If even a "hunter" who had spent years stalking Lin Xi could withstand the plague traps, then there was no reason soone with the Vitality authority couldn't.
So Cheng Shi relaxed. All he had to do was stay alert for [Oblivion]'s power.
The two of them picked up speed. They both knew the informant Beast Tar had likely chosen to retreat from this unexpected conflict, which ant even if he'd lied, it was at most a half-truth. Lin Xi certainly hadn't had ti to finish all his preparations. This was their best chance to neutralize the trial's most dangerous variable.
Seeing that the two of them had completely stopped acknowledging him, Du Qiyu stopped his bird with a hateful flap of its wings.
He hadn't lied. Lin Xi's traps were directly ahead. His intention had been to spare these two from wasting energy on aningless obstacles so they could face Lin Xi at full strength.
But since good advice couldn't save the damned, fine. Let them all die in this forest for all he cared!
The mont contact was broken on this end, Xiao Qi imdiately relayed their position to Lin Xi. Thanks to the Du family's teachings, playing both sides was second nature to him.
"They're almost here, Lin Xi. The long-haired man isn't afraid of your traps. Pure [Decay] traps can't slow them down. Only [Oblivion] can reduce their speed.
But even that can only slow them. What are you still waiting for? For them to push through the traps, recover, and charge right into your face?!"
Lin Xi was utterly unmoved by Du Qiyu's warning. He sat motionless as a mountain beneath the rotting tree, rely lifting one eyelid to glance at the bird perched in the canopy. A cold smile crossed his lips.
"Since you're in such a hurry, why don't you go test them for ?"
"?"
The bird froze. Monts later, it spread its wings and soared away, shrieking from a safe distance: "I'll be a pair of eyes, but only eyes!"
Lin Xi snorted and closed his eyes again.
"A tree only realizes it's not a pillar when it's about to die. The sa applies to people.
Until you're on the edge between life and death, who really sees themselves clearly?"
Those words cut even deeper than Cheng Shi's feigned obliviousness. Du Qiyu, in his hiding place, pounded the ground in a frenzy. His eyes were bloodshot, veins forming a web of red, wishing he could kill every last person who mocked and sneered at him.
And it was right then, while these two exchanged words, that a thunderous crash of collapsing earth echoed from the front of the ravine. This war between players had finally erupted ahead of the historical battle.
Chun might have been an assassin by class, but her charging posture on this approach was virtually indistinguishable from a warrior's.
Her wildly dancing hair of thorns detonated every [Decay] trap in her path. The stench of plague thickened through the hills, but for the mont, it still couldn't touch two players shielded by [Prosperity].
Cheng Shi followed cautiously behind Chun, deliberately keeping his distance. If they stumbled upon an undetected [Oblivion] trap, this formation would prevent both of them from being swallowed at once.
Yet Chun's efficiency far exceeded Cheng Shi's expectations. This Crown of Thorns knew her "ex-husband" far too well. Sotis she didn't even need to produce that [Oblivion] command banner. Instinct and experience alone were enough to expose Lin Xi's planted tricks, so practiced that it looked as though she'd laid them herself.
Watching this sowhat surreal scene, Cheng Shi felt no surprise, only a sigh.
'The more you understand, the more it hurts. Not all hatred was once called love, but the depth of Chun's hatred right now implies...'
'Forget it. Focus on the present.'
Cheng Shi shook off the stray thoughts and got to work.
The starring roles in this battleground might belong to Chun and Lin Xi, but Cheng Shi would never entrust his own safety and the outco of this fight to a teammate blinded by hatred.
He needed to consider why a [Decay] believer had chosen a densely forested ravine as his battlefield. In a place like this, a [Prosperity] believer would thrive, while Lin Xi gained no advantage at all.
The only explanation was that this area had far more vegetation than any other ravine or valley, and annihilating a greater volu of "existence" was itself a form of offering, not to [Decay], but to [Oblivion]!
So Cheng Shi's intuition told him that Lin Xi's confidence in picking this fight stemd entirely from [Oblivion]'s power backing him up. What he couldn't gauge was just how thick that backing was.
'What if that deity truly fights dirty...'
Erring on the side of caution, Cheng Shi scattered dice along his path and, seizing the cover of the oncoming plague, decayed his own arm. He rotted every plant he passed into dust and nothing.
He intended to offer those "props" to [Decay] before Lin Xi could offer them to the other deity. This would not only interrupt Lin Xi's casting but leave him in an impossible bind.
'If you object to , you're being impious.'
'And the mont you're impious, I get to punish you on [Decay]'s behalf!'
And so the most absurd scene of this conflict unfolded: the [Decay] believer hid in a flourishing forest, waiting by the stump for his rabbit, while the [Prosperity] hunters pursuing him rotted the entire forest as they ca.
When Chun saw the power Cheng Shi had gained from deconstructing her curse, her confidence surged. She didn't care whether her teammate's thods drew on [Prosperity] or [Decay]. After all, she too had once been a [Decay] believer.
Chun's speed through the forest climbed higher still. Within just a few breaths, she located the enemy's position.
Lin Xi had finally co. And he had never intended to hide.
"Watch out! The stinking rat's here!"
The instant the words left her lips—BOOM. Every plant Cheng Shi had rotted along the way exploded into flying ash. Plague-laden debris kicked up a wall of dust that engulfed the entire ravine. In the blink of an eye, even the soil of the hillside turned loose and dry, stripped of all life.
It had all decayed...
This was the might of the number-one [Decay] mage on the rankings.
"Cheng Shi."
Lin Xi erged gradually from the swirling plague-dust, regarding the two figures ahead who showed no reaction to his "greeting." A frigid smile spread across his face.
"Becoming a sacrifice to [Oblivion] is the highest honor you could receive.
Surrender, and I'll ensure your na lives on, passed from mouth to mouth among [Oblivion]'s believers. That way, at least you'll survive in history. How does that sound?"
Before he even finished, Cheng Shi was already swinging that rotting arm, dispersing the surrounding dust cloud as he stepped forward. He found Lin Xi's confidence a tad excessive.
'Buddy, what kind of courage lets you play the monologuing villain after I've already marked you?'
'But alright, fine. At least when you arrive in Dolgod, Zangier won't be lonely anymore. He'll have gained a chatty cellmate.'
But Cheng Shi didn't rush to activate Sinner Redemption. He wanted to use this brief exchange to understand the behavioral logic of [Oblivion]'s believers, and more importantly, to learn what kind of edict [Oblivion] had issued them.
So he addressed the loquacious villain before him with a smile: "If you love [Oblivion] so much, why bother staying a [Decay] believer?"
Lin Xi's expression instantly turned reverent, a flicker of respect passing through his eyes.
"Supre [Decay] gave
a second life. Great [Oblivion] granted
a second existence.
They are both my Benefactors. I won't tolerate your blasphemy."
"Tch—
Bad as I am at history, even I know that the extinction of [Decay]'s kingdom ca precisely because the World Destroyers kept pushing them to the brink. So these two clearly don't get along. Why force them together?"
"Bold of you!"
Lin Xi snorted coldly and raised his hand, erasing everything in front of him. As a faith-fusion Extinguisher, his mastery of [Oblivion]'s power already rivaled that of many high-ranked [Oblivion] players.
But Cheng Shi had anticipated this. With a snap of his fingers, he swapped positions to a spot outside the forest, then circled back in, calling out to Lin Xi, who was already locked in combat with Chun:
"Tsk, touchy.
Interesting. You can tell a lot about what soone treasures from their reflexive reactions. Your opening move was [Oblivion]'s power. So where's this 'devotion' to [Decay] you speak of?
Since the devotion is already gone, why not just embrace [Oblivion] outright?
Wouldn't you agree, Lin Xi?"
With that, Cheng Shi curled his lips and raised that rotten-wood arm toward Lin Xi.
Lin Xi hadn't even grasped the aning behind Cheng Shi's words. In his mind, no matter how powerful a player was, could they really rival a god?
They actually "could."
Well, perhaps not rival one outright, but at the very least, they could wield a portion of a god's authority as a proxy. In certain circumstances, especially certain specific situations, a proxy could indeed unleash divine power.
Such as... right now.
Cheng Shi rely shaped his arm into a firing gesture and made a "bang" sound with his mouth. The next second, Lin Xi, who habitually used [Decay]'s power to drive dust shields against his opponents' attacks, discovered that a dagger had sohow found its way into his chest, right where it had never managed to strike before.
A familiar, rust-eaten dagger!
And the hand gripping it belonged to Chun.
This mont was a mirror of that mont. The only difference was that back then, the two of them had lain spent and broken beside the Blood Lake, while now, in the forest of the mountain ravine, Lin Xi's pupils quaked with shock, and Chun's eyes... blazed with pure hatred.
...
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