Chapter 280: Shana's Thoughts

"Are you sure you want to go with them to search for that vague, intangible organization?" Naimi Xisi asked Shana like this before leaving the Am Empire.

Shana turned back, glanced at the silent trio of Ebis, and with a helpless faint smile said: "There must be a decision; the debt of twenty‑seven lives of the Clemont family is not something a minor leader can repay."

Outside the grand city gate, Naimi Xisi rode a towering black horse, his eyes slightly lowered. He neither approved nor disapproved of Shana's decision; after all, she was not his dependent, and he had no intention of influencing her choice.

However, recalling the memory he probed from Marolf's mind before his death, he felt pity for Shana and the three moderately powered adventurers about to face difficulty.

Moroeno's handsome face went pale, his mouth slightly open, and after a long pause his voice trembled as he asked: "May I ask, the thing you mentioned earlier about Aisha—was it true?"

Naimi Xisi recalled that after leading them out of the half‑plane, the three adventurers still naively refused to believe their sister was such a ruthless figure, so he shared some "tidbits" about the Shadow Alliance with them.

As a consul, Marolf knew little; the reason he could amass so many resources to train his subordinates and seize the half‑plane was that a heavyweight of the Shadow Alliance stood behind him—a figure whose power had already reached Legendary but had not yet become an elder of the Veil Council.

The Veil Council is the brain of the Shadow Alliance, controlled by two Legendary elders whose longevity is unknown.

The elders claim they have received a revelation from an unknown ancient deity deep within the Ying Ying Ming Jie, intending to annihilate the light in the universe and let darkness descend upon the primary material plane.

The words the few had seen at the cemetery entrance: "Light is my enemy. The sun's eye is detestable, leaving no secrecy. This shall not endure; I will eliminate it."

It is, in fact, the doctrine of the Shadow Alliance.

Behind Marolf stood a Legendary strongman, a recent rising star of the Shadow Alliance; no one had ever seen his true form, nor knew his gender, only that he was the third Legendary strongman within the entire Alliance.

Only because his advancement time was short and his foundation in the Alliance shallow, he had constantly been barred from the council by the two power‑holding elders of "Black" and "Dark".

Before entering this half‑plane, Marolf had received a mission—"Rescue Aisha".

Aisha belongs to the Dark‑born of the Shadow Alliance; they are elites kidnapped and trained from childhood, their souls marked by a shadow contract.

Moroeno and his sister were separated in childhood and only recently reunited, so he did not know that his sister had long ago lost her humanity under the relentless day‑and‑night training.

When Naimi Xisi spoke of these matters, it dealt a heavy blow to both Moroeno and Kaide.

He mercilessly shattered Moroeno's stubborn question: "Do you think I'd waste my time teasing you?"

The blunt retort turned Moroeno's face pale, as if a sharp blade had sliced open his heart.

Moroeno is a genuinely good person; he has always followed the teachings of Luosanda, Lord of Dawn, extending a helping hand to those in trouble and sacrificing his life to shield comrades he lives with day and night.

The regained familial bond means everything to him, yet the opposing factions have torn his heart apart.

Not to mention Moroeno's own internal struggle, Shana also observed the others' behavior and felt a certain helplessness.

Among the three, she considered only Ebis somewhat reliable; the other two were merely decorative pillows—good looking but useless.

But these are the only resources she can muster. All three, like her, have irreconcilable conflicts with the Shadow Alliance, so to achieve her goal she must temporarily cooperate with them.

As for begging Naimi Xisi?

Shana had indeed considered it, but she also knew the nature of a Juan Ce Long—without profit, it would not rise early, a perfect summary of the counterpart.

She felt she could not afford, nor wished to pay, the price of persuading them to help her confront an organization that possesses two Legendary strongmen.

"Just Legendary; they're not the only ones in this world," Shana said confidently.

Her confidence stemmed, of course, from the highly developed major righteous deity churches in the Sword Bay region.

Although the Am Empire's territory has been completely divided between Wojin and Heim, especially the Wojin Church, which is extremely xenophobic toward foreign faiths, if they can find evidence of the Shadow Alliance's worship of an evil deity, they can certainly persuade the major righteous churches to dispatch investigative teams or even formal extermination squads to deal with the Shadow Alliance.

By then, even the Wojin Church would have no reason to stop other churches from entering the Am Empire, unless their pontiff had gone mad and sought to have his own church expelled from the righteous churches.

In fact, on the Feren Continent, countless organizations worship various unknown minor deities, but in most cases, once they surface they are eradicated by the righteous churches and adventurers.

Cult organizations that endure are often those backed by powerful evil deities such as the Five‑Colored Dragon Mother.

There are even groups like the Church of Lies and the Storm Church, whose deities are openly evil gods that intimidate mortals to gain worship, yet stand on equal footing with the many righteous churches.

What they rely on is that their deity is among the highest, most sacred, and powerful divine forces—like the Storm Church's god, Talox, the Storm Lord, a supreme deity of the destruction pantheon.

At any time, in the Multiverse, strength is what speaks reason.

The Shadow Alliance is indeed powerful, but their devotion to a minor deity that remains obscure on Frelen, hidden in darkness, is their greatest weakness.

Regarding Shana's plan, Naimi Xisi nodded: "Since you've made up your mind, I wish you success. I'm also leaving to return to my old lands for a look."

Saying so, amid a raging wind, Naimi Xisi transformed into a massive, divine, beautiful silver dragon and surged straight into the heavens. The sky was stirred by its winged veil, and as clouds swirled, the dragon's fish‑fin‑like tail flashed with rainbow‑colored light.

——

While Naimi Xisi flew over Sword Bay, crossed the Ennoak Great Desert, and hurried toward the Yinbu Tu Kingdom, he pulled up his own stats for a glance.

True name: Naimi Xisi

!

Race: Juan Ce Long (Psychic Dragon) variant

Growth stage: adult dragon

Body data — length: 100 m

Strength: 17

Dexterity: 19

Constitution: 20

Intelligence: 39 (Ein Stone +6)

Perception: 38 (Ein Stone +6)

Charisma: 37 (Ein Stone +6)

Supernatural abilities (use at will): darkvision, Juan Ce Long elemental breath, psychic gas breath, Mana shockwave, True Dragon shapeshift, disperse/command Undead.

Traits: immunity to psychic damage, immunity to psychic control, self‑adaptive evolution.

Class: Spell Record Keeper — Level 16, Psychic Sorcerer rank — Level 14,

Spell power level — 22

Spell‑point resource: 690

Mana‑point resource: 275

Talents: improvisational super‑magic, Mana resonance (doubling spell/Divine Spell/extra‑skill effects), Juan Ce Long master (can copy and learn any Spellcaster's spell list), Arcane shaping (area spells automatically create safe zones for allies), twin casting (each casting can release two spells simultaneously)

Activated gems: Mind Gem, Power Gem.

Activated ability: Mind Control (reading memories, memory modification, common sense modification, Mind Control), tenfold increase in spellcasting resources, power amplified tenfold, self-adaptive evolution.

Witnessed miracles: the birth of Naimi Xisi, high-dimensional power.

The benefit of raising the level by two levels at once is that Naimi Xisi's intelligence increased a little. Although not much, for the precious mental three-dimensional attribute, it is already considered a very unexpected surprise.

Moreover, Naimi Xisi always has a feeling that the increase in the mental three-dimensional attribute will bring him great benefits in the future—not just for now, and not merely to provide more mana.

Additionally, Naimi Xisi can now use an Eight-Circle Spell Slot, and the power level of his spells has increased to 22nd level. The power of any spell he casts now is equivalent to that of a 22nd-level Legendary Mage, and this is without including the amplification from the power gem.

Finally, the increase in spell points: raising two levels boosted Naimi Xisi's spell points by over seventy again, and with the amplification of the Mind Gem, it amounts to Naimi Xisi gaining over seven hundred spell points.

Already vast mana has become even more substantial; for the current Juan Ce Long, there is hardly any opponent capable of draining his mana pool, and likely none have been born yet.

If there truly were an opponent with mana even greater than his, that opponent's strength would probably far exceed Naimi Xisi's.

(End of chapter)