Chapter 1577: Chapter 1159: Illusory Promise

In Ash’s Heavenly Kingdom of Souls, a spherical wonder composed of six concentric rings operates continuously. The innermost is a silver ring, the second a gold ring, the third a colorful ring, the fourth a colorless ring, the fifth a gradient ring, with only the sixth ring damaged and incomplete. If you look closely, you will find each layer of rings is engraved with tiny Technique Spirit text, totaling over ten thousand words, more than Ash knows.

The six rings rotate in different directions, and the pure white flame at the core flickers like a beating heart. Each second, different words light up on the rings: the silver ring displays "Time," the gold ring "Location," the colorful ring "Main Character," the colorless ring "Supporting Character," the fifth layer "Event Content," and the sixth ring seldom lights up any words.

The Substitute and other Four-winged Technique Spirits squat beneath the spherical wonder, intently watching the words on the rings, like a group of children in class.

This was the critical moment when the Black Descent Hell was about to be submerged by a great flood, yet Death Mad still demanded Ash to seize the wonder from the Necromancy Ark—"Illusory Promise"!

At that time, Ash could tell from Death Mad’s slightly excited tone that this wonder was extraordinary. Luckily, Ash realized he had found a treasure only when he returned to reality, otherwise, in his excitement, he might have kissed Death Mad more than once.

"Illusory Promise"

"Unique · Fate · Wonder"

"Active Effect · Promise: Transforms the target’s fate into illusion for 10 seconds. Delays all statuses of the target until the illusion ends (including healing, enhancement, curse, etc.), and all damage impacts received during the illusion will be settled after the illusion ends."

"Limited Effect · Faithful: Can only be activated on targets in illusion state, granting the target continuous life healing for 10 seconds. Overflow life healing forms a fate barrier, used solely to offset delayed original statuses and damage settlement. The healing effect is linearly related to the caster’s Soul Foundation, and each activation of Faithful consumes the caster’s Soul Foundation by 1 palace."

"Passive Effect · Awakening: When Illusory Promise is in the Magic Temple, the Technique Spirits within the temple will slowly evolve, increasing the possibility of Technique Spirits advancing to Divine Beings."

Speaking of which, the famous three mysterious factions of Fate, Prophetic, and Truth; Weiser is of the Truth Faction, Vishi is of the Prophetic Faction, and only the Fate Faction has not yet been collected by Ash. Even the only mage Ash knows who masters the Fate Faction is the current number one, seated in the seventh layer of the Void Realm, the Dazzling Star Supreme of all ages, but even she merely masters it, not excels in it.

Among other Divine Lords, only the All-knowing Weaver also seems to master the Fate Faction. Now, as Ash looks back, he realizes that the Gospel List is the result of the All-knowing Weaver deducing fate through prophecy, so even if the All-knowing Weaver doesn’t master the Fate Faction, he can at least simulate the power of fate.

Previously, Ash never knew the specific difference between the Prophetic Faction and the Fate Faction, feeling they were similar, both wanting to control the future. But from the Fate Wonder "Illusory Promise," Ash finally glimpsed the two completely different perspectives of these magic factions—

Prophecy is "I see what the future is like, then change the future into what I want," while fate is "I feel what the future is like, then assign the future to be what I want it."

"An invincible state lasting ten seconds." Diya gasps at her pineapple juice, "Even if it’s not used for healing, just using it to assist in battle can decide the outcome."

Weiser asks, "Is the damage settlement a single instantaneous damage?"

Ash immediately senses her thought, "It should be. We should test it when we have the chance; it might synergize with my Refraction Protection."

A ten-second state of not fearing any damage means you can output freely within this period, forcing the opponent to either flee or fight to the death. Even if Ash doesn’t activate the limited effect Faithful for healing, the recipient can still calmly prepare a defense wonder to withstand the settlement damage within ten seconds. If combined with Ash’s Refraction Protection, it’s even more outrageous—whether it’s massive damage or minor damage, it only consumes one Refraction Protection!

Everyone envisions the scene in their minds: Ash casts Illusory Promise on the Sword Maiden, who battles the enemy for ten seconds. The enemy is nearly half-dead, while the unharmed Sword Maiden accumulates massive damage enough to be fatal. But before the settlement, Ash casts Refraction Protection on the Sword Maiden, and thus, the massive damage enough to melt a Demigod is offset by consuming just one Refraction Protection. Even if the enemy isn’t slain by the Sword Maiden, witnessing this scene would infuriate them.

"Disabling curses temporarily is more important than you imagine," Vishi says, "If Ash had this wonder earlier, he wouldn’t have needed two months to slowly recuperate his soul body. In fact, the Shadow Sword curse, a curse targeting the soul, is one of the few that can self-heal; with other magic factions, it might always persist, becoming a permanent curse if no treatment is found."

"Most Demigods carry one or two curses at least; they may live worse than mortals. If a curse severely affects them and no treatment is found, a Demigod might have to abandon their soul body to survive. But this is the price of immortality; the soul body frees us from lifespan limitations while subjecting us to more severe life hardships."

"Even without using the limited effect Faithful, just dispelling curses temporarily with illusion gives us more room to operate. We can use various means to offset or weaken the curses, not to mention Ash can initiate Faithful to help us completely dispel curses and resist damage," Vishi says, "This is enough to fundamentally change our combat style—soul bodies are easy to injure and hard to heal, other Demigods inevitably focus on defense to avoid getting hurt, but we can attack boldly without concerns."

"Though activating Faithful consumes 1 palace of Soul Foundation." Sonia hesitates, "This shouldn’t be used as a regular treatment method, right?"

Vishi is a bit speechless, "Our Magic Temples are all above 1000 palaces, and Ash has six layers of the Heavenly Kingdom of Souls, each larger than our Magic Temples... Ordinary Demigods’ Magic Temples have only about a hundred palaces, so consuming 1 palace is indeed painful for them. After all, expanding a Magic Temple is challenging, using it is like cutting a piece of flesh, but for Ash..."

"It’s less than what he consumed last night." Diya provides an accurate description.

"But Illusory Promise isn’t without restrictions." Ash promptly steers the topic back, "Not to mention the massive consumption of Source Power, the wonder itself can’t be used continuously; forcing its use could cause the wonder to collapse. This is a unique wonder almost capable of forming a secret realm, but once it’s gone, it’s gone forever."

As he mentions this, Ash can’t help but feel a bit regretful. Illusory Promise existed for thousands of years on the Necromancy Ark. When its sixth ring is finally complete, it might form a new secret realm, a fate secret realm. But since Ash put it into his Heavenly Kingdom, it has completely lost the potential to advance to a secret realm and can only be the unique wonder it is.

Since Ash took the best wonder, no one raised any objections about the distribution of the remaining wonders.

Sonia took "Watery Moon" and "Biting Cold", both wonders recommended by Death Mad, the former being a water sword wonder and the latter a water magic wonder interpreting swordsmanship using frost. However, she didn’t choose the "Sword Garb" Ash prepared for her, opting instead for a water magic mobility wonder called "Wave Trace".

Diya chose the unique wonder "Warm Winter" and the fire magic wonder "Blazing Flames". The former interprets the heart with snow and wind, perfect for Diya who is a magic cannon; the latter is just an ordinary intermediate wonder with the effect of wrapping the body in flames, yet Diya mentioned she had some peculiar inspiration believing this wonder pairs well with the Witch’s domain.

Vishi only took the soul wonder "Exile" but requested to dismantle three water magic wonders as she needed the Technique Spirit within them. Unlike Ash and the other newcomers, Vishi, as an ancient player reopening her account, has plenty of wonder techniques herself and only needs materials without requiring finished products from others.

"’Watery Moon’ also fits your combat system very well." Sonia said, "Once I finish researching it, I’ll give it to you. I’ll construct a new wonder for myself."

"Why don’t you help me construct a new wonder?" Ash blinked, "You’ve changed, you don’t want to put in the effort for me anymore."

"Because I need to keep the best for myself; you only get the wonders I don’t want." Sonia said unkindly, "You disagree?"

"Tsk." Ash thought it best to plead with the Sword Maiden privately since her resistance is high in public.

Felix watched from the side, naturally understanding that the Sword Maiden wanted to pass the "Watery Moon" wonder to Ash soon, while Ash hoped she would keep it... They’re a peculiar team, where the captain controlling resources wants to distribute resources as much as possible to the operators, and the operators hope the captain keeps more resources for themselves... Is this because they’re lovers, caring so much for each other?

No, they must be both lovers and companions for such a situation to arise. Because lovers are empathetic to each other’s hardships, and companions understand each other’s difficulties. Without the understanding, empathy won’t be proactive; without empathy, understanding is just torment; mutual empathy and understanding are indispensable.

But can this tenderness really last forever? Can they maintain this in both adversity and prosperity?

Felix suddenly understood why Ash insisted on sharing the essence of knowledge with others... Although Ash couldn’t articulate it, deep down he’s afraid the girls won’t understand him, so he has to pull them together to advance.

Did Father pull Beverly and Mother to progress together?

"Well," Dedarose asked, "where is the next destination?"

"We’ve retraced the path through Senluo I traveled before." Ash said, "Now, I’ll search the Transcend Building in the next couple of days, and then..."

"Only the Silent Spiral remains."

The atmosphere grew quiet suddenly, Sonia and the others looked at Weiser, lips moved but they hesitated to speak. Weiser suddenly asked, "Is the Gospel Divine Being ready?"

"Ready, the formula to access the Gospel Sky Gate has been calculated." Diya promptly replied, "However, the space storms in Senluo are frequent, and even if the ordinary Sky Gate is successfully constructed, it’s likely to collapse..."

"I’ll resolve it as soon as possible." Weiser stood up, "I’ve finished eating; I’m off to cultivate, see you tonight."

Without waiting for a response, Weiser transformed into a stream of light and disappeared.

Sonia sighed, turned to find Ash gazing at her eagerly, hands clasped in a request, "May I go chat with Silver Lamp?"

The Sword Saint extended his paw in a conflicted gesture, reluctantly saying after a while, "Go ahead."

"No, I won’t allow it." The Witch huffed, "You’re definitely not just going to chat."

"Objection overruled, if you keep arguing, I’ll smack your backside."

"You only care about the Sword Maiden..." The Witch suddenly realized, "Are you really going to do it?"

"Hold on a second." Dedarose called out to Ash, heading to the kitchen to fetch a plate of cream cake, "Silver Lamp hasn’t had her dessert after dinner; take it to her while you’re there, Observable."