Killer J's previous words made Shengnai almost believe that he actually stopped time, but when Shengnai re-examined himself and his soul, he immediately noticed the discrepancy.
Time wasn't actually stopped, it was their perception during that period of time that was interfered with, it didn't take very long for Shengnai's soul to dispel the Animosity's isolation and perceive time again.
This only happened because they were caught off-guard by the attack, and it wouldn't be very hard to avoid this interference the next time.
Killer J continued to sprint away while holding onto the loli Lisa. Periodically, he would release his refined Animosity to interfere with the perception of those in his surroundings and buy himself a bit of time, once again escaping the encirclement.
Currently, Lisa was the key to the entire situation. Killer also wanted to put her back into his Animosity sub-space, but his Animosity sub-space was in essence a connected personal storage that he created by using Animosity to isolate a zone of space.
In this area where the Righteous Gods were clashing against one another, putting Lisa into such an unstable zone of space would only make it easier for the Righteous Gods to take her away.
"If the boss still doesn't come, I'll have no choice but to call 'you' out" Killer J told Lisa as he kept her under his arm: "Unfortunately, you're not holding a flower pot and not 12 years old, otherwise, I'd definitely risk my life for you just this once"
The little girl Lisa didn't answer him at all and simply stared blankly into the distance.
Evidently, being isolated for a long time would cause mental issues. Lisa was first cursed by the Righteous Gods and turned into an Evil God, then captured by the Great Magus, her consciousness was cut off and put into this body before being sealed away for over a thousand years.
The thousand-odd years of isolation had caused Lisa to change in unexpected ways. Perhaps because she hadn't been in contact with her own body for so long, the curse of the Seven Gods didn't affect her quite as much as other elven Evil Gods, allowing her to not become an insane irrational mess.
"Wait…" Killer J abruptly stopped running.
He could feel a pair of eyes observing him but couldn't tell where the eyes were; and when he tried to escape this place, he found that he couldn't leave no matter what.
…
As Guangnai moved forward, the sensation of being observed didn't stop for even a moment, but no matter how much Guangnai tried, he still couldn't find where the gaze was coming from. Additionally, he seemed to have realized that he was lost.
He had discerned where the battle was occurring thanks to the various clues in the atmosphere, but regardless of how much he tried to search, no matter what method he used, he still couldn't reach the scene of the battle.
Through his environment, he even managed to accurately discern that the Righteous Gods were clashing against one another not too far from where he was, but when he tried to go forward, despite Space-Time not changing at all, he still couldn't reach his destination.
〖 The Unreachable Gate 〗Guangnai stroked his hairless forehead, having confirmed who he had run into.
The Unreachable Gate might not have a cathedral or orthodox church, but he had quite a few worshippers. This was because humans were the type of creatures to always feel regret, always willing to pursue things that they could never obtain.
One of The Unreachable Gate's legends had clearly depicted his cruelty.
…
In this society, women often found it very hard to achieve anything great in life. While some companies did accept female employees, while the academies of the Academic City welcomed female and male students alike, most women eventually ended up marrying into a family and living as a housewife for the rest of their lives.
There were once two women who worked in the same company, they had very good relations, but one of them felt like she wouldn't be able to achieve success in her work, so she chose to retire and get married. After getting married, her husband treated her very well and her family was also decently wealthy, but the woman did not feel happy. She felt like she had lost the spark in her relationship and the memories of her working days kept resurfacing in her mind.
In the end, it was simply that the grass was always greener on the other side. When one option becomes unavailable, regardless of how one thought about it in the past, if one felt even a little bit unhappy about their current circumstances, the other option would always feel like the greener side.
When the woman found out that her old colleague was able to achieve a lot in her career, she felt her old regrets being pried open again. Originally, her assessment in the company was higher compared to her colleague, so if she hadn't chosen to get married, the one with that success might have been her instead.
With such thoughts in mind, the woman felt increasingly unwilling to accept her current circumstances. She then found clues of The Unreachable Gate in her husband's study, believing that any price was reasonable as long as she could return to the past through The Unreachable Gate and achieve her success.
And so, this woman killed the husband that had loved her for many years as well as her now-successful female friend, offering both of them as a sacrifice to The Unreachable Gate in an attempt to return to the past and redo everything from the beginning.
The Unreachable Gate accepted her request, using the sacrificed bodies to create a dream for her. Within that dream, the woman received another chance to do everything over. This time, she didn't give up on her work and diligently continued to work towards it, while her friend now got married to her previous husband.
Many years later, the woman still hadn't achieved anything notable, while her friend who had now gotten married was treated gently and lovingly like she was once treated, living a happy, wealthy and overall enjoyable life.
In the end, the woman went insane and was executed by the city enforcers.
…
Even though such stories were commonplace, having repeated themselves over and over again, the worshippers of The Unreachable Gate hadn't waned and instead grew exponentially over the years. People were prone to dissatisfaction because they had regrets, they had goals and destinations that they could not ever hope to reach. And it was because these goals were unreachable that they pursued them with such reckless abandon.
〖 An unreachable goal, so that was what it was. By setting my destination outside of my limits, having been restrained by these limits, I would never be able to reach that place. This isn't an issue with the environment, but rather myself 〗
Guangnai once again re-examined himself, following the aspect of limits and saw The Unreachable Gate.
That gate continued to exist on his body, just outside of his limits. It was as if he couldn't reach that gate no matter how much he tried, which was why The Unreachable Gate was also called the Limiting Gate, the Gate of Regret, and the Gate of Longing.
A truly impossible feat was a 'dream', a truly irreconcilable mistake was 'regret', and that which could not be easily surpassed was a 'limit'.
The Unreachable Gate only existed where you could not reach, which was why The Unreachable Gate might not be the most powerful Righteous God, but he was definitely the hardest Righteous God to deal with.
〖 The limit of the gate is shrinking 〗Guangnai's gaze became focused.
While his limit previously was being able to reach the battle zone, he was gaining increasingly more limits.
A poisonous snake jumped down from a nearby tree to bite Guangnai. This level of childish attack could have been easily resolved by Guangnai just looking at it previously; but now, he found that he couldn't kill or even avoid this poisonous snake's attack. It was as if these actions were outside of his limits.
On the other side, Killer J was the same. He could clearly feel himself capable of doing less and less, gradually losing even the capability to simply hold Lisa.
This was The Unreachable Gate's powers. He had no direct means of offense, but he could approach you; the closer he approached, the fewer things you'd be capable of doing, up until a point where you'd lose even the ability to survive in the environment.
