C2378 The Alteration of Fate
Stephanie and the Primal Beast's cries for help rang out simultaneously. Yu Yuan's spirit was shaken. He gleaned from Stephanie's urgent message that the Spirit of Fate's actions were all for the purpose of refining the little Primal Beast!
The Spirit had instructed Zhiya on how to nurture a Primal Beast, ensuring Zhiya would produce one specifically for its own use!
Only powerful living creatures like the Primal Beast and Yu Yuan, imbued with the Secrets of Life and Primal Blood, could bear the profound mysteries of the Way of Heaven!
"Do you really seek your own demise?"
Clad in a golden cape and wielding an amethyst wand, the Spirit of Fate arched an eyebrow, immediately aware of the duo's pleas for help. It cast a cold gaze upon the wand in its grasp.
At the tip of the wand, a faint phantom flickered—it was the residual soul of Stephanie.
Stephanie's residual soul fluttered weakly, like a flickering candle in the wind, threatening to extinguish at any moment.
"Is this all that remains of you? What more can you possibly do?"
After the Spirit of Fate had possessed Stephanie's body, it had nearly consumed her soul, leaving behind only a wisp of spiritual sense within the wand, allowing Stephanie to bear witness to its grandeur.
To its surprise, Stephanie, even in her diminished state, still harbored hope and sought Yu Yuan's aid.
With a contemptuous snort, Stephanie's residual soul within the amethyst wand vanished without a trace.
Simultaneously, the golden cape the Spirit adorned itself with transformed into an expansive sea of golden light, enveloping the wailing Primal Beast.
The Primal Beast's cries became sporadic as the tattered purple essence that poured from its being merged with the golden cape, seemingly becoming one with it.
"You are the vessel I desire."
The Spirit of Fate, satisfied with its possession of Stephanie's body, gazed contentedly at the Primal Beast beneath the cape.
It had slain the rebellious Primal Animas and integrated the Cosmic Order into the golden cape, all to one day provide a sanctuary for these ultimate expressions of the Way.
Stephanie, the God of Destiny, could not endure the cape's might within her most formidable celestial form.
Yet, the Primal Beast could.
As it draped the golden cape over the Primal Beast, the Spirit of Fate intended to swiftly engulf the creature with its mystique.
The Primal Beast's beast soul was entirely consumed by the entity, and it would become the new master of this body.
As for Stephanie, the leader of the Heavenly Clan, she was merely a stepping stone.
Eventually, it would abandon the body of the celestial deity and infuse all of its strength, spiritual sense, and the Cosmic Order into the Primal Beast.
The Primal Beast sensed its killer intent and knew that it was about to act, which is why it desperately called for help.
Whoosh!
After discarding the golden cape, the Spirit of Fate, wielding an amethyst wand and adorned with a golden sash, departed from the star shaken by space magic.
"This body was always meant to be cast aside."
As it flew, it regarded its empty hand with displeasure.
"Without securing a world and the complete life sequence of Primal Blood, it's not the perfect living creature, unworthy of becoming my vessel," it huffed, then soared past all the supreme beings and gods of the Otherworld, straight to the Book of Time.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Streams of the River of Time swirled around the Book of Time, while Heesters, clutching the hourglass, appeared gravely solemn.
A mysterious pendulum manifested on Heesters's forehead as he braced himself.
Despite the relentless encouragement from Zhong Chichen, Taishi, and Yu Yuan, which reignited his will to fight and kept all would-be intruders from the Book of Time at bay, not one could traverse the River of Time to reach the Book.
He was aware of his exceptional divine power, having just confirmed it.
Yet, facing the Spirit of Fate that had possessed Stephanie, he felt an immense pressure bearing down on him.
For a considerable time, Heesters had seen "Stephanie" as his spiritual anchor, the leader he aspired to follow indefinitely.
Now he had come to the stark realization that, unlike other dormant Primal Animas, the Spirit of Fate within Stephanie must have been lucid all along!
It had been using its divine power to subtly manipulate Stephanie, making her unwittingly serve its ends.
Stephanie might have always been a mere puppet, believing she could predict the future, thinking her visions were the result of her own divine power.
Little did she know, it was all the Spirit of Fate's orchestration, intentionally showing her only what it wanted her to see.
"Heesters, your death is inevitable."
Within the depths of the Spirit of Fate's golden eyes, as he clutched the amethyst wand, a vivid scene emerged.
The image of Heesters, the White Bone, bursting apart and the hourglass of time shattering, scattering golden sand everywhere, was clear in his gaze.
Heesters, as seen in those eyes, was already dead.
Heesters had shattered into countless white jade bones, and the golden sand flowing from the shattered hourglass narrated the tale of his demise.
Heesters gazed blankly into those golden eyes.
Boom!
The spiritual sense of Heesters, and the Time Rule he had mastered, suddenly established a mystical connection with the golden eyes.
In that moment, Heesters found himself ensnared in the vortex of fate, unable to escape.
Countless luminous and splendid threads of fate sprang from Heesters’ sea of perception, intertwining with the golden eyes.
These delicate golden filaments, seemingly the very strands of Heesters's destiny, were now in the hands of the Spirit of Fate, who had usurped Stephanie. It began to reweave and... tamper with them!
The Spirit could alter the destinies of all living creatures, even allowing immortals to meet their premature end.
As his divine power manifested, even Yu Yuan felt a profound terror, as if his own fate was being manipulated by another's hand.
The Spirit of Fate spoke dispassionately, "Heesters, what you behold is the fate that has been set for you."
From deep within the amethyst wand, a mysterious and elusive force surged forth, infusing into the golden eyes and rendering the vision of Heesters' death into reality.
Crack!
The hourglass in Heesters's grasp fractured abruptly.
The myriad streams of the River of Time, encircling the Book of Time, ceased their flow.
In that instant, golden blood seeped from Stephanie's golden eyes. The body of the leader of the Heavenly Race seemed to suffer the wrath of the Way of Heaven, her bones cracking audibly.
Altering the fate of another, decreeing the death of the God of Time, exacted a toll on the Spirit of Fate.
Stephanie, who had been possessed or, more accurately, assimilated, sustained varying degrees of damage to both body and soul.
Yu Yuan then realized why the Spirit of Fate had kept the Primal Beast at bay, not rushing to possess and refine it immediately.
For when his formidable Power of Destiny was wielded against a god as mighty as Heesters, he too would endure the fierce backlash of the Way of Heaven.
He was destined to sacrifice Stephanie of the Heavenly Clan at a critical moment to unleash his terrifying power as the God of Destiny.
Take this moment, for instance!
He allowed his spiritual sense to consume the Primal Beast through the golden cape, thereby transferring his divine power and cosmic rules.
Simultaneously, he utilized another spiritual sense within Stephanie's body to perform divine magic.
In his view, Stephanie was expendable once the Primal Beast was in his possession, and he planned to complete the transfer of his spiritual sense, cosmic rules, and divine power.
Before the transfer, he intended to maximize his resources and achieve something monumental.
Crack crack!
The towering white jade skeleton of Heesters, the God of Time, began to fracture.
The Divine Artifact, the hourglass, shattered completely, its golden sands of time still flowing, mirroring the vision Heesters had seen through his golden eyes.
He seemed to have anticipated his imminent demise, his bones shattering, dying at the hands of the Spirit of Fate.
This was his predetermined fate, inescapable chains binding him to his end here.
In the depths of the void.
Whoosh!
Yu Yuan, still hastening on his journey, unleashed the Soul Altar, revealing layers of shimmering platforms.
"Wake up!"
A burst of cyan light emanated from the ninth-floor Soulstone Pedestal, instantly illuminating all the platforms below.
The supreme beings linked to his Soul Altar, whose souls had been suppressed, now experienced a resurgence and amplification of power within their own bodies.
"..."
