Am I going to be controlled by the players too?

The war demon's enormous body remained standing still, motionless.

"Impossible..." The Pope's eyes widened, and he staggered back. "This is impossible..."

This was equivalent to a personal attack from the Amber God, the ultimate method of annihilation against demons, the final killing move that everyone risked their lives to lay the groundwork for the entire battle—how could it possibly have no effect at all!?

According to the plan, Vilette severed the demon's past, Himegami replaced the demon's present, and then Vilette summoned Amber God to wipe out the demon's future with a single blow—she succeeded in everything up to the beginning, but in the last step, she failed to accomplish anything!

This war should have ended here; the demon of war should have been utterly destroyed!

In the wilderness.

The War Demon slowly raised its remaining head, the one covered by a white mask. Then, the mask shattered and fell to the ground under the Amber God's blow.

Beneath the mask lies a silent death.

Chapter 128, Too Clever for One's Own Good

War has always been accompanied by death.

This truth is so simple that no one delves into it, yet so weighty that no one dares to gamble on it. People have long speculated whether the years of war sweeping the continent and the loss of tens of millions of lives will give rise to a second primordial being—the Demon of Death.

If this comes true, humanity will not be facing one primordial being, but two intractable natural disasters!

Fortunately, in the prophecy of the saintess Seraphine, only the primordial demon of war was predicted to descend. Only then did everyone suppress their unease and focus on preparing for war, never taking any precautions against the cataclysmic death.

But now, He has come.

The demon of death arrived without warning.

Death, in essence, is the "future" of war. The demon of war refines the demon of death, transforming it into its third head, which it imprisons and forcibly controls with layers of pure white masks, carrying it with it at all times. As long as the mask remains unbroken, the future remains hidden, and death cannot emerge.

The moment the divine punishment shattered the mask was the instant the shackles broke and death descended.

"The Demon of War likely brought Himeko to the mortal realm with the intention of using 'death' as ​​a trump card," Himeko said after a moment of contemplation. "And now, the 'mask of conquering death' has shattered, and death has replaced the demonic body of War, which means..."

"The demon of war is utterly dead."

Before the words were finished, the six arms on the demon's body rotted, dissolved, and vanished into nothingness one by one. The enormous demon body continued to shrink and fade, and the overwhelming evil aura quickly dissipated. In the end, all the original power gathered together and condensed into an ancient and warm white jade tiger talisman beside the newly born death demon.

Unlike ordinary tiger tallies, the patterns carved on it resembled both dragons and tigers, majestic and solemn, perhaps related to the dragon blood in Wang Zhiming's veins... But the crowd didn't care about that; their eyes were filled with greed as they looked at the tiger tally, its name already forming in their minds—

Source quality, [Victory]!

There are many ways to name the same source substance. For example, [Glory] is called Glory when it is symbolic, "Domination" when it is called power, and "Dragon Vein" when it is called appearance. Similarly, Freya's [Understanding] is called "Forgetfulness" when it is power and "Scepter" when it is appearance.

The [Victory] essence that now appears beside the Demon of Death possesses the power of "war" and takes the form of a "tiger tally." The appearance of this immensely powerful tiger tally signifies only one thing—after a thousand years, humanity has once again triumphed over the Primal Chaos!

But the people weren't particularly happy.

Combining two sources of essence and ten legendary powers, exhausting all magic and authority, dying and being resurrected repeatedly, he barely managed to slay the War Demon. But then, after defeating the smaller one, the older one appeared—an even more bizarre, abstract, and terrifying Death Demon suddenly appeared before everyone.

how to spell?

“I never imagined that the Demon of Death would be made into the head of war…” Freya took a deep breath and voiced her deepest question, “Doesn’t He… resist?”

Logically speaking, the strength between the primordial beings depends on the degree of human fear of the corresponding concepts, and the fear of death of intelligent life is deeply rooted in their genes, which no one can resist.

Therefore, the Death Demon should be far stronger than the War Demon, so how could it allow itself to be turned into a head and controlled by a mask?

"Because He is dead."

Serafina looked at the Death Demon's motionless face and uttered a single sentence that revealed the secret.

As a symbol of death, the demon of death is, of course, dead!

Therefore, the amber attack summoned by the Pope only shattered the mask, but could not kill Him—you can never kill a being that is already dead.

"What should we do then? Should we continue fighting?" Freya asked, somewhat flustered. "Why isn't He attacking yet?"

“I already said it’s a dead thing, how could it possibly attack us on its own?” Serafina rolled her eyes at her. “Besides, now it’ll be harder to get the source of the war back—just think about it, anything that gets close to that thing will definitely die!”

The room fell silent again, everyone caught in a dilemma.

Death doesn't attack on its own initiative, which is a good thing, but—now that it's already dead, do we still need to continue to fight against it?

If we must, should we punish a demon that is already dead?

The opponent is already dead, without birth or death, without moves or styles. Should we attack its death energy with a massive amount of life force to revive it, just like we did with the "Death God" Jingguan Bodhisattva?

The problem is that the Jingguan Bodhisattva is about 500 meters tall, and the Water Curtain Cave is very large and easy to find, which is why it was possible to lead troops to fight their way in. But this Death Demon is completely silent and pitch black with death, and is only the size of an ordinary person, and it is even impossible to tell its gender. It has no force, so how can you kill it?

Or is it that He was already in a state of source matter, and could be indirectly controlled by the power of other source matter?

Just as war can use the "mask of conquest" to treat death as one's "future head," taking one's brothers' corpses down to earth for fun while giving oneself an extra life.

Can they "control" death through the dragon vein, or can Freya "forget" death?

Countless thoughts swirled, tugged, and battled in everyone's minds.

Just as everyone hesitated and were caught in a dilemma, a slender figure quietly stepped out of the camp.

Ji Yushen!

She paid no heed to the overwhelming concept of death surrounding the Death Demon and walked straight toward it!

The punitive pact between the Empire, the Kingdom, and the Theocracy only extends to the slaying of the War Demon. There are no clauses regarding the ownership of the War Essence [Victory]—everyone understands that before the absolute treasure, all alliances, friendships, and collaborations are fragile and easily destroyed.

Now is the time to divide the spoils.

But the greedy Himeko would never give up her opportunity!

Ji Yushen had already approached the Death Demon within a hundred meters, about to seize the War Essence, when Serafina hurriedly said, "Be careful! The Death Demon cannot be touched directly, otherwise even if you refine the Tiger Talisman, you will be overwhelmed by the endless concept of death!"

really.

The moment the hand reached within a hundred-meter radius, Ji Yushen suddenly felt pain and abruptly pulled his hand back!

Her fair and delicate right hand had no scars or decay, appearing completely unharmed. The light blue nail polish on her fingers was quite beautiful, but her fingers could not move at all according to Ji Yushen's will. From a microscopic perspective, every cell in her right hand had lost its activity and was completely dead!

At a mere hundred meters away, Ji Yushen, in her true god form, had her right hand killed by the intense concept of death!

Fresh and vibrant blood is injected into the right hand, while blood imbued with the concept of death is propelled by the heart and flows back into the body.

Without the slightest hesitation or doubt, Ji Yushen drew his sword from his waist with a backhand. With a flash of cold light, his entire right hand was severed at the wrist, and blood gushed out.

The next second, the "Priestess" authority was activated, and a warm life force swept over the wound, instantly restoring it to its original state.

"My Lord's protective array can isolate all concepts and help you obtain the Tiger Seal." High above, the Pope smiled upon seeing this, and his voice resounded, "Ji Yushen, you only need to make the Church of the City Builders the state religion, convert to my Lord, and become a follower of God, and I will activate the array for you to help you obtain this source essence."

"There's no need for that."

Himeko remained calm and patted the horns of the white dragon that had wandered to her side: "Ancestors, lend me another hand."

The snow-white dragon vein let out a soft murmur, broke free from Ji Yushen's side, and swooped straight towards the hundred-meter domain of the Death Demon. The entire audience held their breath, their eyes fixed on the white dragon shadow, their hearts filled with shock and bewilderment.

That is a death domain that can instantly destroy even the body of a true god. Isn't Ji Yushen afraid that the dragon vein essence will also die completely?

However, the white dragon weaved through the black mist, its scales gleaming white and its body as stable as ever, completely unaffected by the concept of death, and continued forward without any hindrance.

Everyone stared in disbelief, their faces filled with astonishment.

Only Ji Yushen's eyes remained calm, for she already knew the answer—

Dragon veins are inanimate objects.

It is a vessel of "glory" that was built by the emperors of the empire through sacrifice and martyrdom, stealing the essence and piling it up. It was originally devoid of any vitality.

Death can only erase the existence of the living. How can the deceased, who have already perished, die again?

The white dragon arrived in front of the Death Demon in an instant, almost touching the floating white jade tiger talisman.

Just then, the Tiger Talisman suddenly erupted with a blinding aura, and its powerful and fierce war will transformed into a tangible black wave that swept across all directions!

This is the self-protection of the unclaimed source matter. Just like when the scepter was unclaimed, it would go crazy and constantly forget and delete the things around it. When someone or something tries to get close to threaten the war source matter, it will also release a baleful aura equivalent to the concept of war, turning everything around it into a crazy warrior who only knows how to kill!

The sky was filled with churning, roaring, and surging evil energy, but the white dragon remained calm and unharmed.

The Order of Corruption!

She had been planning this for a long time. One of the purposes of issuing the Order of Infecting the Fiend was to infect the millions of people in the entire capital with the fiendish energy in order to nourish the dragon vein. This would allow the entire dragon vein to fully adapt to, assimilate, and absorb the fiendish energy of war, so as to gain the upper hand in the final battle for the source of war!

The fact that her chains had turned from gilded to jet black was not due to fate, but rather the result of malevolent energy affecting the dragon vein!

The dragon vein raised its head, its sharp teeth opening and closing, firmly biting the white jade tiger talisman.

"Success!"

Ji Yushen's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, instantly settled down, and an overwhelming joy welled up in his eyes!

The long-cherished wish of the Elven Empire's emperors is now within reach; it will be realized soon, very soon...

However, the dragon vein that had been biting the tiger tally stopped in mid-air, its body struggling slightly. Then, the snow-white dragon body turned around and, without hesitation, sped straight toward the direction of the kingdom's camp!

"what?"

The ecstasy on Ji Yushen's face froze instantly.

"What happened?"

Amidst the astonished gazes of the crowd, the flying dragon's body continuously shed its surface scales, revealing its true form—the remains of generations of imperial emperors, stacked layer upon layer, head to tail, piled together like a human centipede, forming a bizarre corpse resembling a dragon!

"Father, what are you doing!" Ji Yushen gritted his teeth and looked at the dragon head at the top. "Give me the tiger tally right now!"

She knew that the decision-maker for the entire dragon vein's actions was the dragon head, the previous emperor, her own father—she had discussed her plan extensively with her father and previous emperors, and they all supported it, so why was she suddenly joining the kingdom's camp?

However, her gaze suddenly stopped.

At the very top of the dragon vein, where the dragon's head is located, is not the remains of the late emperor dressed in a dragon robe, but a lively-looking boy who hasn't been dead for long.

No, it's not that he hasn't been dead for long, it's that he hasn't died at all!

The boy was dressed in a light white robe with a strange image of a purple-haired woman printed on it. He was tall and straight, with a head of orange hair that was wildly unrestrained and shimmering in the sunlight. His eyebrows and eyes were sharp and arrogant, full of vigor and spirit, with a carefree smile and a calm sense of control in his eyes.

He casually and lazily toyed with the white jade tiger tally he had just seized.

Then he lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on the frozen Ji Yushen below, a light and playful smile playing on his lips:

"I'm sorry, my dear daughter. Even if you call me 'Dad,' I never intended to give you this."

"Cheng Cheng!"

Freya's pupils suddenly lit up with surprise, and she cried out in delight, leaping up without hesitation.

After a long separation, all the longing, concern, worry, and grievances welled up in her heart. She rushed into Cheng Cheng's arms, tightly hugging his neck with both hands, crying and laughing at the same time, her fists gently hitting his shoulders, weak and powerless, full of reproach and longing.

"Didn't you eat?" Cheng Cheng asked, puzzled, feeling that Freya's blow didn't hurt at all. "You're not fat, so don't worry about dieting."

Freya was stunned for a moment, then gathered legendary power in her fist and slammed it hard into Cheng Cheng's shoulder!