Wei Zhao shook his head in bewilderment. "Not a single point shaved off. That's just absurd."

He had guessed beforehand that this would be the nature of the trait; after all, the precedent of the Wheel of Silence was right there before him.

Still, in his expectations, even a damage-stacking attack trait like this one should have been weakened somewhat once it came down to actual numbers.

After all, the Silence trait brought by the Wheel of Silence had cut the probability of a lethal strike from 5% down to 1%.

By that logic, the Endless trait of the End of All Things ought to have been much the same.

Who could have imagined it would be left completely untouched, still at 10%!

Wei Zhao mused for a moment. "Looks like I'll have to find a way to stack attack speed from now on."

One Silence trait with a 1% lethal probability, one Termination trait with a 10% exponential stack—put those two traits together, and the returns from stacking attack speed had suddenly become extraordinarily considerable.

It was no exaggeration to say that the mere existence of these two heaven-defying traits was enough to dictate the direction of Wei Zhao's future growth!

Whatever plans had been laid out before, any that failed to match these two traits would be a sheer waste of heaven's bounty—the mark of a brain full of shit.

Fortunately, the overall allocation scheme Wei Zhao and Zhang Baiyu had worked out in their discussions had already placed enormous emphasis on attack speed.

After all, Wei Zhao had always been an expert who leaned toward swift strikes.

Now, with these two traits in hand, there was not the slightest conflict with the original plan—it was like adding wings to a tiger, and all the more proof that the scheme was correct.

Wei Zhao could not have asked for more.

One lethal strike, one damage stack—once attack speed was raised further in the future, just picturing that scene was enough to set the heart pounding.

Setting all else aside, at least in terms of single-target output, wherever Wei Zhao was placed, he was absolutely a bug-tier, top-class madman!

Across the entire open zone of the Divine Domain, he was an existence far beyond the limits!

And this was only the beginning.

Wei Zhao had only just fused two pieces of undying divine gear; the third was still to come, and after that a fourth, a fifth...

If he could truly have his way and achieve the legendary All-Undying, what kind of terrifying spectacle would that be?

Wei Zhao simply could not imagine it.

Having taken stock of this whole series of gains, Wei Zhao's gaze turned to the depths of his sea of consciousness.

At this very moment, a segment of dark-gold bone was floating quietly there.

Wei Zhao's lips curved. "That fellow really did send me a generous gift."

Zhang Baiyu, at his side, caught the implication. "Jiang Wushe?"

Wei Zhao nodded with a smile.

He could of course tell that this segment of bone carried an extremely dense life-bound aura belonging uniquely to Jiang Wushe himself; without question, this was Jiang Wushe's life-bound bone.

Zhang Baiyu instantly reconstructed the whole picture and reached his conclusion. "Jiang Wushe wanted to use this life-bound bone, fused with the End of All Things, to secretly influence or even control the lord's consciousness, and reduce the lord to his puppet?"

Wei Zhao clicked his tongue. "Say what you will, the man really is willing to spend his capital, and his methods are genuinely brilliant. A moment's carelessness and you'd really fall for it."

That was the truth.

Given Wei Zhao's level of Primordial Spirit, he possessed a natural, towering resistance to all manner of mind-control methods, and he himself had always maintained the highest vigilance against them.

Had Jiang Wushe tried to influence or control him through conventional means, the probability of success would have been almost zero.

But through the End of All Things—no ordinary person could ever imagine it.

From Wei Zhao's perspective, fusing the End of All Things had been entirely his own decision; even the divine gear itself had been a bargain Wei Zhao and Zhang Baiyu had racked their brains over and barely managed to snap up.

Where was there the slightest sign of having been guided by anyone?

Even if he had misstepped before, so long as Wei Zhao chose to activate the Myriad-Life Reincarnation, everything would remain under control.

For anyone else, merely surviving the Myriad-Life Reincarnation would have been a trial of heaven-defying difficulty; even Jiang Wushe himself, aided back then by heaven-defying fortune, had endured it only with the utmost hardship.

Had his luck been even a little worse, back when he made the reckless choice to fuse the End of All Things, he would already have been a dead man.

There would be no Jiang Wushe of today at all.

Even he had barely scraped through by such hardship—Wei Zhao, no matter what, could not possibly have had it easier than him.

Under such circumstances, no matter how wary Wei Zhao was, he would have absolutely no strength to spare to resist the invasion of that life-bound bone.

Everything was perfect.

Jiang Wushe had miscalculated on exactly one thing.

Wei Zhao had the World Will—a cheat of dimensional-downgrade caliber.

By delegating the Myriad-Life Reincarnation to the World Will, Wei Zhao did not merely have strength to spare; apart from watching his own reincarnation films, he had nothing at all to do.

For Jiang Wushe's life-bound bone to invade at such a moment—from Wei Zhao's perspective, it was a firefly in the dead of night.

He could hardly have failed to notice it.

And so came the scene before them.

An entire segment of Jiang Wushe's life-bound bone had appeared, whole and complete, within Wei Zhao's sea of consciousness.

Wrapped in the World Will, it could not affect Wei Zhao in the slightest.

On the contrary.

Through this life-bound bone, Wei Zhao could instead exert a subtle, gradual influence on Jiang Wushe himself, far away in the College of the God of Wealth.

Turning him directly into a puppet would be somewhat difficult, but leaving a back door in his consciousness and influencing certain key decisions—that was no difficult matter at all.

Zhang Baiyu's eyes lit up. "Now that's a fine card."

Wei Zhao agreed wholeheartedly. "A rare fine card indeed."

With his current strength, Tianjun had clearly begun to be too small to hold him; his future entry into the open zone of the Divine Domain to develop was a foregone conclusion.

By now, he had at least established some footing in the open zone of the Divine Domain.

But to speak of any substantive influence—that was still far beyond reach.

Jiang Wushe was a figure of the chief level in the College of the God of Wealth, and one day in the future he might even rise higher still.

To be able to secretly influence or even control such a figure—judged from any angle, that was unquestionably a heavyweight trump card!

Only, it must not be used lightly.

After all, the man's level of strength was what it was; once or twice would be all well and good, but use it too often and he would inevitably grow alert.

Zhang Baiyu laughed. "The best part is that Jiang Wushe still thinks he has the lord under his control. That mindset alone is the perfect cover for the lord."

At this moment, in a private secret realm of the College of the God of Wealth.

The black-robed figure stared hard at Jiang Wushe. "How is it?"

Jiang Wushe slowly opened his eyes, his face considerably paler than before.

Having just lost a segment of life-bound bone, along with no small amount of vital essence, a period of weakness was only to be expected.

Jiang Wushe's eyes shone; he minded none of it, and was instead full of elation. "It's done!"

"Are you certain?"

The black-robed figure brightened at the words.