Zheng Qing stared numbly at his surroundings.
Moments ago, he had still been racking his brains over how to safely bypass that Black Goat Cub and climb out of the crater without alerting the figures fighting around the cliff face.
Now, all he needed to think about was finding Zhu Si's trail again.
It was like riding an elevator.
The young wizard lifted a leg and stomped hard on the solid ground beneath his feet. The flying dust told him that everything was real. Then he looked around. The deep green that had once blanketed the battlefield had become a withered yellow. The writhing willow branches had stopped moving, like clay statues, shattering beneath the wizards' rain-like spells.
"Why?"
The young publicly funded student asked without any context—why had Wizards and Demons suddenly stopped fighting? Why had the demons not stopped Dean Atlas's large-scale blessing magic? And why was everyone fighting again?
All of it seemed so absurd and contradictory.
He felt an intense sense of unreality.
Having once been his shadow, the black cat easily caught the confusion in the young wizard's heart.
"Because of unspoken rules." It flicked its tail, gesturing for the wizard and witch to climb onto its back, while patiently explaining, "These are the unspoken rules between Wizards and Demons. War is fine. Fighting to the death is fine too. But Outer Gods? No."
"Outer Gods belong to the Starry Sky, while the world belongs to Wizards and Demons."
"To use an inappropriate analogy, if wizards represent lawful good and demons represent lawful evil, then Outer Gods are the behind-the-scenes stewards of the chaotic faction. Chaos and order have irreconcilable conflicts. To this world, the beings deep within the Starry Sky are as detestable as viruses."
"So, when two abruptly descended Outer God incarnations appeared