chases a person?" Vichy murmured. "I look forward to your answer, Master."