164: Chapter 165 A True Resurrection?

As Lin Muyang's emotionless command fell, Seraphina did not hesitate for a moment, her cold elven eyes remaining completely calm. She raised her slender arm again, her fingertips tracing an elegant arc through the void, leaving behind trails of crimson energy. More concentrated blood-colored energy surged from her body, rapidly condensing and taking shape before her into more than twenty Blood Shadow Flying Daggers, thin as a cicada's wing and wrapped in an ominous black mist at the edges.

Although there were fewer flying daggers this time than in the first "Blood Shadow Tide," each one was more solid, emitting a sharper and more pure aura of death that was even more heart-palpitating. They hovered quietly in front of Seraphina, vibrating slightly like a swarm of bloodthirsty poisonous wasps waiting for orders.

Kneeling within the Nether Prison, William's face was as pale as paper, devoid of any color. His eyes widened as he looked in disbelief at the lethal blades pointed at him once again. He never imagined that after confessing, acting so submissively, and even casting aside his dignity as a powerhouse to kneel and beg for mercy, the opponent would still strike to kill.

By all logic, as a core member of the "Oracle" organization, shouldn't he be an extremely valuable prisoner? Didn't the opponent want to dig out more information from him about the organization, the "Gods Chosen One," and global secrets?

The thought had just flashed through his mind, and before he could even open his mouth to beg for mercy or explain further, the twenty-plus Blood Shadow Flying Daggers moved!

"Swish, swish, swish, swish—!"

The piercing sound of breaking air joined together like the grim laugh of the God of Death. These flying daggers no longer sought wide-range coverage but were aimed precisely and cunningly at William's vital points—the center of his forehead, throat, heart, liver, kidneys... Every dagger carried the killing intent of Seraphina, the master Night Elf Assassin.

William's pupils constricted. His survival instinct made him want to struggle, to dodge, and to activate any life-saving items he might have hidden. But his body, enveloped by the Slowness Domain, felt as if it were filled with heavy lead and mercury; even moving a finger became incredibly difficult. Suppressed by the Silence Domain, the power within his body flowed sluggishly, and no skills could be mobilized. Weakened by the dual effects of "Weakness" and "Power of Corrosion," his powerful physical body, of which he was so proud, was now as fragile as weathered, rotten wood.

More importantly, he had just suffered the heavy blow of a ruptured heart; his life force was rapidly fading, and his consciousness and reactions had become dull and blurred.

"Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!"

The dull thuds of sharp weapons entering flesh rang out again, denser and deeper than before. Blood blossoms, accompanied by the sound of slight bone fractures, bloomed one after another on William's body. His body trembled violently, and a discordant, wheezing sound came from his throat—his trachea had been sliced open. Intense pain surged through his nerves like a tsunami, but soon, the pain began to numb and fade, replaced by a cold, boundless sense of darkness and emptiness that was rapidly swallowing all his senses.

"No... it shouldn't be like this... I am a Gods Chosen One... I am the one chosen by fate... How could I..." A final flicker of resentment and malice flashed through his fading consciousness before being completely swallowed by the infinite darkness.

His grey eyes, which had been full of ambition and calculation, and later only held fear and pleading, completely lost their luster, becoming hollow and dull. His tall and sturdy frame, like a rag doll with its bones removed, slumped limply onto the cold, damp forest grass within the Nether Prison. Bright red blood, tinged with a strange dark hue, gurgled from the wounds all over his body like a stream, quickly soaking the withered leaves and soil beneath him, filling the air with a heavy scent of blood.

He no longer moved, no longer breathed, and his heart had long since stopped beating. A level 193 "big shot" with a sub-god level talent, who secretly controlled a multinational secret organization, had reached the end of his life in an unknown forest in a foreign land.

"Just like that... he's killed?"

Shen Muyao, held in Lin Muyang's arms, witnessed the entire process. Although she was mentally prepared, her small face still turned pale at the sight of a living person being ended so decisively and easily before her eyes, and she subconsciously gripped the front of Lin Muyang's clothes. What puzzled her even more was that Lin Muyang had said earlier he wanted to get important information about the "Oracle" organization from this man. Why... did he kill him directly?

Seeming to sense the tension and doubt of the girl in his arms, Lin Muyang gently patted her back and whispered, "It's fine."

His gaze remained calmly fixed on William's cooling corpse, as if looking at an object that had nothing to do with him. Only after confirming that the other's heartbeat and breathing had completely stopped and his life aura had fully dissipated did he nod to the short-haired girl who had been standing quietly to the side.

"Gui Wanwan, you may begin."

"Yes, Master." The signature smile on Gui Wanwan's face, tinged with a bit of innocence and cunning, did not change at all. She stepped forward briskly to William's corpse. Although she was a sweet and cute-looking girl, Shen Muyao felt an inexplicable heart-palpitation as she approached, as if the surrounding temperature had dropped several degrees, and an indescribable sense of fear rooted in biological instinct quietly spread. It wasn't fear of a powerful force, but rather awe for something more fundamental, more ancient, symbolizing the end of all things.

Lin Muyang also raised an eyebrow slightly; this was the first time he had felt Gui Wanwan's full use of her origin abilities related to "death" and the "netherworld" from such a close distance. Even he could clearly feel an invisible, freezing field that seemed capable of freezing the soul slowly expanding with Gui Wanwan as the center. It wasn't a surge of energy, but more like the manifestation of a "rule" or "concept."

"Is this... the power of 'Yama'?" Lin Muyang thought to himself. The description of Gui Wanwan's skill, Yamas Life Extension, was to consume the souls of 10 bosses to bring a target who had been dead for no longer than a certain limit back to life for a period of time. He had always known this skill was special and powerful, but seeing and feeling it in person still felt beyond imagination. This commotion certainly didn't seem like an ordinary healing or resurrection skill; it felt more like a brief interaction and confrontation with some supreme "rule of death."

Gui Wanwan stood by William's corpse and extended her slender, fair palm, which was almost devoid of color, palm down, hovering over the corpse's forehead. Her smile faded slightly, and her expression became focused and solemn—a divine solemnity that didn't quite match her usual temperament.

Her red lips parted slightly as she began to softly chant an ancient incantation in a low, ethereal, strange language that seemed to come from the depths of the Nine Serenities. The language was not any known tongue on Blue Star; the syllables were strange and awkward to pronounce, yet they contained a peculiar rhythm. As she chanted, translucent grey ripples, like water waves visible to the naked eye, quietly rippled out from her palm.

Then, an even more eerie scene occurred.

The surrounding scenery began to blur and distort, and the light seemed to be swallowed by some force, rapidly dimming. A deep, silent darkness that seemed capable of absorbing all sound and color spread out from beneath Gui Wanwan's feet, quickly enveloping a range of several hundred meters. This darkness was not pure black; within it, countless blurred shadows seemed to flicker, and barely audible whispers filled with grief and resentment echoed, while the air filled with a faint scent similar to decaying earth and ancient tombs.

Shen Muyao couldn't help but shudder, subconsciously pressing her body closer to Lin Muyang. She felt as if her soul were trembling slightly—a fear and awe born of instinct when facing the end of life and the final destination of all things.

Lin Muyang also focused on sensing the changes around him. His powerful mental strength could vaguely "see" that in this space influenced by Gui Wanwan's power, the boundary between life and death seemed to blur. Wisps of "spiritual fragments" so thin they were almost invisible, carrying William's memories and consciousness from his life, were being pulled and gathered by an invisible force from all directions, from the void, and perhaps even from some unknowable "other side," slowly flowing like rivers to the sea into the cooling body on the ground.

This process lasted for about ten seconds. When the last "spiritual fragment" merged into William's corpse, Gui Wanwan's chanting also came to an abrupt halt. Beneath her palm, a faint, flickering ghostly green light, like a candle in the wind, flashed momentarily at the forehead of William's corpse before sinking into it.

The eerie "darkness" enveloping the area receded as quickly as a tide, sunlight spilled down again, and the sounds of birds and insects in the forest became clear once more. However, the faint sense of cold and deathly stillness in the air had not yet fully dissipated.

On the grass, William's finger twitched ever so slightly.

Then, his hollow and grey eyes suddenly refocused! Only, those eyes were filled with extreme confusion, pain, and a bone-deep fear of everything he had just experienced. He had "come back to life," or rather, something had caused him to temporarily "move" again.

"Ugh... ho..." A sound like a broken bellows came from his throat. His chest heaved violently as he tried to breathe, but he only sucked in cold air; there was no sense of oxygen entering his lungs. The hollow, agonizing pain at his heart remained, even becoming clearer, yet no blood flowed. The flesh around the wound took on a strange, unnatural grayish-white hue.

He struggled, using all his strength to raise a hand to his chest, only to find his arm too heavy to obey. He rolled his eyes, looking at the calm youth not far away, and beside him, the short-haired girl who had a naive smile back on her face—a smile that made his very soul tremble.

"I... I'm not dead?" An absurd thought rose in his mind, but he immediately dismissed it. No, that feeling of his consciousness completely sinking and falling into an endless, dark coldness was absolutely real! That was the taste of death; he could never mistake it!

Subconsciously, he tried to pull up his attribute panel to confirm his status. However, a cold, mechanical prompt ruthlessly shattered his last shred of hope:

[Warning: You are dead; no attribute panel information available.]

Dead?!

William was completely stunned. If I'm already dead, then why can I still think? Why can I still see? Why can I still feel pain? Could this... be the world after death? No, the surroundings haven't changed; Lin Muyang and the others are still here...

He tried to control his body, but a feeling of extreme awkwardness and sluggishness came over him, as if he were operating a worn-out puppet. He couldn't feel his heartbeat, his lungs couldn't exchange gas, his blood seemed to have stopped flowing, and his body was ice-cold... Aside from his brain still functioning and being able to drive this shell through some unknown means, this was completely different from "being alive" as he knew it.

"Could it be... I really am dead?" A hair-raising conclusion surfaced. "Is what's alive now just my consciousness? Or rather... is my soul being forcibly imprisoned in this dead shell by that girl?"

He suddenly turned his gaze toward Gui Wanwan, his eyes filled with extreme horror and disbelief. This girl, who had shown strange abilities during the Summoner Competition, actually... possessed the power to control life and death and to imprison souls?!

No, it wasn't just imprisoning souls! She had forcibly pulled him back from the far side of death! Although his state was bizarre and might not be a true resurrection, this method... already surpassed William's understanding of the current power system on Blue Star! Even the legendary supreme beings who mastered the Laws of Life would find it no easy task to resurrect someone who had just died, let alone do it... so "easily"!

Bringing the dead back to life?!

These words exploded in his mind like a thunderclap! If his previous kneeling to Lin Muyang and calling him "God" was mostly out of fear of powerful strength and an act of expediency, then now, an emotion mixed with extreme shock, incomprehension, and... a certain twisted, fanatical fervor erupted in his heart like a volcano!

To be able to hold power over life and death—isn't this... isn't this exactly the authority possessed only by gods in legends?

Originally, in his eyes, Lin Muyang was just a lucky super-genius who mastered some powerful unknown force, a "powerful prey" or "potential threat" to be dealt with carefully or even exploited. But now, Lin Muyang's image was infinitely elevated in his heart, veiled in a mysterious, supreme, almost law-like shroud! To be able to command a subordinate with the power to bring the dead back to life, what kind of existence must Lin Muyang himself be?

"Could he... truly be a god descended to the human world? Or... an incarnation or agent of a god?" Once this thought arose, it grew like weeds, quickly occupying his entire mind. All his previous calculations, resentment, and hatred seemed so laughable and insignificant at this moment. In the face of power that could control life and death, what did his secret plots, his sub-god level talent, and the organization he painstakingly built amount to?

The corpse couldn't help but tremble violently, not from pain, but from an uncontrollable excitement and awe on a soulful level, as well as... a twisted fervor as if he had found his home. His refocused eyes stared fixedly at Lin Muyang, a flame of near-frenzied worship burning in the depths of his pupils.

"God... True God!!" He used all his strength to squeeze a raspy voice from his dry throat. This time, there was no longer any hypocrisy or calculation, only the most primal and complete submission and awe. The way he "looked" at Lin Muyang was like the most devout fanatic gazing up at his one and only god.

This scene not only shocked the "resurrected" William but also completely stunned Shen Muyao, who witnessed it all up close. Her small mouth hung slightly open, her beautiful eyes wide, as she looked at William, who had strangely come back to life on the ground and was prostrating himself before Lin Muyang, then at Lin Muyang, who looked as usual as if he had only done something trivial, and then at the short-haired girl Gui Wanwan, who still had a sweet, harmless smile. Her brain almost stopped thinking.

"Res... Resurrected? Lin Muyang can bring the dead back to life?" This realization clashed with all her past common sense. This had completely exceeded her imagination of what a "powerful Summoner" could be! This was simply a miracle!

Lin Muyang took in all the shock of the girl in his arms and also saw the complete change in William's gaze. Everything was within his expectations. Gui Wanwan's Yamas Life Extension was naturally not a true resurrection; it was more like a high-level "undead manipulation" or "soul retention" with strict time limits, and the caster, Gui Wanwan, could terminate the effect at any time, turning the target back into a real corpse. William's current bizarre state was less a "resurrection" and more like a high-level Zombie or Corpse Puppet temporarily infused with a soul.

But William didn't know this. Anyone who had just experienced true death and suddenly regained consciousness would find it hard to analyze calmly under extreme shock and the desire to live. They would instinctively attribute this to an incomprehensible, irresistible "miracle." And this was exactly the effect Lin Muyang wanted.

What he wanted was not William's temporary, variable cooperation out of fear of death, but to completely destroy his psychological defenses, making him feel awe and submission from the depths of his soul and willingly offer everything. Only after experiencing a true death would a person understand how precious living is and develop an indelible fear and dependence on the one who holds the power of life and death.

Lin Muyang took two steps forward and looked down from above at "William," who was struggling on the ground and looking at him with eyes mixed with extreme fear and fervor. His voice was flat but carried an unquestionable authority:

"Tell me everything about the Oracle organization you founded. Your true name, your talent, the organization's structure, the list of all members, their identities, abilities, locations, your contact methods, secret bases, resource reserves, funding sources, future plans... everything you know, in detail, tell me all of it."

He no longer dared to have any hesitation, any concealment, or any small schemes. That so-called dignity of a powerhouse, the great cause of the organization, and the pride of a sub-god level had long been crushed to pieces after experiencing true death and this bizarre resurrection. His only thought now was to please the mysterious youth before him who controlled life and death, in exchange for that slim possibility of a true resurrection!

"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! I won't hide a thing!" William shouted hoarsely in a hurry, his speech so fast it was almost unintelligible. "My true name is Jamie Matthew! I'm from the American Empire! My sub-god level talent is High-Spirited Battle Intent, and its effect is..."

Like beans pouring out of a bamboo tube, he began to pour out his greatest secrets and the core intelligence of the Oracle organization without reservation. From the specific effects and awakening process of his talent to how he utilized the mythic grade skill [We Are the Same Kind] to discover and recruit Chiba Ruri and "Dragon", and how he played the dual roles of "Eagle" and the Gods Chosen One to build the organization's structure, to how he screened, controlled, and brainwashed those geniuses from all over the world with at least s-rank talents...

According to his confession, the core members of the Oracle organization directly under him, including the recently fallen Beatrice, originally totaled 23 people. Now that Beatrice is dead and Chiba Ruri has defected, 21 remain. Every one of these 21 people is a Special Class User with extraordinary talent and amazing potential; among them are 3 with SSS-Rank Talents, 11 with SS-Rank Talents, and 7 with s-rank talents. They are distributed across major countries worldwide with various identities—students, mercenaries, company employees, and even government personnel with hidden identities. Under Jamie's long-term brainwashing and control, they are firm believers in the so-called "God" and Gods Chosen One, serving as the organization's most solid backbone.

And all of this, from now on, with Jamie Matthew's complete submission and confession, was about to change hands. These geniuses with at least s-rank talents, along with the resources, connections, and intelligence networks they might be linked to, would all become an undeniable hidden force in Lin Muyang's hands.