[You say coldly that you will ask and he will answer, and if he dares speak half a lie, you will make him wish he were dead.]

[Sage Randall suddenly speaks very sincerely, saying that you must be the noble True God’s Envoy.]

[The Envoy has no need to adopt an enemy stance. Just as the prophecy recited in the auditorium said, their Multivision School sees you as a savior and does not harbor malice toward you like the Direct Vision School.]

[You and he can sit down and talk things through…]

[You know the Multivision School absolutely cannot be as simple as their words. Otherwise, why would they falsely claim that the True God’s Envoy has already made contact with the Association and will attend the banquet three days from now?]

[There must be some hidden scheme behind this.]

[You do not lower your guard. The scarlet blade remains against his neck the whole time…]

[You press Sage Randall, ordering him to explain what he had said in the auditorium just now.]

[He immediately answers that the School has a source of intelligence within the Direct Vision Association and learned that the Direct Vision School was the first to find you.]

[You relied on your own great strength to break through the encirclement and fled all the way to the vicinity of the Multivision Association, where you encountered one Great Sage and four Sages blocking your path.]

[A few Multivision Scholars happened to reach the area near the battlefield. After the battle ended, they saw the Direct Vision Great Sage. Unfortunately, the Association received the information too late and could not support you.]

[According to the intelligence, only the Direct Vision Great Sage returned to the Association in the end, and you and the other Sages all disappeared…]

[They assumed that you must have killed the four Sages and in the end escaped successfully from the Great Sage’s hands.]

[As for why he said those lies… in truth, it was all so they could find you.]

[The odds of finding you by sending Scholars into the boundless mist were too low. And since you were persecuted by the Direct Vision Association, you would likely not easily trust the Multivision Association’s goodwill either.]

[So after discussion, the Association’s upper echelons had no choice but to resort to this tactic.]

[By spreading the false news of the Envoy through many Scholars, only you, the true Envoy, would realize something was wrong.]

[With someone impersonating your noble identity, as long as you learned this news, you would very likely come to the Association in secret to verify it.]

[And indeed… you came right away, much faster than the three days they had set aside.]

Lin Xun was momentarily at a loss for words. Sage Randall’s explanation was so reasonable that he could not find any flaws for a moment.

“Could it be that the Multivision Association harboring malice toward me really was just a lie of the Direct Vision Great Sage, meant to stop me from making contact with the Multivision Association and gaining strong allies?”

Although Sage Randall’s explanation was watertight, and the contents of the Multivision prophecy gave them no reason to be hostile to him, he still felt that something was off. He did not know whether it was the hellish game or the Direct Vision Association that had left him with persecution paranoia.

Lin Xun’s eyes turned cold. “Better to kill by mistake than let one go.”

He used Flesh Authority to control his strength and gave Sage Randall a sideways slap with the sword, knocking him out.

He then tossed Sage Randall into the Time Prison and subjected him to the torture of pitch black despair that sealed away all five senses.

But this time, he really seemed to have been mistaken.

Sage Randall crawled out of the little black room snot and tears streaming, clutching his leg and wailing his injustice, insisting that the Multivision Association absolutely bore no malice toward the True God’s Envoy.

[…]

[You look at the trembling Sage Randall, his face wet with snot and tears. Do you choose to believe him?]

Lin Xun did not press on an option.

He narrowed his eyes. He had already realized where the flaw in Randall’s explanation lay.

[You grip the sword hilt tightly. The scarlet blade remains pressed to his neck…]

[You suddenly ask him why he had no objections or questions when you were a female Grand Scholar one moment but appeared as a warrior the next.]

[Since the Sage had no reaction, he must have already received information beforehand and known that the Envoy possesses the ability to change his appearance.]

[Sage Randall nods, baffled.]

[Your gaze grows even colder as you ask, in that case, had it never occurred to the Multivision Association upper echelons, to those Sages of profound learning and sharp minds, that when you were besieged by the Direct Vision Association and only the Great Sage remained in the end, there was another possible outcome?]

[Sage Randall’s face changes. His lips move, but no words come out.]

[You continue. Of course they knew there was another outcome, and it was the most likely one, that you killed the Direct Vision Great Sage and returned to the Branch Association in the Great Sage’s appearance.]

[Since they have an intelligence source within the Direct Vision Association, a hidden agent who can learn of the True God’s Envoy’s descent, of the Envoy being besieged by several Sages from the Direct Vision School, and of only the Great Sage returning to the Association in the end, how could they not suspect that the final victor was the True God’s Envoy?]

[Since their informant could obtain all this secret information, how could he not also know that after returning to the Association, you swept through the Association’s materials, plundering everything, and even refilled the Knowledge Sea Magic Formation?]

[The real Great Sage would never loot the Association’s resources. Based on this intelligence, they must already have realized that the ‘Direct Vision Great Sage’ now is the True God’s Envoy.]

[Even if it was only suspicion and not confirmed intel, they would still have an eighty or ninety percent probability that the True God’s Envoy has become the Great Sage.]

[When they clearly knew that the Great Sage was the True God’s Envoy, why did they not dare to go to the Direct Vision Association to find you and express their goodwill face to face?]

[Because they have a guilty conscience, because they fear the Knowledge Sea Magic Formation and worry that they will not be able to defeat you and control you within the Direct Vision Association.]

[Otherwise, if they went straight to the Direct Vision Association and spoke candidly within the attack range of the Knowledge Sea Magic Formation, would that not put you more at ease and make it easier to sit down and talk?]

[Cold sweat beads across Sage Randall’s forehead. His lips open and close, but no words come out.]

[You continue, gripping the hilt even tighter. It is precisely because they lacked the confidence to defeat you within the Direct Vision Association that they deliberately set up this scheme, trying to lure you to the Multivision Association…]

[Only here do they have absolute confidence in defeating you and achieving some unspeakable goal.]

[Unfortunately, they did not expect you to arrive so quickly. They did not expect you to reach the Multivision Association before the news had even spread…]

[Although you have already figured everything out, there is still one point that does not add up. You ask Sage Randall to clear up your confusion.]

[According to the contents of the Multivision Great Prophet’s prophecy, you are the true savior. They should have no reason to harbor malice toward you.]

[So why are the upper echelons of the Branch Association targeting you? Why did they set up this scheme to deal with you?]

[Would this not be going against the original intent of the Great Prophet’s prophecy? Could that so called Multivision Great Prophet’s prophecy also be fabricated?]

[Sage Randall’s face is ashen. He presses his lips together and refuses to utter a single word.]

Previously, even the Time Prison had not made this Sage slip up, so he likely had some secret method to resist torture and interrogation.

Since he could not get the secret from Randall’s mouth, he would get it from Randall’s mind.

[Your gaze turns fierce as your wrist trembles on the sword hilt. Bloodlike scarlet radiance erupts in a flash.]