The oily senior sister theme package received an enthusiastic welcome from everyone. Women became more beautiful and alluring, men grew handsomer and more imposing, and the entire Stan World acquired a polished elegance reminiscent of a Korean online game. Even the landscapes appeared infinitely more exquisite.
When Ye Chui woke from sleep and caught sight of the scenery outside, he still felt a vivid impression of finely rendered CG.
The Stan World remained for another three days before it was fully prepared to ascend to the middle-layer world.
They did not yet know what awaited them there, but it would undoubtedly involve crueler battles and harsher trials. Nevertheless, with the Stan World at the height of its momentum, every person brimmed with fighting spirit for the conflicts ahead.
Now, every soul in the Stan World believed without question that Ye Chui would lead them away from the Divine Sin Continent and back to the free world of the Castro Continent.
“The Stan World has gained qualification to ascend to the middle-layer world. Do you wish to proceed with ascension?”
Inside the temple, the synthesised female voice rang out from the ladder light pillar.
This voice represented the will of the ladder. Ye Chui had come to understand that the ladder itself was very likely the first divine artefact created by the God of Gods, or at least a part of one. It governed divine domains and maintained divine order within them. After the gods fell, the devils seized it, altered its rules, and imposed a new order. Every rule of the Divine Sin Continent was dictated by the ladder light pillar.
Those banished here lost their power. Lower-layer residents had to undergo endless trials. Humans could trade ladder points for power at the light pillar. All of this formed the system of order.
Every fragment world possessed a minor ladder, the embryonic form of other divine artefacts.
Once in the middle-layer world, through combat and participation in the war of the gods, one could exchange components of divine artefacts from the ladder light pillar, allowing a fragment world to acquire a divine artefact and become a divine domain.
A complete divine artefact required not only those components but also a connection to the ladder light pillar. Ye Chui therefore suspected that somewhere on the Divine Sin Continent lay an artefact that controlled all ladder light pillars. Finding it might reveal the way to escape.
With Kas’s confirmation, the ground of the Stan World trembled gently. A wondrous force enveloped the realm, lifting the entire world upward.
The tremor lasted roughly half an hour before it gradually subsided.
As the nominal ruler of the Stan World, Kas could sense everything within it. Bolstered by the divine artefact, his awareness became even sharper. He pressed a hand to his head and spoke with evident shock. “The Stan World is no longer where it was. This is the middle-layer world. It is utterly different from the lower layer. Every world here is immensely powerful. I can see them…”
Ye Chui examined the divine artefact’s light curtain. To his surprise, a peculiar icon pulsed in the bottom-right corner.
The icon was a hammer.
It emitted a steady “beep beep, beep beep” sound.
“This sound…”
Ye Chui felt a powerful sense of penguin-like familiarity.
In truth, the hammer icon served a similar purpose. It was a messaging tool, contacts from other divine domain worlds that possessed divine artefacts.
Ye Chui tapped the icon. A flood of messages appeared.
War Dragon Divine Domain: “Welcome, welcome, warmest welcome. It has been a thousand years since a new world ascended.”
Skeleton Heart Divine Domain: “Let’s be friends. Skeleton Heart will be your greatest ally.”
Earth Divine Domain: “Did Skeleton Heart offer alliance? Friendly warning, do not trust them. They inherited the Skeleton King’s legacy and are the most cunning. Befriending them will only get you deceived.”
Mass Divine Domain: “Want a disc? Latest divine order patch disc, only ten super magic scrolls.”
…
Ye Chui stared at the colourful array of messages. His mouth hung open for a moment, as though a whole new world had opened before him. The last one, in particular, about wanting a disc, brought both deep familiarity and a jarring sense of wrongness.
Divine order patch discs. Such a thing truly existed.
The middle-layer world differed markedly from the lower layer in every respect. Resa, Guni, Salome, and the others all felt the change.
“This world… I can sense magic in the air, faint though it is. I think I can form spells without relying on magic scrolls,” Xiles said. She held a high-level wand, and clusters of black flame flickered at its tip.
The seal on magic was evidently far less strict in the middle-layer world.
“Indeed…” Ye Chui sensed the magic too. He turned to Debbie, only to find her gazing blankly outside the temple, tears streaming down her face.
Debbie was crying.
“Debbie?” Ye Chui asked at once. “What is it? There is no need to cry even if you are moved. Or are you still upset about the flat chest? I will try another theme package later…”
Debbie shook her head and wiped her eyes. Her voice was full of confusion. “I do not know why I suddenly want to cry. I just felt overwhelming sadness out of nowhere. I do not know why…”
As she spoke, her body seemed to move of its own accord. She walked out of the temple.
The others hurried after her.
Once outside, Debbie stood and looked up at the sky. Tears continued to flow unchecked.
Resa offered a handkerchief and asked in puzzlement, “Big sister, what is wrong? You… eh?”
Mid-sentence, Resa sensed something and looked upward.
Everyone else saw the phenomenon in the sky.
“That is… a [Spacetime Afterimage]?” Ye Chui blurted in shock.
After the gods fell, scenes of their battles lingered within divine domain fragments. Ye Chui had encountered many [Spacetime Afterimages] in his past adventures. Each one he witnessed formed a playable file in his magibook.
So far there were five files: Prologue: Dragon’s Demise, Chapter 1: Buried Sword Land, Chapter 2: Goddess Reincarnation, Chapter 3: Headless Spirit, Chapter 4: Puppet Graveyard.
Was he about to witness the sixth?
When Ye Chui saw the [Spacetime Afterimage] in the sky, he finally understood why Debbie wept.
This afterimage depicted the death of the Wealth Goddess.
In the heavens, a petite woman glowing gold fought a towering red devil.
This devil differed from any Ye Chui had previously encountered, at least twice the size. Three pairs of crimson wings spread from its back. Dreadful spines covered its shoulders and arms. Its face was grotesquely ferocious, fangs protruding. It wielded a bizarre weapon that constantly shifted form.
It attacked the Wealth Goddess relentlessly.
She was clearly at a disadvantage, retreating step by step.
Farther on the horizon, a terrifying pillar of light pierced the sky. Within it, a human figure was faintly visible.
Outside the pillar, another Wealth Goddess stood guard, golden greatsword in hand.
Two Wealth Goddesses.
Ye Chui recalled Celty’s words. The full title of the Wealth Goddess was Goddess of Wealth and Eternity. The bearer of that name was in fact two identical goddesses.
In her youth, the Wealth Goddess had embarked on an adventure and become trapped in the Eternal Desert. To rescue her, the God of Gods forcibly disrupted the desert’s temporal order, extracting two versions of her from different points in time.
This act ultimately granted her a perfect duplicate, indistinguishable from the original.
They were not clones. Both were the true Wealth Goddess, from separate timelines forcibly united, with the paradox erased by eternal rules.
The Wealth Goddess was twin goddesses.
One now battled the devil. This one lacked the golden greatsword. She appeared to be the same goddess Ye Chui had glimpsed in earlier afterimages. Her golden greatsword remained in the Buried Sword Land, suppressing the devil there, and now rested in Ye Chui’s storage space.
The other guarded the light pillar, evidently protecting the figure within.
That figure… could it be the God of Gods?
He seemed engaged in something of utmost importance.
The duel between devil and Wealth Goddess soon reached its climax.
The battle was silent, yet Ye Chui seemed to hear a anguished roar. In the sky, the Wealth Goddess suffered a grievous blow. An ethereal shadow detached from her body.
It was her soul.
The devil’s weapon cleaved her body in two.
The Wealth Goddess wielding the golden greatsword appeared ready to rush to the rescue, but the soul-state goddess shouted forcefully, halting her. Even as a soul, she retained fearsome power. She charged the devil once more.
The devil bellowed, staggered back several paces by the impact.
Having delivered that final strike, the soul reached its limit and fell into slumber. Soul and severed body transformed into meteors that scattered in all directions.
The Wealth Goddess had been divided into three.
One soul, two halves of flesh.
Having eliminated one Wealth Goddess, the devil charged the great light pillar. The second goddess raised her golden greatsword to meet it. At that instant, however, the pillar erupted in blinding radiance. The light turned the entire sky deathly white. Everyone instinctively shut their eyes.
Tears welled in Ye Chui’s irritated eyes, but he forced them open. Through the blur, he saw the pillar, the figure inside, and the second Wealth Goddess vanish abruptly, as though forcibly transported away by some immense power.
When the white light faded, the devil scanned its surroundings. Unable to locate its foes, it seemed to conclude that the terrifying enemy was dead. It began to laugh with mad triumph.
If the figure within the pillar had been the God of Gods, this moment marked his fall.
The [Spacetime Afterimage] ended. Ye Chui recovered from his shock. An idea struck him. He hurried back into the temple and seized his iPad magibook.
Every afterimage he witnessed created a file on the iPad. This time was no different.
A new video file appeared.
Its title: Final Chapter: Eternal Doomsday.
The doomsday of the Eternal Goddess.
The doomsday of the gods’ clan.
Ye Chui began playback. Each completed file produced a summon. He wondered what this one would yield. The ten-minute video soon finished.
The instant it ended, sudden change erupted.
Three meteors burst from the iPad.
“That is…” Ye Chui’s eyes widened. He recognised them as the meteors formed when the Wealth Goddess split into three.
The Final Chapter had summoned the three meteors born from her death.
In his moment of astonishment, the meteors streaked outward. Others were entering the temple. One meteor, containing the Wealth Goddess’s soul, struck Debbie squarely.
Boom.
A fearsome golden mist blasted in all directions.
Debbie truly shared profound ties with the Wealth Goddess. Ye Chui found it surprising yet hardly shocking. The present scene might be the soul’s complete return to her body.
What stunned him beyond measure were the remaining two meteors.
They struck Guni and Salome.
The bisected flesh of the Wealth Goddess had fallen upon these two monstrously strong girls.
Ye Chui’s heart shook violently. “I have long pondered the link between the Wealth Goddess and Debbie, but in truth Guni and Salome are equally bound to her. Celty said the Wealth Goddess herself was a greatsword warrior of monstrous strength, much like them. Guni felt deep affinity with the golden greatsword in the Buried Sword Land. Salome and Guni are alike in every respect. The gift of converting food into magic is not uncommon on the Castro Continent, but for petite girls to possess it is extraordinarily rare. No, it should be said these two are the only ones.”
The inheritance of the Wealth Goddess did not belong to Debbie alone.
It belonged to Debbie, Guni, and Salome, all three girls.
Now they were inheriting the power of the Wealth Goddess.
Merged with the meteors, golden light blazed from their bodies. Golden cocoons enveloped them. They appeared to be undergoing a wondrous transformation.
At the same moment, a notification flashed on Ye Chui’s iPad magibook: “iPad upgrade detected. Note: This upgrade cannot be stopped.”
