Sorcerer’s Handbook

Ashe grabbed Silver Lantern's hand, and in an instant, both of their soul intensities skyrocketed, simultaneously reaching the level of a thousand Human Souls!

"Soul Theft Handbook" – Ignite Soul!

They couldn't break through the defensive spellcasting of Vichy's soul miracle, but a powerful soul could already resist soul miracles. They'd witnessed this countless times in the Specter's Inheritance. Even though each use of Ignite Soul consumed a Source Crystal, in this life-and-death battle, Ashe couldn't afford the slightest hesitation.

Vesser had long grown accustomed to Ashe's auxiliary coordination, so she wasn't surprised at all. Instead, it was Vichy who looked on, an indescribable shock flashing in his eyes.

Divine intervention? To increase soul intensity tenfold-even if only a temporary effect-was absolutely in the realm of divine intervention. One had to know, most spirits of the Soul Sect had effects linearly related to soul intensity, sometimes even exponentially.

In his previous life, Vichy hadn't strengthened his soul to the thousand Human Souls level until the legend phase. Back then, he was practically invulnerable among his peers; other legendary sorcerers couldn't withstand even a single soul miracle from him.

Divine intervention was one thing-after all, it was perfectly normal for sorcerers to have adventures. Vichy himself had encountered and seized dozens of adventures.

If divine intervention merely strengthened the soul, so be it-perhaps it was just a coincidence.

But the logic behind this divine intervention's enhancement was almost identical to the divine intervention he'd invented in life, "Soulkindling"-not just similar, but surpassing the original!

But he'd never passed down the "Soulkindling" divine intervention… Had an even stronger soul Demigod arisen in the millennia since? Had someone stumbled into the same divine intervention?

Though he couldn't fathom it, Vichy showed no mercy. Suddenly, the Vichys drew daggers and slit their own throats, chanting in a strange, bellows-like rhythm. The sound came from all directions, instantly forming a storm of sonic waves!

Miracle – Elegy of Souls!

Even though Ashe and Vesser immediately raised their Sanctuary strength to block the vibrations, they couldn't stop the soul-sound from entering their ears. The medium of sound was air; as long as their Sanctuary continued filtering fresh air, the sound could infiltrate!

Under the influence of the bizarre sound waves, Ashe and Vesser could almost see their own souls being squeezed out of their bodies bit by bit. If struck directly by the sonic storm, their soul entities would likely be separated, their souls lost and bodies without anchor. Even if they could protect their souls, Vichy could easily destroy their flesh!

However, the strength of a thousand Human Souls was like a sunken Anchor, firmly fastening their souls within their bodies. Though the song tugged at their souls, it was as if a lovestruck youth tried to flirt with their crush: terribly inefficient. Ashe and Vesser barely needed to care about the song's influence.

As Vichy launched his assault, Ashe and Vesser struck back in unison.

Ashe summoned his Substitute before him, pressed both hands on its shoulders for a moment, then slapped its rear. The Substitute immediately charged into the midst of the Vichys!

Boom!

The Substitute exploded violently, ink marks splattering the area. The nearby Vichys vanished like phantoms at a touch, yet the ink marks lingered as if splashed on paper, slowly bleeding across space until the whole area became a forbidden realm of ink.

Miracle – Substitute Splashing Ink!

During their month-long journey, with nothing else to do, Ashe had begun refining his battle system. He realized he lacked a wide-area attack; after all, the Heart Sword applied ink marks one by one, and to rapidly create a dense field, he'd have to painstakingly apply them-a repetitive task far too tedious for a lazy person.

So, after some thought, Ashe came up with the idea of storing up ink marks, then throwing them all at once. With his foundation in the Spatial Sect realm, the preliminary development of the miracle went smoothly, but soon he hit a serious snag: he could produce a mass of ink, but how could he hurl it?

He'd need an ink bottle to hold such a mass, and the Heart Sword's tip was far too small for the job!

But what made miracles miraculous was the sorcerer's out-of-the-box imagination and dogged execution. Ashe looked at his spirit inventory and realized the Substitute spirit looked just like an ink bottle.

After a few days of effort, he finally convinced the Substitute spirit to drink ink, and a new legendary miracle was born-Ashe had wanted to call it something elegant, like "The Ink Scholar," but the result looked more like a Substitute explosion. So he compromised: Substitute Splashing Ink.

The move's effect was average: its area wasn't large, and it was easy to dodge. But it lasted a long time, and the ink marks would slice anything that entered. Unless the marks could be cleared, the splattered zone was a temporary no-go area.

Meanwhile, Vesser raised her Assault Gun and unleashed a storm of bullets at the Vichys!

Bang bang bang-

She emptied a magazine in three seconds, flicked her wrist to reload, and kept up the bullet barrage. Nearly every bullet had a different property: flame, frost, wind blade, extreme heat, corrosion… Moreover, when her bullets struck the Vichys, question marks would pop up above their heads-some big, some small, nearly every color imaginable.

Yet, after Ashe and Vesser blasted away, Vichy's song didn't weaken at all, and more Vichy phantoms appeared in the mist, their numbers undiminished.

They'd anticipated the Vichys were all phantoms, but the fact that they regenerated so quickly made their expressions darken slightly. Unless they could reduce the total number of phantoms, they'd never find the originals.

"Wind," Vesser suddenly said. "The mist is the phantom's original form. We have to use wind to disperse the mist."

Vesser hadn't been firing randomly-she'd been using a reconnaissance miracle, "Thousand Changes Trial and Error," combining the thousand changes spirit and delusion spirit. Every bullet carried a different attribute, and based on the size and type of question mark produced, she could quickly determine which attribute was truly effective.

"I don't have a wind spell spirit," Ashe said, frustrated.

"I do."

Vesser swapped magazines, her thoughts racing, and her thousand changes spirit transformed into a wind scythe spirit. This was her battle style: never fight head-on, but search for the weakness, target the weakness, and then…

Exterminate the enemy!

Bang bang bang!

The muzzle flashed as bullets burst into the mist, detonating into gales that swept the fog away!

The Vichy phantoms vanished instantly, and for a long while did not reappear. Vesser pressed the attack, another volley of bullets clearing the field of all phantoms!

Yet, they never saw the originals, and the soul-drawing song still echoed, unending.

Worse still, they found that the soul in their fingertips was nearly about to detach. At this rate, they would last at most an hour. Just now, they could have lasted a whole day and night, but now it was reduced to a single hour-this meant that while the strange singing was luring their souls, it was also weakening their resistance!

The effect of the Thousand Human Souls was rapidly diminishing!

Amidst that bizarre singing, they could distinctly hear Vichy's voice: "Aha, you actually figured out the right countermeasure so quickly, not bad, not bad… But the mist of the Dusk Aurora Dragon is ever-changing."

"Did you know, in mist or dust, light forms clear lines, like runes painted on the world by the deity. This is basic knowledge of the Light Sect."

"My Light Sect skills aren't that great, only at the legendary level-I don't even dare to show them in public, but as a little performance, they're barely passable."

"Please enjoy my self-invented Inspiration trick… Death Shadow."

The moment Vichy spoke, Ashe and Vesser had already sat back-to-back, facing the ground, eyes tightly shut, not daring to observe the outside world at all. The vast majority of light spell miracles act through the retinal ganglion nerves; closing their eyes willingly sacrificed a sense, but it was better than falling victim directly.

Even with their eyes closed, the two still felt waves of Vibration gently caressing their bodies, like feathers sweeping across their skin. They had a strong premonition-if they opened their eyes, those gentle caresses would crawl in through their eyes, tentacles filling their shells to bursting!

Perhaps because their eyes were closed, Ashe and Vesser suddenly found the strange singing growing even clearer and more enchanting. The song pierced their eardrums, squeezing into their thoughts, like a viscous tongue stirring their brain matter along the cochlea!

Their souls were accelerating their escape from these bodies tormented by sight and sound!

Vichy's two divine interventions worked together as a perfect killing move!

Vision sealed, hearing in chaos-the two of them, almost by instinct, clutched each other's hands tightly. Only the warmth of another human could slightly ease the terror and cowardice in their hearts.

Vichy hadn't even performed his most powerful divine intervention yet, and Ashe and Vesser were already on the verge of collapse-death was only a matter of time.

But they hadn't lost yet.

As long as they stayed near the Three Deities, as long as the Three Deities completed the Ritual to seal the Doomsday rift, as long as Vichy could not disrupt the Ritual, everything would naturally turn around.

Therefore, they still had a chance. If Vichy wanted to seize the deity, he had to approach the Three Deities. As long as they continued to obstruct Vichy, they could welcome the dawn of victory in the darkness.

"You two… are quite tenacious. Ordinary legendary sorcerers wouldn't last long under these two attacks." Vichy's voice drifted in their ears: "It seems I can only use my strongest move."

"That's right-Daydream."

Ashe and Vesser's hearts sank.

"You weren't unjustly controlled by Daydream just now. Not only now-even when I was alive, Daydream was the highest-level divine intervention." Vichy said, "Its strength lies in that it's not only a soul or dream miracle, it's also an offensive prophecy divine intervention."

Offensive prophecy divine intervention?

The two were puzzled: How could a prophecy divine intervention attack?

"It requires another of my divine interventions, 'Prophetic Dream', as a companion. Any target I see in Prophetic Dream, I can, through Daydream, force that target to re-enact the future I saw."

"So, Silver Lantern, the reason you activated the World Destruction Procedure, and Ashe, the reason you protected Silver Lantern during the procedure, are all predetermined futures." Vichy chuckled, "I simply made them happen ahead of time."

"Impossible!" Ashe and Vesser said in unison.

"It's precisely because you think it's impossible, that's why it's Daydream." Vichy laughed softly, then continued, "You may think closing your eyes means you won't get caught, but how could my trump card be countered so simply?"

"Elegy of Souls and Death Shadow, while weakening your resistance, also set up the perfect environment for Daydream to take effect!"

"So, let me ask one more time."

"Fire Cat, have you ever Daydreamed?"

Ashe and Vesser froze, then a chill shot up their spines.

Boom!

The next instant, an earth-shattering explosion from the side blasted them over ten meters away. The rumbling never stopped. They rolled several times on the ground, heads ringing, ears buzzing for a few seconds before recovering. Their whole bodies felt like shaken orange juice with pulp.

Ashe immediately cast "Joy Sword" and "Slash Me" on himself, barely regaining clarity, then grabbed Silver Lantern's hand and healed her. Supporting each other, they dared to squint one eye open to see what had happened.

They saw that the spot where the Three Deities had been was now a massive deep pit, surrounded by endless fire. Dove and Bluebird had also been blasted to the pit's edge, battered and dazed, seemingly unable to comprehend what had happened.

The Doomsday rift, almost closed, had split open again.

The only victor was Vichy, standing at the center of the pit. In his hand, he held a sleeping, cat-eared little girl-a super-miniature version of the Fire Cat deity. Yet Vichy's face was alight with irrepressible elation, his voice brimming with wanton delight: "Knowing Guard Fire… is in my hand!"

Ashe suddenly remembered something Vichy had said not long ago: "…Knowing Fire is the rule of prophecy, while Guarding Fire is the rule of truth. You basically can't harm her through these two rules…"

Fire Cat could be injured by prophecy Spellcasting!

From the very start, Vichy had never planned to deal with them. Elegy of Souls and Death Shadow were all to weaken Fire Cat, setting the stage for Daydream!

If what he said was true, then in the future he'd seen, Fire Cat chose to self-destruct, so he could seize her so easily!

A surge of wordless shame and anger welled up in Ashe's chest. He trembled all over, clenching his teeth and glaring at Vichy, about to lift up Honey Sword and charge the Specter Seer for a life-and-death struggle.

But just then, Silver Lantern suddenly grabbed his wrist.

"Fire Cat has been taken," she said, without preamble.

Ashe stared at her wide-eyed, meaning: I have eyes.

"Fire Cat has been taken," she repeated.

"I know!" Ashe gritted his teeth. "We have to take her back, then the Three Deities can-"

"No." Vesser shook her head. "Just now, you couldn't leave, because you were imprisoned by Fire Cat's Guarding Fire."

"Now that Fire Cat has been taken, you can leave."