Soul fire was dropping rapidly.
The soul fire locked for divine players and Adjudicator players to draw upon was falling.
The soul fire reserved for reviving Twelfth Epoch players was falling too.
The red thread growing from her chest kept shifting direction.
At the starting point of that red thread, there was a faint chill of frost.
Nivalis had synchronized her attributes.
Had Nivalis stopped Ash Inspector?
So they had still ended up fighting.
Rita did not know how long Nivalis could hold.
She looked at the cube still assembling itself not far away.
Her fingertips tapped faster and faster against the armrest of her throne.
She could not interrupt the birth of this unknown, mysterious thing.
Just as she could not have interrupted the painting made of ten thousand puzzle pieces.
She had also heard the new Divine Punishnt rule.
She could reverse death and unseal abilities for all living beings.
But the remaining soul fire was no longer enough to fight that new rule about death penalties.
When death ant losing power, could those who already possessed great strength still fight until the final mont?
When every death carried a punishnt, would they still have enough room to protect her?
Would the being behind the Overseer’s Eye grant rewards to those who surrendered after imposing punishnt?
Ash Inspector had "betrayed" her exactly as she had expected.
It had to execute the highest command.
Then what about the emotions and mories of living beings?
Could they also be modified?
Could they also be erased?
B80’s words echoed in her mind again and again.
It had been right.
Programs could be modified.
Then why couldn’t mories and emotions be wiped clean?
The noise in her mind grew louder and louder.
Being trapped in one place during a crisis, forced to place her life and safety in the hands of others, was unfamiliar to Rita.
It made her deeply uneasy.
So uneasy that she began imagining every terrible possibility.
Her old suspicion had returned.
Rita slowly closed her eyes.
She forced herself not to think about the battlefield outside.
Forced herself to trust the players she had brought from the Twelfth Epoch to the Third.
Forced herself to stop doubting.
To stop questioning everything.
To stop suspecting everything.
That paranoia rooted deep in her soul was not only tornting her.
It was also belittling the beings who had crossed the Sigh Bridge with her.
Belittling her teachers.
When the noise finally faded, Rita heard the thought she had been whispering to herself.
It was fine.
Even if sothing went wrong, she had saved her own file.
...
At this mont, the battle outside truly was deadlocked.
This god was not so terrifying that victory seed impossible.
At the very least, it could not erase players who had awakened divine talent abilities with a re blink, as it had done before.
It was far from invincible.
After only a short exchange, all divine players realized its limit.
It could fight three divine players at once.
That was all.
The truly terrifying part was not its individual combat power.
It was the Ash Legion numbering in the tens of thousands.
The massive Overseer’s Eye in the sky lit up.
Every player who had not awakened a Divine Talent Word and ignited the soul fire between their brows instantly turned into drifting star mist.
They vanished from the battlefield.
Imdiately afterward, a large portion of the enemy army was freed.
They charged toward the divine players and world leaders.
If that were all, the remaining players could still endure.
The truly disgusting part was the connection between the Ash soldiers.
Whenever one Ash soldier died, the crimson cube in its chest turned multicolored and scrambled itself.
At the sa ti, another Ash soldier sowhere on the battlefield would show the exact sa change.
The instant that second Ash soldier restored the cube in its chest, the previously dead Ash soldier would revive.
The Adjudicator players had overwhelming combat and ga experience.
Through various skills and experints, they quickly figured out the pattern and limit of this chanic.
Every Ash soldier was linked to another Ash soldier.
To kill an Ash soldier permanently, they had to kill its linked partner within the five seconds before the cube restored itself.
In short, it was a large-scale mory matching ga.
The most revolting part was that, aside from weapons and ranks, the Ash soldiers looked exactly the sa.
Their weapons also changed according to their opponents.
lee.
Ranged.
Heavy weapons.
Agility weapons.
Whether intentionally or not, these Ash soldiers would silently alter their own characteristics.
Even Adjudicator players with exceptional mory could not imdiately find a clean solution.
Worse still, whenever an Ash soldier’s chest cube changed color, nearby Ash soldiers would imdiately rush forward to block and disrupt the attempt.
Once five seconds passed, the cube restored itself.
The dead Ash soldier floating in the air would revive at full health.
The more the Adjudicator players fought, the sicker they felt.
Maple Syrup swung her spear harder and harder.
Through clenched teeth, she said,
"I thought the Mystic Force that BS Rita used back then was already disgusting enough."
Fat Goose choked out,
"I have to survive until she wakes up."
"Not for anything else."
"I just want BS Rita to personally experience this filthy fighting style."
"This looks exactly like sothing she would co up with."
Coincidentally, Deceitful Bloom, Foolishness, and Captain, who were holding the front line against the centaur, were thinking the sa thing.
The three of them were fighting one against three.
Not because they were honoring battlefield etiquette.
Not because they were too proud to bring five more colleagues over and gang up on the enemy.
It was entirely because the self-proclaid god had used a skill.
[Enter the Comfort Zone]
Whenever a fourth ally tried to approach and join the group battle, one player would be randomly teleported to a distant corner of the battlefield.
Away from the fight.
After watching one teammate after another get sent away, it was obvious whose comfort zone this was.
That was also why, soon after the battle began, everyone understood that the centaur’s limit was one against three.
And this enemy clearly intended to drag the battle out.
With the Ash Legion it had spent two epochs building, it could win through attrition alone.
The number of players on the battlefield continued to decrease.
Every revival consud soul fire that had been stolen from this exile zone by that thief.
Every death made a player weaker than before.
The god could sense fear spreading across the battlefield.
Unfortunately, wherever the flas of war passed, there were no screams.
Only roars.
That was fine.
It could wait.
Its army would not tire.
Would not fear.
Would not surrender.
The curved blade fell.
Its voice sank.
"You are qualified to know my na."
"Rust Monunt."
Foolishness replied,
"Unfortunately, you are not yet qualified to know ours."
Deceitful Bloom said,
"You really are starting to sound more and more like her."
Captain added,
"Especially the irritating part."
"You’re no longer that Candlebeast who quietly ran away from ho."
Like whom?
Like the one still sleeping upon the throne.
At that mont, a mournful cry sounded before the throne.
Even though Nivalis had never slacked off while traveling through tilines with BS Rita...
Even though she had fought with everything she had...
She still could not defeat the Ash Inspector that had guarded this prison for more than ten thousand years.
A massive dragon corpse drifted through Starsea.
The scythe-wielding Ash Inspector walked toward the throne.
Every living being on the battlefield looked in that direction.
Of course they trusted BS Rita’s ability.
She had saved files for everyone.
Her own archive was constantly updated.
But in such a mont, no matter how much they trusted her, they could not stop themselves from worrying.
Yet no one could help her.
That entire area had been sealed by a prohibition.
Only those two beings, each the other’s Unique Key, were allowed inside.
This was Rust Monunt’s punishnt for the traitor.
And Ash Inspector personally killing the other’s pet marked the formal beginning of that punishnt.
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