Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1363: An Ironic Truth

Bingdisi’s body was right in front of me, so close, breathing mingled. I could even catch a faint whiff of fragrance: Sister Bing didn’t have the habit of using perfume; this scent was the innate holy breath of a Goddess. I looked at that beautiful face with closed eyes, while her voice was hollering on all channels: "Damn it! I’m stuck! I’m still stuck! Can’t get out, can’t get out — You, Chen, think of a way, and Sandora, why do you suddenly have a Commander’s Sword in your hand..."

"Calm down! Sandora! Impulsiveness is a devil!" I hurriedly pressed down the eager Queen beside me, then did the same to the equally eager Lin Xue and Qianqian, "And you two as well, Lin Girl and Qianqian. Bingdisi is one with me right now. I understand your urge to beat her, but physiologically, I can’t accept it..."

"Mentally understand, your grandpa!" Bingdisi shouted exasperatedly on all channels, "Sandora, aren’t you a Soul Studies expert?! Hurry up and see what’s going on. Why am I stuck in Chen’s soul and can’t get out!"

Sandora put away the Ship-Slicing Blade with a grimace, turned first to check Bingdisi’s body, then pinched and squeezed me. Though there’s nothing unpleasant about being squeezed by your lover, seeing Sandora’s expression just felt like she was actually assessing the fat and lean parts of this hundred-something pound of meat — she’s grinded her teeth three times already.

"You never have a mess-free time!" Sandora said angrily, apparently to both me and Bingdisi: I guess both of us were to blame. "I can’t figure out what’s wrong. The two souls are inseparable. In fact, I can’t even sense Bingdisi’s soul reaction, only Ah Jun’s — Bingdisi, did you even test this Divine Technique of yours? You invented it yourself and yet don’t know what’s going on?"

"Who the hell am I supposed to test it on! You know soul unison is used for cheating in exams, and I was the only student in the academy at that time, all the rest were teachers — was I supposed to discuss advanced cheating technology with the director? Excuse me, teacher, I’ve invented a new technique to copy exam answers but don’t know if it works, can you help verify it — do you think I’m a seed grown by the Life Goddess," Bingdisi got particularly verbose when she was flustered, and Sandora’s prodding opened the floodgate, "But theoretically, this Divine Technique shouldn’t have issues, you know I was a tech nerd back then, a scholar forced out by a hundred teachers, how could I make such a mistake! Besides, after soul unison was made public, many Divine Race learned it out of curiosity, and I haven’t heard of anyone getting stuck in someone else’s body after unison."

"Let’s not focus on the cause right now, we should first find a way to get Bingdisi back." As one of the involved parties, I felt the necessity to share my view. "Theoretically, we can’t understand the reason for Bingdisi’s Divine Technique failure."

I looked around at this group, aside from the stuck Bingdisi being a High Order God, everyone else was a layman when it came to Divine Techniques. Next to us was even the group of five minus one Gods brought by Dingdang, but unfortunately, those four were clown-level Gods from her entourage, Yelsen and Monina’s Divine Technique skills were merely enough to keep their teachers from dying of anger, Lin was just strong, she graduated as a sports major with a record of 136 failed Divine Technique exams, as she caused all exam venues to collapse. Uncle Kenser seemed mature and steady with a parental vibe, but I suspected he graduated from a home economics major, and the key reason for his timely graduation was that if he didn’t, the school couldn’t find a teacher older than him...

Alright, it might be impolite to fill Uncle Kenser’s character with malice, but he had only uttered four words without punctuation upon arrival: "Very well, very well..." how could I not maliciously imagine he graduated after all his instructors retired?

As for Dingdang... best left unmentioned, as she was still in the temple playing and wrecking things with her thousands of sisters, I doubted whether their collective IQ would suffice to solve Bingdisi’s problem, they would likely each offer a suggestion and adopting even a tenth of them would mean there’s no chance for Sister Bing’s comeback.

In conclusion, since even the scholar Bingdisi herself couldn’t figure out what went wrong with her Divine Technique, a group of laymen and amateurs shouldn’t meddle. Sandora finally took the matter seriously, she too believed it improper for Bingdisi to stay fused with me, and after a moment of pondering, the Queen offered a suggestion: "How about I try using the Soul Taker’s ability to pull Bingdisi out..."

"If you want to kill me, just say it," Bingdisi’s soul said, "Back then you claimed to help me with insomnia, and I ended up singing ’Little Lamb’ while hugging a pillar at your palace gate for two hours... None of your abilities are ever used for saving people."

Sandora pouted without replying, I wiped the sweat off my forehead, pondering what Bingdisi had done for Sandora to impose such punishment back in the day.

"Could you try switching to Void Form?" Lin Xue suggested another idea, "After all, Bingdisi is a High Order God, she can survive in the Void environment, so by transforming you’d effectively become actual Void, allowing Bingdisi’s soul to ’swim out’."

This seemed like a relatively reliable idea, something we could test on the spot, so Sandora first had unrelated weak personnel withdraw, then I switched to Void Form and carefully controlled the surrounding Void Domain to avoid damaging laboratory equipment — it should be in a more open space for such a test, I mused.

"Bingdisi?" I attempted to call the female hooligan, "Can you come out now?"

"... Don’t try; it’s useless. My soul and yours are one; even if you change forms, your soul can’t change with it — still stuck."

I dejectedly returned to my original state. Qianqian on the side mused for a while, who knew how many ideas spun in that brain running at high speed, then she suddenly clapped her palm: "Right, in stories, a prince kisses the princess, and the princess wakes up due to lack of air, why don’t you two try kissing..."

No sooner had she said that than everyone was shocked, I stared at this girl in disbelief while Sandora and Lin Xue’s faces twitched, Sister sighed, "Qianqian, you have quite an open mind," which finally made the girl realize what she suggested, she looked at Bingdisi, then at me, suddenly jumped like a startled rabbit: "Ah, no, no! You two can’t! Ah Jun is my husband!"

Bingdisi appeared to just recover from a moment of shock, she remarked on the public channel, "This girl’s imagination must be bigger than her brain..."

Next, we tried all sorts of methods. Qianqian, Lin Xue, Sister Sandora, even Taville and the God Clan’s jokers took turns suggesting ideas, including re-uploading to the network, spiritual power impact on Bingdisi’s body, inviting Monina to create a dream connection in the Shadow Plane, and watching the old and new versions of "Princess Pearl Circle" — the latter was Qianqian’s idea, attempting to pressure Bingdisi into escaping with "force from the desperate situation", but I dared not agree, for Qianqian’s imagination truly outstrips intellect...

After quite some time of this mess, everyone was mentally exhausted, except Qianqian: she remained full of energy and proposed a Plan C: loop the song "Nervous" all day, surely one of us, Bingdisi or I, would be driven to Soul Out...

Finally, I realized, none of them were reliable, and those slightly more tenable ones didn’t understand Divine Techniques, so getting Bingdisi free was no simple task. I could only talk to the female hooligan within: "How about we put your issue on hold, if worse comes to worst, I’ll seek help from Father God in the Divine Realm — do you see anyone here who looks capable of helping?"

Bingdisi, of course, was highly unwilling, but she had entered a state of serene stillness, deeply unaffected by life or death, expressing in a dead-calm tone: "Whatever, who did I ever tick off this time..."

Sandora arranged for Bingdisi’s body to be taken home temporarily, to Anwina’s care: after all, the body had basic mobility, easier than caring for a vegetative patient. Subsequently, we gathered in the room beside the lab, commencing discussion on another serious affair. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"What exactly is in the Rift?" Big Sister’s question made the atmosphere serious; the tangents were over, and it was time for business.

"Brace yourselves," I shifted to a more comfortable position on the sofa, as what happened in the past few hours could take half a day to recount, "I met the mastermind behind the Fallen Apostles..."

Everyone’s reactions were pretty much expected: Sandora looked shocked but quickly calmed down and started thinking, Big Sister was stunned and hadn’t reacted yet, Lin Xue nodded thoughtfully; of course, she couldn’t predict what happened in the Rift, but as a Prophet, she was used to bizarre situations without surprise (she sees plenty of strange things in her predictions every day). Qianqian’s reaction was unpredictable to everyone, so I curiously looked at her, wondering how this odd-thinking girl would react to the shocking news, and she didn’t disappoint: "Ah Jun, Ah Jun, is the Fallen Apostle boss tall?"

—I didn’t expect her to ask that question.

Once everyone recovered from the shock and chaos, I cleared my throat and began to recount what happened in the online world without missing a detail. The first part of the situation they should be able to roughly understand through external monitoring (of course, outsiders don’t have the kind of special ’perspective’ that I and Bingdisi have), and what happened in the Rift could only be narrated by me.

Bingdisi occasionally supplemented in the spiritual connection, temporarily setting aside her own troubles and focusing on the main task, effectively reducing the chance of me being annoyed by this female hooligan’s nonsense.

After a round of recounting, my mouth was dry, so I picked up the tea in front of me to moisten my throat: "That’s how it is, currently, Bingdisi and I can’t get past that Black Barrier, but it seems neither can the other side. The Rift itself is just a plane, but its influence causes a large area of abnormalities in the network, affecting both the base network and the database level. To us, it’s just a big pit. According to the Xyrin explanation, the network’s dynamic self-repair is constantly counteracting the Rift’s destruction, so from a network security perspective, the Rift is harmless. Its hidden danger lies in the network leading to the Fallen Apostles—Taville, you and Bubbles might have your work cut out for you."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Taville replied. Meanwhile, Bingdisi grumbled discontentedly when I put down the teacup: "No way, I have to drink something too..."

I tugged at my lips: "How can you drink something in your current state?"

"...Then you drink another sip, consider it a share for me."

Amused and exasperated, I complied, listening to Bingdisi muttering in the spiritual connection, "Not satisfying, not satisfying," while looking up at Sandora: "I find that Abyss Xyrin somewhat unreasonable; how much of what she says do you think is credible?"

"The smartest cheater will tell you ten truths and a lethal lie; only novices will lie throughout," Sandora habitually tapped the table lightly with her fingers, "to command the Fallen Apostles, Abyss Xyrin must be the former, so most of what she says is credible, but we’ll have a hard time finding which part is the most unreliable..."

"Then take every word she says with some skepticism," Big Sister said, "the purpose of false information is nothing more than two things: wasting our energy to lead the New Empire astray or covering up some movements of the Fallen Apostles. Now that the Fallen Apostles themselves are in the dark, Abyss Xyrin’s sudden move to deceive people is certainly not for the second purpose, which means..."

"Using false information to drain the enemy’s energy..." Sandora mused, "Indeed, whatever she tells you, the Empire is distracted from handling it, and even now, so many of us are here racking our brains to discern which of her statements are true; her purpose is already achieved."

"In any case, put aside Abyss Xyrin’s strange behavior; at the end of the day, she’s still an enemy, with or without ill will, there’s still a score to settle between the Empire and her," I gently tapped the table, "Right now, what concerns me the most is another matter: According to Abyss Xyrin, seventy thousand years ago when I headed to rescue the Fifteenth Day Zone, a portion of power followed the network’s Breakage Zone, the precursor to the Rift, and spread to the old empire that was already Abyssalized. That power won’t disappear out of thin air, so..."

This topic made the room fall silent instantly, and everyone present except for Qianqian probably understood that if Abyss Xyrin wasn’t lying about this report, we would reach an exceedingly chilling conclusion—

"It transformed into a part of the current Fallen Apostles’ power," Sandora nodded, "or rather, it facilitated the Apostles’ transformation. It was probably due to this power from the Void Creatures that allowed so many Xyrin Apostles to survive the Abyssalization process. That Xyrin also said herself she relied on that part of your power to maintain her sanity until the Abyss Empire’s complete transformation."

Even for powerful Xyrin Apostles or Star Domain Gods, surviving in an entirely polluted Abyssal environment and becoming an Abyss Creature is very unlikely. Most people would be twisted and torn apart in the early stages of pollution, self-destructing into chaotic information and dissipating into the Void, or like Caesar back then, turning into a Tearer Monster that can barely be considered a person. However, the Fallen Apostles have a large number of fully intact legions surviving, which has always been puzzling: If the Xyrin Emperor survived, it would be understandable, but how did those ordinary soldiers who survived the collapse of the Old Empire remain to this day?

We only recently discovered this situation: among the captured and successfully reversed Fallen Apostle forces, we found a large number of ordinary soldiers who served during the Old Empire Era. We always thought the ordinary soldiers among the Fallen Apostles were all newly manufactured by High Order units like the Fallen Emperor or Fallen General, but the emergence of these ordinary veterans overturned this assumption. No one knows how these relatively weak ordinary soldiers survived the pollution seventy thousand years ago. Now it seems it was the Void Creatures’ power that led to this result.

During the Great Pollution of the Old Empire, Void Power became a lifesaving buffer, making the intense Abyssal pollution relatively gentle, thus the Fallen Apostles were born as legions. Seventy thousand years later, they began an eternal war with the army led by this Void Power—it’s an enormous irony.

Of course, it can be seen, even with Void Power as a buffer, some unlucky Xyrin Apostles couldn’t withstand the pollution, and Tearers should be tragic groups too close to the core polluted area, even if the transformation process was neutralized, they didn’t manage to persist until the end.

"We also can’t rule out the possibility that Abyss Xyrin meant to use this false report to confuse us," Big Sister lightly coughed, "if this is true, it would cause a great uproar within the Empire, and it would be troublesome for you, Ah Jun..."

Amused and exasperated, I nodded. If Xyrin wasn’t lying, then seventy thousand years ago, I indirectly catalyzed the Fallen Apostles, and then seventy thousand years later, established the New Empire, and both waves of Apostles are on the brink of bursting their brains fighting—once this spreads, considering the current number of mental hospitals in Shadow City, there might soon be a shortage of beds...

Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about leaks to ordinary races; the rational side of Xyrin Apostles also ensures they won’t be mentally disturbed by this kind of information. Also, for me, even if the power that leaked from me seventy thousand years ago indirectly allowed many Fallen Apostles to survive, so what? It has already happened, uncontrollably from start to finish, and now all I can do is fight the Fallen Apostles and the Abyss Camp they belong to until the end: as long as Abyss Power continues to assault those innocent worlds, the Imperial Army shall never stop; this is the only path continued for millions of years. Spending a long time with Xyrin Apostles also makes me accustomed to thinking about problems in their way, which is to not spend extra thoughts on troublesome matters; you don’t need to know what troubles you’re going to encounter, you just need to know what you should do. (To be continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)