# 1048
Chapter 1049: Deceptive Trick
In this world, aside from Loki himself, Si Xiaonan was undoubtedly the one who understood him best.
Loki's God's Ruins was numbered 009 by the Night Watch—[Deceptive Trick]. Its sequence ranked quite high even among God's Ruins. This God's Ruins could weave "tricks" capable of deceiving everything in the world. Whether it was humans, gods, objects, or even events that had already occurred in reality, all could be rewritten through "trickery."
However, this ability had only two flaws.
First, the "trick" itself had to be logically plausible.
[Deceptive Trick] could use "tricks" to overwrite established facts with events that never occurred, but this required the woven "trick" to be logically feasible. He could turn a hen freshly hatched from an egg into a rooster, but he could not make an egg hatch a piglet.
Second, weaving a "trick" required time.
The time needed to weave a "trick" depended on the target of deception. If it was merely tricking mortals, for Loki it was no different from instant casting.
But if the target of deception was an established fact, it depended on how far back that fact had occurred. From Si Xiaonan's observations over the past few years, Loki seemed capable of changing things that had happened at most fifteen seconds ago, and such "tricks" also required several seconds to weave.
Si Xiaonan stood inside the great formation, turned her head to glance at the ripples in the void, her eyes glinting with faint light.
She was calculating the time.
From the moment Loki reached out to touch the formation until he passed through it, a total of 3.46 seconds had elapsed... and this was the time Loki needed to weave a "trick" that could deceive a god-level formation.
Whether it would be useful in the future or not, Si Xiaonan first firmly记住了这个数据in her heart.
And she had already memorized dozens of such data points.
Loki's gaze swept across the numerous soaring celestial palaces before him, and he spoke in a low voice:
"The Kunlun Ruins has too many temples—searching them one by one would be a waste of time..."
Before he finished speaking, he brought Si Xiaonan along, turning into a streak of black light that shot rapidly toward the nearest celestial palace. At the entrance of that palace, dozens of heavenly soldiers and generals were lined up in long rows, carefully patrolling the surroundings.
They did not notice that two shadows had silently arrived behind them.
Since Loki was unwilling to search each celestial palace one by one, simply grabbing a minion to ask for directions would naturally be the most convenient method.
The heavenly soldier at the end of the line held a halberd, proceeding with a solemn expression, when a palm suddenly extended from the nothingness behind him, silently reaching for his neck.
But the next moment, that palm passed lightly through the heavenly soldier's body, as if through nothing at all.
"Hm?"
A soft exclamation came from the void.
Loki stared at his empty palm, his eyes showing a hint of surprise. After hesitating for a moment, he reached out again, grasping toward another heavenly soldier.
He still could not touch the soldier's body.
Loki frowned slightly, lowering his head in contemplation.
Upon seeing this, Si Xiaonan beside him was also filled with confusion.
These heavenly soldiers stood right before their eyes—why couldn't they be touched?
Loki's eyes narrowed slightly. He bent down, picked up a small stone from the ground, and examined it carefully between his fingers.
After a few seconds, as if having thought of something, he let out a cold laugh.
"So that's why the divine power here is so abundant... using a fragment of time to nearly deceive all the divine kingdoms—this should be the Great Xia stratagem of 'crossing the sea unperceived'?"
"A fragment of time?" Si Xiaonan looked around.
"Everything you saw at the Peach Banquet, and everything presented before us now, is all a fragment of a certain period from the Kunlun Ruins' past—a false illusion they deliberately displayed for you agents.
I thought something was off before. The Great Xia's Kunlun Ruins has always been extremely mysterious—how could it have conveniently exposed a corner of its heavenly secrets at this critical moment, revealing its location?
Great Xia did this to lure all you agents who sought to probe Great Xia's divine foundations, and then use this fragment of time to deliver a false impression to all other divine kingdoms... that the Great Xia gods were still stationed in Great Xia and at their peak strength.
From the beginning, the Kunlun Ruins was a trap prepared for the four great divine kingdoms."
Loki paused, then continued: "But since they're not in Great Xia, where could they have gone?
If it were me..."
A certain guess seemed to form in Loki's heart, his eyes flickering with light.
Hearing these words, Si Xiaonan's heart immediately sank.
If things were truly as Loki said, and Great Xia's purpose was to use agents like them to spread false information to other divine kingdoms, then Loki, this infiltrating God of Trickery, had become the variable in everything.
He had seen through the Great Xia gods' arrangement—Great Xia's situation could be in danger.
Just as Si Xiaonan was worrying, Loki raised his head, appearing quite pleased, a slight smile curving his lips.
"Interesting..."
Immediately after, as if having sensed something, he turned to look into the distance.
A green shadow swept across the sky above the two of them, heading directly toward the central celestial palace. Si Xiaonan looked carefully and realized it was a maid dressed in green robes.
Loki stared at the green-robed maid for a moment. A strand of hair at his temple was gently blown by the wind, his brow arching,
"Not an illusion?"
Without the slightest hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the maid from midair. The green-robed maid's pupils contracted sharply, and the next moment she tumbled from the sky.
A palm immediately clutched her throat, and amid the world spinning around her, she found herself pinned against a wall in a corner of the celestial palace.
The green-robed maid groaned in pain, wisps of blood seeping from the corner of her lips, her face deathly pale.
Seeing this, a conflicted look flickered across Si Xiaonan's eyes, but she still waved her hand. An invisible veil covered the corner of the celestial palace completely, black light flickering atop it as a "trick" subsequently attached to it.
[Wuyuan Veil] was originally the strongest Forbidden Ruins for concealing aura. Years ago, Si Xiaonan could already use it to block the leakage of [Shiva's Grudge]'s aura. Now with an additional "trick" to deceive all beings, even gods below the至高 would be completely unable to detect their presence.
The green-robed maid forced her painful eyes open to find herself facing a pair of cold, snake-like narrow eyes.
"I heard your Kunlun Ruins has a secret treasure?" Loki's hand clamped around the maid's neck, pressing her against the wall and lifting her into the air, speaking calmly, "Where is it?"
The green-robed maid bit her lower lip hard, glaring at Loki with all her might, refusing to say a single word.
"Never mind." Loki shrugged. "I'll just ask in a different way."
As the words fell, the serpentine scales covering Leng Xuan's right arm twisted诡异的ly. A tiny black snake head broke through from his palm, suddenly drilling into the maid's right ear, directly stirring into her brain.
A scream echoed through the empty celestial palace.