Chapter 1333, Played
Writer: StarReader

Proofreader: Silavin

“That attack didn’t do any damage. It only stalled for time.” Elder Song spoke, “But I do believe it will have a stronger effect when mixed with the other eight attacks. As to how much, I am still unclear. The path I completed is creation. While it does come with incredible versatility and power, it’s not without cost.”

“Then we better get ready for when Heavenly Sovereign comes back and take him by surprise so we can end this already.” Zhuo Fan declared. “Miss Murong, are you alright? Can you go on?”

Murong Xue snapped out of that dreadful nightmare she just survived moments before, looking at him lost for a second before replying, “Yes, I’ll be damned if I’m not going to pay him back for what he did!”

“Alright, when I give the signal, we’ll attack the same way we did the first time.” Zhuo Fan announced.

At their nods, Zhuo Fan readied his attacks for when Heavenly Sovereign came out of the hole he was in, as did the rest of them. None of them wanted to go through what Murong Xue did. And now, more than anything, they had reasons to give their best and more.

It was one thing to die in battle and another to become the subject of meaningless torture for another’s amusement.

A tense minute passed with no movement from either side. The hole was still quiet, while Zhuo Fan’s team was still poised to attack.

“What is he waiting for? He’s the strongest Sovereign in existence, yet all of a sudden, he is afraid? Is it because Elder Song appeared?” Lei Yuting asked what was on everyone’s minds.

“I can sense that he is down there, just waiting, with no change in his aura at all.” Zhuo Fan frowned. [What is he playing at?]

The Heavenly Eye flared to life in the sky once more, fixing its eerie gaze on Elder Song and pulling him towards it.

They were all too stunned to react, with the exception of Zhuo Fan, who never let his guard down. Especially not against someone like Heavenly Sovereign. He once again did a tentative fusion of the paths and attacked the Heavenly Eye with a destructive slash.

Just before it hit the eye, Heavenly Sovereign jumped in front of it to deflect it with ease. “I knew from the start that you were up to something, little brother, just that I never could figure out what.” Heavenly Sovereign smirked. “But the when the last strange prismatic event appeared, it all dawned on me that you weren’t completing paths to purely save the Sacred Domain. It was more so to fight me, especially by completing the paths I had already used, fooling me into believing the prismatic events were due to you when in fact they came from the Luo Clan.

“So, I toyed with you all this time, pushing you against one wall after another to see just how confident and powerful you were in defeating me. While there were a few close calls, judging by a couple blank memories, it told me that the current you have no chance at all. This led me to believe your confidence lay in the unknown Sovereign that just came to be and triggered the last prismatic event. The fact that it was so unnaturally strong and peculiar was a sign that the new path he completed had to be special, maybe as special, if not more so, than my void path.”

“That’s why you tortured Miss Murong, so you could draw him out seeing how the previous attempts didn’t work, not when you almost had me or when you went after Lei Yuting.” Zhuo Fan finished the talkative yapper’s gloating with a dark gaze.

This was not going well at all. His mind played through countless scenarios even before he got out of that coma. How was the best way to beat Heavenly Sovereign? How could he minimize the damage? What could possibly take him down?

The strategy had been to grow Sovereigns in the Luo Clan while he faked playing ball with Heavenly Sovereign, to give him a false sense of victory in making the pawn he always toyed with for millions of years to get him the path he needed to cleanse the world of humanity’s corruption.

It had been working so far, until that particularly strong prismatic event Elder Song trigger. If Elder Song had been a bit more subdued, then he’d have the time to complete one last path to finish Heavenly Sovereign already, but fate was just too cruel. [It was all going so well too.]

He thus had to cut his plan short, rushing to Luo Clan to get his people ready for when Heavenly Sovereign would come. Zhuo Fan thought the stalling had worked, the battle they had feeling so real with how close he and Murong Xue had been to dying throughout it, but it now turned out that it played just as Heavenly Sovereign wanted, all to get Elder Song to come out.

Now that Elder Song was close to being absorbed into the Heavenly Eye, his path would be taken as well. Once that happens, Zhuo Fan knew that all hope was lost. There was no way he could make two paths without preparation. They didn’t just grow on trees. [Unless…]

His eyes glanced at the sea of blackness inching its way over from the horizon. It was unclear how many paths were still undissolved somewhere in there, but if all else failed, he would have no choice but to delve into it, at the risk of his life and get them.

Until then, he would try anything to get Elder Song out of the Heavenly Eye’s influence before all was lost.

“Get ready, we’re going to get Elder Song out no matter what. Our very survival depends on it.” Zhuo Fan sent to the sacred beasts and the other Sovereigns.