Chapter 1213 - 1213: Crossing Field

The man's voice came from within the Holy Stone, beginning a brief Q&A with the Winged Boy.

"Tsk..." Seeing this, the Hero's older brother furrowed his brows even tighter; divine light condensed in his Emerald Eye, yet there was still not the slightest trace of unease or fear.

The opponent was a split body of the Four-winged King, his strength no different from his outward appearance—merely a High-level Winged People who knew a few little tricks.

Though to ordinary Professionals, the Winged Boy was already powerful to the point of despair, in the brother's eyes, he was nothing more than prey that required just a bit more preparation time to deal with.

All the way up to now, he had been tracking the traces of the Cuixing Sect, that is, the Divine City Sect, probing several Sanctuaries on deeper layers, only to find they were all either Disguises or already abandoned sites.

However, this also let him accumulate enough Experience; he'd basically seen through the Divine City Sect's hiding patterns, and thus rushed here the very first moment after the anomaly occurred on this fifth layer.

He just didn't expect that, the moment they met, he'd run headlong into this split body.

Even though he had already stepped into the Palace, encountering battles was still not his strong suit. Even so, the brother had been gradually gaining the upper hand in the fight, and it looked like he was about to force the other side into a desperate situation.

Yet right at this final juncture, the Winged Boy sacrificed his own flesh and blood, using his limbs as the price to call down the power of his main body.

But up to this point, things were still within the brother's expectations.

After all, the other party was a split body of a Great Demon; naturally he couldn't just sit there and wait to die, meekly letting himself be taken out.

If the opponent hadn't used his trump card even at the very last moment, that would actually have made him suspect something was off.

And since the Wings of Logic had already been summoned, the split body before him could no longer be considered a Winged People, but rather the equivalent of a Fantasy Rank Ancient Angels; a single light flap of those wings on the surface could topple cities and tear down fortresses.

Even so, the situation on the field did not undergo a complete Reverse; the tilt of the Celestial Scales merely slowed its momentum, and all he needed to do was go through some more tedious procedures and spend a little more Time.

Even if he ultimately failed to successfully slay that Winged Boy, the brother still didn't believe he'd end up facing defeat.

But the scene that followed, while still not exactly unexpected, was already the worst-case scenario within his predictions.

"—Go ahead and do it."

In the scant few dozen seconds it took for the Winged Boy to fly up onto the Holy Stone, after three rounds of brief Q&A, the man's satisfied reply echoed throughout the cavern.

As the voice from the Holy Stone fell silent, tens of thousands of Magic Patterns instantly swelled outward, every single line presenting the ultimate beauty of the arcane path, as if they embodied truth itself.

They spread out from the surface of the Holy Stone like splashing water and rings of ripples, instantly expanding.

Bands of rainbow-colored ripples spread and sank across the cavern of the Dungeon, across the ground and ceiling.

A startled shout came from a corner; a man's figure sprang out from the shadows along the wall. He staggered several steps before barely steadying himself, his expression both bedraggled and stunned, yet his eyes carried a faint fanaticism as he stared, unblinking, at everything happening before him.

This vast Magic Tide, even before it had officially begun to surge, with just the aftermath of its spreading, had already warped the spatial structure within the Dungeon, causing the Thief's shadow Stealth to fail along with it.

If one possessed Legendary-level Perception, they would be able to perceive that those magic ripples were not limited to this cavern alone.

They seeped deeper along the veins of the Dungeon, passing through the dimensional barriers between layers, like roots probing into deeper strata, transmitting to the ritual keystones on the next floor.

Further below, within every hidden Sanctuary scattered by the Divine City Sect, all the pre-arranged keystones, upon Sensing the resonance from above, rapidly began to activate, lighting themselves up like torches.

The prelude to the Forbidden Curse Ceremony had already begun to play.

The ripples interconnected between different floors, reaching into the distance, and as the number of resonating Holy Stones increased, a violent—no, a magnitude long since beyond the reach of any word, truly as if the world itself were resonating, as if the planet itself were tilting—surge of Magic Power was rising from the depths of the Dungeon along the path marked by the keystones.

"Father..."

The brother rubbed at his tightly knitted brow, let out a Sigh, and stopped paying any mind to the Winged Boy at the center of the Arcane Surge, simply turning around outright.

He looked toward the Catcher who had been thrown out of the shadows, his voice containing an unmasked hint of helplessness.

"Get ready to pull out. At this point, it's already impossible to stop it."

"—Y-you, what did you just say?"

Meanwhile, within the Illusion Realm, the pages of the Heavenly Book suddenly flipped open.

The Hero, who had been calmly waiting to Counterattack the Four-winged King, sprang out of the Heavenly Book as if her feet had been burned, visible panic on her face.

"Father, you must be joking, right?"

She couldn't help raising her voice, even her electronic tone turning much sharper.

"Do you think I'd joke about something like this, at a Time like this?" the Emerald-Starred Key retorted.

The Hero knew he certainly wouldn't; after all, Father seemed to have never cracked a joke in front of her.

"But—but actually teaming up with Goblins—!" the girl cried anxiously, just a step short of stomping her feet.

Though such a possibility had faintly brushed across her mind before, when she truly heard Father say those words himself, the Hero still felt as if the sky within her heart had collapsed.

Father actually went and mixed together with Goblins!

She couldn't even tell which of the two hit her harder now—this, or "Father is going to destroy the world."

"Can you face Mother with this!?"

"First of all, I also don't understand why your mother is being brought up here. And it seems you've misunderstood something." Father's voice was unhurried. "What I said is that I've relaxed his permissions; I never said I would be teaming up with him."

He paused for a moment, a hint of amusement surfacing in his expression.

"But, Goblin... so that's how you see him.

"In a sense, I suppose it's not an inaccurate image."

"Is there even a difference? Old coot, you have already set foot upon the path to your own death."

The Depraved Hero stood up and began to laugh softly, delighted yet restless.

Her expression showed no shock over this matter; if anything, she seemed happy to have found an even more legitimate excuse to make a move.

"It seems you've picked up a lot of unique expressions in this world," Father replied carelessly. "You'll have to watch yourself a bit once we return to the Kingdom."

"Father, aren't you helping the Four-winged King unleash the Limit Breaking Curse?" the Hero asked, blinking in puzzlement.

"Not at all. I've merely decided not to stop him. Of course, being a bystander can sometimes make you an accomplice; that depends on how you define it," Father explained.

"He forcibly dismantled the ritual I left in the Dungeon by relying on his own Authority, and he did it even faster than I expected. You could say he truly lives up to being a presence at the Ancient Dragon Rank.

"By that point, I was no longer capable of stopping him from releasing the Forbidden Curse. At most, I could directly melt down the nodes along the way, doing my best to reduce the Forbidden Curse's final effect.

"But that would amount to engaging him in a direct clash on the level of Spirit. Not only would it put my life in danger, even if I survived, I'd need to spend a very long Time to once again lay out the nodes to be melted."

He paused.

"However, these are all only secondary reasons.

"Though in your eyes he may seem no different from a Goblin, I acknowledge his strength.

"So I removed the restrictions of ritual authentication, allowing him to use everything I've set up more smoothly."

Seeing his daughter fall silent, Father let out a soft chuckle and turned to look out the window.

"Look, it's about to begin."

[The Hero's Level has risen to 90, gaining 18 Attribute points]

D2=2

[Level raised to 90, the Hero's Life Spirit Mage Profession has gained its tenth Transformation slot, earning an Authority reward regarding destinyDestiny]

D9=2, 2D519=D40. Snow's Beauty, D105. Fall toward the Invisible Black

[destinyDestiny Weaving Anchor]

Anchor requirement: From among all chapters up to Chapter 519 in which the Hero appears, provide the numbers of those chapters; you may also select specific passages—choose seven.

[Please reply here (participate civilly, and do not spam repeated posts)]

[Notes on destinyDestiny Authority]

A simple re-roll will be performed on the plot of the selected chapters, to determine "Were the Hero's experiences destined?" and an Authority will be written according to the result, while two related Attributes will each increase by +9.