Chapter 577
“After answering so many questions... I’d like to ask one myself...” The God of the Dead Star spoke slowly, gazing at Xia Er. “You... come from the surface?”
“I’m not sure,” Xia Er replied honestly.
Is the Old Days just a deeper layer of the underground?
It certainly isn’t.
How could mere crust possibly block the influence of mad deities and ascendants on the surface?
Thus, Xia Er was curious about how the God of the Dead Star defined the “surface.”
“Not... really?” The God of the Dead Star shook His head and continued, “Before Moros fell into madness... He was obsessed with exploring the existence above the Abyss... even briefly connected with the surface... but after that, His mind became unstable...”
In the time that followed, Xia Er asked the God of the Dead Star many questions, and the God answered each one, deepening Xia Er’s understanding of the Abyss.
The language system implanted in Xia Er included Abyssal language as just one of many, and the God of the Dead Star admitted He hadn’t heard of the others.
This at least proved that in the Old Days, besides the Abyss, there were other realms, possibly existing just above the underground.
As for the matter of faith, the God of the Dead Star’s response surprised Xia Er.
To create a path, one needs an existence like the “Cocoon of Light”... that is, “Uniqueness.”
By absorbing the power of “Uniqueness” to evolve, a “deity” leaves a unique mark upon it, allowing them to absorb faith through these marks. The believers receive the deity’s blessings and gain abilities, which is what we call creating a path.
It seemed like a symbiotic state between the extraordinary and “Uniqueness.”
“Uniqueness” helps the extraordinary absorb faith, granting them power, which they then return to the believers, creating more followers and faith, feeding back into the extraordinary and “Uniqueness.”
The God of the Dead Star had gained power from a fragment of the “Cocoon of Light,” creating a path unique to Himself, which He called “Candlelight.”
Moros’s original path was called “Light,” while the abilities of those mad beings after His fall mutated and were referred to as “Darkness.”
However...
If the Old Days occurred during the Age of Chaos, then Xia Er had never heard of the existence of the “Light” and “Darkness” paths.
Not just the names; she had never seen such abilities, nor had she encountered any descriptions of Moros or the “Cocoon of Light” in various church texts.
If the Abyss truly existed during the Age of Chaos, then it was a completely forgotten world, buried beneath the earth, with no one to document its rise and fall of civilization.
This was a civilization utterly lost...
Xia Er frowned slightly.
This was not good news for her.
The system had clearly stated that any actions she took in the Old Days would affect reality.
If the Old Days existed in the Age of Chaos, and the transition to the Age of Holy Wars involved a thorough information cleansing, then even if she turned the Abyss upside down, reality would remain unaffected.
Perhaps only by breaking through the heavens would she know whether her actions in the Old Days would impact the historical records of reality.
It seemed the system had thrown her into a “teaching bureau,” but in reality, it had trapped her in a dead end.
The night was filled with mad metamorphs and ascendants, and a deranged evil god could show up at any moment. Various creatures had been slaughtered nearly to extinction; even collecting faith yielded only a trickle, completely insufficient to contend with Moros in the darkness.
If she couldn’t even get past Moros, there was no hope of breaking through to see the outside world.
She would be trapped like a bird in a cage, confined within the Abyss... while in the real world outside, Sadana still threatened her life...
She didn’t have time to waste here...
Moreover, if she remained in the Abyss, Hei Ni would eventually die here as well, and this altar and its believers would be buried in this sunken world.
“I can help you.” Xia Er looked up at the God of the Dead Star.
“Besides my corpse and their lives... you can take everything else...” The God of the Dead Star looked down at Xia Er.
He didn’t expect Xia Er to protect the people here; He was merely gambling.
If He went mad, the people here would die too. If He were killed by her, the people might die, but they could also survive a little longer on His corpse.
At that moment, the God of the Dead Star wanted to know what this envoy before Him truly desired.
“How many tiers does Moros have?” Xia Er asked directly, looking at the God of the Dead Star.
The God of the Dead Star: “...”
“Fourfold metamorphosis, fourfold ascension, right?” Xia Er seemed concerned that the God might not understand, so she clarified, “At which stage is Moros?”
The God of the Dead Star, sensing His own power, felt it was barely below tier 3. Yet, He had managed to resist the metamorphs and ascendants here for so long thanks to “Uniqueness.” This made Xia Er curious about Moros’s actual tier.
If Moros had already reached the peak, Xia Er would have to concede and treat this altar as nonexistent.
But if he was only at tier 5 or 6...
Then she would need to think strategically.
“Fourfold metamorphosis... fourfold... ascension?” The God of the Dead Star murmured, the candlelight in His eyes flickering, seemingly reflecting His inner turmoil. “So it’s fourfold...”
So it’s fourfold?
The God of the Dead Star, along with the extraordinary here, had no idea how many layers existed between metamorphs and ascendants?
“Don’t you know this?” Xia Er asked, puzzled. “How did you advance before?”
“By consuming the flesh and blood refined from those mad beings... and then stabilizing our minds with faith... until our bodies completed the metamorphosis and achieved ascension...” The God of the Dead Star explained. “My flesh has fully transformed; I should belong to the ascendants now...”
Listening to the God’s words, Xia Er frowned.
They... had no concept of tier classification. Their advancement relied entirely on forcibly consuming flesh and blood containing chaotic magical components, then using the power of their believers’ faith to stabilize their minds.
Compared to the advancement methods in Xia Er’s reality, the ways of the Abyss were... wild, to say the least. The entire Abyss seemed to be flailing about like a headless fly; asking them about their tiers seemed pointless.
Moros had briefly connected with the surface, and then His mind began to unravel.
Could it be that He realized His inevitable failure, that both He and all His believers would ultimately descend into madness, leading Him to go mad and tear apart the “Cocoon of Light”?
What had He seen on the surface?
“Who created the terms metamorph and ascendant?” Xia Er asked the God of the Dead Star directly.
“These are terms Moros transmitted back after connecting with the surface...” The God of the Dead Star replied.
Xia Er felt her deductions were getting closer to the truth.
Above the surface, there was a ninety percent chance it was the Age of Chaos!
The Abyss was merely a lost civilization within the Age of Chaos, never documented.
And she could only break through the heavens of the Abyss to spread her altar and believers...
“I’d like to ask something presumptuous...” The God of the Dead Star felt a premonition rising within Him. He looked at Xia Er and quietly inquired, “What... do you intend to do?”
His deliberately lowered voice, barely concealing the excitement and shifting respect, hinted at an anticipation for something even He could hardly believe.
“How did Moros connect with the surface?” Xia Er didn’t answer the God’s question but instead posed her own.
She wanted to know how Moros had connected with the surface...
The candlelight in the God of the Dead Star’s eyes flickered as He could no longer contain Himself, standing up and dragging the long, branch-like hair behind Him, moving closer to Xia Er.
If there was anything in the dark Abyss that could represent hope more than light, it was the world above the dome of the Abyss...
Table of Contents
