Chapter 283: The Statue's Gaze

The long arrow bearing the Totem Stone shot forward, the air humming in its wake.

It closed the distance in an instant. The twisted one hastily distorted space, flickering east and west, but no matter how he dodged, the arrow relentlessly tracked him, gathering speed.

Finally, it plunged right into the spatial rift after the twisted one. Man and arrow vanished.

A second later—boom!

A massive ball of fire erupted in the air. A charred corpse fell from the rift, slamming heavily onto the ground, a Mithril Arrow still lodged in its heart.

Su Mu's eyes flickered as he realized Lin Nanxing's potential. Absolute Hit could ignore the deflecting vectors of distortion force and even track a target through spatial jumps. The potential of this Law was immense.

It simply would not stop until it struck its target. Unless the arrow was destroyed outright, it would always hit.

Lin Nanxing's only flaw now was his weak attack power. Landing a hit was one thing; breaking through defenses was another. If his attack power were stronger, he would undoubtedly stand as an elite among Silver powerhouses.

Claiming an enemy's life from a thousand miles away would not be a problem.

With the white paper-armored twisted one dead, the crushing pressure on the group instantly lifted. That invisible distortion force had been practically impossible to defend against.

By comparison, the ordinary twisted ones were much easier to handle—there were simply too many of them.

Su Mu wondered why these twisted ones were acting out of character, aggressively attacking his group and knowing their exact location every time.

The turning point must have been the disturbance with the Twisted Divine Statue. He had used God's Eye and alarmed the Statue, drawing its gaze. That must have been when they were marked.

But there was a problem with that theory: why hadn't he been attacked by the twisted ones back in the village? If it was because he was distorted at the time, it didn't explain why he remained safe even after returning to normal.

It was Divinity!

The only difference between him and his teammates was Divinity. The Statue's gaze might have locked onto him as well, only for his Divinity to dispel it.

It seemed Divinity was the only way to sever the tracking on the others.

Only... where were the tracking marks?

To solve the problem, he first had to find where it was.

He had already swept everyone with his mental energy and found nothing out of the ordinary. Not even Su Qing had spotted any anomalies.

Suddenly, Su Mu realized a crucial detail.

If normal vision could not find it, what about a distorted perspective?

He leapt onto the high tower, balancing on the spire, and turned his gaze toward the Statue on the mountain peak. The colossal, twisted sculpture loomed like a silent behemoth, exuding a suffocating pressure.

It cast a massive shadow, like a thick haze that could not be dispelled.

Gradually, Su Mu noticed the Statue beginning to change. The eerie, twisted lines writhing across its surface began to straighten, aligning perfectly.

The Statue's face was no longer ferocious. It became sacred and solemn, standing atop the mountain like a compassionate God overlooking mortal life.

The meaningless shrieks of the twisted ones faded from his ears, replaced by clear, coherent human speech.

"Kill these heretics!"

"The lord bishop decreed that whoever slays these heretics will be granted the honor of entering the Holy Temple to worship the Twisted Divine Statue!"

Countless entirely normal-looking cultists of the Twisted Divine Cult, clad in pristine white robes, were relentlessly attacking eight individuals with grotesquely deformed faces.

Judging by their traits, Su Mu knew those eight distorted figures were his teammates.

Eight slender, pristine white threads extended from their bodies. The threads stretched endlessly into the sky, ultimately landing in the eyes of the Statue on the peak.

It seemed these eight white threads were the Statue's gaze. They were completely invisible in a normal perspective, but in the twisted perspective, the eight lines shooting into the sky were impossibly glaring. No wonder the Twisted Divine Cult could always pinpoint them so quickly.

The next moment, Divine Touch activated.

A tentacle lashed out from Su Mu's body, sweeping across the sky toward the white threads connecting his teammates to the Statue.

Slash!

The eight white threads were severed instantly.

Atop the mountain peak, the colossal divine Statue seemed to notice the disturbance. It slowly turned its gaze toward Su Mu.

Su Mu immediately pulled out the Void Devourer and killed himself, exiting the distorted perspective.

By the time his normal vision returned, the number of twisted ones swarming the area had spiked. The commotion had clearly drawn them in, and there were even several twisted ones clad in paper armor among the mob.

This was no time to be stingy. He fished out a handful of Totem Stones and hurled them into the throng.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Terrifying currents of chaotic energy surged outward. Gales, frost, roaring flames... the power of various Silver Laws detonated, obliterating countless twisted ones in an instant.

Taking advantage of the chaos, he returned to the group, opened the Gate of the Void, and warped them away.

This time, they were not immediately swarmed by twisted ones the moment they landed.

"Relax. The tracking issue is taken care of," Su Mu said calmly.

The tension in the group eased. The chaotic battle had left them exhausted, and a few of the weaker members had suffered minor injuries.

Even a team of Silver elites couldn't easily shrug off a siege by hundreds of Bronze Grade twisted ones.

"Li Yan is dead," Zhou Hui said, her expression dimming. She and Li Yan hailed from the same city; as fellow townsmen, they had shared a bond.

Li Yan was the man who had just had his neck and limbs snapped by the distortion force.

However, Zhou Hui's grief only lasted a moment before she pulled herself together. The nightmare apostles were far too accustomed to death.

"Captain, what's our next move?" Lin Nanxing asked.

"Why don't we just use the Void Key to warp straight into the Holy Temple and capture the bishop? We can beat the intel on the First Red King right out of him!" Su Qing suggested, eager to fight.

Su Mu shook his head. "It's not time yet."

"Not time? We've already slaughtered a bunch of people from the Twisted Divine Cult. They're definitely going to carpet-search the area next, so we might as well capture the ringleader first! Even if that bishop is a Gold powerhouse, if you and I join forces and use the Gold Totem Stone, we'll definitely be able to put up a fight!"

Su Qing raised her small fist fiercely as she spoke. She only mentioned herself and Su Mu teaming up, completely disregarding the rest of the team.

It wasn't that she looked down on them, but a Gold Grade battle was far beyond their ability to intervene.

"The real threat is not the bishop. It's the Statue on the mountaintop."

Only Su Mu, having truly come into contact with deities, understood just how unfathomable a God's power was. A Gold powerhouse couldn't even begin to compare.

Although he possessed the Divinity of the Three Gods, he only held a tiny fragment of each. There was no telling how much Divinity the Twisted Divine Statue possessed.

When dealing with a God, one had to rely on wits, not brute force.

This was a lesson learned from his battles to claim the Divinity of the Three Gods.

"Then how long do we have to wait? What's the point of just sitting around?"

Facing Su Qing's complaints, Su Mu pushed up his Tinted Glasses, his gaze deep and calm. "Soon."

Night fell.

Under the guise of scouting ahead, Su Mu separated from the team. In reality, he entered his Sleepwalking State and headed straight for the Holy Temple. He needed to uncover its secrets first.