Chapter 340: Fin

Whenever Baiyi left after dropping off more survivors, the others in the black castle would feel explosive clashes, massive mana undulations, and loud claps of thunder emanating from within the black smog far away, which would then cause the earth to quake. Although they had not seen the battle in detail, their imaginations had run wild already; the battles they imagined could be classified as one-in-a-century.

Imitating the maiden cleric, many survivors fell on their knees and began to pray for Hope, wishing that he would win over the enemy — the strongest enemy they had ever seen. If Hope did not survive the ordeal, they — a bunch of people who had lost the will to fight — would end up getting massacred by the realm guardians!

A few of them had offered to help Baiyi, but they had no idea how they were going to do that. The news of the death of the three demigods had reached them. These demigods were the sharpest tools in the shed, yet they had fallen to the guardians. The survivors who were strong enough to fight had terrible injuries, while those who were uninjured and standing were the survivors who were not powerful enough to battle. Thus, all the survivors could do at that moment was quietly remain in the castle and wait.

“Maybe God heard us?”

A figure limped over from the smog; it was their heroic soul armature, whose armor was battered and dented. As he limped back to the castle, heartfelt cheers permeated the air, and the emotional survivors went over to welcome him.

Baiyi arrived with news that was more positive than what they had hoped for. “Those guardians… were too powerful. I had to use up everything I possessed, yet all I did was… cripple them a bit, temporarily stopping them from moving. I couldn’t kill them, though, and as we speak, their injuries are already healing. They are going to come after us once they are healed…”

“W-what are we going to do?” The survivors began to panic. Their demigods were gone, and the only person who could battle the guardians, Baiyi, had suffered grave damages; the guardians were still alive, however. Will they all die there?

“Don’t worry; I managed to buy us some time,” Baiyi said, hurriedly. “During our battle, I was able to obtain some information from them. Their mission is to protect a secret treasure within this black castle, but I don’t know what it is. However, if we can get our hands on the treasure, we would be able to escape.”

“W-will there not be even more guardians lurking inside this creepy castle?” The maiden cleric, who had become Baiyi’s biggest fan at some point, asked.

“I doubt that. If there were more here, they should have attacked us already… ah! Haven’t all of you been hiding in here? Did any of you notice anything strange?” Baiyi turned to her and asked.

The girl shook her head sideways.

“Then, that settles it. The three demigod powerhouses must have helped us obliterate most of the guardians, and now I was barely able to temporarily immobilize the rest. Our only hope for survival is to search this castle for that treasure.”

“We’re all ears!” The cleric girl spoke out loud.

“Good! Alright; everyone, follow me into the castle!” Baiyi said, with a wave of his hand, then he levitated himself over the high wall of the black castle. The others used their own techniques and breached the castle’s grounds as well.

Immediately after the survivors scaled the castle wall, the realm quaked as powerful mana undulations surged forth from somewhere in the distance. Worse still, the tremors had become stronger, and everything the terrifying mana surges seemed to be slowly getting closer to their position. The guardians had recovered and were on the move again.

The survivors freaked out; it was as though the end of the world was nigh. It took all Baiyi had just to calm the panic group down and maintain order.

“Everyone, do not panic! We will split up here and try to look for clues that lead us to the treasure, for the time we have left is very limited. Come on, this is our only chance!” Baiyi hollered and grabbed a communication slab from his inner pocket.

He handed it over to the maiden cleric, who had been walking by his side and staring at him with stary eyes. “I’m going out to buy us some more time. If you guys found anything important, use this to let me know.”

“But… your wounds!” The girl hugged the slab tightly and looked at Baiyi with concern. “I should… I should come along with you!”

“It’s going to be alright. Remember, I’m just a Soul Armature,” Baiyi replied, and he patted her head gently. “You have such a rich caramel-colored hair. It’ll be a waste if you don’t make it out of this.”

After that, he took off into the air and flew off in the direction of the powerful mana surges. The maiden cleric watched him fly off and hugged the slab even harder.

She had no idea that Hope who she so greatly admired had landed beside the three Divine Warrior without meeting any harm. “Alright, this is good enough.I’m gonna send you guys back to the real world first. I’ll meet you all at the manor later.”

The barbarians nodded before Huskar asked, “But, Brother Hope, after this many twists and turns… have you actually found your thing?”

Baiyi nodded lightly. “To be honest, I found it immediately we entered here. The other things we did are set-ups, which would prevent us from suffering in the future.”

“I really don’t understand you…” Huskar muttered as his vision blurred before darkening completely. When he saw light again, he found himself standing in the villagers’ cornfield.

‘Should I bring some corncobs back to Harrogath for the others?’ Huskar began to ponder about this problem, which he considered more important.

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Baiyi had Huskar told the truth. As soon as he stepped foot into the unique dimension, he realized that it was the Book of Servitude. In other words, the only item that could govern and manipulate this realm was the Book of Servitude itself. The moment Baiyi activated his Territory and entered the realm, he became the new owner of the Book of Servitude.

It was just as his teacher had said: Baiyi would definitely be able to claim his birthright the instant he got there.

As for the passing of authoritative powers between the abdicated emperor and his heir? It had already been done a long, long time ago — even before the book had resurfaced. It was done the moment this strange pocket dimension accepted Baiyi’s control.

The Archmage had not lied to him. It really was as simple as he had made it out to be.

The Archmage had only put on a show of the whole thing after taking into consideration the future plans to the Voidwalkers and Baiyi’s character. He wished for his student, Baiyi, to ascend the throne in front of a bustling crowd of spectators. Although Rohserl was no more, the great empire would never die as long as her emperor still existed.

The Archmage, however, had not expected his student to pull off even more tricks in order to gain more out of what he had set up, turning the entire inauguration ceremony into a carnival.

In fact, Baiyi had been able to change the landscape of the realm because he already inherited control over the Book of Servitude. With the book under his control, Baiyi was able to cause a black castle to emerge and simulate waves of powerful mana to frighten the survivors. These were ‘simple tricks’ that just so happened to require a massive amount of formations that only the Book of Servitude contained. In fact, at this moment, the only thing he couldn’t do with the book was create life; other than that little blemish, he was pretty much invincible.

The entire small realm was his Territory.

‘What an invincible, undefeatable divine item…’ Baiyi stifled tears when he witnessed the power of the Book of Servitude. Suddenly, a message from his communication slab interrupted his thoughts; it was from the maiden cleric. A gravedigger, who nicknamed himself ‘the scholar’, had discovered a hidden underground basement where the treasure was most likely hidden. Hope had to return at once.

“I made that place too obvious, yet it’s taken you guys this long to discover it. Sheesh, the gravedigging and tombraiding community of nowadays is really not up to par,” Baiyi mumbled in a low voice. He stimulated a few more mana surges and earth tremors before heading back to the black castle.

All the survivors were in that basement, searching through heaps and heaps of old items for anything that looked like it could be the treasure. They did not stumble upon any golden chests filled with gold and rare jewels, however; all they found were darkened metal sheets, which may have once been money, black rocks that may have once been gems, and aged armor and weapons, which shattered into powder at a single touch.

The mana surges and tremors continued to rock the small realm, so the frightened survivors searched around in a frenzy. Only the maiden cleric noticed Baiyi return.

“There’s no telling how long these things have been here for! And look at how badly they were cared for… it’s all junk now, except for that elusive treasure!” The gravedigger, who found the basement, lamented loudly.

“But whaur is it? Whaur is d’at treasure?!” A Northerner, who had lost half of his left arm, gripped the gravedigger by the collar ¹ and began to shake him frantically. “Dae ye e’en see anythin’ ‘at looks like treasure?”

“How am I supposed to bloody know?” The gravedigger snapped, pushing the Northern’s hand off. “This castle is too big; who knows how many more vaults like this one are in it!”

“Then, aren’t we just wasting time? Wasting the time Master Hope has used his precious life to buy for us?” Someone hollered.

“All of you, stop this right now!” Baiyi bellowed. “I have set up a formation to trap those guardians, so now we have even more time on our hands. But first, we need to calm down!”

“… It’s Master Hope! He’s back!”

“Master Hope, what should we do now? This place is too big, and the treasure is still missing…”

“Fie, fie, fie! I’m going to die here!”

The crowd began to clamor in fear and panic, losing their cool pretty quickly.

Upon seeing the crowd, who now thought they were on the brink of annihilation, panic, Baiyi knew it was time. He quickly climbed a tall dias nearby and said, “Do not panic, all of you! Just look through the things around you. I’m sure the treasure must be here somewhere!”

Then, he jumped down to the ground and began to search. In a few moments, he dramatically picked up a dusty, big black book.

Unlike the other items in the basement, this book did not turn to dust; instead, when Baiyi picked it up, it began to glow with a golden brilliance!

“The treasure!” Someone cried out.

“It’s glowing! That must it! Master Hope has found the treasure! We should now be free to leave here!”

The survivors cheered loudly. With the threat of sudden death hanging over them, leaving them sanity on the precipice of collapse, they no longer cared how valuable the treasure was; no one even questioned why Baiyi seemed to have as much luck as the devil himself.