Bethstana’s condition was somewhat off. Her voice was muffled, as if she were speaking from inside a box.

Her emotions were abnormally negative. Despite the ongoing sacrifice outside still creating carnage, she seemed convinced she couldn’t resurrect.

But this completely contradicted her previous decisive launch of the city-wide sacrifice.

When she had just tried to drag Saul and Shaya to die with her, she still had final determination. Upon hearing Saul say there was a second path, it was as if all the strength had drained from her body.

“Anyway, besides trusting me, you have no other options, do you?”

Bethstana’s eyeballs turned with difficulty. “Trusting you would just make me your test subject.”

“Deals naturally require a price, but it’s different from the test subject you imagine. You can survive rationally, though your freedom will be restricted. However, I can guarantee that after you serve me for a hundred years, I’ll grant you freedom.”

While Bethstana was still hesitating, Saul was already quietly probing her condition with mental power.

He needed to be careful that Bethstana wasn’t secretly employing some means, and her hesitant, fragile, and sensitive state really didn’t seem like that of a third-rank wizard.

At this time, when his mental power swept over a shadow tightly wrapped by rootlets behind Bethstana, his mental power suddenly felt a burning sensation, as if scalded by something.

“What is that?” Saul was curious.

Who knew Bethstana would directly answer him. “It’s the Wishing Candle.”

“Wishing Candle?” Saul had never heard of this thing, but why did Bethstana actually answer him?

Could this person have gone mad?

Reminded by Saul, Bethstana remembered the Wishing Candle she had just obtained from Shaya.

“This thing is useless to me.” She used tree branches to hand a white candle to Saul. “And I still have to bear the cost of using it.”

Saul first scanned the seemingly ordinary candle with mental power, then took it.

Just then, the candle suddenly lit with a “hiss.”

At the same time, Saul’s heart stirred, and he opened his left hand. A dark red thick leather book appeared in his palm.

[Lunar Calendar Year 320, May 15th, Clear

Wishing Candle,

Cursed object.

Each time the flame lights,

You can make a wish.

It will summon from the void an item helpful to realizing your wish,

But it doesn’t guarantee your wish can be fulfilled.

However, as the person who makes a wish and blows out the candle,

One of your negative emotions will be amplified.

The harder the wish is to fulfill,

The stronger your negative emotions become.

Until your soul is completely twisted,

Finally becoming the candle’s wick.]

Saul looked at Shaya, who was still unconscious beside him, and Bethstana, who had lost her fighting spirit in front of him, finally understanding how these two people’s personality abnormalities had been caused.

The emotion amplified in Bethstana should be despair.

As for Shaya…

Probably paranoia?

After the Dead Wizard’s Diary appeared in Saul’s palm, Bethstana had been staring at the diary.

Saul closed the diary and directly pressed one corner of the hardcover book against Bethstana’s remaining facial skin.

“You have no time left. If you agree to the deal, then relax and don’t resist. If you disagree, let’s fight to the death again.”

After speaking, Saul didn’t wait for Beth to consider and immediately used the Dead Wizard’s Diary to absorb Bethstana’s soul.

Bethstana had once been a third-rank wizard after all, and currently wasn’t in a completely dead state. If she resisted, the diary might indeed be unable to absorb her spirit body.

But the diary was only slightly obstructed before quickly absorbing Bethstana’s soul, turning her into Saul’s fifth black page.

Having lost Bethstana, the rootlets completely transformed her last bit of body into tree roots.

At the same time, the Inverted Tree, now without a controller, began growing wildly, wrapping up both Saul and Shaya beside him in just a few seconds.

This tree heart space also began trembling unstably.

The Inverted Tree, without Bethstana’s control, began growing randomly according to its mood.

If it could no longer be controlled, it might evolve into a terrifying third-rank monster that devoured human souls everywhere.

“Wake up, it’s your turn next!” Saul grabbed the unconscious Shaya, spun him twice in the air, and threw him hard into the central position where Bethstana had just been.

Shaya suddenly opened his eyes just before being thrown into the tree heart, as if he had been pretending to be unconscious all along. Yet Saul didn’t even ask and was about to throw him into the Inverted Tree.

Poor Shaya couldn’t say a word before being absorbed by the Inverted Tree that had suddenly lost its core.

However, he did indeed need the Inverted Tree. Despite his inner resentment, he obediently stabilized with the tree seed.

Shaya opened his eyes. “I…”

He had just spoken one word when he saw in shock that Saul was swinging his fist to hit him.

“What are you doing…”

Similarly unable to finish his sentence, Shaya was again distracted by the red beam of light on Saul’s fist.

Shaya’s vision immediately turned completely red, and even his consciousness fell into brief stagnation.

This stagnation didn’t last very long, seeming only like the blink of an eye before the blinding red light disappeared.

When Shaya could see everything clearly again, Saul was already standing leisurely across from him, holding a dark red hardcover book in his hands, his movements elegant and temperament calm.

As if the person who had just been swinging fists to hit people wasn’t him at all.

“What exactly did you just do? Did you plant some explosives in my body? Or did you curse me?”

Saul wasn’t surprised by Shaya’s series of questions.

But he didn’t immediately address the other party. Only after confirming that Keli’s auxiliary formation had completed its integration with Shaya did he look up. “This is one of my transformation attempts, and also a method to ensure you won’t follow Bethstana’s old path afterward.”

Shaya was still in the core of the Inverted Tree at this moment, without even a body of his own.

Although he had been tempted by Saul to steal Bethstana’s Inverted Tree as support for his own resurrection.

In fact, he didn’t have very clear plans for how to resurrect himself.

Even someone as powerful as third-rank wizard Bethstana hadn’t managed to resurrect using the Inverted Tree.

Could he, a first-rank—though he considered himself a genius—really accomplish what a third-rank wizard couldn’t?

For now, he could only trust Saul.

Saul knew Shaya still didn’t trust him. If not for the fact that the other party had already been parasitized by the star-shaped eye, he would have already run to other parts of the Inverted Tree to avoid Saul.

Saul took out the Wishing Candle. The candle hadn’t yet extinguished and seemed to be tempting Saul to quickly make a wish.

But Saul didn’t make a wish. Instead, he returned it to Shaya.

Shaya looked at Saul in disbelief. He thought no one could resist the temptation of the Wishing Candle, yet Saul had given him the candle without making a single wish.

“Can you move now? If not, I can help you keep this candle for now.”

Shaya hastily tried with all his might and finally managed to manipulate two thin, soft rootlets to take back the candle from Saul’s hand.

Even having gotten the candle, he still felt it was unreal.

“The Wishing Candle that everyone covets—why don’t you want it?”

“Is something that curses you to lose part of your sanity with each wish really a good thing? As a wizard, being able to control your own brain and rationality is most important.”

After reading the diary’s introduction to the Wishing Candle, Saul had decided not to use it.

No cheat was more important than a wizard’s brain.

However, Saul was interested in something else.

“I’m returning the candle to you. In exchange, give me that crystal bottle.”

Shaya was stunned. He didn’t know how Saul knew about that crystal bottle, since Saul hadn’t been in the space at all at that time.

“I can give it to you, but I’m not very clear on what that bottle of water actually does. You’ll need to research it yourself.”

Shaya struggled to use tree branches to bring the previous crystal bottle to Saul.

Saul watched Shaya’s difficult movements.

“Looking at your condition, it will take a long time to adapt… but I can’t stay in the tree heart space watching you forever.”

Having retrieved the most important Wishing Candle, Shaya was much calmer. He could finally speak rationally, “What do you need me to do?”

“Stop the external sacrifice, retract all tree branches, and make a big commotion.”

Shaya didn’t know what Saul wanted to do, but now he was on the same boat as Saul and could only say, “I’ll do my best.”

(End of Chapter)

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