Chapter 617
Yes, at this moment, Lex felt a sense of absurdity and ridiculousness wash over him.
“(Yuanxu language) Speaking recklessly comes with a price, child.” Lex’s expression darkened. “I was the one responsible for rescuing the people of Yuanxu back then.”
Lex had personally overseen the aftermath of Yuanxu, and no one outside could possibly understand what had happened there better than he did. To further his research, he had even taken the time to learn the Yuanxu language.
“(Yuanxu language) Then you must have heard my name from their lips.” Xia Er smiled and nodded, then continued, “The Binder of Time.”
Upon hearing this term, which belonged neither to Yuanxu nor to the language of the spirits, Lex’s expression shifted slightly.
It seemed... she was telling the truth...
She truly was the legendary witch who had once torn open the heavens within Yuanxu.
Xia Er looked at Lex, waiting for his response.
By revealing her name, she aimed to gauge his reaction... She wasn’t even worried that he might kill her on the spot; if that were to happen, it would only provide Xia Er and Lei Mei Dai Si with the answers they sought.
In the calm days that followed, Xia Er had arranged everything she could.
Now, Xia Er was using the remnants of her past life to bait a hook, hoping to catch something big.
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**Chapter 315: The World Line Deliberately Maintained (4293 words)**
Clang—!
“Lei Mei Dai Si! Bad news! The witch has been locked up by Dean Lex!”
The door to Lei Mei Dai Si’s private laboratory was flung open violently, the crystal door crashing against a pile of experimental materials nearby, creating a loud noise.
Sa Da Na, panting heavily, looked at Lei Mei Dai Si, who was at the experiment table injecting herself with a syringe, and exclaimed in a flustered tone, “You need to think of a way out!”
“Dean?” Lei Mei Dai Si continued calmly, pushing the serum into her forearm, merely glancing up at Sa Da Na before saying, “It’s fine.”
Lei Mei Dai Si didn’t seem worried at all about the witch’s predicament. After spending some time together, she knew the witch was a quiet and principled person. As long as she didn’t do anything out of line, Dean Lex was generally reasonable.
“Are you really sure? The Dean has even used her powers to seal things off…”
Compared to Lei Mei Dai Si, Sa Da Na had spent less time with the Dean, and the rumors she had heard about Lex often revolved around her “quirky temperament.”
But soon, as she caught sight of Lei Mei Dai Si’s arm, Sa Da Na’s voice trailed off. She finally focused on what Lei Mei Dai Si was doing.
“Lei Mei Dai Si... what are you doing...?”
In Sa Da Na’s eyes, the arm where Lei Mei Dai Si was injecting the serum had veins that had turned completely black, as if dark blood was surging through them, making its way toward her heart.
The black blood stood out starkly against Lei Mei Dai Si’s pale skin, and beads of cold sweat were forming on her forehead, indicating she was enduring some kind of pain.
“You should go ask the Natural Academy for a sample of the Zero Experiment subject first... Lei Mei Dai Si...” Sa Da Na hurried over to Lei Mei Dai Si’s side, but was blocked by a shadow.
“Experiment subjects are ultimately just that—subjects. They lack ‘emotion’ and ‘thought’ and cannot comprehend what a ‘reproduction ritual’ is...” Lei Mei Dai Si slowly withdrew the needle, a faint black mist escaping from the tip, but soon, the small wound had already healed.
Lei Mei Dai Si’s breathing gradually steadied, though the veins on her hand still pulsed with black, resembling some eerie tattoo.
“The potion and the reproduction ritual are flawed.” Lei Mei Dai Si exhaled softly, shaking her head as she continued, “Both of these things are essentially chasing the faith power of the ‘seed,’ merely repeating the ascension rituals of those who came before.”
“Using the ‘reproduction ritual’ to evoke the resonance of seed power, and utilizing ‘potions’ to modify the body to accommodate the arrival of the ‘seed’...”
“The future potions the witch speaks of are likely not from my potion system, but rather modified from it.”
After a brief pause to stabilize her breathing, Lei Mei Dai Si continued:
“The influence of the ‘seed’ will still exist in the future, and it won’t be affected by the seals of the otherworld as the witch claims. If someone truly intends to seal the ‘seed’ and the ascenders, they will surely fail.”
As she spoke, Lei Mei Dai Si fell into deep thought. After a long while, she slowly said, “The ramblings the witch mentioned... are likely the screams and howls of those symbionts who have gone mad in the otherworld...”
“The closer the power is to the ‘ascender,’ the closer it is to the ‘seed,’ the greater the influence will be, and the more whispers they will hear... So those people in the future will not reach their full potential...”
At this point, Lei Mei Dai Si found herself in a dilemma.
Why?
If the future Annihilation Sect truly aimed to contain all the ‘seeds,’ then logically, they shouldn’t miss any fragments—after all, they had the power to overturn the Tower and other religious realms. Why couldn’t they gather all the ‘seeds’?
Lei Mei Dai Si put herself in the shoes of the future leader of the Annihilation Sect to ponder this question.
Unless...
Unless destruction and containment were tasks carried out by two different groups, and the containment in the otherworld was, in fact, a form of veiled “protection” against the great catastrophe?
If that were the case, some of the inconsistencies might be explained.
But who caused the great catastrophe? Who was being “protected”?
Who was fighting against whom?
Even the witch from the future didn’t know the answers to these questions.
She needed to convey this to the witch... but the witch was still conversing with Lex.
If I were the witch, and I heard this, what would I do?
Lei Mei Dai Si’s index finger lightly tapped the table. The witch, coming from the future, must have known what changes had occurred here and what actions had been taken. She would certainly be aware of the variables involved.
Analyzing information through these variables was what the witch needed to do.
So, to gather more information, the witch would have to create larger variables...
No... that shouldn’t be the case...
So far, the witch had been remarkably calm and low-key, not doing anything out of the ordinary. She might choose some sufficiently stable methods of probing?
For instance, maintaining the status quo? Allowing Sa Da Na’s experiments to leave behind some obscure information through mere hints? Attempting to disseminate information across the great catastrophe’s cleansing?
And the witch’s academy could also secretly hide some information...
While Lei Mei Dai Si was still deep in thought, at the same time, Xia Er was engaged in a not-so-intense confrontation with Lex.
“I have indeed heard that name,” Lex paused her probing, finally starting to regard the girl before her seriously. “You’ve also left behind a small organization.”
“I’m curious why you didn’t take the ‘Cocoon of Light’ or do anything else, but merely helped to lift the seal on Yuanxu.”
Lex looked at Xia Er and inquired.
“You need to answer my question first, Dean Lex.” Xia Er met Lex’s gaze and said, “I will provide my answer based on your response.”
Xia Er reiterated her initial question: “Can you describe in detail how you discovered the ‘Cocoon of Light’ and ‘Yuanxu’?”
Lex took a deep breath and replied, “Of course.”
Having acknowledged the witch’s identity, Lex no longer felt the need to be deliberately difficult. After a moment of recollection, she began to recount her experience of encountering the “Cocoon of Light” and “Yuanxu” to Xia Er.
Lex was a staunch believer in the Dark School. While her theoretical abilities were exceptional, she was also a doer.
She had been traveling from country to country, searching for a suitable realm to serve as a testing ground for her theory of “Dawn”—that is, to artificially influence religious realms and deities, guiding symbionts to choose the better aspects of the “seed.”
However, at that time, the Dark School was not accepted by the mainstream within the Tower. Most people deemed it too radical; on the surface, it was guidance, but behind the scenes, it was seen as the expansionist ambition of certain individuals within the Tower.
But Lex had never engaged in years or decades of debate with those theorists; she preferred to use facts as examples.
The faiths and nations that had hit dead ends, which had cycled through countless times over thousands of years, causing tens of millions to perish in vain, were all documented by Lex and plastered on the faces of those theorists.
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