Returning from the abyss

Chapter 1527 Divine Kingdom
The serpent dragon felt as if a hundred mages were targeting him, and he didn't recognize any of the spells.

The most basic mediums were clear: common destructive spells like ice, fire, and lightning. But he wouldn't miss the mutated elements embedded within these spells. What gave him the biggest warning was that despite so many attacks coming, his "Master of Insight" showed absolutely no response.

From initially relying on sheer numbers to delay the effect, to now being able to completely suppress this ability, the Serpent Dragon became increasingly surprised as to who had orchestrated this. After dodging multiple spells that precisely targeted his location, he realized that these were not spells cast by a human.

People aren't that accurate.

“That’s… a spell chimera device.” Before Lu Ning could ask Veronica, she explained, “It’s based on your weapon and the teaching of incantations in class, but this device isn’t perfect.”

Veronica still felt she didn't have enough time.

Having witnessed the technology by which Lu Ning's weapon bullets were contaminated with the plague, Veronica began to consider how to widely apply this technique. She didn't have the ability to replicate the Savior's ability to extract divine contamination; the technical standards required were too high. However, she could still extract the harmful components from the plague as a fallback option. The truly hellish thing was that Violet City was currently overflowing with corpses of people who had died from the plague.

Some ordinary magic circles can only hold one or two units, which is sufficient for casting low-level spells. However, by adding nested incantations to these circles, their turnaround time can be reduced to a few minutes. In a siege, this time is barely enough to cast three or four low-level spells, making it almost useless.

But this didn't stop Veronica from continuing to pile materials into it regardless of cost.

Deficiencies in quality can be compensated for with quantity; insufficient lethality can be addressed by referencing Lu Ning's method of creating mixed bullets, establishing a separate magic array for the plague toxin, and mixing it upon release; if high-level spells are unusable, use only low-level ones; if the laboratory environment lacks sufficient spell energy, simply spread it outside. If aiming is difficult, refer to the markings of the Warning Hub and the tracking spells of the Burial Hub; if timing needs to be staggered, use the construction spells of the Basic Hub and the spell traps of the Oath Hub for configuration.

"How much in total?" Lu Ning asked.

"Three thousand."

Very good. The three thousand composite devices, by filling the gaps between each other, compressed the turnaround time of more than ten minutes to almost nothing. The mixed shooting, which was purely triggered by the external magical environment, was almost like a random number generation. Even Veronica herself did not know which plague toxin was mixed in each of the "ordinary" first-order spells.

It's true that the serpent dragon has a strong sense of crisis, but if everything is a crisis, then that sense of crisis is useless.

“Veronica…you…” Lu Ning found it difficult to evaluate, or rather, she and the pharmacist could no longer judge this child as teachers. In her efforts to become more useful, she had embarked on a path that even the pharmacist could not guide her on.

The other person, however, was delighted by the snake dragon's current predicament.

Rosemerada had been watching closely. She knew the serpent dragon's strength very well. If even someone with such abilities was being held back and unable to move forward, it meant that something closer to a miracle was being conceived there.

She could clearly feel that the "ark" was being filled.

All things are contained within the ark, and the ark selects its members. In her original conception, the ark should be another creation, capable of encompassing all beings representing the world, whether gods or plague lords, all should be included, so that the one who pilots the ark can be a new god who transcends the gods.

Rosemerada secretly wished that the gods she had painstakingly created would not have to contend with the existing gods for power and remain trapped in this world. Rather than that, she preferred to destroy the world and ascend into the vast void.

What she didn't know was that this was exactly what the "wild plague" had chosen.

The skeletal saber left black and red streaks on the transparent mesh, which lingered for a long time. The Plague-ridden creature slightly raised its head, looking at the transparent squares within the mesh that were constantly disassembling and reassembling.

"Forbidden Zone" was a deity created by Pan De'ang through prayer after his own descent, and elevated by the King of Panic, Sandyon. In the world of the Plague, Pan De'ang didn't have this opportunity; the first javelin she used to tear the world apart annihilated Pan De'ang and the "Ritual of the Silent Night" in the surging plague horde. But through that fleeting observation, the Plague learned what deities born in other worlds were like.

As an entity that can be considered a singularity in the birth of gods, the number of gods that can be born in Violet City is chaotic and unknown. Huang Yi knows that she is only one of the possibilities. She has not yet surpassed this possibility, so her strength is about the same as that of the "Forbidden Zone".

Huang Yi smiled as she looked at the "forbidden zone" within a pristine world. Now that she had completed her observations, she naturally understood what Pan De'ang had always wanted.

"You can't do it, not even if you become a god."

Pan De'ang and the gatekeeper were so conspicuous in this pure space that Huang Yi didn't need to bother looking for them.

"They died that day. Gods do have the ability to bring the dead back to life or reverse time, but that requires a long period of accumulation to learn how to use it. Merely reaching that level of power is the same as not having it at all." Huang Yi looked at the gatekeeper. "Ask her yourself, your wife and your daughter, which one did she keep? You've only managed to stitch two already broken souls together to preserve your last bit of hope. The path you've been searching for has been a dead end from the very beginning."

Upon hearing this, the restricted area finally stopped what it was doing. The pure squares piled up around him, but none of them actually floated onto the gatekeeper, because he really had no confidence.

The power of the gods and the miracles they can actually perform are different, a fact the Forbidden Zone had realized after its attempts. Even when it tried to make the squares as small as possible, it still found it impossible to accurately distinguish souls.

"As if you can do it?" The forbidden zone's tone was also full of malice. "You can see me, so naturally I can see what's on you... Having lost everything, and trying to control time and fate, you seem to be no different from me, right?"

"Sigh...yes." Wilderness Plague didn't refute, but instead looked at the Forbidden Zone with interest. "But so what? You're still stuck in that dream, unable to wake up, while I've already awakened to my shortcomings. That's the difference between us. Or are you going to demonstrate your skills and personally tear apart this soul that's been bound together for so long?"

The provocation of the plague displeased the restricted area, but he did not waver because of it.

“I have no shortage of time, god from another world. Your provocation is meaningless to me; rather, it reveals your urgency. You want to fight me, but you cannot invade my kingdom.”

"Hmm? Unable to hack in?"

Huang Yi grinned and casually twirled her saber. The black and red trails spread outward as she spun it. Although most of them were canceled out when they reached the clean squares, some traces were still left behind and could not be erased.

"You didn't think I was fighting with all my might just now, did you? I've been a god for a while longer than you. If I had really gone all out with one strike, do you think your self-sealing shell could have blocked it?"

"Oh? Then why don't you do it now?" The Forbidden Zone didn't care what she said. "Of course it's because..." Wild Plague gripped the knife tightly, the tip flicking against the ground, stirring up a cloud of blackish-red slurry.

Suddenly, the forbidden zone sensed a constant resonance emanating from its surroundings. It was the divine kingdom of the desolate plague. As the two sides were talking, the divine kingdom had already overflowed the boundaries he had drawn, spreading further and further away, while simultaneously enveloping his divine kingdom into an isolated island.

"This is how gods fight!"

As the saber swiftly swung through the barrier, it smashed a crack, then plunged straight in along the crack. A large amount of red and black ink began to contaminate the pure squares through the opening created by the saber. Enraged, the forbidden zone finally rose and prepared to fight back.

However, with a flying kick, Huangyi sent the military knife flying into the Pure World. The Pure World, which was completely pierced, was immediately flooded with black and red energy from the outside. Huangyi had no doubt that it had experience in invading another's divine kingdom with its own, while the Forbidden Zone was still a newly born entity and did not yet know how to control the power of its own divine kingdom.

His first instinct was to purify the knife and simultaneously plug the crack. But the crack was already blocked by the plague's hands, slowly widening.

"I advise you not to act rashly. That knife contains Liu's remains. You should have known she was qualified to use her to achieve godhood. Do you think attempting to devour another god would cause any changes to your divine kingdom?"

"You're crazy..."

"Plague! A strong crackdown on the epidemic, prosperity!"

Having already gained the upper hand, the Wild Plague wouldn't give the Forbidden Zone any chance to speak. As she spoke, the enormous weapon floated up automatically like a floating cannon. As it swallowed the surrounding matter that had been transformed into black and red, a storm of bullets immediately spewed out from its muzzle, creating countless craters on the pure surface of the divine kingdom.

As the plague rampaged through its divine realm, people noticed this change. Bavotley was the first to see the black and red color gradually becoming uncontrollable, while the people outside the city had already mobilized some of the weapons previously used against the gods, attempting to nip the gods in the bud within Violet City.

At the same moment, the golden light also flowed across the land of the southern region.

As a fifth-tier tourist, the Serpent Dragon understood Veronica's design after a few rounds of testing. However, this small magical device was not so easy to destroy, and even if he wanted to smash it, it wouldn't take much effort.

Therefore, the Serpent Dragon chose the most direct approach: a direct assault. Relying on his agility and the hardness of his divine weapon, he broke through the line of defense. After all, no matter how Veronica designed it, she couldn't possibly have allowed these attacks to be fired randomly towards the Minute Church.

“He still made it.” Veronica looked somewhat uneasy. “And aren’t we running out of time? Pharmacist, shouldn’t we…”

“No, let’s continue. I’ll meet the Serpent Dragon when he arrives,” Lu Ning said.

Suddenly, a mirror unfolded behind the two of them, and Bavotley's voice came from inside: "How's the situation on your end? The battle between the two gods may soon come to an end. Vanessa, who has become a god, clearly has the advantage now. If she wins, someone must be responsible for banishing her."

“Exile is useless to true gods,” Lu Ning said.

“Of course I know that, so it wasn’t through a spell like banishment. I observed some historical traces in the place where she appeared, and there was a strong disturbance, very much like the change caused by Poirot’s artifact. But I don’t know exactly what happened,” Bavotley said.

"You mean we need to remove his prop effects?" Lu Ning quickly grasped the key point.

"Yes, that thing is probably not so easy to destroy. Even the power of a god wouldn't be able to deal with it so quickly. If I can get my hands on that item, I'll have a way."

How do I take it?

"In her divine realm, perhaps only those of the same origin can ensure her safety."

“…Understood. I’ll go call Vanessa, but we can’t ignore the situation with the Serpent Dragon. I’ll tell her to try to resolve the problem with that god and then I’ll come back,” Lu Ning said.

“No, you go with Vanessa. We need double insurance; she's a goddess. You gave her those things, didn't you?” Bavotley said.

"Enough nonsense. You want to come and deal with the Serpent Dragon yourself? Have you forgotten what Vanessa told you before? You died at the hands of the Serpent Dragon! Do you want to die?"

“Pharmacist, are we—” Bavotley emphasized here, “the kind of people who, knowing a destiny, would try every means to avoid it? Would we give up all other possibilities because of one possibility?”

“Bavitley, all the prophecies I have experienced so far, those true prophecies, have all come true. Therefore, I do not believe that anyone can be an exception, and you cannot escape this cycle of ours.”

“So didn’t I say…” Bavotley sighed, “If I can break it, I will deal with the Serpent Dragon problem on the spot. And if I can’t break it, then the Serpent Dragon will die at your hands as fate has it.”

"The best solution is to bring him to me now and have him die by my hand."

Bavotte said helplessly, "Don't you still understand? His death at your hands is a destiny that needs to be proven unbreakable. And the key to proving that is the existence of a strong enough anchor to propel this outcome."

"I really don't understand why you all think—"

"Just take it as my arrogance, Pharmacist."

Tourists are the strongest anchor in this world. Bavotley stopped the conversation without letting Lu Ning say anything more.

He closed his eyes and carefully reviewed all the secret techniques and spells he could currently use. Finally, his mind focused on the markings of the gathering place on this scene.

Your destiny should be above that of others.