An Unexpected Visitor

With every layer they peeled back, the Four Divine Beasts felt a growing tremor of dread. Even the Vermilion Bird, usually hot-tempered, lawless, and impulsive, began to grow restless. "This won't do. If we truly are being manipulated by Orloff, we must complete the Supreme God mission immediately. Not only that, but we need to interact more with Uthred. Right now, he is the only Sovereign we can rely on who is capable of standing against Orloff."

The Black Tortoise said in a gentle voice, "Actually, since the Sovereign of Death is also caught in Orloff's scheme, she would be an excellent candidate for an alliance. Unfortunately, her likes and dislikes are nearly impossible to change. We just offended her, so she won't believe a word we say. Being rejected by the Sovereign of Death is effectively the same as being rejected by the Sovereign of Life."

Orloff, the primary suspect in this brilliant conspiracy theory, was naturally oblivious to it all. He remained lost in thought, brow furrowed. "Iluka, what am I to do with you?"

At that moment, the voice of Augusta echoed in the depths of Orloff's mind. "What else is there to do? Trick him out and kill him. Does that Desterie really think he can protect him for a lifetime? Hmph, if you don't pull up the weeds by the roots, you only leave behind future trouble."

Orloff sighed. "In this day and age, this is not what I desire."

The sun and moon remained constant, and time slipped away easily. In the blink of an eye, ten thousand years had passed.

Desterie could be said to have spent the first hundred years in utter agony. During the combat and training sessions he held with Iluka every few days, the side effects of Strong Luck caused him to suffer great misfortune. This included, but was not limited to: choosing an attack route that happened to land him directly on the blade of Iluka's Sovereign artifact sword, leaving him pierced through the heart; losing control of his Destruction Rule energy while taking flight, causing it to explode within his body—a moment where Desterie was quite thankful it wasn't Sovereign power that detonated; and finally, after painstakingly forming a powerful technique, a spatial rift would happen to appear, swallow his attack, and vanish instantly, leaving him to face Iluka's full-force counterattack head-on...

There were so many such incidents that one could talk for three days and three nights and still not finish recounting his dark history. He was truly defeated time and again, yet he fought on, leading Iluka to seriously doubt the progress of Desterie's comprehension of the Destruction Rule.

As for the Fate Sovereign clone, because his strength was peerless in the material plane and he spent his time either meditating or walking the mortal world to comprehend the Fate Rule while utilizing the power of faith, no such misfortunes occurred. However, whenever he was on the verge of a breakthrough, some distraction would arise or his mind would inexplicably wander, causing the comprehension to fail. He made absolutely no progress during that first century.

But Desterie never regretted it. Trading a century of bad luck for a Sovereign body was something countless others would envy.

One other event occurred during that first century: the Intermediate Sovereign of Death, Diting, dispatched her Sovereign envoy to present a Sovereign artifact and Sovereign power.

The envoy brought a spatial ring and a Sovereign scroll. After paying his respects to Desterie, he ignited the scroll to summon an energy avatar of Diting. Diting was a cold and elegant beauty with black hair that carpeted the ground. In their conversation, she managed to hit the mark regarding Desterie's thoughts more often than not, making the interaction quite pleasant for him.

Through their conversation, Desterie confirmed one thing: the matter of the Supreme Artifacts.

Currently, the four Sovereigns of the Rules each possessed a Supreme Artifact that matched their own attributes. Orloff's was a soul-defense Supreme Artifact, while the other three possessed offensive ones.

As for Augusta, at least on the surface, he did not yet possess a Supreme Artifact. Regardless of whether Augusta had obtained the Fate offensive Supreme sword, based on this, Desterie deduced that the Destruction Supreme God mission he was currently undertaking was the same one through which Orloff had obtained the material-defense Supreme Artifact, the Augusta Garden.

Finally, Diting removed her soul-bond from the spatial ring, left it with Desterie, and dissipated her energy avatar.

After Diting left, Iluka remarked, "This Sovereign Diting is a Death and Earth-type Divine Beast with the unique talent of hearing the inner thoughts of others. Back in the day, she had designs on Earth-type Intermediate Sovereign sparks, including the one held by Bowen and the one held by Komodo, but she never succeeded."

"Hearing inner thoughts, mind-reading? Even against Sovereigns?" Desterie asked in surprise.

He knew that Sovereigns could probe the memories of Saint-level beings and below, and experts in the Death Rule could even probe the memories of God-level beings, but he had never heard of anyone being able to probe the memories of a Paragon or a Sovereign, nor was it possible to hear their inner thoughts.

If one could truly read a Sovereign's mind, wouldn't the secret of Orloff and Augusta sharing a body have been exposed long ago?

Iluka shook his head. "It's not that exaggerated. While she can use it on Sovereigns, it only allows her to hear their emotions, likes, dislikes, and discern whether they are lying."

Desterie smiled. "Even so, that is quite remarkable. You truly are a Paragon from the dawn of the world; you know quite a few secrets."

After the first century passed, Desterie's luck finally returned to normal. Aided by the torrent of faith, his comprehension of the Fate Rule began to advance by leaps and bounds. Until recently, he had reached a point where he could advance no further, appearing as though he could take that final step at any moment to become a Paragon.

On the Domain of High Heaven, which was trapped in a season of winter snow, Desterie's Fate Sovereign clone was just preparing to enter the spatial turbulence when, suddenly, a massive amount of Fate Sovereign power appeared, gathering frantically until it formed a kind old man with white hair and white eyebrows.

"Lord Orloff?" Desterie was very surprised. That Orloff would "condescend" to come find him truly caught him off guard.

"Haha, what's wrong, Desterie? Don't you welcome me?" Orloff laughed kindly.

"How could that be, Lord Orloff? Please, sit!" Desterie immediately greeted him, taking some fine wine brewed by a mortal empire from his spatial ring to pour for Orloff. "This wine is a specialty of my home plane. Although it's not exactly high-class, it actually has a unique flavor."

Orloff took a cup and drank it down, then stared at Desterie and said, "Desterie, ever since Angnak died ten thousand years ago, the Angnak Continent has been left without management. You still need to return to preside over the big picture. You don't intend to hole up in this tiny material plane forever, do you?

If you are worried that I hold a grudge and feel uneasy, there is no need. Ten thousand years ago, I was unable to suppress my anger, which is why I wanted to kill Iluka. Now that the anger has dissipated, I understand that anger and slaughter cannot solve problems. Bring Iluka out; he and I can talk this through clearly.

Moreover, the second round of the Plane War has already begun. You should also be planning and maneuvering from the perspective and status of a Sovereign.

The ten-game winning streak from last time is gone, but the years of a Sovereign are eternal. We will have plenty of opportunities in the future to slowly scheme and strive for the next ten-game winning streak."