The Sorcerer's Handbook

The Celestial Chariot Ox lumbered into the distance, carrying the Ascending Golden Rain with it into oblivion.

In the wake of its departure, the souls of the past began their rebirth. Ashe donned his knight’s armor, Sonya wrapped herself in the cloak of the lover, Dia removed the mask of the younger sister, and Denzel tucked away the emotions of a mistress.

Denzel’s voice had once again become utterly flat, like rain ascending against the natural order of heaven and earth. She had broken free from her emotional inertia, leaving only the cold will to fulfill her mission. She commanded, ”Return the Incarnation of Secrets to me.”

Ashe replied airily, ”Then give me back the Incarnation of the Stars. You’re not my mistress anymore, so you can’t exactly expect to freeload off me, can you?”

They had never formally met, yet Ashe recognized Denzel instantly as the Commander of the Legion of Heroes. While they were in the cabin, she had already revealed her ability to command armored units. This was a trait inextricably tied to the Conjuring spirit.

Similar to Ashe, other sorcerers could acquire Conjuring spirits through luck or plunder. However, he had used every sorcerer approaching him along the way as an expendable rearguard. With all other candidates eliminated, the only person within a one-kilometer radius possessing such a spirit had to be either Ashe himself or the Hero Commander hunting him down.

”Mind your position,” Denzel said coldly.

Her right hand tightened slightly, and Ashe felt his neck become like a wet towel being wrung dry by an ogre. He could barely breathe.

”Swordswoman... Witch... leave now,” Ashe wheezed, grabbing Denzel’s wrist and prying with all his strength to buy himself space to speak. ”What comes next is a private date between the Commander and me. Unrelated people shouldn’t be watching.”

Sonya and Dia responded with steel and sorcery.

Decade of Swordcraft!

Torrent Line!

Clearly, they were unwilling to watch Ashe’s ”romantic encounter” unfold.

”She’s alone,” Sonya said, glancing sideways at the faint silhouettes of the army beyond the fence. ”Her troops can’t enter. We have the advantage in numbers—”

Purple flames erupted from Denzel’s body. ”Is that so?”

The color of her assassin’s attire deepened as though layers of ethereal fabric had stacked over her form. She still appeared to be clad in light, sheer mesh, yet she now radiated an unbreachable, crushing weight of absolute pressure.

Denzel said, ”Assassin Specialists may be the weakest armored units among Tier-Four troops, but I can stack thirty layers of armor by manifesting ten units at once. In large-scale battles, once only the commanders remain, it becomes a pure contest of soul energy. Whoever has more can arm more units. A commander armed with thousands of units is, in essence, an entire army. That is what we call an Invincible Hero.”

She tilted her head. ”I’m not sure how you sorcerers acquired the Conjuring spirit, but do you really wish to compete with me in terms of soul energy consumption?”

She gently stroked Ashe’s face. Her sharp nails felt like cold blades against his skin. ”It’s been a long time since I personally fought a Starshot Warrior from the Star Hall. Why don’t you let those two girls become Starshot Warriors as well?”

Through the faint resonance of Conjuring spirits, heroes could vaguely identify one another. However, the recognition was crude. While those within the same faction could be roughly distinguished, identifying someone from a different faction was mere guesswork. This was why Bledo had mistaken Ashe for the Logistics Commander Demilo, and why Denzel assumed Ashe was a Star Hall Commander.

Denzel concluded that only Ashe possessed a Conjuring spirit. The other two were likely his combat attendants... or bedroom companions.

Ashe shrugged. ”Let’s not. Having my mistress suppress my lover for me sounds a bit pathetic. Makes me look like some corrupt noble brat.”

He glanced at Sonya and Dia. ”Go on, get moving. I can’t properly ’handle’ my mistress with you two staring.”

Ashe knew they stood no chance. After equipping himself as a Starshot Warrior, he had already exhausted the soul energy they had painstakingly accumulated.

Soul energy was a fickle resource. It dropped from Knowledge Creatures at an abysmal rate. It almost never dropped from packs and had only a 33% chance of dropping from large creatures. But Denzel, backed by a Divine Lord, was a top-tier commander carrying a vast reservoir of such energy. She could arm hundreds of units instantly. Ashe, in his Starshot form, had only seven layers of armor. Denzel could surge to seven hundred at a moment’s notice. The gap in durability was an abyss.

Worse, she was not some slow-moving boss to be farmed. Quite the opposite; in her eyes, bolstered by her Assassin Specialist unit, it was Ashe and his allies who were the slow-moving mobs.

Dia and Sonya had to leave. That way, even if negotiations with this spirit lover turned fatal, only Ashe would pay the price for the failed romance.

Sonya remembered Ashe’s words from earlier. If it’s to protect you... Dying once is an acceptable cost.

Meeting Ashe’s trusting gaze, she bit her lip and grabbed Dia, retreating toward the cabin wall to break the Commander’s line of sight.

”Are they your most precious treasures?”

The voice closed in like a dying note, growing louder with every step. As the question brushed against their backs, Sonya spun around.

The tall female assassin charged like a shadow, blotting out the sky. Ashe, dangling from her right hand like a doll, struggled helplessly.

Denzel’s left hand struck toward Sonya. Those slender fingers, built for music, now felt sharper than the Fish Slaying Dragons’ fangs, sending a bone-deep chill through Sonya’s soul.

Miracle, Water Moon!

Miracle, Strangling Thread!

Sonya immediately countered with a defensive Miracle, meeting the commander’s momentum head-on to redirect its full force. Meanwhile, Dia assisted from the side. Razor-sharp filaments capable of slicing large creatures into dozens of pieces surged forward like a trap, coiling tightly around the Hero Commander.

Clang!

Boom!

The counterattack failed, and the threads shattered like glass.

Denzel seized Sonya by the throat and slammed her into the ground. Her pale purple nails sank into the girl’s flesh like venom slowly eroding her soul. Yet, as the situation grew more chaotic and bloody, Sonya’s pale red eyes only grew calmer. Using the ground as leverage, she swung her sword with desperate precision, and once again, countless threads enveloped the commander’s body.

”Miracle: Blood Blossom Wa—!”

The ultimate Sword Class Miracle was cut short.

Denzel hoisted Ashe up as a shield. ”Why did you stop?”

The Moonwater threads that had been tightening around the commander were now coiled around him instead.

Denzel continued, ”Starshot Warriors have seven layers of armor. A Two-Winged sorcerer lacks the power to break through all seven in a single strike. Go ahead. Attack all you want.”

Dia desperately activated her Aqua Line, wrapping thirteen coils around Denzel’s neck and pulling with all her might. ”Let them go!”

However, a Miracle that had been designed for decapitation merely shaved off a single layer of Denzel’s armor. The commander ignored the ”neck massage” entirely.

As Sonya’s soul energy drained, her body became increasingly translucent, yet she refused to surrender. With Ashe being used as a shield, she resorted to the most vicious response she could muster: she kicked with all her strength at the most sensitive, indecent spot she could reach. If she couldn’t hurt the woman, she would at least humiliate her.

Just as the situation reached a total collapse, Ashe spoke. ”If you don’t want to kill me, you’d better stop. She and I share the Shared Life blessing.”

Sonya quickly felt the nails around her neck withdraw. She had fought countless battles in the Virtual World, but this was the first time she had been pinned down and slowly ground toward death. Yet, instead of lingering shock, a wave of intense humiliation rose in her heart. She had actually... revealed such a helpless state to the Watcher.

Denzel mused, ”I’m helping you, you know. If I trigger the Shared Life and then stop, wouldn’t that remove your constraint? Just a little more force would do it. Are you sure you want me to stop?”

Ashe ignored the provocation. His voice remained steady as he spoke, ”You’re right about one thing, but wrong about another. You don’t want to kill me because death is my escape route. Your goal is to take the Incarnation of Secrets from me.

”You can’t kill me, nor can you kill her. You can’t even kill the witch currently hanging off your neck. She carries a Shared Death curse that randomly selects one of the four of us to die in her place. If you’re lucky, you’ll earn the ’I just killed myself’ achievement. You can’t threaten anyone, my unknown lover. Let us go.”

Denzel replied. ”You are both right and wrong. As you’ve said, to reclaim the Incarnation of Secrets, I cannot kill you. But if you refuse to comply, your lives still mean nothing to me.”

Denzel hoisted both Sonya and Ashe into the air and walked toward the fencing. Dia poured every ounce of strength into her Aqua Line and leaped onto Denzel’s back, pulling desperately. However, the threads only served as a makeshift child carrier, leaving Dia hanging off her like a backpack.

Denzel held them out over the abyss beyond the fence.

A massive Eight-Eyed Weaving Spider tore through the curtain of ascending rain. Its ruby eyes locked onto the fragile sorcerers, its mandibles trembling as if thanking the Virtual World for the meal. Behind it, countless shadowy shapes lingered in the golden mist. Based on their numbers alone, Ashe and Sonya would hardly serve as an appetizer.

Denzel’s voice drifted from behind them, ”We don’t usually go out of our way to erase a sorcerer’s soul, but we don’t mind letting our subordinates enjoy a snack. If I throw you in, your souls will be torn apart by dozens of creatures. You won’t even have time to return to reality. Your consciousness will collapse into despair as your mind dissolves into silence. Your bodies will never wake again. You won’t even be granted the right to fall into Hell. You will simply become another fragment of the Virtual World. And when I pass by, perhaps I’ll greet you.”

At the sight of the Eight-Eyed Weaving Spider, Sonya froze. The weight of her impending death bore down on her, crushing the air from her lungs. Fragments of textbook knowledge surged through her mind, grinding against her fragile will.

In the end, she was still an eighteen-year-old girl. Her lips trembled. A faint, choked sound escaped her throat as she fought to keep her eyes steady, refusing to let tears fall. In a blur of fear and survival instinct, her hands moved aimlessly, searching, grasping, and reaching for anything that could save her. And she found it.

When the knight grasped her hand, the grievance in her eyes finally condensed into a mist of tears.