Chapter 322: Appearance of the Divine Artifact

Chapter 322: The Arrival of the Divine Artifact

Alfred was inside, yet he was not, for within the workshop lingered only a dim, yellow halo. It was faint, akin to a flickering candle flame, but it possessed an extraordinarily resilient endurance.

Leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, Karen listened to the prayers echoing from that minuscule glow of light and smiled.

"Heh, hehehe..."

As his laughter faded, Karen exhaled a long, deep breath.

The grogginess that had previously threatened to crush him within his own mind—no, that had already crushed him—finally vanished completely at this very moment.

When one is lost, even the companionship of a single lamp brings warmth; when looking up into the dark night, even a solitary star shining down evokes a sense of beauty.

Life is much like sailing a ship upon the vast ocean; in truth, most people's vessels possess neither sails nor oars, merely drifting passively along with the direction of the current.

At such a time, if an anchor could be dropped, even a fleeting moment of stillness would be enough to command envy and inspire deep gratitude.

Karen looked

“Once I am strong enough.”

After this, there would be no more cracks within my soul.

Karen tilted his head back, raising his hand to snap his fingers sharply by his ear.

“Snap!”

…

Karen opened his eyes. Beside him, Ashley stood motionless with her eyes closed, and the other members of his squad stood equally still.

It was not just his own team; everyone across the other three squads was frozen in place.

Slowly,

Karen shifted his gaze, letting it fall upon Poussin, that giant walnut of a beast.

Despair consumed Poussin’s heart.

Phantom beasts possessed intellect. Though their race lacked human ethics and social concepts, they retained the base instincts of living creatures.

What Karen had seen, Poussin had witnessed as well.

The creature could only curse its fate. Fate had given it a one-in-four chance, and it had chosen this place.

Why did it have to be him, and not the other three Poussins?

Karen looked down and noticed a white silken thread tied to his wrist; its other end was fastened to Poussin.

A closer inspection revealed that every person bore a white thread, connecting them to the phantom beast within their respective barriers.

Using his free hand, Karen untied the white thread and gathered it into his palm.

Poussin could neither speak nor move, but through the silken thread, Karen could feel the creature's desperate pleading.

It was not begging for its life. These beasts knew from the start that being sent up here carried an overwhelming probability of death, for they were merely consumables in this trial.

It was begging not to be punished in a manner far more terrifying than death itself.

Karen loosened his grip, and the white thread snapped back rapidly into Poussin’s body.

“Woooomph…”

A sound resembling a steam whistle echoed from Poussin, vibrating with profound relief and gratitude.

And then,

“Boom!”

The giant walnut exploded.

It had chosen suicide, doing so without a shred of hesitation and with frantic urgency, as if terrified that Karen might change his mind.

Following the blast, the others did not awaken. Because Poussin’s ability served only as a catalyst, their inner reactions had not yet concluded.

Karen deduced that a glitch must have occurred on his end, causing both himself and this Poussin to malfunction.

As the first person to wake, Karen chose to sit down quietly and wait in silence.

Five minutes later, the second person awoke. It was Philomena, the sleepy girl from the adjacent squad.

Upon her awakening, the Poussin on her side immediately fled into the ground and vanished, denying her any chance to strike. Just like Karen, she severed the white threads on her teammates, yielding the same result—the team members did not wake up because of it.

The sole value in doing so was that the Poussin lost its authority to monitor the contents of the illusion, effectively providing an immediate safeguard for privacy.

Of course, if one could seize the opportunity to slay the Poussin, it would count as completely destroying the witness.

On another side, Muri, the leader of the First Squad, suddenly flickered and reappeared beside his Poussin. A burst of Order Flame struck the creature directly, reducing its body to ash instantly.

Immediately after, the bald captain, Kane, woke up as well. He prepared to strike his Poussin, but the creature dove beneath the earth ahead of time.

Just then, Punk’s voice echoed through the air:

“One hour remains. During this hour, the three squads with the highest number of awakened members will earn the qualification to advance to the final round of testing.

If the last two squads end up with an identical number of awakened members, then all four squads will enter the final round together.”

Ten minutes later, Bart woke up.

A few minutes more, and Ventura awoke.

Then came Mars, followed by Blanche. Ashley finally woke up nearly half an hour later.

The situation across the other squads was much the same, but because Karen's squad had sustained the least exhaustion and maintained the best condition, their overall awakening speed was significantly faster than the other three teams.

Karen reconfirmed one thing: he was truly an extreme anomaly.

He believed that if the other candidates had been subjected to the exact treatment he had just experienced, most of them would have stood no chance of waking up. A permanent sealing of their self-awareness would have been the most natural outcome.

Furthermore, Karen could discern that this stage with the Poussins was less an elimination trial and more a boon granted by the organizers. It gave the youths who had made it this far a chance to elevate their self-awareness, and the difficulty was actually quite reasonable.

Therefore, the Poussins must be exceedingly expensive, and perhaps not many were kept in reserve. That was likely why they had drugged the phantom beasts in the previous round with stimulants, aiming to eliminate more teams beforehand.

By the fifty-fifth minute, the First, Third, and Seventh Squads had awakened in their entirety.

Meanwhile, in Philomena’s squad, three members remained asleep.

Their injuries were generally severe and their conditions too poor, leaving them unable to digest even a benefit like this at the moment.

From the looks of it, Philomena’s squad was bound for elimination.

Yet right at that moment, Philomena walked over to two of her unawakened teammates, placed her hands upon their shoulders, and closed her eyes.

Two minutes later, the two teammates opened their eyes and awoke.

Philomena then walked to her final teammate, placing her hand upon his shoulder. At the absolute last moment, literally within the final minute, her last teammate awoke as well.

The members of the other three squads watched Philomena’s actions in astonishment. She had actually used a soul-tethering method to forcibly enter the spiritual consciousness of those three individuals to rouse them.

Karen, recalling her habit of falling asleep even while walking, wondered if she had entered their minds by dreaming into them.

Ultimately, with Punk’s announcement, all four squads advanced to the next round together.

“Pfft!”

Upon receiving confirmation of their advancement, Philomena spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to her knees. Blood began to seep from the corners of her eyes, nose, and ears. Evidently, she had paid a staggering price to awaken her teammates.

In truth, there was little meaning in her doing this. This round was a bonus stage, but the final round could not possibly be another. The final round required only two squads to remain for the selection to conclude.

Her squad, including herself, was currently in an unimaginably wretched state, making it utterly impossible for them to survive the next round of competition.

In fact, Philomena knew this perfectly well in her own heart, yet she simply refused to accept defeat.

The reason for her defiance was not a desire to prove anything to Karen, but rather a product of her own pride. Even knowing there was no chance at the end, she would force her way into the final round, even if it meant paying a heavy personal price.

This was something even Karen had to admire. Though she was unsuited to be a teammate or a friend, her pride and strength certainly commanded respect as an opponent to be taken seriously.

Above them, the dark clouds gathered once more, signaling the countdown to the next round.

Karen looked over his team members and found them all somewhat dispirited. The other squads were largely in the same state; having just emerged from a state of self-examination, their moods were bound to hit a low ebb.

“Pull yourselves together!” Karen clapped his hands. “Picking up emotions is an instinct, but putting them down is true mastery. At a time like this, wasting energy on useless sentiments is the ultimate stupidity!”

In the end, it fell upon him as the captain to rally their morale, irony abounding since he had been under the greatest pressure just moments before.

“Yes, Captain!”

“Yes, Captain!”

The crowd roared in response, pushing themselves upright one after another.

"Marth, activate the Mind Bridge array now! Connect us all!"

"Understood, Captain."

Taking a deep breath, Marth set the array into motion, and those standing within its boundaries found their minds linked, each becoming acutely aware of the others' emotional shifts; when the true onslaught of the divine artifact arrived, this connection would forge a collective psychological defense.

The First Squad had activated a similar array, their members already stepping into its perimeter.

Witnessing this, Captain Kane, the bald leader of the Seventh Squad, slapped his own head and cursed, "Just taking advantage of the fact that our squad doesn't have an array master, are you!"

At that moment,

The First and Third Squads were fully prepared to welcome the descent of the divine artifact, the Seventh Squad was shouting profanities, and as for Philomena’s squad, not a single soul remained standing—they were practically all sprawled on the ground.

Yet, as the dark clouds prepared to disperse and another rift tore open above, a beam of light erupted from Kane, the bald captain of the Seventh Squad; stretching out his arms, he grabbed the hands of two teammates, and the others followed suit, forming a tight circle.

They were gambling—gambling that the artifact's power would strictly target the spiritual realm.

The artifact was simply too formidable; if it unleashed its full, unrestrained might, every single squad present would be obliterated.

Therefore, this makeshift team-building method actually stood a decent chance of working.

Just then, a primitive, ancient aura began to bleed through the rift.

It had not even fully crossed into the rift yet, but the terrifying pressure of the divine artifact was already pouring down, accompanied by a spiritual storm that served as a mere appetizer.

Even shielded by their array, the members of the First Squad twisted in agonizing struggle; though no sound escaped them, their sheer misery and torment were palpable.

The members of the Seventh Squad went from standing hand-in-hand to crouching hand-in-hand, tears and mucus streaming down their faces in unison from the intense pain.

Philomena’s rebellious squad had already been deemed unfit to continue competing by the array master in charge of their sector, and they were promptly teleported out of the barrier.

Meanwhile, the members of Karen’s squad looked at one another, then glanced at the two neighboring squads, their faces blank with bewilderment—why did they feel absolutely nothing over here?

A single possibility crossed everyone's mind!

Aisly turned around to look at Marth, who was maintaining the array, and gasped in admiration:

"Marth, it turns out you were the one hiding your true strength all along!"

The rest of the squad cast reverent looks toward him; regardless of the circumstances, having a hidden powerhouse suddenly unveil their true might at the final hour to protect the whole team was a wonderful surprise, and no one was going to blame him now for keeping secrets.

Marth blinked, "Huh?"

Faced with his teammates' praises, Marth was the most bewildered of all; not only had he not hidden his abilities, but even if he had, what did that have to do with this?

The array he had laid down hadn't encountered even a fraction of the spiritual storm—not even a gentle breeze had brushed past it!

"Karen... Karen..."

Due to the Mind Bridge, everyone's consciousness was partially linked, causing this mental whisper to echo clearly in the ears of every team member.

Ventura asked in confusion, "Who is calling out to the captain in their mind at a time like this?"

Bart turned his head toward Aisly and Blanche, warning them, "You two need to control yourselves right now. Don't call the captain so tenderly in your heads, we can all hear it."

Because the voice was unmistakably female.

Aisly immediately shook her head, "It's not me!"

Blanche also shook her head hastily, "It's not me either, it really isn't!"

"Really not you two?" Bart remained skeptical.

Aisly snapped irritably, "No, I said it's not! Even if we wanted to think about the captain, it wouldn't be now. Can't we wait until the selection is over and we're lying in our own beds at home!"

Blanche nodded along, "Exactly, exactly."

Bart muttered in confusion, "Hey, if it's not you two, then who could it be? Ventura, Marth, which one of you has a woman living inside your spiritual world?"

Marth spoke up, "The voice isn't coming from inside the array. It's filtering in from the outside."

"Outside the array?" Bart grew even more perplexed. "How is that possible? Have you forgotten we are inside a squad barrier? Sounds can't penetrate it, and spiritual force can't either, unless it's that div—"

Ventura cut in, "Unless it's a spiritual message sent by that divine artifact."

"Brother Karen... I miss you so much... Brother Karen..."

The squad fell into a collective, stunned silence.