The alien captain sneered, his voice dripping with disdain.
“The Gates of Hell? This backwater speck of a place worth the trouble of building a gate? I’m only here to do a small favor for a newly promoted captain.”
Xing Chen’s eyes narrowed.
“So, there are aliens making moves?”
The captain chuckled, a sly edge to his tone.
“Heh, I didn’t say that, now did I? But stick around here for a month, don’t rush off to chase your clan’s relics, and you might just stumble into somethingā¦ interesting.”
With a cryptic grin, the alien captain tore open his shirt, revealing a jagged, gruesome sword wound across his chest.
He claimed it was inflicted by a low-tier hero, barely B-rank in strength, yet capable of unleashing a Boundary Breakāa feat that rivaled the mastery of a grandmaster.
Xing Chen had crossed blades with this captain more than once.
The alien couldn’t best him, so now he was fishing for information about this mysterious hero, likely plotting an assassination.
Too bad for him.
Xing Chen didn’t keep tabs on the empire’s affairs and had no clue when such a prodigy had emerged.
Even if he did know, he wouldn’t breathe a word.
In the end, the alien captain slunk away, bamboozled by Xing Chen’s evasive nonchalance.
***
“Bishopā¦ andā¦ Xing Chen?” A delicate, ethereal voice echoed through the temple.
Noi stepped cautiously inside, her fists clenched, squinting against the sunlight that pierced the grand hall.
As her eyes adjusted, she spotted a familiar figure with fiery hair lounging on the floor.
Even with his back to her, Noi knew it was himāthose crimson locks and the black blade tucked into his belt were unmistakable.
Xing Chen had swapped his bare torso for a plain, threadbare white shirt, so thin it clung to the chiseled contours of his abs.
“Well, look at you,” he said, smirking.
“Haven’t seen you in a bit, and you’re already glowing up.”
Propping himself up, Xing Chen shifted to face her.
In his gaze, Noi shimmered with a platinum-white radiance, though her tangled threads of fate still twisted in disarray.
“How’d your resonance go?” he asked.
“Umā¦ all three angels’ eyes opened. Is that good or bad?”
“You’re saying all their eyes opened?”Ā
The bishop, who had just finished setting up the crystal altar for the ritual, fumbled in shock.
The Heart of the Ocean nearly slipped from his grasp.
“Yeah, and they were glowing. Kinda freaky,” Noi added, mimicking the motion with her hands near her eyes, fluttering them open and shut.
Xing Chen burst into laughter, charmed by her theatrics.
To confirm Noi’s words and test his own suspicions, the bishop hurried her to the crystal altar, explaining the ritual’s steps with urgency.
“Where’s this Black Star place? Is it safe for my consciousness to link there?” Noi asked, her voice tinged with worry.
“After the gods sealed the evil spirits, they ascended to the Black Star to guard the seal. That’s what the scriptures say,” Xing Chen answered for the bishop.
“Think of the Black Star like the sun or the moon. Your link is just a quick trip there and back.”
The bishop flipped through a tome, double-checking the ritual’s procedure, then turned to Xing Chen.
“Which of us will be her guide?”
The Rite of Divine Grace required not only the chosen one blessed by the gods but also a guide to protect them.
This guide didn’t need to be a believer, but their strength had to be formidable enough to fend off the eerie creatures of the Black Star.
“I’ll do it,” Xing Chen said, drawing the black blade from his waist.
He stood back-to-back with Noi, ready for what lay ahead.
***
Meanwhile, beyond the temple’s walls, Lyte perched on a treetop, peering through a stained-glass window with strained eyes.
His presence was cloaked flawlesslyāno one in the bustling crowd below or the trio inside the temple sensed him.
“Let’s see if you really wield light magic or if you’re just a fraud,” Lyte muttered.
Under the gods’ gaze, no falsehood could hide.
Having lived through one cycle of rebirth, Lyte placed unshakable faith in the divine.
With a cardinal bishop and the empire’s guardian present, if Noi were exposed as a witch, she’d have no escape.
“Channel your magic into it,” the bishop instructed, slotting the Heart of the Ocean into the crystal altar.
Noi obeyed, pouring her raw, unrefined magicāuntouched by light affinityāinto the altar.
A sacred barrier sprang up, forcing the bishop to step back.
He watched, breathless.
In the Rite of Divine Grace, only two could stand near the altar: the chosen and their guide.
The altar pulsed with a divine, otherworldly aura, enveloping the temple in a ghostly reverence.
“It’s here!” Xing Chen said sharply.
Alongside the divine energy came a sinister, alien forceāmysterious, coalescing into form.
“Noā¦ I’ve never seen creatures like these,” the bishop said.
His voice trembling as he flipped through a small, well-worn journal.
No record of the Rite’s documented creatures matched these specters, whose presence sent a primal shudder through the soul.
Xing Chen scanned the wraiths battering the barrier, his usual nonchalance replaced by a rare solemnity.
His black blade, wreathed in flames, slashed through a specter.
Its form scattered, only to reform instantly, unscathed.
He glanced at the snow-haired girl before the altar, her eyes shut tight.
A faint angelic halo shimmered behind her, so pure it seemed out of place in this wraith-haunted temple.
“Crack!”
The barrier splintered, on the verge of collapse.
No time left.
Xing Chen gritted his teeth, reached beneath Noi’s cloak, and fumbled across her pale, soft stomach.
Linked to the Black Star, Noi’s consciousness couldn’t react or even notice his touch.
His fingers found the Vermilion Bird sachet tied to her belt, but it was knotted too tightly.
With no time to spare, he sliced through the belt with his blade.
The leather snapped, exposing a glimpse of soft, pink fleshāher hip and thigh.
In that moment, Xing Chen learned a secret.
Noi wasn’t wearing underwear.
“Boom!”
The barrier shuddered, spiderwebbed with cracks, seconds from shattering.
Xing Chen crushed the sachet, erasing its tracking charm to keep the Vermilion Bird unaware, absorbing the sword qi within.
Empowered by the Vermilion Bird’s strength through his Boundary Break, he charged out of the barrier, turning the temple into a blazing inferno.
The bishop scrambled, casting barriers to shield precious artifacts from the rampant flames.
The standoff dragged on until the Vermilion Bird’s power waned.
At last, Noi’s link to the Black Star severed.
The snow-haired girl, bathed in radiant light, opened her luminous eyes.
A purifying wave of brilliance surged from her, cleansing the temple of all malevolence.
Darkness fled.
The wraiths, unable to hide, burned away under her light.
Xing Chen’s battered, scarred body mended under the glow.
The restless flames within him calmed, his frenzied mind clearing in an instant.
The bishop, struck speechless by the holy girl’s radiance, snapped out of his daze and turned to the central statue of the goddess.
Afiya was smiling.
It was certain!
“The Saintessā¦ she’s truly the Saintess!” the bishop whispered, tears welling in his eyes.
Since his birth, the sacred role of the Saintessāmeant to serve the worldāhad been twisted into a tool for the Court Master’s power games.
Now, a Saintess had awakened, known only to him and Xing Chen.
This was their chance to overthrow the Court Master’s dominion and restore the Saintess’s rightful authority.
Xing Chen tossed aside his tattered shirt, bare-chested once more.
He looked at the white-haired girl by the altar, clutching a purer orb of light than before, her antenna-like strand of hair swaying in confusion, still dazed from her link.
Waitāher fate linesā¦
Xing Chen’s pupils constricted.
Noi’s destiny had stabilized.
Two thick threads of fate stretched outāone tethered to him, the other reaching beyond the windowā¦
He glanced outside, his golden eyes locking with Lyte’s amber ones.
Lyte’s brow furrowed in suspicion before he vanished in a flash.
Lyte fled like a whipped dog, stopping only when the temple was far behind, gasping to steady his breath.
In his past life, he’d known Xing Chen.
The man was called immortal, yet he hadn’t survived to the world’s end, dying in the lawless seas.
The four imperial guardians who knew his fate guarded the secret fiercely, never speaking of it.
Now it made sense.
Xing Chen had colluded with the witch Noi, explaining his elusive, near-mythical presence in Lyte’s previous life.
But what baffled Lyte was this: Noi was, impossibly, the Saintess.
He was certain his tracks hadn’t been exposed early.
The bishop and Xing Chen couldn’t have staged a performance for him.
And the power Noi unleashed after the ritualāno one could fake that.
Lyte needed to think.
Was it the gods who erred, or had his own mind betrayed him?
***
Back in the temple, the bishop and Xing Chen grappled with their own unease.
“Noi, did you see anything?” the bishop asked, calming himself to address the ritual’s final step.
“Nothing at all,” she replied.
“Nothing? Are you sure?”
The bishop thought he’d misheard.
Noi pouted, mulling it over, then nodded.
“Really, nothing. I was just standing in a blank white space, and then my consciousness came back. Is that what the Black Star’s like?”
The bishop’s face twisted in confusion.
“Noā¦ that’s not right.”
“Everyone who undergoes the Rite, even those who fail to resonate with the angels, sees a gray or black backdrop. Never white.”
“And the Saintess is unique. She receives a divine oracleāsometimes a riddle, sometimes a clear warning of danger, but always with meaning.”
As the bishop explained, Xing Chen’s expression darkened.
When he’d stepped beyond the barrier, something had yanked his consciousness away, leaving his body to fight the wraiths on instinct.
In that fleeting moment, he’d seen the goddess Afiyaāone hand pointing to the heavens, the other to him, her face etched with sorrow.
He’d tried to see more, but Noi’s light had pulled him back.
The bishop rifled through a worn, tattered book, searching for an explanation for Noi’s anomaly.
Noi stepped down from the altar, her loose trousers slipping dangerously low.
She nearly flashed the room, hastily tugging her cloak to cover herself.
Waitāwhere’s my talisman?
She patted her waist, unable to find the Vermilion Bird sachet.
Catching her distress, Xing Chen pressed his lips together, torn.
If he spoke up, he’d be the creep who cut a girl’s pants.
If he stayed silent, she might overthink it.
After a moment’s debate, he leaned in and whispered to the bishop, letting him clear up Noi’s confusion.
The story was simple: during the ritual, the sachet had protected her from the wraiths’ assault.
In a way, it was trueājust with Xing Chen as the active protector.
Noi didn’t press further about the sachet, and the bishop gave up chasing answers for the missing oracle.
To shield Noi’s identity, the bishop and Xing Chen swore secrecy, burying the truth deep.
They drilled into Noi the need for discretionāno flaunting her power, no revealing her true role.
Their nagging made her nod like a pecking hen, murmuring, “Mm, mm, mm.”
A novice nun soon led Noi away to find a room to rest.
From today, Noi was a probationary nun of the Court.