Chapter 155: The Diviner
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 155: The Diviner
Swish—!
Xie Bai swung Funeral Rites, parrying yet another strike from the World Tree.
While she could easily deflect the World Tree’s offensive, she was equally unable to deal any meaningful damage in return.
The reason was simple.
The World Tree was, in essence, a Divine Artifact—an existence without a health bar.
No matter if Xie Bai unleashed hundreds or thousands of attacks, she couldn't inflict any substantive damage on the World Tree’s main body.
As for trying to use Funeral Rites to lop off its branches, that was even less feasible.
The core of the World Tree remained its central trunk; the other branches were merely extensions of its regulatory power. Even if she severed them, it wouldn't fundamentally affect the tree.
On the contrary, doing so would only provoke it into unleashing more indiscriminate area-of-effect attacks, which would inevitably sweep up Thanatos and his group in the distance.
Besides, her purpose for coming here wasn't to destroy the World Tree, but to ensure everyone’s safety.
As for where the danger had come from in the first place...
Ahem...
Best not to ask.
Swish—!
Xie Bai repelled another of the World Tree’s attacks.
As the stalemate dragged on, her movements in response to the tree became increasingly fluid and practiced.
After several exchanges, Xie Bai had completely mastered the World Tree’s battle rhythm.
Now, even if she were to shut down all her senses, she could accurately counter the tree’s attacks based on pure anticipation alone.
It felt like playing ping-pong with a particularly dim-witted child. After thousands of volleys, she had completely figured out every single one of its moves.
At this thought, Xie Bai felt a twinge of boredom and shifted a portion of her attention toward Maomao’s side.
"Come to think of it, isn't this a bit dull? Are the players really enjoying watching these same repetitive movements over and over?"
She swung Funeral Rites again, knocking back the World Tree’s strike.
At this moment, she was still unaware of the fact that Maomao’s livestream had been shut down and never reopened.
In the gaps between attacks, Xie Bai stole a glance at Thanatos and the others.
Compared to Maomao’s side, where a group was huddling together for warmth and dancing back and forth with illusory monsters, Thanatos’s side was significantly more "brutal."
First, Roland precisely located the specific Rule Branch representing Alchemy amidst the millions of shimmering, illusory boughs.
Then, Thanatos invoked his true god-level Authority of Death to forcibly negate the life force within that Rule Branch.
Crack...
Creeeak...
Under Thanatos’s overwhelming pressure, the Rule Branch symbolizing Alchemy actually began to fracture, looking as though it might snap at any second.
Once Thanatos successfully severed the branch and regrouped with Maomao’s team, they could make their exit from the World Tree.
Everything was proceeding so smoothly that Xie Bai actually felt a hint of unease.
It was like a movie entering a lull in the plot; a director would usually arrange for some unforeseen accident to escalate the drama right about now.
Suddenly, as if remembering something, Xie Bai looked back toward Maomao’s group.
"If I remember correctly, there were supposed to be five of them over there..."
Potato Is Not Taro, Elania, Cat Fur Hat Maomao, Aisarakus...
Wait. Why is one missing?
Had she remembered wrong?
Xie Bai lowered her head in thought, trying to recall the details.
But before she could process the thought, a completely foreign aura abruptly manifested within the space.
No—it felt slightly familiar...
Xie Bai whipped her head around.
Unbeknownst to anyone, an elder with a snow-white beard and hair had appeared silently in the center of Maomao’s group.
In a mere instant, everyone froze.
Including the World Tree.
"Who... exactly are you people? Why have you appeared in a place like this?"
As he spoke, he lightly raised a hand. The wounds on the World Tree healed instantly.
The man’s aura was extremely restrained, yet it still exerted a suffocating sense of pressure on everyone present.
[Diviner Lv.300]
[HP: 65,000 Quadrillion / 65,000 Quadrillion]
The moment she saw that health bar of over sixty thousand quadrillion, Xie Bai understood.
This was another character similar to Sacred Light.
They didn't manifest in their true bodies, but instead attached their will to a prepared vessel, synchronizing the attribute-doubling effects brought by the True God trait "Timeline Convergence" onto the host.
Currently, aside from the True God Convergence trait, there was no other way for an entity with tens of quadrillions of HP to appear in the mortal realm.
"Come to think of it, why are there so many True Gods making early appearances lately...?"
Though Xie Bai lamented the situation, she did not underestimate the Diviner.
A super-high level of 300 was enough to make her wary.
Sacred Light had only been Level 245, yet this Diviner was a full Level 300.
It had only been a few hours since Xie Bai defeated Sacred Light—not even a full day had passed.
While the six-hour cooldown for Void Link had long since expired, the twenty-four-hour cooldown for Flowers Wither, Leaves Fall was not yet ready.
This meant she couldn't rely on the legacy effect of Flowers Wither, Leaves Fall to bypass the restrictions of Greed's Curse.
With this in mind, Xie Bai checked her current gold reserves.
[Gold: 34.12 Trillion]
It was a lot.
But it was also very little.
At the very least, her current basic attack damage far exceeded this number.
Dealing thirty-odd trillion damage per hit against a health bar of sixty thousand quadrillion...
She would have to swing Funeral Rites over six million times to pull it off.
While activating Void Link would boost Xie Bai’s Agility to over 170 trillion—allowing her to theoretically grind the Diviner to death within five minutes using the Void Invincibility affix—she couldn't guarantee she could protect Elania and the others at the same time.
In short, the Diviner had appeared far too early for Xie Bai’s liking.
"Unless..."
After a moment of deliberation, Xie Bai slowly drew a platinum-colored greatsword.
Golden Years.
A Divine Artifact specifically designed to counter True Gods.
As long as one burned enough history, it could unleash a Trans-Dimensional Slash that transcended time and space.
Upon impact, the target would suffer incessant, omnipresent slashes across every segment of their timeline—past, present, and future.
With that frequency of attack, even if Xie Bai only dealt thirty-odd trillion per hit, she could empty the Diviner’s health bar in an instant.
This was her alternative method for bypassing the limitations of Greed's Curse.
Just as Xie Bai was about to pull out the Book of Truth to find a segment of history to burn, a petite blue figure defied everyone’s expectations and charged straight at the white-bearded elder.
"Ai!"
Maomao cried out in desperation as she recognized the figure, trying to rush forward.
But she froze almost immediately.
Aisarakus’s petite frame suddenly expanded before her eyes.
A blue dragon, as towering as a mountain, replaced the small girl.
It was even more massive than the thousand-meter dragon Maomao had seen before. To the naked eye, its physical body alone appeared to be ten thousand meters long.
At this sight, the Diviner’s expression turned solemn.
That was a true Ice Dragon in its prime.
Aisarakus.