Chapter 157: Holiness and Light
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 157: Holiness and Light
The moment the words left his lips, the Diviner across from them raised his head.
A sudden burst of golden light erupted from his eyes.
In the next heartbeat, a wave of golden radiance rippled outward, sweeping away the ice and snow surrounding the World Tree.
[Gift of Fate - Light]
Pure, unadulterated radiance instantly saturated the entire space.
Seeing this, Thanatos lunged in front of Aisarakus, releasing a shroud of gray haze to intercept the encroaching light.
"Death?"
The Diviner seemed momentarily stunned by Thanatos’s intervention.
However, he reacted swiftly, manifesting another skill from his palm.
[Gift of Fate - Holy]
Instantly, the surrounding light took on a deeper, richer golden hue.
"Holiness and Light..."
Thanatos felt a surge of apprehension.
Before he could make a move, the Diviner had already produced a deck of cards.
Under the watchful eyes of the group, he fanned the cards out and drew the one from the very center.
A moment later, a resonant, booming voice echoed through the space.
"Hmm? Using my power to slay the Dragon Race? You truly leave nothing to chance. But, since you are willing to set aside past grievances..."
A golden halo manifested behind the Diviner.
"Then it is yours."
As the voice faded, the Diviner’s figure vanished from his spot.
Taro Ball’s eyes widened in shock.
"Wait! He used the power of Light to merge himself into the surrounding radiance!"
The Diviner had integrated his very being into the omnipresent light. The golden glow permeated nearly every corner of the space; only the area around Thanatos, shrouded in the aura of death, managed to temporarily resist the penetration of the light.
In the exact moment Taro Ball realized the Diviner’s trick, a piercing beam of light shattered Thanatos’s defensive line and skewered Taro Ball’s body.
-9,320 Quadrillion!
["Taro Ball Is Not Round" has exited the dungeon]
In a mere instant, Taro Ball had been one-shotted by the Diviner and forcibly ejected from the space.
Seeing this, Thanatos immediately ramped up his output of death energy, pushing back the light that had seeped in.
Maomao panicked as she watched Taro Ball, who had only just arrived, get kicked out of the dungeon.
"Wait... nobody told me a boss this strong would spawn here!"
Even Taro Ball had been caught off guard and taken out. This place was truly...
Beside her, Yu Yunsheng spoke up.
"My brother just sent a message."
She paused for a second.
"He said... we’ve succeeded. We can retreat from here."
Maomao blinked, stunned.
"Huh?"
She looked utterly bewildered. "What did we even do to succeed?"
In her memory, they had simply found this branch, fended off a few waves of illusory monsters, and then watched the Diviner make his grand entrance.
Throughout the entire process... it felt like they hadn't actually done anything, right?
The next second, the Diviner’s figure coalesced once more within the light before Maomao’s eyes.
His expression was strained, bordering on pained.
"That person... cough, cough..."
The Diviner’s voice trembled slightly.
"To think he was the very Nihility that had infiltrated Fate..."
The moment he killed Taro Ball, the Diviner felt the backlash of Fate’s power.
Under the shroud of Nihility, he hadn't realized that Taro Ball was the bearer of the very Void power that had slipped into the threads of Fate.
And yet, through the predictions of Fate, he had accurately identified Taro Ball as the culprit behind everything.
The way Nihility confounded Fate had led directly to him suffering a backlash from his own power.
"I never imagined... I would be struck by my own strength," he muttered, his tone laced with self-deprecation. "The Void is a troublesome thing..."
As he spoke, the radiance clinging to the Diviner’s body rapidly receded, and the golden light in the air dimmed.
Even so, the pressure radiating from him remained incredibly potent.
Thanatos immediately turned to the others and commanded, "You all leave first. Aisarakus and I will stay to deal with him."
With a wave of his hand, he gently lifted Maomao and her companions, sending them flying toward a pre-prepared stone gate in the distance.
As Maomao’s group departed, Roland looked back at the Rule Branch, which was slowly knitting itself back together, a look of regret on his face.
"Failed again, have we?"
He shook his head.
"Fine... I’ll find another opportunity later."
With a casual flick of his wrist, a stone gate appeared beside Roland, and he stepped through, vanishing.
Now, only the truly powerful remained by the World Tree.
The Diviner.
Thanatos.
Aisarakus.
"Wait..."
The Diviner scanned the area, his brow furrowing.
"Wasn't there one more person?"
He looked around, but the fourth figure was nowhere to be seen.
In that moment of distraction, Thanatos had already raised his gray spear and charged to the Diviner’s side.
The Diviner tilted his body slightly, narrowly evading the strike wrapped in the power of death.
"To think even Death has been revived. I wonder, if I reclaim Death now, could I still resurrect that—"
Just as the Diviner was about to strike back at Thanatos, Aisarakus’s attack followed in rapid succession.
BOOM—!!!
A massive dragon claw slammed into the Diviner, pinning him violently toward the ground.
Before Aisarakus could exert more pressure, the Diviner’s body flickered and vanished, reappearing behind her.
"Your name... it was Aisarakus, wasn't it? If I recall correctly, you were the most rebellious Ice Dragon in the entire race."
He paused.
"What a pity. How could the World Tree have been so blind as to lift the restrictions on your power?"
With a casual wave of the Diviner’s hand, the World Tree suddenly flared with light.
In the next heartbeat, the peak power that had only just returned to Aisarakus began to drain from her body like a receding tide.
Very quickly, Aisarakus could no longer maintain her majestic, ten-thousand-meter dragon form. She collapsed, shrinking back into her previous form—a petite dragon girl.
"Waaah... this, ugh!"
She looked down at her tiny palms, her eyes turning red at the rims.
"I worked so hard to get back to my cool, mighty form..."
Seeing her power suppressed once again, Aisarakus couldn't help but feel utterly dejected.
The Diviner gave another casual wave.
Massive golden spears manifested behind him in a dense, suffocating array.
"A dragon race that betrays the world has no reason to exist."
He was just about to drop his arm and signal the attack when a sudden, bone-chilling aura entered his perception.
"You really are a piece of work."
Xie Bai’s figure appeared silently behind the Diviner, her voice tinged with irritation.
"Flashing around and hiding inside the light... you made it impossible for me to lock onto you."
Xie Bai raised her hand and pointed at the Diviner.
In the next second, a power locked onto him.
[Daybreak Lv.13]
[Designate one target within line of sight. For the next 60 seconds, your damage against them is increased tenfold, and they cannot leave a 50-meter radius around you.]
The Diviner instinctively tried to retreat, only to find his body held fast as if by an invisible chain. No matter how he struggled, he could not move away.
"Wait... who are you?"
He recognized the Void power emanating from Xie Bai, and shock colored his features.
But to his surprise, Xie Bai did not draw upon her Void energy.
Instead, she slowly drew a massive, white-gold greatsword.
Upon the blade, clock hands and gears turned slowly, emitting a faint, rhythmic click-clack.
The Diviner’s pupils constricted violently.
"That’s... Falcant's Golden Years? Why is it in your hands?"
Faced with the Diviner’s interrogation, Xie Bai tilted her head slightly.
"That..."
She hoisted the massive Golden Years onto her shoulder.
"Falcant... he asked the same thing."