He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Ai began walking along the edge of the basement. The church was filled with traces of ash—damaged or intact magic circles, mysterious reagents that had failed to be refined, unfinished ritual artifacts, and notes densely covered with research footnotes…

Relying on her insightful perspective and the light screen that made the door increasingly resemble a game panel, Ai collected some of the seemingly useful items—

First, I took down two thick stacks of research journals from the shelf. They were notes on alchemy and ritual studies, which would be helpful for future learning. You can never have too much information.

Some reagent bottles were found in a strange corner. Most of them were empty, but some of them had settled on the test tube walls. They were dirty and appeared as black crystals of the "Unfinished Philosopher's Stone" on the light screen.

An empty magic bag. Ai tried it out. No matter how many books she put in, it didn't take up much space. The downside was that it could only hold books. Perhaps it was an alchemical tool used by Ash to collect notes and secret teachings. It wasn't a ritual object, and there were no rules inside.

A small, gleaming knife, only as thick as a scalpel, yet exceptionally sturdy. It is a basic ceremonial object, without any special markings, but containing the standard of a horizontal "dagger," perfectly suited to replace the dagger that was just melted away.

There was also a bunch of oddly shaped guns and weapons, and Ai picked out the one that looked the most beautiful among them—this complex device seemed to be made of silver wire and was unusually light. The intricate openwork and textures on the barrel and grip made it more exquisite than a work of art, almost making one forget the "deadly" and "threatening" nature it carried as a weapon.

Its entry is also the longest:

"Ritual Vessels - Tranquility"

"Firearms/Weapons/Ember 1/Silver"

Total ammo capacity / Special ammo capacity / Regular ammo capacity: 12 / 1 / 11

「.12子弹11/11，鍊金子弹（穿透）1/1」

"Snake's Kiss: Its name lies in its tranquility, like a snake's kiss, silent yet deadly. (Advanced censorship)"

"The elegance of silver: delicate silver, lighter than gauze. (Lightness) (Swiftness)"

That's all.

After looking at Gray Explosion's equipment, Ai was quite satisfied, but not entirely.

The scattered items have indeed filled in my current needs in various ways, whether it's studying or fighting—I always feel like something big is missing.

"What about my ceremony?"

After searching the entire basement, Ai found no trace of any large-scale ritual.

He walked along the deep red carpet of the main aisle of the chapel, past rows of parishioners' seats, and climbed to the highest pulpit in the entire church, but only there did he find a huge wooden chair, spacious enough for Ai to lie down on as a bed.

This basement appears to be the former headquarters of the Mirror of Radiance; no wonder it resembles a church.

Was it Grey who preached in this place?

Ai Yi plopped down on the wooden chair, feeling uncomfortable—the seat of the cult leader wasn't even covered with a cushion, and even her tail felt numb from the pressure.

So the fox lay flat on its back, limbs spread wide, and rolled over on its side in the seat. Its head was a little sore from being stuck in the crack in the wood. It was clear that it was using the seat as a bed.

He squinted at the ceiling and sighed.

Where is my grand ceremony? It should definitely be here, the ceremony that Hui risked his life to preserve for me, where did it go...?

He shook his head and muttered, "Door, give me a hint..."

"What kind of hint is this? Open your fox-like eyes!"

!

Ai was startled and her eyes widened suddenly—

The Eye of Insight opened wide, and from the center of the azure eyeball, threads sprouted, and a halo twisted and branched out, separating into countless intertwined vines:

It wasn't until the door reminded him that he vaguely sensed that "incongruity" lingering in his perception.

This is……

Crimson liquid surged, and his skull shone brightly—the principles of enlightenment unleashed their power in his consciousness, helping him find that tiny "thread" from a colossal entity beyond his comprehension.

He grabbed that "thread," like grasping the silk of a silkworm cocoon, biting the tail feather of light—

"You saw a beam of light; where did it originate?"

Accompanied by the murmuring of the door, the search, unraveling the mystery, deepened. Ai's gaze swept across the entire dome of the church, and behind the thick gray fog, something seemed to be flickering intermittently.

It can only be seen from a perspective of insight; it seems to be something invisible, like something seeping into the remaining corner of the field of vision through an eyehole after one has been blindfolded.

The shadow of the light swayed like the shade of a tree, like dried blood, the remains of the twilight illumination, fragmented and precarious, yet unconsciously revealing a trace of existence.

It seeped through the bricks and tiles, like molten wax dripping into Ai's vessel.

These images gradually wove together into a flawless circle, clinging tightly to the edge of Ai's pupils.

He read out the meaning of the mark, word by word:

"Grey is not a foolish apprentice; he simply has nowhere left to go."

"What flows from me, what I have buried in the ash, is an unfulfilled wish, and a grand desire..."

In the blinding glow, a pair of azure eyes, identical to Ai's, slowly appeared before him, carrying infinitely complex and incomprehensible emotions—

It was a small, gray fox, exactly like Ai Yi. His voice seemed both distant and close at hand.

他 说:

"I never stopped, I just couldn't go any further."

Ai clutched her head tightly—

He was overwhelmed by endless resentment and arrogance, and he heard a soft yet magnificent voice telling him a story.

A story about "gray":

"I walked blindfolded in the season of extinguishing light, until the moment before the light died, when the path beneath my feet was broken, and there was no way for me to walk. In this state, the radiance leaked away and withered away..."

He heard a sigh:

"However, the 'Second Dawn' is still a long way off."

Gray smiled at Ai:

"Therefore, I proposed the method of intercalation—"

Wait... something feels off?

The ominous premonition grew stronger. Looking at the small words formed by the glowing light, Ai felt a chill run down his spine. He felt himself losing himself; his lips trembled, and indistinct syllables flowed from his own mouth:

"I have transformed this body into a glass vessel, in which radiance can flow, just as it seeps through the gaps in bricks and tiles. The radiance is all-pervasive, like the dried bloodstains on the neck of the Heavenly Throne, like freshly flowing ointment... I smear it on my hair, and in the season of no light, I raise a grand ceremony of anointing."

He tried to cover his mouth, but a cold chant kept escaping:

"This ritual will recreate the sun's ill-fated destiny, but I have no way to go any further. Perhaps... the split at the end of the road will also become a new life—"

Ash……

Ai could no longer control his expression. It seemed that a layer of gray matter was awakening within his body, and the gray mist enveloped him and the entire pulpit.

The tendrils of light spread through his body, penetrating his crimson, glass-like transparent vessel—Aiyi—filled with radiance. The light that surged into his body was omnipresent, traveling through his translucent flesh and bones, yet it had no warmth whatsoever, its coldness tinged with indifference.

Ai felt as if she had turned into a lamp wick.

His red liquid began to vibrate, and the glow, like a viscous ointment, seeped into the red liquid and was collected into the red pool.

The power of light overwhelmed him, and the light whispered in his ear:

"What I worship will endure in the pool—the foundation I promised will build new roads."

The next moment, it seemed as if a gigantic object was floating in the sky...

Ai's vision rose with the glow—

Above the dome of Gray Court, and even across the domes of the entire suburbs, a colossal, indescribable, invisible silhouette faintly rises. It is more boundless than the comprehension of all beings, a shadow that obscures the world, a magnificent presence hovering above all things—

In the Grand Ceremony Pool, accompanied by a tsunami-like tremor, countless cracks spread across the ash wood gate.

Thousands of red liquids surged like a tide, washing over the doorway.

The pure white door trembled violently, and endless, dazzling light surged from behind the cracks—and behind the door, the shattered road, faintly visible, crumbled and disintegrated under this immense power…

Ai, bound to the wooden chair by light, is wailing:

"Grey, what the hell have you done?!"

.

.

Downtown Foundation, Special Countermeasures Bureau.

"Hey, bro, wake up! Can you take a look? Why did this line suddenly jump so high..."

Weakly brushing aside his colleague's hand that was shaking his shoulder, investigator Charles yawned, leisurely climbed up from his desk, and stretched.

"Let me see, where is it?"

Inwardly scoffing at his colleague's overreaction, Charles pushed his office chair to the table next to him. He glanced at the light screen in front of him, along with a bunch of oddly shaped numerical graphs, and quickly recognized it as real-time monitoring of the Grand Prize Pool.

"Which value is incorrect?"

Before his colleague could answer, Charles had already noticed the abnormal data.

A glaring red line shot up almost vertically to the end of the quantitative table and continued to rise at an incomprehensible speed.

"Wow, it's amazing that the stocks I bought went up this much," Charles exclaimed, taking a cigarette from his colleague and casually tucking it behind his ear. "I guess some big shot at the bottom of the pool couldn't sleep soundly and rolled over. Just report it truthfully, what's the big fuss about..."

The man offering the cigarette wiped his sweat: "Senior, I reported it according to the instructions in the internship training, but the process got inexplicably locked halfway through, and the whole machine froze... Look."

In front of Charles, he tapped the entire screen, but the think tank remained unresponsive, as if it were frozen.

"Dude, what do we do?"

Charles silently frowned.

Something doesn't feel right.

He then examined the abnormal wiring more closely. The data displayed was the "Hume value," which was responsible for monitoring the "chaos level" of the Grand Gift Pool. The higher the chaos level, the more unstable the environment in the pool.

If the surge of red liquid is considered a natural phenomenon, it is likely that a "red tide" has just occurred, a natural disaster existing in the Great Relief Pond, causing a sharp increase in the level of chaos.

We need to pay a little more attention to this...

"Wait a moment."

Charles opened his private think tank and was about to go through the manual reporting process when a pop-up window suddenly blocked his view.

"Urgent Notice: Suburban Anomaly / First preliminary observation completed, now classified as a β-level case, damage assessment underway. All deep-sea diving operations forcibly halted - Lockdown countdown five minutes. The Foundation will plunge the entire territory into a mysterious silence to withstand potential impacts..."

what?

"Beta..."

Charles stood there, stunned.

"Bro?"

Seeing the confused look on the intern's face, Charles expressionlessly put the cigarette from his ear into his mouth, ignoring the "No Smoking" sign hanging to the side, and lit it with trembling hands.

He exhaled a puff of white mist and muttered, "Something terrible has happened..."

The old guard at the Foundation knew that, compared to the Alpha level, which was specifically set up to observe the activities of the supreme divinity, the Beta files at the second level were actually the most terrifying type of event.

There are only ten existing supreme deities, and almost every one of them has some connection with the Foundation. Over the long period of coexistence, the Foundation has also figured out the temperament of those ten top beings.

Even an absolutely neutral entity like "Summit of Ashes" can at most maintain a relationship of non-interference.

Not all of those magnificent creatures that roam the bottom of the pool are so... easy to talk to, or rather, willing to "communicate".

A β-level covert event is a truly magnificent calamity, a change that could bring about the end of the nest—a natural disaster with an unpredictable outcome.

"Closed-5, five minutes countdown. The 'Iron Curtain' blockade process has reached the authorized channel. The deployment channel is clear/the Hume Tree has successfully taken root. Computing power is fully released, and the scale of the 'Red Tide' is being controlled—all units prepare for impact."

"closed-4……each unit——"

.

.

Uesugi Foundation, Countermeasures Bureau Headquarters.

"Eh...Eh eh eh!"

The green fairy was flying around the room like a headless fly, her tiny body making the noise of a helicopter. She was now gritting her teeth, "Aaaaaah... Gray, you're even crazier than a fairy!"

They can even help you suppress abnormal sewage discharge... How can you suppress such a big commotion?

You're really making things difficult for a bureau chief like me!

"Whatever, whatever, whatever... You created this mess, so figure out how to clean it up!"

Although she violated the laws of her ancestors, Tief still inherited some of the fairy traditions, and when faced with difficulties, she would simply lie down on the ground and start arranging herself.

She flapped her wings: "Good luck to you..."

.

.

Downtown, outskirts.

An invisible storm swept across the entire suburbs.

The tremors of the Great Gift Pool grew more violent, and the Sea of ​​Trees of Light, which had spread from afar, reappeared, this time on a scale far greater than before. The roots of the Hume Tree plunged from the mortal world into the depths of the Great Gift Pool, blocking the crimson waves surging from the bottom of the pool.

"Damage assessment complete – Form of the massive disaster confirmed: an unknown grand ritual."

"The mysterious energy level has reached the peak of the fourth stage and is expected to reach the fifth stage in half an hour..."

.

Gray Courtyard.

The omnipresent, all-pervasive radiance has filled the entire underground space. Under the control of that gray will, this grand ceremony, which recreates the sun's unfortunate fate, is pouring its magnificent influence onto the entire world.

The outline of the sun appeared invisibly over the entire suburbs—even though mortal eyes could not see its brilliance, countless eyes still looked up at the dome with trembling excitement. Their humble souls, like tiny moths drawn to the light, gathered together by the magnificent gravitational pull.

The young man, whose eyes were filled with black ashes, replaced the sign that read "Moonlight Bar" with "Silence Bar," then stood on the dark earth, silently raised his head, and quietly watched the gray glow flowing in the sky.

"The mentor of the Radiant Light... the King of Ruthlessness..."

"Praise be to your radiance..."

.

An unknown grand ceremony is using the entire outskirts as its ritual site, with a dome as its lid and the earth as its furnace, dissolving everything on this black soil and refining it into the materials it needs.

"The first of the great ceremonies: Letting go."

Gray is whispering:

"I have cast aside my former name, my limbs, my tools, my vessels, my power. I have evaporated and regenerated the red fluid within my cavity, and am now brand new."

"I have given up everything—"

.