"That's…" a pattern in the shape of a green tree sprout sat in the palm of Noah's hand. Killer J was half-dead next to him, hugging him while crying 'I'm alive, I'll definitely cross-dress next time': "Enough!"
…
As the embodiment of Negary's rationality and ideals, Noah was the strongest among Negary's three subordinates. If Negary's Pathway was Manipulation, then Noah's Pathway was the concept of 'Carrying' and 'Sustaining'.
After Chromie died, the sprout of the Moon Tree inside his body had been extracted by Noah. The so-called limit of the elven bloodline wasn't quite as severe to Noah as he had thought, suggesting that the Moon Tree didn't completely belong to the elves.
Combined with the knowledge that the elves weren't native creatures in the Moon Tree world, but was actually brought into this world with the Moon Tree by the will of the Moon Tree, it was possible to infer that the Moon Tree was originally some sort of World Tree, which became the Moon Tree after the elves took it over.
The Moon Tree sprout was a derivative of the Moon Tree, while it also contained a lot of elven traces, there were also unfamiliar traces here. Its function was simple: to infiltrate a world, take root within that world, take over the world's authorities, then total control of everything within that world.
After the will of the Moon Tree had used the Moon Tree sprout to take over a world, he would have created Mother Trees from it to incubate and breed the elven race.
After implanting the Moon Tree sprout into his body, Noah quickly understood how to use it, as well as discovered the two world authorities contained inside: the Aspect of Silence, and the World Barrier.
While Noah was contemplating returning to Negary and using these two authorities to help him, he realized that something wasn't quite right. As Life Bearer Mequik completely displayed her Pathway, the Moon Tree sprout recognized other authorities of this world coming from her.
Mequik had implanted those authorities into her body.
Is she insane?
Doing that would only shackle her to this world, especially when it's such a distorted and warped world.
As the Righteous of Negary and the carrier of his Principles and Ideals, he had practically full access to Negary's knowledge, thus understanding just how abnormal this was.
In Eternal Heat's plan, even if the will of the Moon Tree was able to escape, he would not remain here. Because of how weak he was, he would only flee as far as possible, which meant he didn't have the means of interfering with his plans.
However, something outside their expectations had occurred: Negary unexpectedly caught the resurrected Dim Silence Envoy, obtained a large amount of Elf-related knowledge from him, blocked the will of the Moon Tree's escape, and finally, obtained the crucial Moon Tree Sprout.
Earlier, he also saw Killer J following [Lord of Evolution] into Shengnai's soul, and Shengnai being absorbed into Life Bearer's body; Noah thought briefly and arrived at a certain conclusion.
Noah then took out a few continuously growing branches. These were the remains of the Scion of Life's Divine Artifact after it had erupted, which contained ferociously strong Principles of 'Life' that could only be removed by stripping it down bit by bit.
Negary believed that this had research value, so he came up with a way to preserve a few of them, and now, they would indeed show their value.
Shengnai had inherited the Grand Library, which contained the original body of these branches. Even now, those roots continued to grow within the Grand Library, as Shengnai hadn't tried to remove the roots, but rather treated them and the Grand Library as a unified structure.
He intended to transfer the Grand Library that was hidden in a certain aspect of the Academic City onto the roots, which was still an ongoing project but had shown to be effective.
Should I say, 'as expected of My Lord's divided soul'?
He had also prepared for everything that would follow.
Connecting to Negary's world database, Noah searched for the data of what happened in the Academic City after the Banquet and found some secret information that Shengnai had left behind.
Inside the Mobis Institute, Field, who had taken over Roger's body, while in the middle of resolving the remnant wills within his body, had 'accidentally' ran into Michael, who was controlling Landier's body in an attempt to kill the three remaining auditing student sacrifices.
Other than them, Jimmy and Pilo from the dirt-infused algae, as well as Comet who had been injected with the [Nightmare] concoction, all got into their own adventures after the Mana Banquet.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Jimmy and Pilo found another new source of food from somewhere and successfully used this to gather a not inconsiderable amount of wealth, which fulfilled their dreams of leaving the Academic City.
As for Comet, who had been injected with the [Nightmare] concoction and became plagued with daily nightmares, he tried to search for 'Negary' inside the Mobis Institute in hope of resolving this issue, only to be caught in the struggles between Field and Michael, becoming the unexpected variable.
In the end, Field and Michael both became losers as the manipulated Roger and Landier 'unexpectedly' became the ultimate winners. By borrowing the power of the roots, they managed to kill both Field and Michael, regained their 'freedom' and a new job, becoming employees of the Grand Library.
While everything seemed like they naturally happened, if one tried to take a look at the entire situation, they would find that a force had manipulated their futures from behind, which employed the familiar measures that Negary had always used.
From that, Noah found the information that Shengnai had left behind, then placed the sprout on the ground and gently said: "Become a beacon"
The scattered mana around rapidly gathered towards the sprout following Noah's words, which facilitated the sprout's growth. A certain sub-space was opened, revealing a figure to Noah, which was the spirit of the Grand Library's System, the Great Magus' daughter, Akasha Allenz.
Noah and Akasha quickly finished talking, being as rational as they were, all extraneous matters were swiftly ignored. Now that Life Bearer's form was about to fully manifest, if they didn't act fast and allowed Life Bearer to complete what she was doing, something bad would definitely occur.
"Can you sense Shengnai's location?" Noah shared the Moon Tree sprout's synchronized senses with her.
"I cannot, but I believe we can go in through that place!" Akasha quickly gave her reply: "This place has almost the exact same Principles and Ideals as the roots that invaded the Grand Library"
Akasha was pointing at a large suction cup on Mequik's tentacles, which contained a lot of green patterns. Most likely, they were the harvests of when Mequik devoured the Scion of Life.
In the past, as one of the three elven Lord Gods, the Scion of Life naturally held an authority in their hands. The majority of the Scion of Life's existence was then devoured by Mequik, which included the portion related to the Moon Tree world's authority within the Scion of Life's Pathway.
The fully manifested Life Bearer was incredibly huge, almost as huge as an entire world, and because she was focused on something else, it gave Noah and Akasha a chance to infiltrate her body.
While it was true that a Pathway Entity had fully encompassed their existence within their Pathways, it was also true that a living being's attention was limited, and there was simply too much information that required Life Bearer's attention right now.
Manifesting the complete form of the Kabbalah, the clashing information from the other Righteous Gods' Pathways, as well as the mutual information channel between her and Eternal Heat.
The Moon Tree sprout was originally a tool to invade other worlds, so one of its original functions was to obscure the consciousness of a world spirit; while Life Bearer wasn't a 'world', the Kabbalah by itself contained the encompassing structure of a world.
For that reason, when Akasha used the Grand Library's roots energy to obscure and aid Noah invading her with the Moon Tree sprout, Mequik didn't notice right away.
Which was how Noah and Akasha managed to infiltrate Mequik's body and save Killer J without her noticing.
Shengnai gave up his [Origin] and body, escaping as a piece of soul data. He was too large of a target to escape with his entire existence, so it was too difficult to take him as a whole; taking advantage of Mequik's soul weakness also made it much easier for them to escape.
The Grand Library's authority was given back to Akasha as the fees for her help, of course, she also did it out of spite for Mequik. Regardless of Stim's original intentions, he had done his part as a father properly before his death, and since Mequik killed her father, she naturally wanted revenge.
"Alright, I've relayed information to the boss, I'm going to seek death again" Killer J reported. As long as he didn't die from it, he would keep acting like this, so after relaying the information he learnt, he disappeared without a trace.
"In that case, please do as you like, Miss Akasha" Noah lightly nodded to Akasha as the tree sprout pattern on his palm lit up.
Now that things had turned out like this, the previous means of escape now seem insufficient, he had to contact Lan Shan and help her prepare a new means of retreat.
Akasha glanced at Noah and Killer J who had both disappeared, as well as Darr who was quickly moving into the battlefield, then flipped her hair in a highly personified manner. The tree sprout behind her quickly opened into a passage.
On the other side, Landier and Roger, whose appearances had greatly changed, as well as Comet who was discreetly floating a bit further away greeted her. A polyhedron mark appeared on Akasha's forehead, she turned around to look at the colorful battlefield one last time before giggling and closing the passage, leaving a three sprout behind to quickly wither away.
…
A red flash of light seemed to appear in his eyes. While Negary finished his countermeasures against The Unreachable Gate, he also found the black curves that Barren Shadow had placed into his body.
The three-winged dragon angrily roared, the golden beads floating around him moved together with his limbs as the black curves were pulled from the aspect of shadow into the normal aspect of reality, then swiftly broken off.
Negary didn't inform the other Righteous Gods about the fact that Eternal Heat and Mequik were actually the same entity, as it was useless even if he did.
A large portion of a battle between Pathway Entities was an informational war, with large amounts of Principles and Ideals constantly radiating and clashing against one another, as well as false information meant to deceive the others. For example, Negary being able to avoid Concealed Demise's instinctive attack earlier was thanks to him collecting information of changes around Concealed Demise.
How the other party would attack, how they would defend, whether or not the other party was the real or an empty shell of Barren Shadow, whether Concealed Demise was accumulating a new attack, all sorts of information must be constantly collected and processed.
This information wasn't all that was available, as deceptive information would also be included within the flow. If you made a mistake and were deceived, you'd essentially be fighting a battle of wits against the air, all of your attacks would miss while you were unable to discern a fatal attack from a normal one.
For that reason, this piece of information would only be treated as deception and summarily processed as trash after they received it.
The other Righteous Gods weren't Negary, as his processing capability had surpassed everyone here, not to mention his trust of Killer J that allowed him to arrive at this conclusion.
Even without that, how would the situation change if The Unreachable Gate of Barren Shadow actually believed this?
Currently, Eternal Heat's plan was nearing completion, and against an armed threat that could kill you with a single bullet, it was useless to talk about how cooperation was key to survival.
At a time like this, the correct way of thinking would be how to act when you and a friend met a tiger in the woods; you don't need to run faster than the tiger, just faster than your friend, perhaps you might even be able to bring your friend's belongings with you while the tiger was occupied with eating him.
The other Righteous Gods also started to notice something amiss, while Mequik looked like she was defending against Eternal Heat's attack, the fact that she was fully manifesting herself for it was abnormal.
…
「 So there were still some mistakes 」Eternal Heat and Mequik quickly communicated through their connection to ensure the ritual went perfectly. Due to various reasons, Mequik didn't notice Noah right away as he snuck in, but if she still couldn't notice by the time he ran away with Killer J, that would be a shame to her name as a Righteous God.
However, now that the plan had gotten to its most crucial stage, both her and Eternal Heat no longer had excess strength to deal with these little insects.
Even so, Eternal Heat and Mequik didn't feel any sort of dejection from this, only absolute confidence.
After the Mana Banquet, Eternal Heat had declared to Negary that 'With us in cooperation, no one will be a match'.
From what could be seen now, the 'us' at the time referred to him and Mequik. Meaning that when he and Mequik who were separated from the same [Origin] joined together as one, no one would be their match.
Although he and Mequik had to share an [Origin] as two souls, which led to their understanding of the soul to be lacking, Eternal heat was still absolutely confident in the fact that their cooperation was unmatched by anyone in their same level.
「 Negary, face this attack, show me just how far you can go! 」
Numerous rays of light shot out from Eternal Heat's body, which also caused Eternal Heat's body to also crumble away. His existence, his Pathway, his everything had turned to light.
The boundless light shot through the Kabbalah that Mequik had manifested herself into and illuminated the other entities.
The light shot through the world itself.
This wasn't an exaggeration, as the light truly did shoot through the entire world.
Under this light, the Moon Tree World began to collapse, killing every single entity that walked its surface in an instant. Over half the Evil Gods drifting around the world were also killed at this very moment.
〖 The White Light! 〗this thought flashed through Negary's soul without him being able to think any further, half of his body was instantly blown away to become a part of the light.
Facing this attack, Negary felt himself to be heavily injured, but the other entities didn't fare any better either. One of those who fared relatively bad was Barren Shadow, while his Pathway was 'Existence', it trended more towards 'Shadow'; 'Light' and 'Shadow' didn't completely contradict one another, but when Light had gotten powerful enough to a certain degree, Barren Shadow felt pretty dead.
Even worse than Barren Shadow was The Unreachable Gate, whose existence had been pinpointed thanks to Barren Shadow messing with his curse spear. This pinpointing had become a set of coordinates that made it possible to reach The Unreachable Gate.
