304 A Pretty Novel Way of Communication

Although warriors from the North and knights from the South used combat chi to battle, they were different from each other. Their differences made them separate classes altogether.

The combat chi users from the South, the knights, favored using their combat chi as it was, while the combat chi users from the North, the warriors, infused certain elements into their chi. According to a certain theory, the warriors from the north preferred to infuse elements into their chi because the north was a challenging place for humans to live in. As a result of this, the first and earliest settlers in the north considered natural elements as forces to be reckoned with, and so they developed a system wherein they infuse natural elements into their own chi.

The most appropriate cultivation method suitable for combat chi utilization was still a topic of debate. Element-infused chi was certainly more powerful than normal chi, for it plagued enemies with status debuffs. However, those that cultivated element-infused chi were unable to learn just martial arts at will; thus, most northern warriors could only learn two or three martial art forms in their entire lives. Furthermore, their battle gears and fighting style had to perfectly suit the element that had been infused into their combat chi. However, this gave rise to other problems; for example, opponents could combat element-infused chi users with an element that directly opposed the element in the element-infused chi. Since the element infused into the chi of northern warriors were fixed, once their opponent found the opposing natural element, it became exponentially harder for the northern warriors to win. Therefore, despite the advantage gained from having element-infused chi, in battle, northern warriors were not as dynamic and adaptable as the southern knights.

This was the reason why the Warrior Walker's inventions were christened "the gem of martial arts". Frozen Fire utilized two elements at the same time, after all. This also explained why this particular Northern Warrior had gone down the cliche route of going into a duel when he saw Baiyi switch to martial arts; after all, Frozen Fire was the stuff of legends! Who wouldn't want to experience its power firsthand?

The Northern Warrior had been a Holy-level fighter for such a long time. In order to break through, past his current rank, he needed some groundbreaking revelations or epiphanies; fighting another advanced-level fighter would be an encounter fortuitous enough for him to get what he sought.

As for the cult's mission… well, fie! Who cared? He was never part of Godsfall, and even his boss' relationship with Godsfall was purely professional.

Baiyi's subpar performance in the last few rounds had prompted the Northern Warrior to forget that his target was actually a terrifying presence. The Northern Warrior did not even consider his chances of coming out of the duel alive. However, he now felt that he should have, seeing as his opponent, Baiyi, was superior in both magic and martial arts, making him someone that was out of the Northern Warrior's league.

However, the Northern Warrior knew that doubting himself would not help him in battle. He could only win if he took action!

The new round of battle between Baiyi and the Northern Warrior did not take long; it only took five minutes, and both of them were done.

The chaotic air currents slowly subsided, and the large phantoms, the Kun-Peng and the tiger, dissipated into thin air. The surrounding area had undergone a complete change; it now contained a large crater that spanned for miles. It was as though a gigantic asteroid had crashed there.

Baiyi withdrew his icy, azure combat chi and touched on his chest armor plate. There was a shallow cut on the metal, which went all the way across. Within the cut, the warmth of flames still lingered like embers.

The Northern Warrior's knees buckled without a sound. Then, mustering all the energy he had left, the Northern Warrior smiled and said, "Aye… T-the stoory wis true…"

With that, his head drooped feebly, and his entire body was instantly covered with crystals made of ice, like a huge, frozen flower. Beneath the thick ice, blue flames could be seen dancing on the surface of his skin.

Despite using all his might, the Northern Warrior had left only a shallow cut on Baiyi's chest armor plate, while he himself had his internal organs completely frozen and eventually crushed by Frozen Fire. Despite that, the Northern Warrior was still able to utter a line before he died, and that was nothing short of impressive.

The Northern Warrior had been defeated despite the disparity in power levels between him and Baiyi. Although Baiyi had been using element-infused combat chi, he still had access to an unlimited reservoir of Void Energy, which he had converted into an endless supply of combat chi during the battle; furthermore, unlike the Northern Warrior, he did not have to worry about running out of combat chi. Needless to say, while Baiyi was able to maintain his high output of combat chi, the Northern Warrior was struggling with his.

"What a fearsome foe. Now that's a real Holy-level fighter right here. If I was not a soul armature, I might have suffered a heavy injury, too, right?" Baiyi muttered to himself. This was the first time he had sustained such a large degree of damage, since his descent from the Void into this world.

"On the other hand, I gotta admit that martial arts are really convenient. They don't even have a rigid power output limit!" He exclaimed.

A cool voice echoed in the Void after Baiyi's remark. "You were the one who stubbornly wanted to become a sorcerer."

When Baiyi heard the Warrior Walker's reply, he was reminded of something, and so he replied, "Hey, you saw me, did ya? I did pretty good whilst fighting with your style, right? And you called me an idiot!" 

"Hmph! Fighting is all you're good at," the Warrior Warrior snapped and went quiet.

'That was no fun,' Baiyi thought to himself. He ignored the Northern Warrior's frozen corpse and walked out of the crater that their battle had created. However, as soon as Baiyi left the crater, he became the target of a rain of combat chi arrows and an army of undead.

The remaining members of the assassination team, the four cloaked figures, had not lost their courage, despite the death of their team leader, the Northern Warrior. They had watched the duel intently, with the intention of exploiting any openings they found; however, the chaotic and fast-paced nature of the duel had rendered their strategy inapplicable. In the end, all they could do was to watch the Northern Warrior get beaten up and eventually, killed. 

"Alright. Tell me what you know, and I'll be merciful," Baiyi said — trying to intimidate the remaining members of the assassination team — and unsheathed the War God's Sword, which he then used to deflect the combat chi arrows that were on target. Without the Northern Warrior's relentless attacks, the pressure on Baiyi had been lessened drastically. He felt that he did not need a lot of time to finish off the 'small fries'. 

These 'small fries' included the marching army of innumerable undead. Baiyi stared at the marching undead calmly, and green flames lit up within the small eye-slits of his face mask. As soon as the green flames emerged, the spartoi and revenants, which made up the undead army, all fell to the ground; it was as though their power supply had been cut. When they hit the ground, their bones were shattered into bits and shard. Meanwhile, from far, a terrible, hoarse howl pierced the air.

In order to control undead, one had to utilize a secret controlling technique, which in turn relied on a special type of mana called "death force". Unlike the fourth cloaked figure, the lich, Baiyi had a deeper understanding of the nature of both the controlling technique and death force, due to the access he had to Lich Walker's memories. Hence, Baiyi was able to easily severe the cloaked lich's control over the summoned undead army, and this triggered a backlash that directed the death force back into the lich's body; the returning death force then consumed the lich completely, leaving only bones behind! Baiyi barely had to do much to take this cloaked lich down!

Since Baiyi never liked the Lich Walker's "arts", he only opted to severe the cloaked lich's control, or else, he would have forcibly taken over the undead and make them work for him, instead.

As Baiyi had said before, he did not need to rely on Void Energy to take the assassination team down. He had only chosen to use it to shorten the time required to defeat them. If he had not used Void Energy, he would still have been able to easily defeat the mooks, using the knowledge and experience of the Voidwalkers.

The remaining members of the assassination team did not want to give up, though. They ignored Baiyi's advice and gave their all, but there was no longer any possibility of them winning the battle. This was either because their talents had been placed in the wrong mission, or because they were facing a foe who was way out of their league, or because as people who specialized in killing sorcerers, they could never find a way to overcome a man who had such versatile skills at his command.

"Don't kill all of them," the Archmage reminded Baiyi. "We're in another realm now. It's possible."

"I'll try…" Baiyi replied as he swung his sword. Suddenly, a sharp shriek of pain tore through the air as a severed arm soared through the air and fell to the ground. Nergal, the knives-savvy assassin, had revealed himself.

"Still not giving up yet?" Baiyi placed the War God's Sword against Nergal's neck. He coldly said, "We are in a different realm now, you know. While you're here, there's no reason to fear that your life might be taken remotely by whoever your boss is."

"W-wait!" The archer finally relented, no longer able to retain his battle strategy, which demanded a high combat chi consumption rate. The archer's combat chi was running out, and he had been even less effective using the combat chi bow than he was when he was using a normal bow. With his hope gone, he wisely chose to accept Baiyi's previous offer as a way to preserve his life.

"Put down your weapon, and come over here—" Baiyi started, but before he could even finish speaking, the remaining members of the assassination team, who had just laid down their weapons, suddenly went into extreme fits. They began jerking wildly, and moments later, they stopped and fell to the ground.

'How the hell?' Baiyi was stunned speechless. He bent down to inspect Nergal's body, and just as he had guessed, the man's heart was charred from a sudden combustion of flames.

Generally, effects from long-distance techniques — Power Marks and Faustian Tattoos, for example — were not able to cross realms. Realms had large cracks that lead to the bottomless abyss situated between realms, and this abyss had characteristics similar to the Void. In order for power to permeate this crack and go to other destinations, physically and mentally demanding preparations would be required to construct unique formations. An example of that would be trans-realm portal formations and communication formations. 

No one could have such formations set up inside their bodies and not be able to detect them. At least, that was what every Voidwalker's memory had shown Baiyi. This was also the reason why the Archmage had been adamant that Baiyi, at least, left one of them alive.

"Don't tell me that apart from being unable to celebrate any festival in peace, I also have a 'moe factor' that prevents me from keeping a captive alive…" Baiyi lambasted himself in dismay. He could only look for clues from the dead bodies.

However, before Baiyi could crouch, Nergal's one-armed corpse suddenly scrambled and stood upright.

If it was someone else, their heart would stop from fright because of the jump scare! Baiyi, however, only took a few steps back and whipped out the War God's Sword from his pocket.

"Huh? That lich isn't dead yet?" Baiyi eyed Nergal's body doubtfully. Nergal now looked like those lower-level zombies Baiyi had seen earlier, right down to his incomplete set of arms. Baiyi was not sure if the zombified corpse of Nergal would explode.

However, a synthesized voice, which sounded like it had come straight from a machine, escaped undead-Nergal's lips. "These underlings won't have the answers you seek; if you have any questions, why don't you ask me."

'Oh ho, looks like the mastermind behind this wants to talk to me using this corpse.'

Baiyi lowered the War God's Sword and coldly asked, "Who are you?"

"You may call me 'First High Reverend'," the corpse replied with the same mechanical voice. Their voices echoed loudly, making it seem as they were conversing in the middle of several mountains.

"Ho? You guys actually managed to force your will and power across realms. I guess you are not slouches, either," Baiyi said.

"We are more powerful than you could ever imagine; the same way you're more powerful than we had imagined," the First High Reverend replied.

If the person speaking through Nergal's corpse had been able to kill his subject from a different realm, then it would not be surprising if the same person had used to an unknown means to spy on Baiyi's fight. Did that mean that it was this person that Baiyi's instinct had detected?

Earlier, Baiyi had believed that someone was recording using his battle with Recording Spells, so he sought to find the person and kill them. However, he had not expected the person watching to be doing so from across realms.

Baiyi's choice not to use his Void Energy now seemed like the smartest choice he had ever made.

Just as Baiyi was reflecting on this newfound revelation, the corpse continued, "You truly are mighty. In fact, your power defies the norm. We have been conducting extensive research on you, trying to unveil your true identity; and for that, we have used many of our underlings to test you. I admit that we did not expect you to fool us so easily. But now, we know who you are."

It was at that moment that Baiyi realized that the 'educational duel' he had with the Sorcerer Association's VP grant was, in fact, not for the purpose of teaching the young sorcerers in the advanced classes. That seemed to have been related to the Godsfall cult, as well. This implied that even the vice president of the Sorcerer's Association was a member of the Godsfall cult. To Baiyi, this also explained why Grant had tried so hard to coax Baiyi into taking the power-ranking examination.

Godsfall had gained control over Holy-level fighters! Although that seemed impossible, the fact that Baiyi had battled two Holy-level fighters from the cult, VP Grant and the Holy-level Northern Warrior, verified the conclusion.

Just how pervasive had the cult become? How many powerhouses and heavyweights had the cult attracted? How many nobles had been recruited into serving the cult? These were questions that Baiyi would a lot of time to ponder…

"So what if you knew my real identity?" Baiyi retorted. Even if his real identity got exposed, it may not end doing the damage that his enemies thought it would. The person controlling Nergal's corpse was a member of the Godsfall cult, a cult with a terrible reputation. Baiyi, on the other hand, was someone who had experience in being the subject of rumors that were not true, and back on earth, he was someone adept at disproving rumors. Hence, he figured that if his identity was exposed, he would be able to twist facts to prove the rumors as false.

"Nothing, really. But listen, O' War God's Messenger! We are on the same side, looking for the same thing. We need not be at odds with each other." The corpse hung his head in a stunted angle as it stared at Baiyi's sword for a few seconds.

After that, the corpse suddenly burst into flames, and in only seconds, all that was left of Nergal's corpse was ashes.

The High Reverand had said all he wanted to, after all, and then proceeded to leave with an awkward bang.

Baiyi was quite amused. He did not really understand every part of this, but his foe seemed to have gotten his identity mixed up. Again, they did not think of the Void, at all; instead, the High Reverend thought that he was one the War God's people, just because Baiyi held his sword.

When a person was a divine messenger, they would automatically receive knowledge and power from their god, which would have explained Baiyi's powers. Seeing as the High Reverend also arrived at the wrong conclusion, it now seemed even more likely that no one would ever correctly guess Baiyi's identity — a Voidwalker. The High Reverend had only taken one look at Baiyi's sword and decided that he was one of the War God's people.

'Fine. It's not like he is wrong. I did work for the War God that one time, and I did receive some swell rewards. Hence, it's not like I could not be that god's divine sidekick.' However, as soon as Baiyi remembered that the real messenger of the War God was Attie — his kitty-Cat Maid who was hellbent on being adorable — he began to feel a tad bit consternated.

What exactly was the Godsfall cult's purpose in making these revelations?