Chapter 32

Thinking was exhausting. Back in the day, Senior Zhuge Kongming had thought too much. He even personally handled disciplining soldiers for violating military rules, and in the end, he worked himself to death.

Before he knew it, Palin's face had begun to turn pale again. The vitality in his body was rapidly draining away, and before their eyes, he was turning into a corpse.

Sui Xiong noticed something was wrong and hurriedly sent a stream of magic power to replenish his life force.

"Your Majesty, what's wrong with Brother Palin?" Gerald asked telepathically.

Sui Xiong fell silent for a moment, then honestly told him about Palin's condition.

"What?! His soul left his body long ago, and now he's only moving because his remaining thoughts and his body are being sustained by life force? But he looks perfectly normal to me. There's nothing wrong with him!"

"I don't know what's going on, either." Sui Xiong spread his tentacles in a helpless gesture. "All I know is that once he stops getting outside help and the life force left in his body runs out, he'll die immediately. So, as you can see, I have to replenish his life force regularly."

"But that can't be a long-term solution. Can't you give him a lot all at once?"

"His body can't handle too much at once... You wouldn't understand. Basically, his body can't absorb a lot of life force in one go. Giving him too much would do more harm than good." As Sui Xiong spoke, an idea suddenly came to him.

On Earth, there was a cold medicine called sustained-release capsules. The medicine was sealed in little packets that dissolved at different rates, so one capsule lasted twelve hours—or so he thought; he wasn't entirely sure that was how it worked. Either way, he could use the same idea!

He put the idea into practice, trying to condense a large amount of life force into a lump, then using a dissolvable, gel-like substance to form a honeycomb-shaped shell around it. Each small cell held about as much life force as Palin needed for one replenishment, and the shells varied in thickness. The result was a small, perfectly round ball about a centimeter in diameter.

Of course, this was only a prototype. It still needed extensive testing to make sure it was safe. So Sui Xiong didn't rush to give Palin what might be called a pill. Instead, he built a structure inside his own body that resembled a human stomach and intestines.

First, he'd run some clinical trials.

But there was no hurry. The most pressing matter was dealing with the spoils of war.

After repelling the God of Conspiracy, Sui Xiong had claimed his divine emissary, the Four-Faced Monster, as a spoil of war. This strange creature contained immense power and was a master of illusions. Sui Xiong swallowed it whole and carefully dissected and studied it. He was delighted by what he found, and even uncovered an unexpected surprise.

As the God of Conspiracy's divine emissary, the Four-Faced Monster's soul actually contained some of the God of Conspiracy's divine power.

The God of Conspiracy's primary divine authorities were conspiracy, deception, and illusion. He had plenty of secondary ones as well: evil, chaos, darkness, impurity, and a whole jumble of others that Sui Xiong couldn't analyze all at once. Overall, compared with the sturdy, straightforward Sleepless God—the gatekeeper of the Dark Night Pantheon, whose divine authorities were shadow, protection, and death, and who could do almost nothing else—the God of Conspiracy was a man of many talents, flashy as a street performer hawking magic tricks.

Sui Xiong had analyzed divine power before, learning about a god's abilities and then studying and imitating them. But compared with the divine power left inside the Shrine last time, this power was far superior in both quality and quantity. It was pure and immense. Though there was only a little of it, it was at least comparable to a strike using eighty percent of Sui Xiong's strength. If the Four-Faced Monster had truly been able to unleash all that divine power, Sui Xiong could never have captured it so easily.

Analyzing divine power was technical work, and it couldn't be done in a short time. Sui Xiong wasn't in a hurry. If he couldn't finish, he could just take his time. After all, time didn't mean much to him.

Back when he'd been cultivating in the Ice Trench, who knew how many years had passed? At first, he'd kept track of the years by the changing seasons, but eventually he lost count and couldn't be bothered to keep track anymore.

Compared with those long, monotonous years, the time needed to analyze divine power was nothing.

His two subordinates didn't have much sense of time, either. Gerald was the sort who ate his fill and went straight to sleep. He used to rack his brains over how to spread his deity's faith, but ever since Palin, a clever colleague, had come along, he couldn't even be bothered to think. His laziness was truly appalling. Palin, on the other hand, was his exact opposite. With no soul in his body, he didn't need to sleep at all as long as he had enough life force. He spent all day either reading or thinking, diligent enough to make anyone feel ashamed.

Sometimes Sui Xiong thought it would be nice if the two of them could meet somewhere in the middle...

And so the days went by. The giant jellyfish floating in the sky didn't need food, and the two people in the treasure cave could use magic to conjure up meals. Neither of them found the arrangement uncomfortable.

But those days were agony for Ryan. After suffering a defeat at Sui Xiong's hands, the God of Conspiracy no longer wanted to pay attention to this area. Ryan, who had been waiting for his deity to answer his prayers, naturally felt each day drag on forever. Now he could feel himself aging almost every day, slowly but surely approaching death, yet he saw no hope of reaching the divine kingdom. This life of despair drove him nearly mad. Eventually, he could only sleep with the help of drugs. Even after taking enough sleeping medicine to knock out an ox, he would suddenly wake in the middle of the night, crying and shouting, terrified like a child abandoned by his parents.

Desperate, he racked his brains and decided that the God of Conspiracy might not be answering his prayers because his scheme hadn't fully succeeded. Perhaps the Death Cloud Spell scroll had malfunctioned and failed to activate. Or perhaps the giant's Bone Bracelet could not only cast a restoration spell but also dispel magic... The more he thought about it, the more flaws he saw in his plan. It was no wonder something had gone wrong.

It must be because my plan failed, and I lied to His Majesty about it! His Majesty is furious! The thought left Ryan drenched in cold sweat, trembling with fear. My only chance to make things right is to go back and finish the job!

Even so, the thought of facing the angry giant head-on made his legs go weak.

After holding on for about a month, Ryan could no longer bear living like this. He made up his mind, gathered the few subordinates in the Thieves Guild who were still loyal to him, found a capable mage to help, and led the whole group toward Luer's treasure.

"We're supposed to deal with a giant?" the mage asked as they camped along the way.

"Yes, a giant."

"What is it good at?"

"It's very strong, incredibly tough, and fast. And, unusually for a giant, it isn't stupid," Ryan said.

The mage pondered for a moment, then asked, "Does it have any other noteworthy abilities? Or any special equipment?"

"It has something that might be a high-level magic item, a Bone Bracelet. We know it can provide a restoration spell," Ryan said. "I suspect a deity's will might be dwelling inside it."

"That's impossible!" the mage immediately rejected the idea. "Giants don't have their own deities. And I can't think of a single deity who'd tolerate having a holy relic in a giant's hands without sending a paladin to retrieve it. It's probably just the spirit of their tribe's ancestors. These savage races often worship their ancestors, and magic items inhabited by such ancestral spirits are frequently discovered."

When it came to magic, the professionals were the authorities. Ryan stopped arguing and instead asked the mage how they should deal with the giant.

"The best way to deal with a giant is to use illusions to trick it into falling off a cliff. But according to you, it's in a sealed cave that can only be entered or left through teleportation magic, so that won't work..." The mage mulled it over. After a while, he asked, "How high is the cave? Is there much room?"

"It's not very high," Ryan answered truthfully. "And it's a little cramped. The giant has to bend down slightly just to stand inside."

The mage's eyes lit up. He had an idea.

"In that case, it'll be easy," he said with a smile. "I have plenty of ways to deal with a big brute in a confined space. One spell will leave it with a busted head, broken bones, and torn muscles. It might even kill it outright."

Ryan was overjoyed, but then he had another thought and grew uneasy. "What if it doesn't get trapped?"

"Then I'll still be able to completely restrain it and make sure it can't move," the mage said confidently. "Then I'll use another spell—"

He paused to think, then asked, "You don't mind losing the Bone Bracelet, do you?"

"Of course not!" Ryan replied firmly. "There's a huge treasure behind it!"

"Good. Leave it to me. It'll be a piece of cake." The mage stood up, brushed the dust from his clothes, and went straight to his tent to sleep.

As a mage who fought with his brains rather than his muscles, he didn't need to take a watch. On the contrary, giving him plenty of rest so he could cast spells reliably was exactly why Ryan had brought so many people along.

After all... Against that terrifying giant, neither arrows nor swords were likely to do much. In the end, the spellcaster was the one who would decide the outcome of the battle.

Ryan watched the mage go off to rest, then sat by the bonfire and stared into its blazing flames, lost in thought.

If the giant really is still alive... If it's actually strong enough to withstand the Death Cloud Spell... If a deity's will really is dwelling inside that bracelet...

He let out a deep sigh, his face haggard.

At the corner of the camp, the vice guildmaster, who had been silent ever since they set out, watched it all in silence, his eyes flickering.

The old man really has lost it. A thought that had never occurred to him before slowly took root in his mind. Maybe... I should start making plans for myself...