Chapter 109: The Sacrificial Ceremony

"Nangong Purple Mansion, the Supreme Path, awakening the Profound Mystery, the Ultimate Truth that never decays, the Primordial Vacuum, the Ancestral Source of the Spirit, the Void that embodies the Way, its marvelous uses are beyond measure..." Qu Yizhi ascended the high platform, facing the black obelisk. On the altar table, the Heaven-Spirit Seal was enshrined, and she chanted the sacrificial prayers.

The other Avengers cast worried glances back and forth between the obelisk and Qu Yizhi. By now, the sky over the entire Washington mansion was gradually being shrouded in black. One could guess that if the area were completely covered, it would certainly not be a good omen.

Qu Yizhi had no time to reassure her companions. This method of invoking the gods was not as simple as she had previously described. At this moment, her consciousness was attempting to communicate with the high and mighty gods through the Heaven-Spirit Seal.

Why could the Heaven-Spirit Seal help Qu Yizhi contact the gods? It was, of course, because the seal itself was carved from a piece of Khaydarin crystal, and the Spirit Order was the tradition passed down on Midgard by Violet, the first Protoss ambassador.

However, due to human physiology, very few were capable of practicing psionics. Furthermore, without the aid of the Khala, humans found the training twice as hard for half the result. Consequently, the members of the Spirit Order had always been far fewer than those of Kamar-Taj.

As for Qu Yizhi's ability to manipulate ice and snow, it was related to her own constitution, but since psionic energy could inherently perform such feats, Qu Yizhi had remained confused about her own nature until her memories were fully restored.

Because the Spirit Order had disappeared into history due to various factors, Stark and the others had never been able to find Qu Yizhi’s fellow disciples. Additionally, with Kamar-Taj preoccupied with the invasion of the Dark Dimension, Qu Yizhi's identity had remained concealed.

Qu Yizhi kept her eyes tightly shut. As a human practitioner, the first step to communicating with the gods was to reach out to the ethereal Celestial Realm—the psionic or divine plane—and use her own power to stir a psionic tide, which was the only way to capture the attention of the gods.

Therefore, Qu Yizhi had poured all her psionic energy into the Heaven-Spirit Seal. Thanks to the psionic amplification effect of the Khaydarin crystal, she felt her consciousness abruptly detach from the mortal world and arrive in an ocean of immense comfort.

Prepared for this, Qu Yizhi quickly steadied her mind. She understood well that if she indulged in the comfort brought by the sea of psionic energy, her consciousness would be assimilated by these powerful forces and eventually become a part of them—a warning recorded in the ancient texts of the Spirit Order for thousands of years.

Having reached the psionic realm, Qu Yizhi began trying to influence the surrounding psionic energy, attempting to stir up a psionic tide. Unfortunately, her power was far too weak; she only managed to create a few ripples in the vast expanse before it went still.

Seeing that her full effort hadn't even raised a small spray, a trace of bitterness appeared on Qu Yizhi's face. If the ancestral power stored within the Heaven-Spirit Seal for thousands of years had not been exhausted, she would not have been reduced to such a plight.

Thinking of Tony and the others waiting desperately outside, Qu Yizhi made up her mind to perform the secret art of forcibly merging light and dark powers.

As the last Saintess of the Spirit Order, Qu Yizhi naturally knew many secret techniques, including the ancient art of fusion. As a technique passed down from the Protoss Empire, the most impressive was the power of merging light and darkness—the Twilight Power.

But even among Protoss who had practiced for many years, few could master this technique, let alone Qu Yizhi, a human. Thus, as she contemplated this method, she did so with the resolve of the doomed.

Over the years, psionic practitioners of various races, led by the Protoss, had gained a deep understanding of psionic power, particularly the two main lineages: Order psionics and Void psionics.

Initially, the Protoss believed that Void psionics were merely a mutation resulting from those who had not received the blessing of the Khala. But soon, the Protoss Empire discovered that psionic talents of other races could also manipulate Order psionics, even without the Khala's blessing.

This discovery led to fierce debates among the scientists and theologians of the Protoss Empire. Even though the Protoss were the race closest to the gods, they would not dare pester the high and mighty deities with such trivial questions, so this topic remained a hot issue for some time.

However, as the Protoss deepened their understanding of the laws of the universe, they finally grasped the essence of psionic attributes. The emergence of Order and Void psionics was precisely due to the establishment of the Khala, or rather, the ascension of Khas, the God of Order. Before this, psionic energy had no additional attributes, and the theologians' arguments finally came to an end.

Since Khas was the first subordinate god of Aiur and had established the epoch-making Khala, and few other subordinate gods had taken actions that influenced the big picture, psionic attributes remained dominated by Order and Void.

After the descent of Aiur and its personal explanation of the origin and purpose of the Dark God, some theologians believed that the division between Order and Void psionics was highly likely related to that Dark God. After all, if the Dark God wanted to devour Aiur's divinity, Aiur surely wished to devour the other in return.

Although the minions of the Dark God appeared to use another attribute of psionic energy, that was likely because they had been corrupted by the Dark God. Otherwise, why would Void energy always have a special lethality against the servants of the Dark God?

The evangelist of the Spirit Order, Violet, was a High Templar, so the methods she passed down were naturally those of Order psionics. However, due to the immense lethality of the Twilight Power, she had recorded it to be used as a trump card.

Qu Yizhi had never practiced Void energy herself, so performing the fusion secret art in the outside world was virtually impossible. But since she was currently within the sea of psionic energy, if she could successfully distinguish the Void energy, there was a chance of success—though her chances of survival would be even slimmer.

While continuing to chant the ancient scriptures, Qu Yizhi struggled to draw power from the sea of psionic energy. If not for the support of the Heaven-Spirit Seal and her own conviction, she might have failed long ago.

The miracle she hoped for descended as she had wished. As a human practitioner without the help of the Khala, cultivating Order energy was incredibly difficult; however, much like the Dark Templar, it was comparatively easier to touch upon the Void energy.

Yet, Void energy was inherently more dangerous than Order energy, which was one of the reasons Violet had passed down the Order psionics training method; those who practiced Twilight Power were almost exclusively High Templar.

The powers of light and darkness converged within Qu Yizhi. Her consciousness felt the agony of her soul in an instant. She knew she could not hold on for long, so, having exhausted her strength to control enough Void energy, she fused it with her own Order energy, causing a burst of golden light to erupt.