Chapter 268: Exchange

Dating?!

No, no, I already have someone I like.

Chen Xiao'er's cheeks were burning hot, and she was in a daze for a long time before she noticed Lin Yi's cold gaze.

Phew~ I almost got fooled.

President Lin Yi probably heard from somewhere that Ling and I had a fight, and wanted to test me to find out what the reason was?

She might have done this out of concern for Zero, or she might have wanted to completely get rid of a certain "junior girl who is not worthy of dating Zero."

This perfect president, whose appearance, temperament, intelligence, and talents are all flawless, wants to interfere with my relationship with Zero? I won't give in!

Regardless of the reason, Chen Xiao'er's fighting spirit was fully activated.

She perked up and said with a smile, "Of course not~ I just don't want Xu Snake to play the princess. Can we change someone else to play the role?"

Of course not, Lin Yi knows the meaning behind this drama.

The church let Xu She play the princess just to nail despair to the position of sacrifice, intending to guide Chen Xiao'er to witness this process during the ceremony.

But the situation has indeed changed.

Lin Yi's eyes flashed blue as Guanghui relayed data back to the monitoring center. The surging energy blocked the real-time transmission between the two sides, forcing all connections to remain connected through Guanghui, the powerful relay station.

Chen Xiao'er clearly stated that she would not approve of Xu She playing the role of the princess, and according to the analysis of the expert group, there was a change in the power ritual originally controlled by the church.

Triple Power Ritual...If you can't completely control Chen Xiao'er's behavior, it's best not to make any overly risky attempts.

After repeated applications and suggestions failed, Lin Yi accessed her past memories and personality.

When the faint blue light in her eyes faded, the girl in front of her, with a slightly furrowed brow and a little sweat on the tip of her nose, exuded an even stronger presence.

What kind of feeling is this? It is like a ray of sunshine from hundreds of years ago, and my sister’s little hands raised in the sunshine after washing with hand sanitizer.

The data analysis panel had been removed, and all she could see was this somewhat stubborn girl and her innocent yet firm words.

"I believe that the students who play the princess will definitely be much better than the reluctant Xu Snake~"

At this moment, Lin Yi understood Chen Xiao'er's unwillingness.

Her unwillingness has nothing to do with despair, the world, the church, or the survival of mankind. There is no grand narrative, it is just a small girl's concern.

......The president laughed!

Chen Xiao'er struck while the iron was hot, leaning over and pressing against Lin Yi's arm, saying, "One more thing. Xu She is also a member of the Chen family. This time, someone from outside the school is causing trouble at the school festival. We'd better lock him up to prevent the situation from escalating!"

She was not sure whether Xu She, the assassin hired by the Chen family, and the outsiders who caused the chaos were of the same kind. In any case, it would be safest to control them all.

"You make a lot of sense." Lin Yi nodded slowly, "But there are too many fish that slip through the net. We can't catch them all."

"But the ritual environment is changing so rapidly that we can't pinpoint Despair for now."

That makes sense, but my main goal is to dismantle Xu Snake's character first.

Chen Xiao'er took Lin Yi's hand and said sweetly, "Please, President, I will act well. I promise!"

She tiptoed unconsciously as she spoke, her eyes sparkling.

Lin Yi wanted the church or Guanghui to "persuade" her, but in the end she just relaxed her eyes and nodded helplessly.

"Great!" Chen Xiao'er jumped up happily. She took Lin Yi's hand and ran out: "Let's go talk to Ling now!"

"Okay," was that the only way I could answer? Lin Yi followed her across the carpet, across the tables and chairs, past her companions who were eliminating the cultists... and finally, together, they crossed the dividing door and stepped into the brilliant light.

When they left, the entire room slowly collapsed, starting with the wallpaper.

The apostles spread their wings of light again, and layers of bright blue ripples covered their entire bodies.

Sizzle, sizzle.

In their hands appeared blazing spears of light, with golden threads winding around them.

Among the corpses lying on the ground, there were still one or two living people who were still breathing.

The leader of a small, unknown sect, with a shattered head of strange things on his head, raised his bloodshot eyes and shouted, "I have important information. Can I have it, please?"

The spear of light pierced her chest the next moment, and bits of transparent matter were absorbed by the tip of the spear like wisps of smoke under the illumination of the light.

The apostle pulled out the spear of light swiftly, and at the same time, pulled out her soul.

These fallen souls will enter another dedicated conversion pool, where they will spend a longer time extracting useful memories and converting them into pure energy.

......

The glow of the ceremony continued to spread, gradually enveloping the entire United City.

The staff in the monitoring center and the collaborative office sat in front of their computers, anxiously waiting for Guanghui to deliver new information.

Guanghui has been out of contact for three minutes.

Fortunately, the rules and powers are still in effect, and all safe houses are operating normally. Glory should just be busy fighting against despair and has not fallen.

Click.

An observer pulled the manual cue switch, and the images she observed were shared on all screens in an instant.

The power ceremony constructed by the triple formation changed again.

The ritual formation at the top, which seemed to be constructed out of despair, slowly climbed to a higher position, and a black cross lit up in the center.

At the same time, corresponding light spots appeared at the core positions of the two ritual formations below, two stars, one gold and one white.

Is the Power Ceremony finally about to officially begin? No, the focus isn't just on the ceremony itself. The formation actually has three cores. Could this ceremony be integrating three powers simultaneously?

Not likely.

Past experience and a nagging intuition led everyone to quickly rule out this possibility.

Compared with Glory, the power displayed by Despair did not reach the level of crushing, not to mention that there was Chen Xiao'er, who had extraordinary abilities, in the middle.

So the final result should still be one-on-one devouring and plundering.

Despair replicated the Church's ritual of empowerment, while the Church, in turn, drew inspiration from the ritual of the Devouring Serpent. This time, to guide Chen Xiao'er in helping stabilize the ritual environment, they also deliberately used a fairy tale script as a framework and symbolism.

According to the original plan, the god of love represented the object receiving the power, the queen represented the catalyst witnessing the ceremony, and the princess represented the power or sacrifice being plundered.

They prepared many different versions of the ending.

The result can be that the apostle array absorbs the sacrifice and creates a new power, or the light can possess the apostle and plunder the power of the newly born snake.

Their latest idea is to have Seo She symbolize despair, with Chen Xiao’e witnessing the process of “despair being swallowed by Glory.” In other words, Glory will play the god of love, Chen Xiao’e the queen, and Seo She the princess.

But now that He has taken action out of desperation, He will definitely not sit idly by and watch the church's plan succeed.

His ritual array is highly similar to that of the church, so if he wants to devour the power, he must follow the original plan.

So Despair must have chosen the role of the God of Love!

The expert team typed their conclusions onto the screen, and everyone felt their mouths dry. "Oh no! The message Guanghui sent before losing contact was—"

[Glorious: Overlapping spaces and nearly identical individuals appeared within the Ritual of Power.]

What he meant was probably, "Despair used the ritual of power to create a parallel dimension."

Throughout the long history of Red Star, humans and anomalies have successfully created the so-called parallel space.

The biggest difference between a parallel space and an illusion is that although it may be annihilated due to insufficient energy or world line compression, the individuals in it that are duplicates of reality will not necessarily be erased.

When annihilation occurs, only one of the same person or object can remain, but the one that disappears may be the one in "reality".

If the space in the power ritual is truly a parallel space, then it is not just humans and strange objects that can be considered the same individual, but also the ritual array, the core, and even the ritual itself.

In the script of despair, despair is the god of love, and the princess he has reserved is likely to be Chen Xiaotong.

Because Xu She, the "princess chosen by the church", was once the bishop of the Devouring Snake Cult, and Despair is now controlling the Devouring Snake.

At the same time, they thought of a very scary situation: what was hidden in Xu Snake's body was not despair but the Devouring Snake.

In that case, once the newborn snake Chen Xiaotong and the alien snake Xu She face off, they will be in an absolutely disadvantageous position.

For Despair, what will unfold next is probably that the Devouring Snake devours the Newborn Snake, and then He devours the complete nesting doll of the Devouring Snake.

Then, He will easily defeat Guanghui under the witness of Chen Xiao'er, and after Guanghui falls, He will devour and merge with Chen Xiao'er.

"Oh no! We have to notify the people inside immediately! Tell them to interrupt the performance or at least replace the actors!"

Some people covered their faces and shouted in grief and anger, while more people typed silently on their keyboards, hoping that Guanghui would see and forward it as soon as possible.

After a desperately long wait, a line of golden text appeared on the screen.

【Character has changed】

As the golden font floated, the light at the core of the formation also changed from sharp to soft.

No, it wasn't softening, but rather the radiant light was swallowed up by a power of emptiness, giving it a translucent texture.

Although it is impossible to see what is happening inside, it is obvious that the control of the Ritual of Power is not in the hands of Despair.

"You are worthy of being my Lord." Someone praised softly, but the gleam in his eyes was more like approval for a child than admiration.

Regardless of whether they heard this sigh or not, everyone had similar thoughts: Guanghui is indeed the treasure of the technological age and the crystallization of human wisdom.

Only He can calculate everything before making a desperate move!

......

The humans in the monitoring center were jubilant, while the demons banished to the edge of the ceremony were bored.

"Haa~" Xinnaya was lying on the lawn looking up at the sky. Delicious stars were waving to her one after another, but it was a pity that she couldn't jump up and chew on them.

Damn Lan... I wish a meteorite would just drop from the sky and crush you to death! You must be behind this, causing my confession to fail.

The image of Lin Lang flashed through the devil’s mind.

How come even this skinny human can get involved with Chen Xiao'er, but I can't? Where did I lose?

She looked at the frozen stars in the sky with melancholy.

Oh~ If Chen Xiao'er could fall from the sky to my... really fall?!

Sinaya suddenly jumped up, and saw a pale star burst out with a blazing edge, and then fell from high in the sky.

No, the height is wrong.

Xinnaya immediately realized that this was not a meteor, because it did not come from the universe but from the top of the ritual array.

bite--

A figure fell at high speed. Xinnaya's eyes widened. She could smell the vibrations belonging to Chen Xiao'er. Could it really be Chen Xiao'er?!

She subconsciously took a step forward, and her body turned into a deep purple stream of light, running towards the "meteor" in the sky.

Xinaya couldn't help but open her arms while sprinting, but the painful experience of catching Lan and Ling made her tremble twice and slow down abruptly.

[No! It would be so disgusting if I hugged those two things!]

But if it really is Chen Xiao'er, wouldn't I have wasted a great opportunity?

The meteor flew lower and lower, and Xinaya, who was looking forward to it, finally saw the human figure wrapped inside.

Hey, isn't this Lan? It's been such a short while since we last met, and you're already so lax?

"Tsk." She gave a mocking smile, and instantly stuffed her raised hands back into her pockets, assuming a super loose onlooker posture.

The pale light fell faster and faster, and lower and lower. Xinnaya's sarcastic smile grew wider and wider, and the corners of her mouth almost stretched to her ears. She couldn't wait to see the miserable scene of Lan falling at her feet.

Wow——

The meteor suddenly turned when it was about to hit the ground, making a U-shape like a boomerang and hitting the devil heavily!