Chapter 384: Competition

The forest environment once again became twisted. Shengnai was even able to see parts of the real hall flashing in his vision; most likely, it was getting a bit tough for Life Bearer to maintain this entire domain.

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Mequik was essentially fighting against all the other Righteous Gods by herself, even with a home-field advantage, it wouldn’t be easy for her.

Although the Mana Fetus was most likely supposed to be a trap, if the one who made the trap couldn’t even convince themselves, how could they convince immortal foxes like the other Righteous Gods?

With a loud shriek and a large number of discontinuous cries, the Mana Fetus reappeared in the forest, Lisa had most likely returned to her body.

The strands of thread that restrained her gigantic body snapped one by one, numerous humanoid creatures could be seen struggling within her bloated body.

They were those who had been through rebirth before.

The Mana Fetus’ rebirthing process didn’t have a guaranteed chance of success, so barely anyone had managed to survive the rebirth. And even if they survived, the only thing they gained was an improvement of their talents while everything else remained exactly the same, including their lifespans. Eventually, they would still lose their lives.

After dying, all of them would then return to the Mana Fetus’ stomach.

And now, these people had all become Lisa’s puppets, falling under her control as a bunch of abnormal existences that the House of Mages called the Withered.

Lisa’s home was destroyed, she was sealed for over a thousand years, her body was modified into a pseudo weapon, her immense accumulated grudge instantly erupted to fill the entire room; ironically, practically everyone in this place could be considered her enemy.

The Seven Gods destroyed her home, the Great Magus captured and modified her, the mages considered her nothing but a rebirthing device and a mana generator, every last person. Even Guangnai’s group wanted to take advantage of her, not to mention how they were allied with her enemy Eternal Heat. Even the ones who weren’t originally her enemies were now after the Divine Artifact inside her body.

[Enemies as far as the eye can see]

This accurately depicted Lisa’s current circumstances, so she couldn’t contain the grudge accumulated through the last thousand-odd years and immediately began destroying everything with her full power.

Like true tidal waves, her mana surged forward to envelop everything around her. The Withered inside her body were also sent out towards every living being in the vicinity. The lives of these monsters had already been taken by the Mana Fetus, but they weren’t allowed to die, they had essentially been suffering the constant torture of death, making them hold an unconditional grudge towards all living beings.

This was why they immediately attacked every living being they could sense with reckless abandon as soon as they were released.

Shengnai’s body was still enveloped by the layer of flesh cocoon from earlier. Vitality mana was constantly coursing through the flesh cocoon to modify it, gradually turning it into the incubation chamber for Shengnai’s second Divine Embryo.

The Great Bear Druid had already returned to human form. His previous triple overlayed transformation had taken a great toll on him, not to mention being literally cut in half. Although he survived thanks to being healed in time, he appeared like he was drained by succubi despite his large frame.

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When the mana tide surged towards him, a large number of Withered attacked Shengnai due to the large amount of vitality mana circling around his body.

As they had been ‘incubating’ inside the Mana Fetus this entire time, their bodies had been greatly altered. While they lost their spellcasting abilities from when they were still alive, they had instead gained resistance against mana. The majority of spells would have no effect against the Withered and would instead stimulate them to become more violent.

The few who managed to survive the residue of the Righteous Gods’ clash earlier were now being killed by the Withered. After all, aside from the knights of the Churches and other unique Schools of magic, most Mystics fought using spells.

On the other hand, the Withered were practically soldiers created to kill mages; aside from their mana resistance, they could also easily rip through any mana defense with their claws.

Observing the Withered rushing towards him, Shengnai noticed that these things’ lives seemed to have remained with the Mana Fetus. If Shengnai wanted to use the Vitality Siphon formation to absorb their vitality mana and destroy their life structure, he must apply his ability on the Mana Fetus, otherwise, these things would only be at most injured, not collapse completely.

After the [Life Structure Lock] that Guangnai created, Shengnai had discovered another weakness of his absorbing ability: He had very few methods to fatally damage puppets whose life essence were under the control of others.

However, this was simply how the world was. Wanting a single ability to be able to resolve every issue was impractical, as everything had its strengths and shortcomings. What Shengnai needed to do was to triumph and overcome these shortcomings by every possible means.

〖 Existence Release! 〗

The veins in Shengnai’s hands shot out and accurately struck every Withered rushing towards him, using them as mediums to unleash the golden sphere’s ability on the Withered.

Their bodies then abruptly began to evolve. The golden sphere’s ability was [Lord of Evolution], which provided a positive effect most of the time, but for these puppets whose essence wasn’t under their control, this type of evolution was taboo.

The Withered’s bodies quickly began to evolve, but instead of manifesting as an outward change, the very first thing to happen was their life essences waking up. They instinctively resisted against the Mana Fetus, attempting to retrieve the ability to control themselves from her.

Consequently, this created a gap in the puppet and puppeteer connection, allowing Shengnai to step in and use his Vitality Siphon formation, causing their bodies to immediately collapse.

The Withered were never the real issue, the most urgent problem had always been who the Mana Fetus Lisa belonged to.

Although Lisa managed to escape her restraints and was seemingly rampaging as she pleased, there were at least 5 Righteous Gods here. Even if they were only clones, any of them could easily suppress Lisa; the only reason why she was allowed to rampage right now was that the Righteous Gods were wary of one another.

Suddenly, Lisa’s presence rapidly deflated. This inexplicable rapid deflation caused Shengnai’s gaze to focus. A Righteous God had definitely acted, but there were two possible candidates for such an undetectable action.

The first was Concealed Demise, an entity at the same level of power as Eternal Heat and Life Bearer who represented unclear deaths and assassinations. The second was The Unreachable Gate.

Having not synchronized his information with Guangnai yet, Shengnai didn’t know the properties of The Unreachable Gate, so he assumed it was either him or Concealed Demise through what he knew.

However, the other Righteous Gods weren’t the same. Having invaded the Moon Tree world with The Unreachable Gate, they quickly recognized the signs of The Unreachable Gate.

This was the most passive entity among the Seven Gods, his unique characteristics ensured that he would never fight head-on, only silently absorbing from those weaker than himself to add onto his Pathway.

Noticing this, the other Righteous Gods acted one after another. Just like before, Mequik was the one who acted the rashest; after all, within this trap that she had sprung, the so-called Divine Artifact belonged to her, which was also a pivotal item for manipulating the Great Magus.

A fat greyish white tentacle suddenly sprouted from the ground and grabbed the Mana Fetus Lisa’s head.