349 Under the Shell

Shocking waves of aether shot through. One of the priests beat the war drum. The drumbeats were desolate and bleak. The quagmire bubbled and six heads gradually rose from it. It was a giant six-headed snake. Dozens of meters tall, it was covered in dark green scales. It emanated coldness and pounced toward Sam.

The other priest blew a horn. The blare was deafening and seemed to contain tangible malice and murderous intent. With the help of the horn, the clay warriors instantly sped up and strengthened. They attacked the musicians with crazed strength.

The horn sound contained Mind music theory. At the same time, it eroded at the musicians' will to fight. It magnified their fear to thousands times the original, causing them to panic.

Within a few seconds, dozens were torn apart by the soldiers. They did not even have a complete body. No one had expected for there to be musicians hidden within the clay warrior battalion to provide large-scale help.

The saint regained his upper hand. He raised the scepter. Though cracked, it radiated. Under the pressure of the scepter territory and the collision of music theories, the Hole of Destruction had contracted to half of its original size. It only knew how to swallow matter rather than defending itself. Its structure began falling apart and was close to collapsing.

The skull in the saint's other hand continued to chew on gold and sing hoarsely. Electric light shot out of its black eye sockets without stop. The lightning jumped through the crowd. Each flash evaporated an enemy.

The lightning seemed to have a special sensory as well. It targeted those that it deemed musicians of special threats. Within a few seconds, six musicians had been swallowed by electricity.

Only two survived. One flickered in and out like a bubble but was unharmed. He had clearly used a special defense score. The other was worse off. He crawled out of his burnt shell like a shedding snake. He was a bloody mess but quickly recovered with the help of a Choir music score.

These two were clearly from famous schools and had many life-saving objects. Their instruments were above average as well. By going all out rather than hiding their true ability, they were able to push back the immense pressure and save many people.

The skull in the saint's hand slowly turned, locking onto those two. Electricity brewed in its eye sockets, ready to shoot out. A beam of light cut in diagonally.

Crack! The electric chain of hundreds of meters long cracked across the skull's face. The temperature was hot enough to reduce on to ashes but it did not damage the skull at all. This type of electricity was more like humiliation to the skull rather than an attack. It was as if someone had waited for its moment of carelessness and ran over to slap it across its face. The electricity winding in its eye sockets rose and looked into the distance, locking onto a figure in the crowd.

There, the youth with a cane waved excitedly at the skull as if saying "hey, look here!"

In that moment, moonlight guide lines extended from the wound in his fingertip. They floated in the wind. The real yet unreal moonlight gently wrapped around the saint's skeleton. Next, an invisible river of imageries emerged from Ye Qingxuan's mind. They traveled down the moonlight lines, whistling and invading the saint's consciousness.

If it still had a consciousness. Technically, even a miraculous saint could not retain his consciousness after death. At most, he would leave it with the aether and sublimate into a holy spirit to be enshrined in the Sacred City.

Corpses of regular people would decay completely within two to three years but saints were not the same. Transformed by their symphonies of predestination, their bodies could be preserved for thousands of years. Their bodies would still contain their original strength and were unmatchable treasures, such as the Indrah's Eye that Ye Qingxuan had.

In addition, this complete corpse had been modified by alchemists. It was connected with the music theory of the entire underground palace and could even awaken the fallen scepter.

Ye Qingxuan suspected that something else was hidden in the corpse! He instantly felt that he had jumped into a dazzling glow. The boundless light swallowed his senses and practically burned him to ashes. It felt as if he had walked into the sun. Nothing was able to hide before the light.

It was the symphony of predestination!

Ye Qingxuan's vision went black. He had almost evaporated but thankfully, the 'invisible river' was tiny and existed between real and unreal so it was not destroyed by that instant.

He had not expected that the symphony of predestination's spirit was supporting the skeleton. The music score sang of Romulus' glory. Its spirit was like the blazing sun as well, majestic and aggressively shining in all directions.

Even more shocking was that the Romulusians had carved the music score directly onto the saint's body, turning him into a puppet through alchemy. This explained why a dead person could have a musician's scepter and awaken the territory. It was unmatchable alchemy equipment by itself! It was just made from a saint's relic.

Musicians often said that excellent music scores contained a spirit which was the score's soul. However, it was too weird to use a music score's soul to replace a human's soul.

Ye Qingxuan was going crazy. How many messed up studies had the Romulusians done? Didn't they say they wanted to respect the dead, let them rest in peace, and worship their ancestors?

The remaining bit of the symphony of predestination was almost beyond his limits, let alone the saint's consciousness! He struggled at shrinking the invisible river to the extreme, reducing the speed of evaporation. His vision flickered. Soon, a sliver of moonlight rose in the river.

"I can interpret it if it's a music score, right?" He guided the moonlight to meld into the sunlight and began to decipher the music theory of the symphony. Blood poured from his nose. The extreme expenditure sapped him of his energy.

Unable to care about anything else, he drained a bottle of medicine, forcefully maintaining his connection with the saint's body.

He had not delved too deep into the School of Mind. It was much harder to try interpreting a music score in someone else's mind. He could only do his best and ignore everything else.

The saint had not perceived Ye Qingxuan as a threat but it felt the connection. Disturbances of its music theory structure had clearly been classified as an alert. The skull quickly locked onto Ye Qingxuan. Its eyes burned with electric light and it shot out without warning.

In the last instant, a white lion jumped from Ye Qingxuan's side. It absorbed the lightning. Its metallic body was burned red-hot, almost melting.

Behind the iron lion, Baro wiped at his sweat and glanced at Ye Qingxuan. "You're spacing out here? You wanna die?!"

"Forget about all that and shield me!" Ye Qingxuan did not even have the time to wipe his blood away. Gritting his teeth, he grasped Jiu Xiao Huan Pei and put all his effort into deciphering the symphony. "Done shortly!"

-

Shortly? No one knew how long 'shortly' was. As mindsets changed, even an instant could seem like eternity.

Ye Qingxuan transformed his consciousness into moonlight and assimilated it into the music score's spirit. He worked at interpreting the structure but felt his own insignificance when he realized what this immense entity was. He did not know what the symphony of predestination was called but it undoubtedly included music theories from Modifications, Choir, Summoning, and Abstinence. Countless music notes had intertwined to create something as vast as the sun.

It had dimmed and broken through the passage of time but it was still beyond Ye Qingxuan's abilities. Merely observing it used up all his strength. Compared to the huge music theory system, Ye Qingxuan was even smaller than dust. There was no way he could use it to his advantage and attack it.

In the black consciousness, the spirit of the music score hung in the air like the sun. Its radiance was like Romulus' past glory. It rotated as the scepter territory changed, transforming into layers of light. The music theory scraped past each other, creating a majestic melody. It was incomplete and unable to fully operate but it still resisted the musicians' attacks and maintained the territory.

Wait… A bizarre idea flashed past Ye Qingxuan's mind. Deciding upon it, he grasped something invisible and closed his fist.

Boom! The faint sound of a bell spread out. The faraway and eternal ringing hid within the chaos and quickly disappeared. However, moonlight shone in Ye Qingxuan's eyes. He had activated the sub-originator!

As if he had broken free from the restrictions of his body and received unparalleled freedom, Ye Qingxuan felt unprecedented closeness to the aether. His strength was exploding as well.

This was his first time experiencing Resonance-level power in a red zone. He had not expected for his power to raise this much… The sub-originator reinforced it. The higher the density of aether, the more strength it supplied. He only had fifteen minutes but it was more than enough.

In the space of his consciousness, Ye Qingxuan smiled. He transformed into moonlight and flew into the ball of light!