Chapter 952: Great God's Brilliance
"The deed is done. I am finally free from the clutches of that clingy b*stard."
Upon Li Yi safe return, Durarame let out a yelp of joy. It then pointed her finger forward, and with that, the door at the back of the palace swung open yet again.
Now that the deal had been completed, Li Yi was allowed to leave.
Li Yi tossed the broken Transformation Wand onto the ground and hurriedly left the place.
He had finally figured out how Everest and Durarame's relationship had come to be. As a matter of fact, his travel back to the past had not changed a single thing, as in the end, Everest would still fall in love with Durarame.
However, such matters no longer had anything to do with Li Yi, as the only thing that was important was being able to clear the stage.
After Li Yi exited the Invention God's Palace, he was already close to the peak of Mount Pantheon.
There were only three more palaces in front of him, and he only needed to clear two more to face the Ruler of Gods.
Li Yi thought back to the words of the Death God, that no matter how hard players strived, the most they could become was a demigod. There was only one way for players to reach godhood, and that was through the blessing of the Ruler of Gods.
'Does it mean that I can become a god if I meet the Ruler of Gods?'
While Li Yi was mulling over his thoughts, he moved on to the next palace.
"Hi, Lil Wing, wait for mee..."
A loud shout could be heard from behind Li Yi, and when he turned around, he spotted the Legendary Summoner, The Mountain sprinting over towards him.
Li Yi was flabbergasted.
'How can that punk be so fast...'
Li Yi had assumed his clear times to be quite fast already. Plus, he had also relied on his position as a Legendary Engineer to clear the Invention God's Palace earlier. So, how could The Mountain have cleared it that easily?
If Li Yi had relied on his Legendary Engineering rank to clear the stage, then what about The Mountain? Brute force? What a joke, at this point, no normal player would stand a chance against a true god.
"How did you make it here?"
"I wanted to ask you the same thing. I thought I was already plenty fast, so, how did you make it here?"
Visible confusion could be seen from The Mountain eyes.
The two strode forward, and Li Yi told the truth as it is. "I'm a Legendary Engineer, so I managed to trigger a hidden quest."
The Mountain scratched his head. "Well, my party which is currently facing the Seven Demon Gods managed to achieve a breakthrough and obtained something called a Great God's Brilliance. With it, I managed to clear the previous stages without breaking a sweat."
"Great God's Brilliance?"
The Mountain nodded his head. He stated, "Having a single charge of Great God's Brilliance allows one to clear a palace without doing battle. Additionally, my party is doing pretty well, and they've managed to activate three charges of the Great God's Brilliance for me. So..."
Upon hearing The Mountain's words, Li Yi went silent.
After all, the Mountain's party had consisted of the bunch of retards from the Huashan Sect with Scumbag Wang as their leader. From top to bottom, they were plagued with inadequacies such as equipment, levels, techniques, and plenty more...
'Could such a rag-tag bunch of players even defeat any of the Seven Demon Gods? Could they achieve a breakthrough? Is that f*cking possible?'
"So, what you're saying is that the Huashan Sect obtained three charges of the Great God's Blessing for you? Is that right?"
The Mountain nodded. "Yep, Scumbag Wang and the others did."
"..."
'Isn't this too huge of a stretch?'
Sensing that Li Yi was doubting his words, The Mountain displayed his final charge of the Great God's Brilliance.
It was a rainbow-colored ring of light, and Li Yi could click it to check its stats. On it, it was clearly stated that it was usable only to clear the stages, and each charge would allow its user to skip a single palace.
"You must be wondering why Wang'er and his gang have managed to do it, but not your own team, right?"
Li Yi nodded.
The Mountain shrugged. "Same here."
"Wang'er and his brothers have been constantly going at it, but until now, they still haven't cleared the stage. Even so, I've already obtained these charges of the Great God's Blessing, so don't you find this a bit weird?"
'Haven't cleared the stage? Constantly going at it?'
Li Yi furrowed his brows as he lapsed into thought. Then, he sent a voice message to Zhang Yuan.
"Did you change the members of our party?"
"Yeah, we did. Due to the difficulty of the quest, many thought that it was impossible to clear it. So, after every attempt, there's bound to be someone who quits the party. However, we've been constantly going at it, and we've never given up."
"Don't invite anyone in for now. Just leave it as it is and keep going at it."
"Alright!"
Even after much deliberation, the only positive quality that Li Yi could come up about Scumbag Wang and his merry lot was their persistence.
Almost every party that battled the Seven Demon Gods had already swapped countless players, only the Huashan Sect had maintained their line-up constantly. Their lineup had been the same since the beginning and there were no alterations made to it whatsoever.
Maintaining the same line-up and doing the challenge over and over again. That had seemed to be the path to obtaining the Great God's Brilliance.
"Lil Wing, I'll head on before you then. See you at the finishing line, bye!"
The Mountain waved his hand at Li Yi and then he entered the palace. As he still had a charge of the Great God's Brilliance on him, in terms of clear time, Li Yi would be hard-pressed to catch up to him in such a short amount of time.
The palace in front of them was called the Life God's Palace, and it was one of the three final palaces of Mount Pantheon.
Upon entering the palace, Li Yi was immediately transported to a jungle teeming with life.
Each of the plants here had developed conscious thought. To illustrate this, the trees would swing their vines to fend off invaders, while the little flowers and weeds could shoot out pollen and spores as a means of a long-range attack.
Woosh-woosh-woosh...
Moments after Li Yi had entered the forest, he was immediately surrounded by a bunch of flowers and weeds.
"Boom—"
Li Yi activated his Rocket Propellant and shot several meters ahead. He then used his Beast Soul's Possession — Six Arm Red Macaque and unleashed Thousand Sword Criss-Cross.
Since he was surrounded by enemies on all sides, the best method for Li Yi to handle them was by finishing them off with a single blow.
Tch-tch-tch-tch—
Thousands of blade auras were let loose, and the surrounding grass, trees, flowers, and vines were ravaged.
Poof!
Upon unleashing the ultimate skill, Li Yi reverted to his original form as he had used up his stamina.
Now that Li Yi had stopped his barrage, another crowd of flora came hopping over to Li Yi's position.
Li Yi raised his bow.
"True Overlord Arrow!"
A flaming phoenix flew outwards, crushing and devastating plenty of flora...
The forest was enveloped with a thick fog, and it was hard to distinguish directions within it. However, this was of no problem to Li Yi.
With a flick of his wrist, a map appeared in Li Yi's hands. It was the Living Forest's map!
With the map as his guide, Li Yi quickly determined the correct direction, and while he continued to fire his True Overlord Arrows, he was also inching towards the exit.
There was no god within the Living Forest. This was something that Li Yi was sure of, as the Evil God that the Ruler of Gods had sent into the Void Dimension was actually the leader of all the Life Gods, the Life Goddess.
Since their leader had been chased away, would any other Life God be treated any better? Of course not, as they had all been sealed and locked up by the Ruler of Gods.
All of this knowledge had come from the Evil God's mouth itself after he had reached 100% progress on his Evil God Summoning Scroll.
The Living Forest was extremely huge, and although there were no gods here, the flora here was extremely powerful. If Li Yi were to get surrounded by them, he would undoubtedly be exterminated in mere seconds.
Li Yi proceeded very carefully, and after he made it halfway through the map, he activated his God Mode, completely abolishing any chance of him being caught by any monsterlings.
After half an hour later, Li Yi finally made it to the exit. However, somewhere near the exit, he spotted a green-skinned demon.
"Croak..."
The green-skinned demon was still alive, and when it saw somebody coming over, it opened its lifeless eyes and let out a grunt.
'Aragon!'
...