The defeated saint is also on the way to tame the evil god today

　"And if you desire to play this string, what you need is the rationality to weave destiny."

　"Please tell me, how do you understand the relationship between the Fire String, the Dark String, and the Star String?"

　After the old man finished speaking, he fell silent.

　Xingmo covered her chest slightly and took deep breaths repeatedly, trying to break free from the feeling of restraint.

　Stay calm and focus on what’s happening right now.

　Regardless of whether fate really exists or can be defeated.

　What matters right now is what matters most.

　So, Xingmo gathered herself together.

　My thoughts wandered, trying to understand what the old man said.

　Fate is likened to an objective existence...and the strings of fate are the instruments that pry open that objective existence.

　That means that the essence of weaving this string is to utilize the natural authorities that the string represents.

　The natural powers of the Fire String are destruction, life, and entropy.

　The natural powers of the Star String are protection, wall, and communication.

　Dark String's natural powers are destruction, life, and domination.

　These complex and scattered concepts are summarized by a specific string and converge into completely different music when playing string magic.

　Professor Ling said that the essence of string magic is the weaving of natural concepts and the influence on nature.

　If we were to connect these three strings with "influencing destiny"...

　Fire...The origin of civilization is associated with the birth of the first fire.

　It nourishes life, but in essence it is a process from order to disorder, a kind of destruction.

　As concepts flow, life and everything from order to disorder are destroyed, and in the end only nothingness remains.

　The fate affected by the Fire String...is a process of rise and fall, it is the "destruction" of fate!

　When this thought came to mind, Xingmo felt the fire string in front of her eyes brighten a little.

　As someone who resonated with Huo Xian, she suddenly felt something different—Huo Xian seemed to be closer to her than before!

　Is this because I've figured out the truth about Huo Xian's natural authority? Xing Mo muttered.

　She felt that her emotions were flowing very fast, and her brain was thinking much faster than usual.

　In Stoneseed's dreams, she is closer to the "truth" than anyone else.

　So, next is the dark string.

　Shadow... has existed since the first moment of the birth of civilization. It is the sky that shrouded civilization before the emergence of fire.

　Life exists in darkness, is dominated by darkness, destroyed by darkness, and eventually collapses.

　A world without light is also a world where life cannot survive.

　Life tends towards light. When darkness is a concept at the spiritual level, it dominates people's fear and indirectly affects the development of civilization.

　Fearing the darkness, people gathered together at nightfall and lit torches.

　The fear of darkness is engraved in the deepest layer of every human's instinct, and this is its dominance over humans.

　The fate influenced by the dark string is a dominated trajectory, which is the "control" of fate!

　When this thought came to mind, the dark string suddenly vibrated slightly, and Xing Mo could feel countless black threads surging within the string.

　At this moment, her resonance with the dark string was also affected quite a bit.

　It turns out that all of this has been hidden in Xingmo's heart from the very beginning. As the essence of resonating with the strings - she was born with some or no understanding of these strings, but that understanding was hidden at the subconscious level.

　This is why wizards need to reach a certain age before they can resonate with specific strings - because people are a collection of experiences, and only when they reach a certain level of experience can they accumulate more and more understanding of the concept of strings at the subconscious level.

　Is this one of the so-called "truths"?

　""

　Xingmo's gaze fell on the last string, the string that symbolized starlight.

　When she looked at the string, her eyes were somewhat complicated.

　Yes, that was Miriam's resonance string. At the end of her life, the poor girl used starlight to build a barrier to protect the poisonous steam that could spread outward at any time.

　Just as the Astral String is preached in the Goddess' teachings, it is a kind of "protection".

　A wall was built between life and death. Miriam died in that workshop, but the beliefs she represented reached the outside world.

　Xing Mo knew the concept of Starlight String from the very beginning. She had experienced it personally and had always understood it.

　The meaning of the star string is to protect everything behind you, which is a kind of protection for destiny.

　When this thought came to mind, the light of the star string lit up as promised.

　At this moment, three resonant strings of fate shone, flickering before Xingmo's eyes.

　Is this all there is to fate? Is this how humans influence fate?

　Yes... To change the so-called destiny, these are probably the only simple ways humans can do.

　In historical situations, people destroy the fate of others, people protect the fate of others, and people manipulate the fate of others.

　But all of this is ultimately unified in a grand flow, constituting a historical occasion.

　all of these...

　This is the essence of the string of fate.

　As Professor Merlin said, this kind of perception cannot be conveyed by others, because everyone's understanding of destiny will ultimately be different.

　Only by clarifying your own understanding can you control your own destiny.

　When Xingmo finished weaving in her mind, the old man nodded.

　"Then take control of your destiny," he said.

Chapter 338 Golden Branch (Part 3) -4k- (Two updates in one)

　"call--"

　The fog dispersed, and a figure wearing a black top hat and a black dress walked out from the outline of the stone forest.

　Merlin clutched his wand and walked comfortably across the mottled stone ground, his steps relaxed.

　Directly in front of him, a gray-white stone forest stood, and eyes opened on the stone pillars, staring at him.

　"...You dare to come back."

　The stone priest was standing on a stone pillar, looking down at Merlin

　On the ground just below him, the body of a stone man lay, looking miserable in death.

　"Why? There's no rule that we can only do it once." Merlin spread out his hands.

　"After entering the forest, you came to my territory and killed my people."

　There was no emotion in the priest's words, but the air around him was distorted by his words.

　The power hidden beneath the space is surging out.

　In response, Merlin simply waved his hand calmly:

　"This is a necessary sacrifice. The Stoneseed's bones can serve as a medium for communicating with dreams. I made his spine into a totem to guide the destined person to see their destined dream."

　"Um, the stars?" whispered the Stone Priest.

　"Yes, the girl with black hair and green eyes. You should have seen her when she crossed the border, right?" Merlin smiled. "Oh, no, to be exact, you should have seen her on that stone slab."

　"Her destiny is not a straight line," said the Stone Priest, "but rather, it forks and intersects."

　"The intersection is inevitable. The corrective force of fate will erase all accidents, leaving only the predetermined outcome." Merlin nodded. "To put it bluntly, she will eventually reach there. My actions are merely helping her get there faster."

　After hearing what Merlin said, the hostility in the Stone Priest's words faded a lot.

　After a brief silence, he spoke again:

　"You're trying to meddle with fate. That's very unlike you."

　"Who knows, maybe her words touched me a little," Merlin murmured. "After all, who wants the world they live in to be a stage play with a predetermined ending? At least people will try to claim they have free will, and then crash into the mountain of fate and die, right?"

　"You want to stop me from going out?" The Stone Priest did not continue with Merlin's topic.

　"Of course. After all, it seems this forest is really going to become a sacrificial site for the gods," Merlin nodded. "You should take action to correct it, right? But I can't let you do that, otherwise it will be a mess... To be more precise, it will waste a lot of precious time. You know, I still have selfish motives."

　“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…”

　The Stone Priest chuckled for a while, his movements were so stiff that he hardly looked like a living person.

　After a long time, he responded:

　"Crow, I wish you good luck."

　"Ah, it seems we have reached a consensus?"

　Merlin found a rock to sit on, crossed his legs, and casually threw his wand aside.

　"So, do you have any game here? I'm a little hungry..."

　The black mist spread out, and a touch of emerald green light lit up.

　After emerging from the dream, Xingmo found that the surrounding environment seemed to have changed.

　"Aurora?"

　She called out softly, but could not sense Aurora's presence.

　What's under my feet is not wet soil, but ancient stone bricks. The misty black permeates all directions, blurring everything.

　What...place is this?

　Xingmo drew out his wand, stood there motionless, and let his inspiration spread.

　The totem changed its location immediately after leaving the dream, which means that it was a trap.

　Is that Serena?

　""

　At this time, faint murmurs came from all directions, accompanied by bursts of drumming.

　The drumming became more frequent and closer, and dark shadows emerged from the fog.

　What comes into view are primitive people walking side by side, beating drums around their waists with empty eyes.

　As the primitive people approached, Xingmo gradually heard the whispers from their mouths:

　"Esis...Esis...Esis...Esis..."

　It was a name, deep in tone and tinged with a hint of malice, like shards of broken glass among a green lawn.

　As the name became etched in her mind, Xingmo felt a slight prick on her forehead, and a golden symbol flashed before her eyes.

　The sky, the war of gods, the fallen divine bird, and the disintegrated wings.

　God's bones fell into the depths of the desert, but His Spirit never stopped falling.

　He fell into the deepest river in the world and was washed and shaped by the dark memories.

　The name of the fog is Essis, the formless fog, the lord of the disordered kingdom.

　Invisible Mist, real name, Ersis.

　"!"

　Suddenly, an outline appeared in the depths of the fog, and the shape of the sacred tree gradually emerged, hanging in the sea of ​​fog.

　The outline of the tree was ancient and ferocious, like a ferocious ghost with bared fangs and claws. There were no leaves between the twisted branches, but skeleton-like totems hung on them.

　The power of darkness flowed within the tree, a hint of gold permeating the black.

　Is that the sacred tree that gave birth to the golden branch?

　Xingmo could feel the fragments in his chest emitting a faint resonance, and golden ripples spread out, passing through the dark fog.

　So... no matter who set up the current situation... that person's goal was to have the Golden Branch Ceremony begin immediately.

　Just what I want...Xingmo took a deep breath and pinched the fragments in his chest.