834 Divine Descent

The entire world seemed to turn gray and white, even the almost blue flames on Wanak's body solidifying into stone.

Lumian's first instinct was to reach into his Traveler's Bag to retrieve the mirror cufflink. He intended to use the opportunity, created by 0-01 breaking through the mirror world's barrier and Julie being too preoccupied to intervene, to escape the mirror world and return to the real corpse mountain, avoiding the impending divine battle.

He realized Julie had been praying for a divine descent.

And now, a fragment of the Primordial Demoness's power had descended!

Lumian couldn't avoid the influence. His body turned gray and stiff. The burning pain from the residual aura of the Blood Emperor in his right palm was the only thing keeping him moving, allowing him to slowly reach into his bag and grab the glass-like cufflink.

Just as he withdrew his hand, before he could activate the mirror cufflink, Julie, with her hair floating in the air, turned to look at him.

Her hair had turned raven black like thick, long serpents, and her eyes were now a brilliant, crystalline blue.

In that brief moment of eye contact, Lumian lost control of his body.

He saw the grayness spreading around him, climbing from his feet. Every inch of skin and flesh it touched turned to real stone.

Why am I the first target?

Wanak and Albus are far more dangerous, and the Abscessed Hand isn't completely dead. Why target the weakest one first?

Shouldn't I be caught in a broad attack instead?

Then I'd have a chance to escape the mirror world and wait out the divine descent!

Facing this hopeless situation, Lumian, as an Ascetic, couldn't help but feel intense anger and frustration.

Despite his limbs turning to stone, he tried to channel his spirituality to activate the Mirror Cufflink and other contract marks on his body.

But as his spirituality approached the grayness, it solidified, turning to stone and falling like rain to the ground.

His neck turned to stone, then his face and brain began to gray.

His last effort was to look toward Albus Medici's position.

The wasteland was empty.

The descendant of the Red Angel was gone.

He had disappeared or escaped somehow!

Son of a sow... Lumian couldn't help but curse.

In the next moment, his thoughts seemed to turn to stone.

His gray eyes saw Julie, transformed and radiating charm even to stone, floating in mid-air, engulfed in black flames.

The Demoness descended like a giant bird, trailing black flames that twisted and branched like countless serpents, their long tails gently swaying.

Silently, the mirror world began to collapse, dark voids mingling with black flames, swallowing the still skeletal Abscessed Hand, the immovable Wanak, and the petrified Lumian...

The end of this world had come.

Silent darkness filled every void.

After an indeterminate time, a violent, invisible flame flickered to life, illuminating Lumian's mind.

He felt the burning pain and icy rot in his right palm, the heat in his left chest.

He snapped his eyes open and saw a hundred-meter-high mountain of corpses and bones.

I'm... alive? Lumian was bewildered.

His last memory was turning to stone and the destruction of the mirror world by Julie.

He instinctively looked down, seeing the grayness rapidly recede from his body.

This confirmed it wasn't a nightmare or hallucination.

How did I survive?

Did someone help me?

Lumian doubted he could have survived such an apocalypse alone.

At that moment, he heard Albus Medici's voice, tinged with amusement.

"You can traverse the mirror world too, just like my escape plan, and you did it while partially petrified. Impressive. Did you rely on that cufflink in your hand?"

Lumian turned to see Albus, in a tattered black and red jacket, a crystal necklace around his wrist.

Albus had his eyes closed but was surrounded by undead soldiers in iron-black armor, their eyes burning with pale or dark red flames.

Lumian remembered he should also close his eyes.

This is likely the real area around the corpse mountain. Keeping his eyes open might result in being silently replaced by his mirror self!

Nothing happened... Just as I expected, I'm now Wanak's ally, one of the dangers, a puppet of 0-01. No need to fear any forbidden rules anymore... If only I'd realized it earlier, instead of being stunned and confused by my survival, I could have closed my eyes before Albus looked over, taking advantage of the situation to trick him... Lumian regretted this missed opportunity but also started to understand how Albus avoided the divine descent of the Primordial Demoness.

Like him, he took advantage of 0-01 breaking through the mirror world's barrier and Julie being too preoccupied with her prayer to notice them.

He used an item that allowed him to traverse the mirror world and escape back to the real mausoleum.

The only difference was, Julie, who hadn't fully completed her divine descent, targeted Lumian instead of Albus, allowing him to escape while he couldn't.

Why were you watching me? You should've focused on sealing the entire world. Then no one could've escaped! Lumian mentally cursed Julie, realizing that he must have activated the Mirror Cufflink just before his thoughts completely turned to stone, which saved him.

But as he checked, he realized something was wrong.

The Mirror Cufflink still had two uses left!

He hadn't used the Beyonder item at all!

Wh- Could Archbishop Heraberg secretly have helped me? After all, gods need special arrangements to descend a fraction of their power into Morola's underground mausoleum. It's unlikely an external entity intervened suddenly... It couldn't be Julie, who suddenly felt how kind I was as a boss and pushed me out of the mirror world at the last moment, could it? Lumian decided to put these thoughts aside for now.

Now wasn't the time to seek the truth!

There were still many dangers ahead!

He glanced at Albus, noticing the Red Angel's descendant studying him through the eyes of the surrounding undead soldiers.

Indeed, Albus didn't attack me just now, not because he didn't want to, but because he had concerns. My actions exceeded his expectations, and my escape was full of mysteries. He feared acting rashly might trigger a trap... Lumian's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change in the sky.

Julie, wearing a long slit dress, appeared in the dimly lit sky.

Lumian's scalp tingled.

She's still alive and in the divine descent state?

He quickly noticed Julie's figure was unusually transparent, and the sapphire ring on her left hand was gone.

Phew... He heard Albus Medici sigh in relief.

Julie lowered her head and gazed at the top of the corpse mountain.

Following her gaze, Lumian saw a two to three meter tall iron-black metal pole with a charred banner at the top. The banner was covered in dark red and black bloodstains.

Just a glance made Lumian feel dizzy, his neck inexplicably stinging, and the smell of blood seeped from various parts of his face and forehead.

0-01? Salinger's Blood Banner? My corruption has deepened... It seems I don't need to finish reading all the remaining books. Mastering the current one should be enough... I can't rely on such direct corruption to save time; it's easy to surpass the critical point... Lumian quickly averted his gaze, noticing Celeste standing not far from the banner.

The Demoness, wearing a black robe, was looking down at the spot where the iron-black metal pole was embedded in the top of the corpse mountain.

The next second, she sensed something, raised her head, and looked at Julie in the sky.

Julie's lips curled into a beautiful and radiant smile.

She parted her moist lips as if to say, "I'll leave it to you."

In an instant, Lumian saw Julie's figure rapidly fade and shrink, turning into a puddle of filthy blood.

The blood, only palm-sized, fell straight down.

Its target was the charred banner of 0-01, seemingly to become one of the many bloodstains on it.

Celeste finally snapped out of her daze and shouted in pain, "Julie!"

At that moment, Albus's expression changed slightly. He transformed into a long spear of blazing white with a hint of blue flames, shooting towards the banner in mid-air.

He seemed unwilling to let Julie's remaining blood stain the charred banner.

You're finally putting in some effort... Lumian muttered, not rushing to follow Albus to the top of the corpse mountain to leave a mark or stop him and Celeste.

He planned to "join" after Albus and Celeste had fought for a while.

Of course, Lumian could see that Albus valued Julie's blood and didn't want it to become a mark on the 0-01 banner. If Albus didn't perform well and failed to stop the blood from reaching its intended spot, Lumian would teleport to help in time.

Seizing this rare opportunity, Lumian took an item from his Traveler's Bag.

It wasn't the Sword of Courage but the Devil's Whispers bone ring from Hisoka.