Ritual Array The light flows, and the complex runes that make up its base move like living creatures. Li Wen was suspended in mid-air, and the amber pupils under Witch State calmly scanned the people below who were bound to their respective nodes, as well as Remnant Soul of Poe Drian and Kourt who were at both ends of the ceremony.
She recalled the memories of her previous life, and the information about Poe Derian was completely blank in the file of Strategy Group in her previous life.
There are only two possibilities: either he is unknown in history, or he completely fell into this Sunken City, and even his name failed to spread. If Archmage, a stage seven, succeeded in reshaping the form of life as he said and achieved Magical Lifeform that transcended life and death, there would be no way he could remain unknown. The answer is obvious - he failed.
And Kourt, another beneficiary of this ritual, obviously did not end up too well, otherwise he would not be attached to the player in the future. But despite this, after Great Descent Event, Kourt still relied on some means to complete the promotion to stage eight and became a veritable saint.
One was successfully promoted, and the other disappeared. Obviously, this Ritual of the Scales of Life and Death was both a success and a failure.
As for the reason for the failure...
Li Wen's eyes swept over Fu Qingyan, Spade K and others who were trapped on the node of the magic circle. Before Great Descent Event, players had always been extremely special beings.
They can choose any path without being restricted by their beliefs, and even the most dark-minded players can become Servant of Radiance; they can level up just by killing monsters, easily overcoming various obstacles to advancement; the most important thing is their souls. Some special characteristics make them unaffected by any mind and soul magic. Even the most powerful mind magic cannot penetrate into their souls, control their thinking, or rewrite their memories.
This may be why Ritual of the Scales of Life and Death is destined to fail.
And another crucial reason is even more obvious.
Poe Drian and Kourt, these two so-called "collaborators" are just poisonous snakes temporarily tied together by common difficulties and interests. The hatred and betrayal between them are deep-rooted, and the so-called agreement is nothing more than a piece of paper. There is only one "Undying Flower", so how can it be possible for these life-and-death enemies to truly share it? The final antagonism and struggle are almost certain.
Just as Li Wen was thinking, Ritual Array was shining brightly, and countless holy, dim, scarlet, or pure light bands rose from every node and were accurately connected to each trapped person.
A silent panic spread among the crowd. Edgar and his team members tried to struggle. They used various methods, but they still could not shake the crown rune under their feet.
Moria calmly observed the lines of the nodes under his feet. He could clearly feel that his vitality was flowing along the light belt to the center of the circle in a gentle but unquestionable way. There is no pain in this process, and there is not even a trace of strange feeling. It is just a pure and irreversible loss, as if the ice and snow melt under the warm sun, which is a natural law.
However, for the players on the other side of the circle, the situation is completely different.
"Experience! Why am I losing experience!" A panicked scream broke through the solemnity and silence of the ceremony. It was the joker trapped in Shi's hand. His originally calm face was now filled with horror.
The moment his words fell, a thousand waves were stirred up. Spade K, Fu Qingyan and all other players subconsciously brought up their status bar.
"Fuck! It's true, I've worked so hard to gain experience!" Spade K's face turned uglier than a dead man's. He desperately tried to break free from the shackles of the chaotic light at his feet, but it was all in vain.
"Exit! Exit the game quickly!" A classmate of Fu Qingyan shouted in panic. He tried to forcefully log out through the system menu. However, the familiar interface turned gray, and no matter how he operated, he could not get any response.
"No! I can't get out!"
"The system menu is not responding! We are locked here!"
For these players, death is not a big deal. It will be depressing at most, but not uncomfortable. But if the experience they have worked so hard to accumulate disappears for such an inexplicable reason, it will definitely be more uncomfortable than killing them.
As for being unable to go offline, their reaction to this is more from the fact that they cannot stop the loss of experience through this method. As for being trapped in the game in some novel, they obviously do not have such worries.
And Kourt, who was particularly sensitive to the soul, felt a tremor in his heart, and some kind of uneasiness was brewing in it. He, who was always cautious, would not miss this uneasiness. He tried to leave the Ritual Array at his feet, but found that he could not do it at all. He was trapped.
"Derrien, what did you do? Or are you hiding the content of this ritual?" His deathly gray eyes suddenly turned to Poe Derrien, and there was a hint of suppressed anger in his cold voice.
"You idiot, what else can you think of besides corpses?" Poe Derrian let out an angry scolding, and his thin body trembled slightly with anger. "We are now on two ends of the scale. If there is any mistake in any part of the ceremony, we will fall into the abyss together! How could I possibly let my mind wander on such a thing!"
"Then what's going on now?" Kourt's shadow trembled slightly.
Poe Derian's face froze. "I don't know either. But this ceremony has already begun, and there is no possibility of interruption."
Kourt was silent, of course he understood this. He could only convince himself that this was the normal process of the ritual. Although it was slightly different from what Poe said, no one had ever completed this ritual, so it was normal for some fallacies to appear.
No matter what, the ceremony continues, no matter what the process is, the outcome is determined.
As time goes by, the soul essence extracted from each node slowly merges into the center of the square through the complex lines of the magic circle. Order and chaos, holiness and filth, rules and disorder, hope and despair... all completely different and even opposing soul qualities meet here.
Immediately afterwards, from both ends of the scale, the purest "Order Magic Power" and "Decaying Death Qi" also poured down, like two torrents, slamming into the core composed of multiple soul powers.
There were no earth-shattering explosions or earth-shattering energy impacts. Everything is intertwined, colliding and merging with each other in a strange silence.
In the center of the square, where Mage Tower used to be, where energy gathered, a translucent, ever-changing flower of energy, composed of light and shadow, flesh and bones, runes and resentment, began to bloom slowly.