Chapter 1116: Heavenly Godbearer

“Who?” Vermilion Bird asked.

“Heavenly Godbearer...She comes...” Ke Yo’s voice grew louder. She began to walk forward.

“Ke Yo!” Vermilion Bird reached out to stop her.

“Don’t touch her!” Liao Liao yanked Vermilion Bird back, her instincts screaming danger even as her mind raced to understand why.

Gregor hesitated. When it didn’t seem like Ke Yo would stop, he parted his poisonous wind to make way for her.

While Ke Yo walked forward, the giant vertical eye slowly descended from the sky, hovering at a three-meter height like a suspended red gateway.

It split open. A tsunami of red light crashed over them, drowning their vision. When it receded, the eye had vanished; in its place stood a woman.

Her face was a deathly gray, her eyes shut with a lone red vertical eye open on her forehead. Like a corpse, she looked cold and decayed. Her hair ran down her shoulders, and black feathers covered her body, swirling with insidious black mist like a quaint evening gown. Her chest was empty, a layer of black mist obscuring the red light underneath.

Vertical eyes covered her pale legs like a disease, each one enough to send revulsion crawling down an observer's spine.

“So it is you!” Vermilion Bird exclaimed in shock and rage.

Gao Yang was right! Greed was the Heavenly Godbearer, and all these years, it had been using Surnamed Li’s legs as host.

War Tiger snorted in mockery, sounding relaxed despite the serious injury he had suffered. “Hah, a death monster has been parading as a representation of the Heavenly Way all this time!”

“Unbelievable.” Gregor had a complicated look on his face. “Black Tortoise and the Tails didn’t sound like fools, yet they ended up dancing to the tune of a fake prophet.”

Surnamed Li’s body spoke. Actually, she hadn’t opened her mouth. The cold voice had slid out of her chest and brushed everyone’s eardrum like slimy seaweed.

“Humans are too fragile. You live like you crave death when you have no hope. Am I not their salvation for letting them live with hope until the end of their lives?”

“Enough with the whitewashing attempt,” Gregor interjected. “You’re only making yourself out to be a bigger villain.”

“Isn’t this this the best proof?” Greed slowly raised a hand to point at Ke Yo, who was closest to her. “Humans will do anything for hope, even if they have to fool themselves and will end up destroying themselves.”

Ke Yo slowly walked toward Greed, face pale and eyes dazed. She muttered, “O omniscient and omnipotent Heavenly Godbearer, the great and merciful overlord of all...”

“It’s dangerous, Ke Yo!” Vermilion Bird shouted.

Ke Yo didn’t hear her. She continued her walk toward Greed. “Forgive my ignorance and purify my blood...”

“Ke Yo! Wake up! Please, wake up!” Vermilion Bird struggled to move, but Qing Ling and War Tiger joined Liao Liao in restraining her.

“Let go!” Vermilion Bird resisted.

“Don’t be stupid!” War Tiger scowled. “You can’t wake her!”

Greed sneered, “See, no one can save her.”

Ke Yo continued forward, her stance growing more and more devoted and deferential. “Save me from this weakness and these sins of mine...”

She slowly lifted off the ground and floated toward Greed. “Grant me the sacred blood and great power...”

The verticle eyes covering the legs of the hovering Greed suddenly shifted down and started bleeding. The blood streaked to the tips of her feet before dripping to the ground.

The blood bloomed into patterns of thorns as soon as they hit the floor, spreading and growing into a massive ritual pattern.

Countless eyes opened all across the pattern. They stared at Ke Yo, their lines of sight manifesting as red chains and piercing through her body.

“I swear to forever follow you, submit to you, devote myself to you...” As Greed looked down upon her, Ke Yo spread her arms as if she were going to embrace Greed.

A crimson crack appeared on Ke Yo’s forehead. It seemed ready to open into a vertical eye. Blood leaked from her eyes, nose, and mouth, yet her face remained locked in devotion.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

“I will give you my all and follow you to the blissful otherworld...”

“No!!” Vermilion Bird growled.

The eyes etched in the pattern froze. The crimson chains binding Ke Yo shattered and vanished.

The ritual stuttered to a halt. The vertical eye failed to emerge on Ke Yo's forehead. She remained suspended, head dropping, arms falling limp as consciousness fled. Her form shifted, becoming translucent green—Unreachable.

Every eye on the pattern and across Greed's form snapped toward Vermilion Bird. She knelt, gasping for breath, her own form now spectral.

Grinding her teeth together, she rose to her feet and flipped Greed off with her left hand, the Black Gold ring she wore gleaming. “Fuck you! I’m saving her!”

While watching Ke Yo walk to her destruction, the indescribable rage, pain, and frustration rampaged in Vermilion Bird’s chest. Then a great energy descended from heaven, rushing into her mind.

At that moment, she comprehended Unreachable. And through the connection formed by the Black Gold rings, she shared it with Ke Yo.

With a tug, Vermilion Bird pulled Ke Yo to her like a weightless spirit.

Greed fell silent.

“Boy oh boy, didn’t expect that did you? You’re proven wrong so soon!” War Tiger couldn’t be happier, partly for Ke Yo being saved, partly for Vermilion Bird getting stronger, but most of all for the simple enjoyment of seeing his enemies getting slapped in the face.

Three seconds later, Surnamed Li’s corpse finally moved. Her lips curled up slightly. Closer inspection would reveal a tiny eye opening up on each corner of the mouth. Two thin eyes also emerged in the throat.

The eyes puppeteered her vocal cords, forcing out a hoarse, dark voice: “As expected...you fell for it.”

What do you mean?

Vermilion Bird tried to speak, but her voice wouldn't come. It was as if her right to speak had been stolen.

Huh? Why is this happening?

She tried to figure it out, yet she found herself losing that right as well.

Two seconds later, Unreachable faltered.

“Vermilion Bird!”

War Tiger rushed up to her—or he tried to. His feet remained frozen. Confusion flooded his eyes as control over his own body vanished.

He was losing his fate.

The same was happening to Qing Ling, Liao Liao, Nainai, Adept Horse, Mischievous Monkey, and even White Dew. They all lost the right to move. Their fates were quickly being taken over.

They froze. Confusion, fear, and despair spread, but soon enough, even their instinctual emotions were taken from them.

Greed spread her arms as if she were embracing the whole world. The black mist in her chest dissipated, revealing a red eye that had burst through her chest.

The red eye spun quickly like it was propelled by an unknown force, creating countless overlapping images. It looked like a round eye that could not focus, but also like a miniature black hole. Anything that met the eye’s gaze would be sucked into it.

Surnamed Li burst into insidious and greedy laughter.

“All of your fates...are mine!”