Eyes Opened

Inside Peach Blossom Paradise, Bai Wei quietly stared at a drop of bright red blood floating in front of him.

And this drop of blood belongs to the Wildfire God.

After dealing with the Wildfire, Bai Wei naturally retrieved the tooth that had been lodged in his body. Although the experience wasn't pleasant—after all, the series of events surrounding that tooth made him hesitant to touch it—it was still part of his body. So, Bai Wei sighed as he pulled the tooth out of the bloody mess.

Fortunately, he already possessed the ability [Soul Return] during his time with the Holy Sound, which allows him to directly reclaim the rules on his teeth instead of having to reattach them as he did at the beginning.

Even so, the recycling experience is still not good.

After all, what he recovered was not just the tooth, but also the countless characteristics that the tooth had absorbed during its thousand years of wandering.

The rule of this tooth is called "Accepting Devour," which is a higher level than the Devourer's "Devouring."

The Devourer's "Devour" involves accepting everything about the devoured one and then suppressing it with the "Resentment of God" within its body. However, if the devoured one possesses abilities and spirit no less than the "Resentment of God," it will also affect the Devourer itself.

This is why, after consuming Abeike, the Devourer was assimilated by Abeike's mind and began to lose its senses.

Of course, even if it is not assimilated, it will still be mentally unstable.

[Accepting Devour] is a level above [Devouring]. It does not require accepting everything; it can accept only the good side and eliminate the dangerous side.

Otherwise, Abeike wouldn't have been able to maintain his sanity after devouring so many people. It was only after consuming the flesh and blood of the Devourer that he was unknowingly assimilated by the Devourer because the Devourer's status was too high and he couldn't fully utilize the [Accepting Devour] ability.

But Bai Wei doesn't need to worry about this. As the master, he can naturally maximize the rules of each piece of corpse.

That's why he was able to clean up all the remnants that [Accepting Devour] had consumed, leaving only this one drop of pure divine blood before him.

As for what this drop of divine blood can bring... it's certainly not power, nor is it immortality. After all, the immortality of the Gods is far inferior to that of Visas.

So what Bai Wei really wanted was...

Bai Wei reached out his hand toward the divine blood before him. The moment his fingertips touched the divine blood, it trembled slightly, and then ripples appeared on its surface, changing its shape.

In the blink of an eye, the blood had transformed into... a key.

Really.

Bai Wei slightly raised the corners of his mouth.

This is the key to the Contract Land.

As mentioned earlier, the "Contract Land" in "Blasphemy" is a background character, just like Visas, and information about it is only mentioned in fragments.

And among these is this. "The Gods used bones as anvils and divine fire as hammers to forge the [Final Gate]. The gate is engraved with self-eating serpent patterns, and only by watering the serpent's eyes with the blood of the gods can the gate be opened. However, the price is clear—whoever releases the abyss will become the abyss's first sacrifice."

Simply put, there is a door there that can only be opened with divine blood as the key.

This information also sparked widespread discussion among players, who speculated about what was behind the door, but of course, no definitive answer was ever found.

Of course, Bai Wei already knew what was in there from his last card game with the Ring Finger Lady— Visas's corpse.

It's a corpse, not body parts.

That's a much bigger story. Otherwise, the eight great gods wouldn't have joined forces to seal it away and create the Contract Land, a transcendent entity that surpasses the Eight Great Churches. That's why the contracts in the Contract Land are inviolable.

The gods surely hope that door will never open, since collecting the blood of all eight gods is simply impossible.

If someone can actually do that, then it doesn't matter whether the door is open or not; it means Visas has already returned.

But the Gods clearly did not expect that one of them harbored ulterior motives.

This one is naturally—Shinra.

Senro did not wish to permanently seal Visas away; the mad god's greatest dream was to resurrect Visas and then kill Him with his own hands.

So He did something subtle with the "Final Gate," which was theoretically impossible to open, to ensure that He could open it by His own and bring out Visas's body.

However, before a way to resurrect Visas could be found, He had already died, so this little trick was naturally useless.

Until the Wildfire appeared, His "faithful" hound ate everything of His and became the new Him. After a series of twists and turns, He still came to Bai Wei.

That is, the God Blood Key.

If nothing unexpected happens, this God Blood Key alone should be enough to open the Final Gate.

But the problem is, he has to deal with much more than just that one door.

Where exactly is the Contract Land? Besides the Final Gate, what else is there? After all, the eight major religions have worshipped that place for a thousand years. Bai Wei doesn't think that there's just a bare door there that he can walk over, open with a key, and retrieve his body.

To put it more vividly, Bai Wei is like a thief who has obtained the combination to the innermost safe of a heavily guarded villa. He only needs to open the safe to get the most valuable items. But he doesn't know the exact location of the villa, nor any of the other security measures besides the safe, or even how many security guards are inside.

However, this drop of divine blood might give him the answer.

While waiting for the God Blood Key to revert to its current blood-like form, Bai Wei reached out again, grasped the drop of blood in his palm, and then moved it to the potted plant on the table, crushing the blood bit by bit.

The blood of God flowed through his fingers, dripping little by little into the small potted plant.

This bonsai is actually a reflection of an ancient tree. When the first drop of divine blood seeped into the clay, the convulsing roots of the Peach Blossom Tree suddenly arched its back, its withered branches trembling like the fingertips of a dying man, piercing towards the sky; new buds broke through the charred bark, and emerald leaf sheaths, accompanied by the crackling sound of time's amber, grew wildly, as if two invisible hands had compressed a thousand years of spring into a single moment. And deep within the rings of the tree, a faint cracking sound came from.

With the power of Peach Blossom Paradise enhanced, Bai Wei felt a constraint being broken.

A wave of emotion surged within Bai Wei, and the ancient tree began to hum.

"Spirit Summoning".

"Come on." Bai Wei closed his eyes. "Tell me, where are you?"

Invisible ripples spread out little by little, and in the pure darkness, tiny specks of light appeared, like stars.

Among them, Bai Wei saw the brightest one.

He extended his hand.

"Master, the message has been sent out."

The servants, dressed in white robes, respectfully reported to Diana.

Looking at the imposing prison before her, which resembled a deep-sea whirlpool, Diana calmly asked, "Have you all given your answers?"

"Neither Senluo nor Holy Sound have," the servant replied. "Senluo can no longer find anyone capable of fulfilling the contract, and Holy Sound ... they said they would send someone as soon as possible."

"So, in other words, this gathering simply won't be able to gather all the former contractual followers?"

"Yes," the servant whispered. "Even if the Holy Sound has gathered enough people, Senluo is truly gone. Wildfire, who wanted to replace Senluo, also failed. Now that land has become a veritable land without gods."

"... The land without gods?" Diana said softly. "I never imagined that the outside world would be in such a mess, and that the eternal covenant would only last for a thousand years."

The servants dared not speak.

Diana turned to her servants and asked, "What did the Warden say? Has he obtained intelligence from the Rhine?"

"We got it, but the intelligence from Rhine wasn't that accurate."

"Hasn't Rhine fought that person many times? Why don't they have accurate information yet?"

"Yes, according to Rhine, everyone who saw that guy is dead," the servant whispered. "That's why they chose to call on all the major churches to join the hunt."

Diana narrowed her eyes slightly.

The fact that the major churches had joined forces to hunt down one person, even alarming the Contract Land, was unprecedented. Diana was incredulous when she first received the news, given that the Contract Land had been closed for a thousand years.

But when Diana saw the intelligence from Rhine's side, which claimed that the Pursuer might already have four or Five Corpse Pieces, Diana could understand why Rhine would do this. After all, no one had ever had so many pieces of body parts at the same time.

With so many pieces of corpse gathered together, no one could say for sure what he wanted to do or what he was capable of doing. Even after a thousand years, their understanding of Visas was still far from complete.

Fortunately, Rhine was reasonable enough to realize that they couldn't deal with this guy on their own, so they immediately notified the Contract Land.

Otherwise, if they really wait until that person collects more than ten pieces of the body parts, then they will have no choice but to notify the gods of each household.

But then again, has that "Ulu" really obtained so many body parts?

When Diana immediately thought of her trip to Peach Blossom Paradise two weeks prior, and the Hand Eye that controlled everything.

If nothing unexpected happens, the Hand Eye will be "Ulu".

But just half a month ago, "Ulu" only had two pieces of body parts. In just half a month, the number of his body parts doubled.

Was it he who eliminated the Seven Sound Player who also possessed two pieces of the corpse and had turned the Holy Sound upside down?

Or did the other party take care of him?

Moreover, it wasn't just the two of them. In that betting game, Hand Eye also passed on the information about the Seven Sound Player to Front Tooth, so it's very likely that Front Tooth also went to find the Seven Sound Player.

So what was the result?

Diana felt frustrated that so many questions remained unanswered, frustrated by the lack of information Rhine had provided.

Even based solely on the information provided by Rhine, they not only couldn't determine how many body parts "Ulu" had, but they also couldn't determine how many people "Ulu" actually were.

What if Hand Eye and the Seven Sound Player haven't killed each other yet? There's no clear evidence that anyone has actually obtained more than four pieces of the body at the same time. Of course, from Rhine's perspective, they certainly don't know that "Ulu" and the Seven Sound Player are two different people. Only Diana, who experienced the Peach Blossom Paradise gambling game, knows this.

... So, should we release information about Peach Blossom Paradise?

Diana thought about it for a moment and then abandoned the idea.

It hasn't come to that point yet.

Diana gently rubbed the Ring Finger of her right hand, invisible threads spreading like a spider web as she scrutinized the prison within it, like a spider queen.

She didn't want to expose the finger until the very last moment.

Let's wait and see, at least until our next trip to Peach Blossom Paradise.

Diana began to have expectations.

"Master..." Seeing that Diana hadn't spoken for a long time, her servant raised her head and asked cautiously, "The Warden hopes that you will organize this gathering, what do you think..."

"Really?" Diana nodded gracefully. "I'd love to get some fresh air; after all, this scenery is so unchanging..."

As Diana spoke, she glanced back at the layers upon layers of prisons behind her, seemingly plunging into an abyss.

"I've been watching this for far too many years."

Diana shrugged, looked away, and prepared to leave.

She had only taken two steps when a sudden, inexplicable palpitation surged into her chest, causing her body to stiffen instantly.

She turned around abruptly and looked back at the prison behind her.

"Master, Master?" The servant was startled.

Diana remained silent, staring intently at the scene before her, a scene she had witnessed countless times.

And this scene remained unchanged. The countless Magic Pillar still stood upright, and the chains covered with incantations above remained motionless; everything was as deathly still as ever.

So what was that heart palpitation just now?

Diana hadn't felt this way in a long time, at least not since she received the finger.

... that feeling of being watched by death.

Diana paused for a moment before asking, "When was the last seal inspection?"

"The last time?" The servant wiped away cold sweat as he recalled, "It seems to have been... forty-eight years ago."

Diana narrowed her eyes slightly and murmured, "Just forty-eight years ago?"

The seal on this prison is inspected every hundred years, and less than fifty years have passed since the last inspection.

The thing underground was just a soulless corpse; even if there was some kind of accident, it shouldn't have come from inside.

Moreover, none of the sealing devices were activated.

Is it just an illusion?

Diana stared intently at the prison cell before her, feeling as if she were gazing into an abyss.

After a long while, she shook her head and turned to leave.

But what she didn't know was that at the very bottom of the abyss, behind the "Final Gate" constructed from the flesh and blood of the Gods.

The mutilated body slowly opened its eyes, which were as empty as an abyss.