Mequik had manifested her true form. Her upper half was that of a feminine loving mother, while her lower half was a number of thick grey tentacles, the same form that Mequik had displayed around the Moon Tree world.
At this point, she was over 10 meters tall and one of her tentacles had reached out to grab the Mana Fetus’ head. Very obviously, something inside the Mana Fetus’ belly began to struggle after Mequik appeared. The aura of a Pathway related to Life began to radiate from that something, an aura that not even the Mana Fetus’ body was able to isolate.
“Scion of Life”
This aura caused the Righteous Gods at the scene to no longer be in an observational state and decided to fully manifest their Pathways. As they did that, a number of blood-colored fireworks splattered all over to add to this scene.
The bloody fireworks were from the heads of the last few survivors exploding. There might have been a not inconsiderable chance for those who hadn’t achieved any Pathways to survive the exposure to one Righteous God’s Pathway, but not when they visibly witnessed the manifestation of four complete Righteous God Pathways.
Even a completely normal person might be able to survive the full manifestation of a Righteous God’s Pathway, as long as their [Origin] and constitution were suitable to that pathway. After all, unless it was chaotic, all Pathways could be comprehended and studied; the only reason why the manifestation of a Pathway caused people to go crazy was due to the fact that the knowledge contained within was too profound for a mortal’s comprehension.
However, when four Pathways manifested at the same time, with four streams of incomprehensible knowledge forcibly flowing into their heads, the only possible outcome was for their brains to explode.
Under the influence of the Pathways, the entire forest began to become twisted and collapsed. By the time Shengnai had used the knowledge he learnt from Mequik about her Pathway to resolve the other streams of overwhelming knowledge, he found that he had already returned to the underground hall of the Grand Library.
With a glance, he saw that other than the Seven Gods and Lisa, the only survivors here were him, Guangnai, Killer J, and the Great Bear Druid.
However, the Great Bear Druid wasn’t in a very good state either. Gills had manifested on his face, webbing had grown from between his fingers, some bloody tears could be seen streaming from his eyes, a bit of flame was still burning on his body; they were remnant symptoms that the four different Pathways had left on his body.
The reason why he was still alive was due to the fact that Shengnai had continuously pumped vitality mana into his body earlier to help him stabilize his life structure. And because he had witnessed Mequik’s true form and Pathway, the Great Bear Druid had also received his God’s blessing in disguise.
If he could survive this and use the blessing to solidify his foundations, he would have a chance to obtain a Seed of Truth of his own. However, due to being too heavily affected by his God, it would be impossible for him to ever construct his own Pathway in this life.
〖 So Barren Shadow did not descend? 〗
Shengnai observed the Pathways around him. Among the Seven Gods, Concealed Demise was frequently irrational, so it was common for him to not descend, but it was strange for Barren Shadow to not appear after sending his worshipper here.
At the same time, this also wasn’t out of the ordinary. At the level of Pathway Entities, their thought processes had more or less grown to fit their Pathways, making it increasingly more difficult to discern their true intentions. Using a mortal’s thought process to assume a Pathway Entity’s thought process was prone to error.
Negary’s thought process was the same. He existed as a concept, so his thought processes greatly differed from that of normal humans. For a lot of people with a normal way of thinking, Negary was an anti-human devil, but for many others, Negary was the ultimate goal of their pursuits.
Shengnai’s expression suddenly changed as a large number of golden beads began to manifest in the middle of the hall, recognizing that the original Negary had arrived.
As the golden beads filled the hall, Negary’s Pathway slowly manifested itself, radiating the will to control.
Negary’s Seed of Truth was created through infecting the outermost layer of the Moon Tree world with the world virus, then collected and refined with numerous other pieces of information. The main characteristic of the SCR world was the change of the ‘Unknown’ into the ‘Known’ through study and research, so the Pathway that Negary created was all-encompassing, but had ‘Control’ as its core.
Infect, understand, and control.
At this point, Negary’s Pathway was already near completion, only requiring a small bit of reorganization and another upgrade for the world virus before he achieved apotheosis into a Pathway Entity.
The golden beads then manifested into the form of the three-winged Dragon of Eternal Sin.
At their level of existence, observation through sight alone was no longer accurate, observation must now be done through numerous aspects of reality in order to discern the other party’s true existence.
Near the completion of Negary’s Pathway, his existence had become the convergence of numerous golden beads. The converging golden beads could manifest different forms and scatter again as they pleased; they were chaotic but also contained their own internal order.
Eternal Heat was no different. Although he had descended through a Saint Soul Awakened and manifested as a burning humanoid entity, in Shengnai’s perception, he was the Sun itself. This was because his essence had already been combined with his Pathway.
Shengnai’s gaze turned to Lisa. Killer J lost Lisa while he encountered The Unreachable Gate, but The Unreachable Gate couldn’t have possibly come into contact with reality. His essence made sure that he had to remain at an unreachable location, regardless of whether or not he was in danger.
And so, Lisa must have been taken by someone else; before Killer J encountered The Unreachable Gate, he faced Red Tears and the hundred-headed beast of Life Bearer, since Life Bearer was using the hundred-headed beast to descend right now, the one who took Lisa was most likely Red Tears.
Combined with the characteristics that Red Tears had shown so far, being able to affect the female gender, it was extremely possible for Red Tears to have left something on Lisa’s body. In fact, it could be Red Tears’ handiwork that made sure Lisa couldn’t wield the Divine Artifact in her belly despite having returned to her body.
Mequik’s Pathway began to expand, affecting any life structures that came into contact with it. A mass of grey fog had been created using the mucus that her tentacles secreted. Shengnai was faintly able to discern that if he was surrounded by this grey fog, his life structure would begin to collapse like dominos.
Currently, Mequik was spreading this fog as much as she could while keeping a tight grasp on Lisa with her tentacles, from how things seemed, she was trying to keep Lisa restrained. To coordinate with her Divine techniques, the Great Magus was also casting spell after spell to prevent the other Righteous Gods from approaching them, almost as if they were reaching a critical moment.
The Great Magus’ spells seemed to have been reinforced by the Grand Library, boosting their powers by at least 10-fold compared to normal. Even the clones of the Righteous Gods had to remain cautious against these spells.
As Negary blocked a [Ray of Disintegration] from the Great Magus’ hand, a drop of blood tear rolled down Lisa’s eye. Red Tears had suddenly manifested on Lisa’s body.
Lisa then uttered a resoundingly loud shriek, which caused Negary’s germs to almost riot uncontrollably, while Life Bearer’s complexion went pale and the Pathway she had manifested suddenly became unstable.
Taking that chance, Eternal Heat acted, a burst of golden flames manifested on Life Bearer’s body almost immediately.
As the sacred flames of extreme heat burnt her body, Life Bearer made her considerations and dropped Lisa down to flee with her body still ablaze.
Before she left, one of Mequik’s tentacles wrapped around the Great Magus’ body. A mass of vitality mana was drawn out from the Great Magus’ body together with information regarding a Pathway. With how it looked, Mequik had given up on controlling the Great Magus.
However, Mequik left one last surprise before she fled. The Great Magus’ body turned into another mass of vitality mana and shot towards Lisa under her control.
A bit helpless while shedding tears of blood, Lisa’s eyes brightly glowed. Lisa’s belly quickly moved as a suction force manifested from below her stomach, causing the mass of vitality mana that the Great Magus had turned into to fly faster towards her belly.
The Great Magus had also undergone the rebirthing process, although it was interrupted when Mequik’s consciousness inside the Divine Artifact took control of them. However, the fact remained that he had entered and exited the Mana Fetus, so when the Great Magus lost his life, he also fulfilled the conditions of becoming a Withered.
If Lisa managed to grasp the remaining life essence of the Great Magus, it was possible for her to escape Red Tears’ control, or even go further and take full control of the Divine Artifact in her belly.