Many of the branches had also grown on Negary’s body. He noticed that these branches had an incredibly resilient life force, as these branches would exist even if his body scattered back into the world virus.
To make these branches disappear, the only solution was to use his own power to gradually wear them down. After trying over a hundred different methods, Negary even found that if he employed an incorrect method to kill them, they would grow more instead.
But these were only the branches that grew from that piece of root; they might be troublesome to remove, but they wouldn’t take Negary much effort to do so.
On the other hand, Red Tears and Eulogy of the Ocean Depths should be in an even worse state, with Eulogy of the Ocean Depths having practically come into direct contact with the piece of root. They had immediately retreated when they saw it, but it was obvious that the piece of root wasn’t quite that simple. Both they and Red Tears had left too many connections during their competition for this ‘Divine Artifact’; Red Tears, in particular, would have already escaped with the Divine Artifact if Eulogy of the Ocean Depths hadn’t stopped her.
Both of them had come into close contact with the Divine Artifact, so they wouldn’t be able to escape and those roots would have directly attacked their true bodies.
〖 The Mana Fetus’ function wasn’t only to help Mequik control the Great Magus, but also to obscure the true purpose of the Divine Artifact. She had used her complete understanding of ‘Life’ to cause the Divine Artifact to erupt in an abrupt instant 〗
〖 All of her Principles and Ideals would be converted into an attack, or rather, into the root’s survival instincts. It would attach itself to anything it could, treating them as nutrients for it to grow, and comparatively, both Red Tears and Saarschloss were superior life forms to anything in this world 〗
The aura of intense heat around Eternal Heat’s body slowly faded, but the pressure that presided over all things still remained. A bit further away, the sun was slowly rising, signaling the end of the Mana Banquet.
〖 And so, we probably won’t see them for a while 〗
Negary observed Eternal Heat, slowly making the circumstances clear. Two Righteous Gods have had to retreat from the stage; unless The Unreachable Gate somehow gained a crushing advantage, he would most likely not achieve much; Concealed Demise was powerful, but his rationality being frequently absent would be an issue.
All things considered, only 3 Righteous Gods truly remained in the upcoming competition, which was Eternal Heat, Life Bearer, and Barren Shadow.
However, since Mequik had received Eternal Heat’s attack earlier, she had also been injured while her trap didn’t affect Eternal Heat much at all.
Slowly but surely, Eternal Heat was gaining an absolute advantage.
〖 The remaining Righteous Gods will most likely band together 〗
Negary drew this conclusion. At the same time, he was also suspicious about many things. From an overarching point of view, Mequik’s plan had indeed succeeded, but the biggest beneficiary was Eternal Heat.
It was unclear whether Eternal Heat had seen through this trap or if there were any other secrets.
「 That doesn’t matter. In half a month, the fruit of the Unrepenting Abyss will be ripe. With us in cooperation, no one will be a match 」Eternal Heat appeared to be in a good mood and declared.
Hearing this, Negary felt like he might be hinting at something, but Eternal Heat didn’t bother to explain the meaning of his words. His aura slowly receded and disappeared, leaving the Saint Soul Awakened from before behind with numerous branches growing out of his body, which quickly grew into a dried-up tree without leaves.
His so-called Saint Soul had been fully consumed by Eternal Heat, leaving only his body with the branches attached to it. While this could be considered to be a premature harvest of the Saint Soul Awakened, the fact that Eternal Heat was able to use his body to redirect the damage of the tree was also a minor benefit.
On the other hand, Negary didn’t imitate Eternal Heat and allowed Guangnai to return to his body. Negary didn’t consider the continuously growing branches on his body a type of damage at all. As long as he could thoroughly research it, it would also become a type of nourishment for his Pathway.
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After all, Negary’s Pathway of manipulation was all-encompassing, and any Pathway could be used to nourish it as long as he did it well enough.
Various data flowed across his mind. Negary gazed through a warped aspect of reality to observe any possible future developments, then observed from the other angle to observe the occurrences in the past as well.
He was recording every last detail of the events leading up to this point, using them to contemplate anything that the Righteous Gods might be hiding. For example, Barren Shadow, who had sent worshippers to the Mana Banquet, but didn’t try to descend.
Through this method of looking back and forth, Negary slowly organized the seemingly chaotic information, slowly extracting any useful information while being careful of traps laid by the Righteous Gods.
The other Righteous Gods didn’t have Negary’s advantage of being spread out across the entire world, nor had they developed calculation abilities to fit this advantage. They also didn’t have Negary’s understanding of Impurity, and to a great extent, entropy, which made it very hard for them to imitate Negary and observe both the past and future of the world through the aspects of reality.
However, as their existences had been fully incorporated into their Pathways, they had gained a great deal of control over themselves. Just like Negary, any information about them also counted as a part of their existence, so if Negary came into direct contact with their past information, they would be alerted.
Because of this, Negary could only observe from a distance and carefully discern any possible faulty information that the Righteous Gods might have left on purpose.
〖 So Barren Shadow had actually descended? 〗
Within the past that Negary could observe, within the forest in the Mana Banquet, a faint fluctuation had appeared at a certain point in time, where Barren Shadow’s figure could be found silently standing without anyone noticing.
If Negary hadn’t reviewed the past, he wouldn’t have noticed him either.
〖 Eternal Heat and Life Bearer as well, both of them are definitely hiding some sort of secrets. The Great Magus had definitely fallen under control before the Mana Banquet, so Life Bearer wouldn’t have paid such a great price just to set up something as simple as a trap 〗
〖 I will need to make extra preparations, after all 〗
Negary’s figure scattered into golden beads and vanished, reappearing inside the ancient elven city under Lohr.
Under the withered Mother Tree, still wearing a simple black robe, Noah greeted Negary, his presence was considerably stronger compared to before.
As Negary’s Pathway was manipulation and control, he continuously pursued the perfection of himself, but control over oneself was also a shortcoming, so whenever Negary found Principles and Ideals that wasn’t suitable with his Pathway, he would bestow them to his three subordinates.
Killer J was the embodiment of chaos and inexplicability, which loosely represented Negary’s emotions, while Noah presented the side of Negary that was controlled by rationality.
Having become a part of Negary, having been under Negary’s control since birth, Noah fully embraced Negary’s Principles and Ideals. He had also obtained a Seed of Truth already, which should bloom into his own Pathway in no time at all.
Noah was also the most powerful among the three embodiments of Negary. Furthermore, within Negary’s calculations, after he had fully manifested his Pathway, Noah would be able to perfectly endure Negary’s full power and exert prowess that was equivalent to himself as the original.
〖 What’s the situation? 〗Negary asked.
As Noah took on a part of himself, Negary could easily take over Noah’s soul and everything that came with it, but he wouldn’t do such a thing.
“He is still under incubation, but it should be very soon” Noah stood to one side to reveal Darr inside the trunk of the Mother Tree, who had already returned halfway to human form.