How wonderful — the wood elf could hold her own in a battle of this caliber now.
A flash of warmth flickered through Cheng Shi's heart. He'd barely started to greet the girl who'd rescued everyone when his expression sank again.
Because the crisis was far from over!
Rember — he'd had Big Cat smash through the ground not because the exit lay below, but to expose whatever unknown risk was hidden in this zone.
So the situation wasn't improving. It was deteriorating. The tentacles adhered to the sky's air-walls all drooped toward the players in a frenzy of lashing — and from the bottomless abyss beneath their feet, iridescent light began rising in wisps.
Reflected in their eyes, these lights were like a hallucinogenic potion, relentlessly stimulating every player's nerves. More than a few peered curiously over the edge, and a single glance at the swelling sea of light left their minds in chaos, every desire threatening to erupt at once.
"Don't look! It's Corruption!"
Indeed, the pressure felt similar to Corruption's pull on desire — but the source bore no relation to actual Corruption. This was a desire vortex 0221 had manufactured to replicate the "Desire Ravine" experint!
And when Cheng Shi saw that the vortex had fully taken shape, his eyes blazed. He was certain — his guess was correct!
This was never about the Stars Dagger. It wasn't so precursor experint for replicating the Stars Dagger either. This was a descent site — built by 0221 so Zangier could arrive in the real world. The aberrant mother-tree overhead, mimicking Birth's nature, and the rising desire vortex below — they were clearly what 0221 had prepared for Zangier...
A pair of eyes!
Rember: the Eternal Sun and blood moon seen at Far Dusk Town had been the Hanged Man of Doomsday's eyes. When Zangier escaped the Stars Dagger, he couldn't possibly have brought the Tower of Logic's pseudo-god along. So the eyes that should have been set in the Hanged Man's sockets had vanished.
Cheng Shi didn't know what losing those stellar simulacra ant for Zangier. But given the current situation, perhaps without those eyes, Zangier couldn't perfectly rge with 0221.
And now, his star pupil in the real world — 0221 — was fabricating a new pair for his ntor!
He'd stitched together Birth players and their countless birthed newborns to forge the mother-tree. Then he'd manipulated the desires of every "invited" player, channeling them into a desire vortex. These two, as eyes, would restore light to his ntor — the Creation Alchemy Departnt's most deranged Grand Scholar, Zangier!
And 0221 himself had been ant as Zangier's descent vessel. But since Zangier had chosen Cheng Shi instead, 0221 was now marshaling every weapon in the experint site, trying to break him.
From the look of things, though, 0221 had failed. He hadn't captured Cheng Shi quickly enough. And now that the desire vortex had been exposed — Zangier awoke!
This scholar who'd stolen divine authority and forged himself into a pseudo-god, seeing his experint site careening toward chaos, finally revealed himself.
"Careful! Zangier is here!"
Cheng Shi couldn't explain further. All he could do was shout so everyone understood they'd reached a life-or-death threshold.
Hearing his cry, everyone fell back, encircling Mo Li and Tao Yi at the center. Mo Li allocated what limited resources remained to stabilize the wood elf's platform. The Prisoner stood before them both, expression unchanged.
Hu Wei drew his blade and retreated, standing alone at the front. Big Cat abandoned her bear form, shifted into a leopard, bit Cheng Shi by the collar, and dragged him back.
Then — the heavens and earth shifted color. Space collapsed. The mother-tree, which had been madly lashing at the players monts ago, had sohow reverted to that enormous tumor — but now more than double its original size.
The tumor seed fixed in so anchor point. As the space shook violently, it drifted from above the players to directly before them.
The desire vortex from the abyss below rose in tandem, pulling away from beneath their feet and quickly aligning horizontally with the tumor.
In that mont, everyone saw it clearly: to their right, a pulsing, swollen Birth tumor; to their left, a floating, desire-streaked Corruption vortex.
And the instant these two seemingly balanced tangles of faith reached perfect alignnt—
"Hsssss—"
The entire space emitted nausea-inducing howls and shrieks. Everyone felt an explosion in their ears, and blood seeped from their nostrils and mouths.
But this was rely the beginning. Because the instant the tumor and vortex achieved total alignnt, the mother-tree shed its vitality, the desire vortex evaporated its hallucinogenic quality, and both began to solidify. Sheets of reality peeled away — and from the Void, an enormous, terrifying silhouette gradually materialized.
The sight hurled Cheng Shi back to the Stars Dagger. He felt as though he were seeing the Hanged Man of Doomsday floating in the Void once more — except this ti, the Hanged Man wasn't inverted. He was facing the platform. Looking at them.
No — looking at Cheng Shi.
Zangier!
This Grand Scholar who'd "broken out" of the Land of Hope's history in league with 0221 — had fully opened his eyes.
The instant He did, every player in His presence was seized by infinite desire. Against their will, their mouths opened and they began chanting Birth's hymns.
Even with the Prisoner's aura still active, even though many players carried various anti-debuff items — their resistance was pathetically futile.
A pseudo-god was still a pseudo-god. Even if the stolen authority was rely unclaid scraps of Birth and Corruption, the sheer magnitude of that divine might was not sothing mortals could withstand. The scene erupted into chaos.
Faced with this "colossus" that mortals had no right to call an enemy, Mo Li's commands stalled, the Prisoner was struck dumb, Hu Wei dragged his sword further back, and Wang Mou's face went rigid.
Only Big Cat moved. The Prosperity agent shifted back into bear form, crossed the distance in a single stride, and planted herself in front of Cheng Shi. Staring down Zangier's covetous gaze, expression deadly serious, she declared:
"I don't care who you are. You will not touch my friend.
I am..."
Truthfully, after tanking Eposka head-on and brawling with Inquisitors at the Grand Tribunal, Big Cat had always itched to test herself against a servant god or envoy. But now, face-to-face with a pseudo-god, she suddenly realized she had no real confidence.
With "Vitality" on her side, she wouldn't lose. But against sothing this formidable... winning wasn't happening either.
A pseudo-god was nothing but cobbled-together divinity and stolen authority — an existence below even a servant god. Yet it was enough to make her heart pound. Imagine, then, how overwhelming the envoys gradually awakening from history's depths must truly be.
But she couldn't retreat. Her friend was behind her. She would not let her friend die here.
So she prepared to reveal her identity — to use the title of Prosperity's agent to make the entity reconsider its actions.
But just as Hong Lin was about to speak the na "Frazor" — Cheng Shi grabbed her.
He couldn't reach her hand. So he patted the giant bear's ankle, pushing the words back down her throat.
Hong Lin frowned tensely, looking back — and saw Cheng Shi smiling faintly, sowhat moved, shaking his head.
"No need. Not that extre.
I didn't have you smash the ground so you could tank for .
Using your identity against this thing would be a waste. Rember: co and go, all paths destined.
So long as even one Destined One has yet to enter the ga, this cannot be Fate's endga."
Then he turned toward those impossibly eerie eyes and scoffed:
"Zangier. Long ti no see.
Didn't expect you to regress with age.
What — the lesson Hu Xuan taught you wasn't enough?
There's sothing you've never understood. When you covet others, there is always soone more deranged who covets you.
Why do you think I've been stalling this long?
You didn't actually believe I was out of options and waiting to die, did you?
I was waiting for you to show yourself, Zan! Gi! Er!"
Before he'd even finished speaking, Cheng Shi scoffed again and snapped his fingers — the last snap to echo through this experint site.
'Even if you've desecrated Birth to the very limit, unless I tag you face-to-face, how can I gamble that you'll be judged as the "Sinner" who defiled Birth?'
Yes — Cheng Shi had triggered Sinner Redemption. Every tentacle he'd asured with his winds earlier? That hadn't been idle movent. It had been to ensure that every single tentacle visible within this space was tagged!
In a situation this dire, he couldn't afford a shred of luck. So he'd used the brute-force thod — painstaking, inch-by-inch groundwork to build his steady foundation.
And now, having tagged the final target — Zangier himself — the mont of judgnt for this monstrous feast of Birth-desecration had finally arrived.
'Tsk. I don't know if Birth will be angry. But I know the one who punishes all blasphers on Birth's behalf — Go Lis — will absolutely be furious when she sees this.'
'Because no one understands Go Lis better than I do!'
The snap fell. And the sky of this experint site — which had blocked all external divine power, even sealed off trial prayers — finally changed.
A colossal rift tore open through the Void. From within, countless dark tentacles — far more horrifying and twisted than the mother-tree's — began slithering out.
Simultaneously, a soft huff sounded from inside the rift. Then a terrifying great sun rose from within, replacing the existing one, illuminating every shadow in this shattered reality.
The true Eternal Sun and the Sin Brood Mother who punishes all blasphers...
In this mont — descended together.
...
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