Chapter 396: Complete Fusion, Bai Fu the Sovereign of the Ethereal Realm
“Bring him over.”
At Bai Fu’s instruction, Audoak, whose face was full of sorrow, was brought forward.
Bai Fu stood atop a high platform, looking down at Audoak, whose body trembled uncontrollably.
“I heard you have a secret to tell me?”
Audoak hastily replied, “Yes.”
Before coming here, he had gone through a long inner struggle.
Should he really reveal this secret?
Revealing it would mean standing in complete opposition to Ignatz.
He was the Emperor of the Empire, a descendant of Ignatz. Was it necessary to go this far?
What if even after knowing this secret, Bai Fu still failed to defeat Ignatz? What if Ignatz learned afterward that he was the one who revealed it? Then he was as good as dead.
Should he say it? Should he not? Was he really going to say it?
Audoak questioned himself over and over again, trying to find the answer.
Only when he recalled Ignatz’s attitude toward him, the Empire’s former glory and current decline, and the images of Dmitri and Bualot, did he finally make up his mind.
He would speak.
He had to.
Not just for himself, but also for Bualot, for the Empire.
Audoak raised his head.
At this moment, he no longer appeared as frightened as when he first entered.
Bai Fu asked, “What do you want in exchange for this secret?”
Audoak wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said in as calm a tone as he could, “Originally, I wanted to exchange this secret for my life. But I realized, you won’t kill me. If you really wanted to kill me, you would’ve executed me publicly when the capital star of the Empire fell. So, I don’t intend to exchange it for anything.”
Bai Fu gave Audoak a few surprised glances.
She even suspected Audoak had been possessed by someone else. But the Apostolic Psionic Vision showed that his attribute panel was perfectly normal.
She nodded. “Then go ahead.”
Audoak said, “Before I speak, I hope you can take me to another space—be it the Void or the Ethereal Realm. If I speak here, the Son of Prophecy and the Weaver of Fate might detect it.”
There was such a thing?
Bai Fu was startled.
But it wouldn’t waste much time anyway. She decided to believe Audoak for now and brought him directly into the Ethereal Realm.
Audoak looked around and visibly sighed in relief. “This secret was something Bualot quietly told me before the Empire’s expedition set out for the Apostolic Holy City. At the time, he suddenly pulled me into a sub-space even Radiance couldn’t monitor and said there was something he had to tell me before departure.”
As he spoke, his thoughts drifted back to that day.
Back then, he had no idea why Bualot was telling him this.
He was nominally still the Emperor of the Empire, but the real power had long been out of his hands.
So he told Bualot directly—if it was something important, there was no need to tell him. He couldn’t do anything about it and hearing it would only add to his troubles.
Bualot’s reply was—
It was important, but whether it was official business or not was still unclear.
“He told me to just remember it. Seeing how serious he was, I said, ‘Alright, go ahead.’ Then he said it. He said that in a recent Special Council Meeting for the Initial Agreement, Ignatz had formulated a battle plan. Bualot was the only one in the entire Empire qualified to attend that meeting.”
“A battle plan?” Bai Fu was immediately interested.
Audoak said, “The battle plan itself was ordinary—various methods to locate you and that soul-type universal treasure you possess. Only one part was truly unique: once you were found, Ignatz would use an ability called 【Myriad Forms】 to kill you.”
“！”
Here it came.
Bai Fu’s breathing quickened.
She had known it. The 【Annihilation·EX】 deduced by the Esper Evolution Tree earlier was not Ignatz’s real trump card.
Audoak gestured as he explained:
“【Myriad Forms】 is an ability Ignatz accidentally awakened while developing his Esper Powers.”
“If used through normal means, it’s very difficult for Ignatz to kill you completely. After all, your strength is terrifying, and you have many life-saving methods—not to mention, you seem to still be growing stronger. But once he uses 【Myriad Forms】, things change.”
“By using 【Myriad Forms】, Ignatz can disassemble you into countless smaller versions of yourself. This disassembly isn’t just cutting your body into pieces—it’s a complete breakdown from body to soul, from power to existence itself.”
“After being hit by 【Myriad Forms】, you’ll be split from one Bai Fu into many, many Bai Fus. Each split Bai Fu will be far weaker than the original. And it’s not just a matter of strength being 1/N—it’s... how to say it... the more you’re split, the weaker each one becomes, even your rank drops drastically.”
“Think about it—originally, you’re Transcendent-rank. But after being split, some of you may drop to Dominator, Calamity-level, S+ rank, or even below S rank. That’s horrifying. After your rank drops, many of your abilities will no longer work—not because of insufficient energy, but because they simply vanish.”
Bai Fu nodded.
She more or less understood what Audoak meant.
This "existence itself" part wasn’t important. The key was, Ignatz’s ability could reduce her from a Transcendent-level Bai Fu to many lower-ranked Bai Fus.
Once her rank dropped, many of her life-saving techniques would become unusable—
Like Ethereal Descent, or Dimensional Projection.
Without these, she’d be forced to stay in place and duel Ignatz head-on, unable even to kite or maneuver.
A duel?
Duel his ass!
After her rank dropped, even if she had numbers on her side, she wouldn’t be able to withstand even a single strike from Ignatz.
“What price does Ignatz pay to use 【Myriad Forms】?”
Bai Fu asked.
The effect of 【Myriad Forms】 was outrageous. Bai Fu didn’t believe such a power came without limits.
Audoak said, “Ignatz must bind to the target before using the ability. That means, once it’s activated, he’ll also be split into an equal number of parts. But you know, Ignatz is a top-tier martial artist. The more his power is split, the more his rank drops, the greater his advantage becomes within each rank. In that meeting, Ignatz claimed that even without any help, he had full confidence he could kill every version of you himself, thereby eradicating you completely.”
Bai Fu rolled her eyes.
Saying he could kill her on his own—but knowing Ignatz's nature, Bai Fu was sure that when the time came, he’d definitely call a whole group to gang up on her.
“So that’s how it is. Then, after eliminating me, how does he restore himself?”
Audoak explained, “【Myriad Forms】 has a time limit. Once the time is up, the disassembly will automatically reverse.”
“Is there any countermeasure?”
“No idea. Bualot didn’t tell me.”
“I see.”
Bai Fu fell into serious thought.
Knowing Ignatz’s trump card was a good thing.
But the real problem now was how to respond to it.
“I don’t know whether Ignatz’s 【Myriad Forms】 works on the Double Helix Tree. If it doesn’t, then even if he disassembles me, it’ll be useless. With the Double Helix Tree’s high-speed regeneration, I could easily wear him down. But if it does work…”
Bai Fu frowned slightly.
Whether the disassembled Double Helix Tree would retain its regeneration ability was uncertain.
“I can’t pin all my hopes on the regeneration power of the Double Helix Tree. I need a more secure solution. And besides that, there’s another issue I have to plan ahead for.”
Bai Fu worried that if Ignatz realized he was losing, he’d go full scorched-earth, deliberately revealing the existence of the Reapers and dragging every intelligent lifeform in the universe down with him.
“I’ll have to find a way to shut his mouth too.”
Bai Fu had mostly figured out what she needed to do next.
She thanked Audoak, but didn’t rush to send him back to the capital star of the Empire.
Everything would wait until after her confrontation.
Audoak was fairly understanding about this. Jail is jail—didn’t matter where he served it. Besides, he only needed to stay here for a month.
After leaving the Ethereal Realm, Bai Fu immediately called a meeting with Ailijie and the others.
Three ordinary minds could rival a mastermind.
During the meeting, the group pooled their ideas and came up with many countermeasures.
Bai Fu noted them all. As for which one to adopt, that would depend on her power after fully merging with the Double Helix Tree, and how the situation evolved.
After the meeting, Bai Fu called Ailijie aside.
All the preparations were in place—there was no reason to delay. Time to begin!
“Then I’m going to begin. If you feel any pain, or discomfort of any kind, you must tell me immediately.” Ailijie looked at Bai Fu with a serious expression.
Bai Fu nodded. “No problem. Just go ahead.”
Ailijie didn’t hesitate anymore.
She began extracting her “administrator authority” of Ethereal Realm Unit One, then slowly infused the “authority” into Bai Fu’s body.
Just as she had said, this process was long and tedious, accompanied by pain that even a Transcendent couldn’t suppress.
But who was Bai Fu?
She was the most resilient Psionic Priest in history.
This level of pain wasn’t even as terrifying as the long hours she’d endured conducting experiments with Yulia and the others.
【Fusion Progress 50%…60%…】
Over twenty days later—
With Ailijie’s help, Bai Fu finally pushed the Double Helix Tree’s fusion progress to 100%.
Game prompts chimed in one after another.
The first prompt informed Bai Fu that she had become the new Unit One Administrator of the Ethereal Realm.
The second prompt confirmed she had successfully fused with the Double Helix Tree.
The third prompt granted her root-level control authority of the Ethereal Realm.
The fourth prompt revealed that all her base attributes had surpassed thirty thousand, and she had broken through the 【Life Chasm】.
“So I finally reached this step…”
Bai Fu gently laid the weakened Ailijie on the bed, then opened her attribute panel.
The 【Life Chasm】 status beside her name had vanished, and a “+” had appeared next to her primary class 【Primordial Sovereign】, indicating she could continue leveling up.
Bai Fu tapped it.
Ding!
Her 【Primordial Sovereign】 level rose from Lv44 to Lv45.
Another prompt popped up.
【Your Divinity Evolution Progress has reached 99.9%. A new Evolution Quest has been triggered.】
This was Bai Fu’s fifth Divinity Evolution.
Compared to the previous four, the fifth had only one requirement—
Uncover the true face of the world!
“The true face of the world?”
Bai Fu fell silent for a moment.
That “true face” clearly wasn’t referring to the existence of the Reapers beyond Beyond the Stars—otherwise, the moment she triggered the evolution quest, she would’ve already completed it.
“Is it asking me to figure out what Beyond the Stars really is?”
Bai Fu figured that must be it.
Which meant she wouldn’t be completing the fifth evolution anytime soon.
Because to uncover what Beyond the Stars truly was, she’d most likely need to complete the 【Elevate Authority】 quest to obtain Tier II permissions for the mysterious code.
Her level, Yulia’s level, and Scarlet (Golden Dew)’s level had already met the requirement.
But Ailijie’s level had dropped to 253 after transferring administrator authority. Even with Bai Fu’s full assistance, it would take a long time to raise her from 253 to 274.
Oh well.
It didn’t really matter.
Even without completing the fifth evolution, Bai Fu believed her current real strength already far surpassed Ignatz—as long as he didn’t use 【Myriad Forms】.
After this fusion, her stats had reached—
【Strength: 30,879, Agility: 35,342, Constitution: 41,696, Intelligence: 30,685, Spirit: 39,544, Inspiration: 83,705】
Besides this enormous stat boost, she had gained several new abilities.
First, the skills Ailijie had obtained as Ethereal Realm Unit One Administrator had transferred to Bai Fu, greatly enriching her offensive, defensive, and control capabilities.
Then, the fusion with the Double Helix Tree granted her several new powers:
Total Control of Ethereal Realm Space: As the name implies, Bai Fu could now freely manipulate Ethereal Realm space.
World Overlap · Indirect Control: A more unusual ability. Bai Fu could temporarily overlap the Ethereal Realm with other spaces, and then manipulate the other space by manipulating the Ethereal Realm—affecting everything within it.
People of the Ethereal: This ability resembled what Ethelon had done when he used the Double Helix Tree to devour other Transcendents in the Apostolic Holy City and turned them into his puppets afterward.
However, since Bai Fu had fully merged with the Double Helix Tree, this ability was far stronger than Ethelon’s.
No devouring needed—just a “registered designation,” and the target would become a “Person of the Ethereal.” The “People of the Ethereal” would be tightly bound to the Ethereal Realm, benefiting from its power, and in return becoming anchor points for the Ethereal Realm’s continued existence. As long as even one “Person of the Ethereal” lived, the Ethereal Realm would never truly vanish.
As the Sovereign of the Ethereal Realm, Bai Fu could summon any “Person of the Ethereal” to her side, beside the Double Helix Tree, to fight for her at any time.
These three new abilities made Bai Fu’s eyes light up instantly.
She had already figured out how to deal with Ignatz.
“Send a message to every member of the Calamity Legion. Have them come to the Empire’s capital star immediately!”