Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Under attack from four people, Ye Qingxuan did not know why, but the cold was getting more and more piercing.
The pressure that the Saint, who had never gotten involved before, was putting on him was getting greater and greater. He felt prickles down his back, making it difficult for him to focus on responding to them.
Waves of aether swept out one after another between the five of them. First attack then counter, defend and move. All kinds of movements and music theory were tangled together in one place, forming a chaotic network. A little bit of carelessness could have disastrous results.
Facing this kind of war of attrition, where he had to both pay attention to the overall situation as well as focus on every detail made Ye Qingxuan more and more uneasy. They had wanted to drag him here to separate him from the incarnation of Leviathan so as to destroy them both.
This place was not the Anglo Kingdom.
The longer the delay, the more terrible the Asgardian counterattack became. He needed to solve this problem quickly.
So… Ye Qingxuan delayed, and suddenly, all his defenses were removed. Without any regard for the Saints surrounding him, he turned around and lept dozens of meters.
He closed in on Mahler!
In that instant, he saw the Saint’s eyes go wide. He lifted the New Testament sword and aimed it for Mahler’s heart, unconcerned about the other Saint’s in full force behind him. The blade cut through layer after layer of defense and collided with his robes that were clearly holy objects. Violent turbulence burst forth with an ear-piercing sound. A narrow slit was torn in the holy vestments. The blade pierced through, igniting his blood and sticking out his back.
At the same time, Verdi, Puccini, and Telemann attacked Ye Qingxuan from behind together. His body was shocked, and he felt his Scepter shaking violently and the Heaven Ladder was nearly severed.
He had traded a wound for a life.
One down!
Ye Qingxuan did not have to worry about Mahler anymore. He had no time to wipe the blood from his face as he turned to face the enemies who pressed him hard, but he stopped suddenly.
The New Testament Sword stayed in place.
He couldn’t pull it out…
He turned in shock to see Mahler’s indifferent face, as well as the blazing aether glowing in his eyes.
At that moment, Mahler awakened the inheritance of the Holy Name.
Das Lied von der Erde! The rich melody rang out from his body, wrapping itself around the New Testament Sword layer by layer. All of Mahler’s music theory turned into an abstinence lock. It was a 1,600 layer path of commandment. From inside and out he used himself as a seal to shackle the New Testament Sword!
This was not a last minute decision, it was more like…
It was premeditated!
Ye Qingxuan’s eyes widened, and then he sensed the three violent waves of aether behind him.
The inheritance of the holy name!
Verdi, Pucci, and Telemann set of their holy name inheritances at the same time!
Without regard for Ye Qingxuan’s hurried counterattack, Verdi stepped forward and placed his palm on Ye Qingxuan’s forehead. In a flash, it seemed as if Ye Qingxuan had been stripped from his own body. After a short period of dizziness and weightlessness, everything before his eyes was distorted. A huge phantom engulfed him and dragged him into its belly.
Numerous bright images flashed before his eyes.
A soft, cheerful song rang out, and a warm wind blew from a fireplace. A crystal chandelier illuminated the magnificent hall as the band carefully played the dance music and countless figures danced to it.
Ye Qingxuan looked around dumbfoundedly and saw that everyone was wearing a pure white mask that looked to be both laughing and crying. They grabbed at him, pulled at him, inviting him to join in this joyous masquerade.
Illusions…
He was surrounded by illusions, and they were pulling him into a world of nothingness.
It was like at that moment he had been split up into multiple individuals. He was Ye Qingxuan fighting a battle; he was Armand, one who was infatuated with glamorous courtesans; he was Nebuchadnezzar II, the tyrannical emperor; he was Rigaretto, a hunchbacked court jester, he was Carlos, Prince in spite of himself…
He was a civilian… He was a beggar… He was a mother… He was a son of a concubine…
He seemed to be shuttled through countless lives in an instant, but he knew it was an illusion. He could still see himself fighting in Asgard. He could see Puccini coming towards him.
He wanted to fight back, but he couldn’t figure out which one was him, which one could fight back, or of his 100,000 selves, which one was where.
The prince pulled out his sword to kill the emperor and was taken prisoner; the jester assassinated the duke and was beheaded in public; the emperor went mad and was murdered by his guards…
Countless selves, countless defeats, and the mocking laughter of countless people assailed him.
Just before him, Verdi staggered to the ground, burned to ashes by this illusion that required all his body and all his spirit.
Puccini drew closer and placed his hand on Ye Qingxuan’s chest. Music theory extended through his heart into the projection of the Net of Aether. He was a Saint of the Sacred City, but his music theory was completely different from that of the West. It was more like the Bloodline of the Dragon!
A… Deva!? Ye Qingxuan raised his head with difficulty and saw his golden hair fade in the raging music theory and become pale white. His dark green eyes burned up in the fire and became black as coal.
The inheritance of the Saint forcibly corrected his bloodlines, and next, his core music theory let loose…
Turandot!
The power of the Saint was forcibly transformed into the talent of the Ye family bloodline.
Countless streams of silver light became lines of thought that were carried by the Net of Aether. It was the Heaven Ladder! Bypassing Ye Qingxuan, Puccini forcibly resonated with the Net of Aether, opening up a gate to the core of the catastrophe. Finally, Telemann stepped forth and, burning the power of Puccini, weaved the music theory in his hands into a movement.
A way of deciphering!
Ye Qingxuan felt his whole body go cold.
The music theory that flowed from Telemann’s hands came from the same source as his own. No, his way of deciphering had absolutely no differences from his own!
The intervals, structures, techniques, and even the ideas were in all in Ye Qingxuan’s style—very pronounced. If it hadn’t been Ye Qingxuan distinguishing them, anyone else would have thought that he was the one who had created them!
Telemann was copying his music theory.
No, at this point it wasn’t even copying, it was blatant plagiarism!
Numerous movements flowed through the interface that Puccini had opened and into the Net of Aether. Once they entered, instruments of harmonious melody wildly duplicated them, spread them out, and transmitted them…
It was like a worm that had penetrated into the stomach, or a virus that had spread into a lesion. Numerous movements changed rapidly, and music theory alternated wildly. In a flash, red lights were flashing on half the instruments of harmonious melody and they stopped responding.
They had probably shut down as they overheated from being overworked.
Finally, the movements responded to the same call and gathered at the core of the Net of Aether. Complicated music theory was drawn out of the movements and organized itself. It was like worker ants working hard to gather materials from all over the place.
A force completely different from those cumbersome movements emerged from within. The elements responded and descended from the realm of aether, outlining the core of the inheritance of the Saint and the true name of the movement.
The Final Judgement.
Even this piece of music was a complete copy of The Day of God’s Fury!
It was just like the legend where the army hidden in the Trojan horse was sent into the heavily guarded city.
The movement that was just like the Day of God’s Fury ignited a magnificent glow. It burned from the inside out like fire burning firewood, frantically destroying the structure of the Net of Aether…
Ye Qingxuan finally understood why these four Saints working together were only a little more powerful than a regular Saint.
It was because their holy name inheritance was not created according to the standards of the Saints!
They had forsaken almost everything that they did not need, and strengthened the important parts. If the four of them were separated, they would be nothing. Only when they were together could they be the fatal blow that the Sacred City had deliberately designed to kill Ye Qingxuan.
With Mahler sealing off the New Testament Sword, Verdi making him unable to fight back, Puccini forcibly transforming his power to resonate with the Net of Aether and open its interfaces, and Telemann imitating his music theory and habits to temporarily compose a movement, all his defenses were bypassed. They were causing the greatest damage to the Net of Aether from the inside out. If he had guessed correctly, there would still be a killing move, one that would forever eliminate any hidden dangers.
This was worthy of the Sacred City. This was worthy of the Church.
They had a lot of manpower and production capacity, so they could afford to gamble and make a forcible trade. After indulging Ye Qingxuan for so long, they had finally found his weakness and struck a killing blow.
They would trade the lives of four Saints for his.
For the first time in his life, Ye Qingxuan felt that someone thought highly of him.
He began to wonder, when had the Sacred City started preparing all of this?
Was it from the moment he built the New Testament Sword? When the New World had appeared? From the day that he had completed the Net of Aether? Or had it been the night when he had refused the Sacred City’s awards and headed to the Anglo Kingdom?
Or who was it prepared for?
Was it Ye Qingxuan’s Net of Aether or Ye Lanzhou’s Hecatoncheir?
“This is worthy of the Church.” He laughed hoarsely as he felt the ridiculousness of the situation. “This is worthy of the Sacred City!”
Far away Leviathan roared. The incarnation of the catastrophe no longer paid attention to Odin. It wanted to rush over heedless of its own safety, but it was stopped by the divine armor that was driven by the old musician.
Under Gungnir’s blockade, the King of the Seven Seas was both wrathful and sorrowful.
“Ye Qingxuan, the Sacred City is your enemy now, just as you wished. This is the farewell that they asked me to bring to you.” Mahler stared at him with feverish eyes. “May you and your despicable heretical creation vanish from this world!”
Ye Qingxuan was stunned. He snorted with laughter at this joke. “My creation? No no no no, you’ve made a mistake…”
Ignoring Telemann’s wanton destruction of the Net of Aether, Ye Qingxuan laughed hoarsely and corrected Mahler, “I never created anything. Not the New Testament Sword, not the Net of Aether, even the Land of Dreams is the result of the Ye family’s millennium dream. The Net of Aether is indeed under my control. It is of my manufacture, and is the structure of my strength, but in fact, its real designer is not me. Long before its birth, its core music theory and underlying alchemy arrays had already been completed. The one who created it was a sloppy, disgusting guy who no one liked, but he had never once been unreliable when it came to creativity. As far as I know, in terms of pure talent, there was no one in the world who could compare with him. If I had designed the Net of Aether, then I’m afraid that, right now, I’d truly be at my wit’s end. But do you think that that guy wouldn’t have made any preparations for your tricks?”
At that moment, the outflow layer, the formation layer, the creation layer, and the final activation layer collapsed.
In the depths of the Net of Aether, the creator’s name outlined in elements emerged.
Hermes!
