Chapter 65: Silhouette of a God

β-62 obeyed the order and descended to rescue the victim, while Luo Shang and Chen Guyi remained hovering in the Void.

They gazed at the pure white phantom suspended in the air.

Chen Guyi half-drew his sword from its sheath, his eyes flashing with sharp light. “Shall we cut it down?”

Luo Shang raised a hand to stop him.

They were still shielded by Luo Shang’s Concealment Spell, so the white phantom had yet to notice anything amiss.

“That would let it off far too easily,” Luo Shang murmured.

His pupils, once a gentle deep brown, now gleamed with a razor-sharp golden hue between his eyes.

“Understood.”

Chen Guyi nodded at the sight and retreated a few steps, clearing the space for Luo Shang.

The trio’s sudden arrival shattered the chaos unfolding below.

The High Priest, smug only moments before, stared up at the hovering figures in horror.

Extraordinaries capable of levitating? These three were no ordinary foes!

As the one blessed most generously by the Life Lady—and the strongest Extraordinary in her cult—the High Priest himself couldn’t hover unaided. He required special tools for that feat.

Yet here they were, floating effortlessly without so much as a gesture. Were they stronger than him?

His cult had spies in the Anomalous Affairs Bureau. Their reports indicated no more than three agents there could levitate without aids. Two relied on powers tied directly to flight, leaving just one who achieved it purely through circulating Aura.

The High Priest prided himself on his strength. With the Life Lady—a genuine god—bolstering him, he was certain he’d claim the title of nation’s top Extraordinary someday.

But against these three, he felt utterly outclassed, not worth even the dirt beneath their feet.

Their blatant disregard only fueled his rage.

Ever since he’d inexplicably received the Life Lady’s gifts, no one had dismissed him like roadside gravel!

At first, though, he held back, uncertain if they were enemies or allies.

When the trio appeared, he’d stolen a glance at Wen Yanjun’s face. No sign of wild joy meant they weren’t state agents— not irreconcilable foes, perhaps. They might be rogue operators like him, heading illicit Extraordinary groups eager to team up against the government…

Luo Shang’s next words dashed that hope.

His brother was among the sacrifices below, he’d said, dispatching the short-haired woman behind him to the rescue.

As she approached the would-be suicide offering, the High Priest knew he’d kicked a hornet’s nest—targeted another Extraordinary’s kin.

But they wouldn’t run rampant here on his turf with just three!

Wary of their power, yes—but respect? Hardly.

Even a mighty dragon bowed to the local snake, didn’t it? This was his domain. With the Life Lady’s phantom summoned, she’d grant him supreme might. Levitation would mean nothing. He was her earthly proxy, lord of life itself!

Assured of their enmity, the High Priest wasted no time. He released his hold on the skeleton and unleashed every Spirit Chant toward Luo Shang.

Simultaneously, he communed with the descending white phantom, pleading for greater power.

The “god” assented.

In an instant, compressed Spiritual Energy from higher dimensions surged through the Ritual’s rift in reality, flooding into his body.

The High Priest—still vaguely human—mutated with terrifying speed. He swelled to towering heights, his head scraping the ceiling. Vibrant, grotesque plants erupted across his flesh in a riot of colors, coiling and rooting into him. They shredded his clothes and formed natural armor in their place.

He felt his muscles rip apart, only to regenerate under the goddess’s grace—each cycle forging them tougher, more potent.

Now, standing tall, he locked eyes with the hovering Luo Shang on equal footing.

“Worthy of Life’s grand boon! Praise Life!” the High Priest bellowed.

His former self seemed a frail infant by comparison. Confident now, he could crush that pesky skeleton with a single finger—no need for his fellow priests.

In his eyes, tiny Luo Shang resembled nothing more than an ant.

The High Priest’s swollen form filled him with supreme confidence. He placed himself on a lofty perch, gazing down imperiously at Luo Shang.

“I deeply regret what happened to your brother,” the High Priest said.

“However, he’s perfectly fine now. Our Life Lady Cult excels at healing above all else. Had you not arrived, he never would have died.”

Rather than launching an attack, he adopted a remarkably courteous tone.

“You three are all exceptionally capable. Why not join our Life Lady Cult? Together, we can dedicate our strength to bringing my god into this world.”

“The ritual has already succeeded. The radiant silhouette cast by my Main God has transformed me into this powerhouse. Should you join us, you’ll claim core positions, basking in the same divine glory as I do—growing ever stronger beneath its light.”

“Care to give it a try?”

He wanted to cultivate a loyal following, and upon spotting these three Extraordinary individuals, he felt confident enough in his newfound might to subdue them. Rather than viewing them as foes, he extended an invitation to recruit them.

β-62 moved across the ground. In her wake, mycelium sprouted, slender white filaments emerging from the earth to pierce the bodies of everyone present. They scoured and devoured the pathogens festering in infected wounds, suturing vessels and flesh with surgical precision. The threads wove along bones and muscles alike, enhancing flexibility, extensibility, and raw strength.

She had always excelled in biotechnology, and with Spiritual Energy amplifying her gifts, she had honed them into spiritual energy tech. Her powers embodied both creation and destruction, life and death entwined as one. In certain planes, β-62 was revered and reviled alike: the harbinger goddess of apocalypse and calamity, yet also the benevolent deity of healing, life, and hope—the God of Life itself.

At Luo Shang’s command, she swiftly mended Su Mingyao. Mycelium threaded through his entire form, stitching wounds closed before laying him gently down. She even infused him with artificial blood cultured from fungal cells, replenishing what he had lost. It was right then, as the High Priest extended his recruitment to Luo Shang, that Su Mingyao stirred back to consciousness.

“You’re the Deputy Captain’s brother? You don’t look much like him,” β-62 remarked, popping her bubblegum with hands tucked casually in her pockets.

Su Mingyao, freshly awakened, tilted his head skyward to take in the tense standoff between Luo Shang and the colossal High Priest. His gaze then shifted to the woman at his side who had saved him.

“Committing suicide to summon the Deputy Captain for your rescue—that took real resolve. Not everyone has the guts to roll those dice.”

From her words, he pieced together that she must be Luo Shang’s teammate. Su Mingyao managed a faint smile despite his frailty.

“I never dreamed he’d come to save me. I figured my death would halt the ritual.”

“You’re lying,” β-62 called him out without missing a beat. She extended a hand toward him.

A single mycelium strand burst from the center of Su Mingyao’s chest, piercing skin and clothing alike. It swayed beckoningly in β-62’s direction a few times.

Su Mingyao stared at the sight on his chest. No blood welled up—just one impossibly resilient filament.

He had to admit, it was a startling scene: a foreign growth emerging from his own body, and yet he felt utterly nothing.

“My mycelium is still woven through you. The physiological data it feeds back doesn’t lie—you’re fibbing, human.”

Even though this man was Luo Shang’s brother, β-62 offered him no warmth. Back in the Reincarnation Space, she had learned of Luo Shang’s dismal family circumstances. For all she knew, this brother had tormented the old Deputy Captain in the past.

Perhaps the Deputy Captain’s heart was simply too kind to let him die. β-62 understood that well—after all, Luo Shang had spared her life on a whim of mercy, staying Ke Yanjin’s hand when he would have ended her. That alone was a debt of life.

“Is that so?” Su Mingyao chuckled softly once more and fell silent.

“Still, you took your own life to save the others. I respect that spark of humanity,” β-62 allowed.

The ritual drained life force equally from them all, converting it into Spiritual Energy. The vigorous youths like Su Mingyao and Jiang Jingwu could endure far longer than the rest. Had it continued unchecked, Su Mingyao—with his unique traits—would have been the final one standing, only then drawing Luo Shang into the fray to clean up the mess.

But Su Mingyao refused to let that happen. He wanted to save every soul on that field, so he ended himself early, forcing Luo Shang’s arrival ahead of schedule.

And in the end, he had succeeded.

“Were you in one of the apocalypses I’ve unleashed, you’d merit serious thought about sparing your world a path to survival.”

Su Mingyao had no desire to unpack what she meant by “the apocalypses I’ve unleashed”—it painted her as some doomsday terrorist bent on engineering global catastrophes—but he recognized the compliment for what it was.

“If it were just me, I’d reward you by granting your wish. But with the Deputy Captain here, there’s no need for me to stick my neck out.” β-62 said.

“He’ll win, right?”

Su Mingyao watched the scene unfolding in the sky and spoke up.

“Win?” β-62 scoffed.

“No need for that doubtful tone, Deputy Captain’s brother. The Deputy Captain is definitely going to win.”

“Beings like me have projections in other worlds that are at least goddesses of survival and destruction—stronger than that Goddess of Life up there. And right now, I’m here in the flesh, far more powerful than any mere projection.”

β-62 said this with an easy tone.

“Even someone like me is just another one of the Deputy Captain’s defeated foes—and he beat me pretty badly, too.”

Su Mingyao looked her over from head to toe but couldn’t spot a single goddess-like quality in her. He’d considered the possibility that Luo Shang had become a god, but it had never crossed his mind that even a projection of one of Luo Shang’s subordinates would be a divine existence in other worlds.

“That guy is nothing more than a lackey of some random shadow cast by a follower of the path of life—and he hasn’t even inherited the full power of that shadow.”

“Forget about him. Even if that self-proclaimed Goddess of Life showed up in person, she’d only be able to kneel and beg the Deputy Captain for mercy.”

“Even the god he summoned doesn’t dare act out of line in front of the Deputy Captain. So what the hell is this stand-in of his? A joke?”