Silent Crown

Chapter 511-520

Chapter 511: Sword of Judgment

Countless people had made great sacrifices and suffered a lot of pain and torture. At that cost, the enchantment of the Sacred City was finally recaptured from the abyss!

The highway of God was ready.

The highway of God had been straightened.

Ye Qingxuan heard the bell in his hand ringing. The complicated and ancient melody emerged from the "Final Authority" and poured into his consciousness.

That was…an indescribably magnificent music movement!

Innumerable music theories occupied his soul in an instant, urging his body to play, to sing, and to release the movement that represented miracles.

Thus, in the Central Temple, numerous perception threads stretched out from Ye Qingxuan's body, and accessed the countless keys. He manipulated the unprecedentedly large musical instrument, and lead the pipe organ to create that solemn symphony with unimaginable dexterity and smoothness.

The melody stunned the Sacred City. Countless musicians shouted in shock.

The holy spirits under the ninth level of the earth happened to look up towards the solar disk at the same time.

That was…

"The Ninth Symphony!"

The Ninth Symphony Prelude created by the original King of Red!

From Ye Qingxuan's fingertips, the symphony was performed according to his will in the controlling center of the Central Temple, and it reverberated in the whole steel city. Wherever it passed, all churches, buildings, and facilities echoed in response.

Sacred City!

This was the Sacred City!

The Sacred City had woken up!

The spirituality that had been sleeping in the deepest part of the Sacred City condensed and reemerged. Thousands of bells were ringing at the same time and intertwining into many incredibly magnificent music theories.

Those countless music theories ran in the steel city, like the blood flowing through the body of a giant.

At that moment, the city finally opened its eyes.

As if God's messenger had finally come to the earth.

Behind Ye Qingxuan, the burning holy emblem suddenly expanded and floated between heaven and earth, like a man-made sun!

That was the authority that could only be mastered by the Kings of Red of all ages.

Even if it was only a prelude, it was still powerful enough to call the foundation of the seven schools of musicians—the power represented by the holy ax!

"Holy, Holy, Holy!" In front of the holy emblem that burned like the sun, Ye Qingxuan was immersed in the magnificent music movement. With his will, the angry scream that was as loud as thunder rang between heaven and earth!

"To purify all the poisonous snakes in the name of the holy spirit and fire!"

"To beat them with iron rods and smash them like the crockery of the potters!"

In the enchantment of the Sacred City, the spirituality in the prelude of The Ninth Symphony flew into the consciousness of Ye Qingxuan. He was enabled to separate from the narrow perspective of humanity and endowed with endless lights and heats. He was at the moment overlooking the world!

"Tell those who are here and who are not that this is the only correct principle and gospel in the world! Those who work for it are righteous! Those who died for it can be redeemed!"

He reached out.

Then, above the earth, a trumpet roared.

Numerous burning posts rose abruptly out of the ground, and countless cold silver spikes fell from the sky. Immediately afterward, purified flames spewed out from the burning posts.

From here to there.

From one side of the world to the other side of the world.

Everything that could be seen was on fire.

It was as if the day of judgment had come upon the earth, flames pouring out from the silent ground, giving all sinners equal and merciful purification!

Ye Qingxuan looked up. Behind him, the wheel of the Holy Emblem was revolving with a magnificent and loud sound, as if iron and steel were rubbing against each other.

Then, the enchantment oscillated.

The roaring melody ran from the Central Temple, and then through the action zone, the creation zone, the formation zone, and the outflow zone. Endless light flew out from the solar disk.

Like a waterfall.

Countless rays of light poured into the enchantment, sweeping in all directions. Then the lights ignited the dark clouds in the sky, burned up the dark fog in the abyss, and destroyed all the demons completely!

In the end, the lights went up and then towards the huge shadow that covered the sky…

Cast the Sword of Judgment!

As stated in the Holy Bible, Prepare and straighten the highway of God. Heaven is near, and God will cast the Sword of Judgment into the world through the opened gate!

The blade of the sword revolved in all directions, glowing and bursting out flames. Forward! Forward! Forward!

It would pierce the earth if it encountered the earth. It would light up the sky if it encountered the sky. It was going to break down the nine layers of hell, tear up the endless abyss, and burn off all sins!

Boom!

A huge crack emerged on the trunk of the abyss black branches, running from the front to the back.

Above the trunk, the strange face of Menti had been completely burned into ashes, only leaving a shrill cry spreading out with the pulling out of a shadow.

Immediately afterward, endless light rushed out of the inside of the abyss black branches.

The shadow was torn up from the inside out, and the haze in the abyss was eliminated completely!

Menti's projection in the Physical World was completely destroyed and lost its final foothold.

In the aether sea, the vast trunk that ran through the Physical World and the Aether World collapsed. Even his real body far away in the abyss had suffered irreversible and severe wounds.

The abyss boiled. The abyss black branches rooted in the deepest part of the abyss whined, pulled out a withered branch like a bone, and cast it toward the Physical World with strong hatred!

The target was Ye Qingxuan!

Menti tore off the poisonous branch from his own body. The poisonous branch had grown by absorbing the resentment and poison over thousands of years, and being assimilated by the ultimate source of the Hyakume.

Since Menti was born, he had only made three poisonous branches. The dagger that it gave to Ludovic to assassinate the Pope was one of them.

Now, as a glorious dark minister, he had been tripped up by Ye Qingxuan, and made an even more stupid mistake than Paganini had, which drove him crazy. He wanted to give Ye Qingxuan an unforgettable lesson at any cost!

However, the radiance of the enchantment flowed and gathered in the air in front of Ye Qingxuan.

The melody of Requiem rang through the entire Sacred City.

Holy! Holy! Holy!

The nine layers of holy regions formed in an instant. Even the enchantment that contained all the power of the bell towers moved to block the poisonous branch.

In an instant, the poisonous branch broke the sky and arrived.

Along the way, the aether sea was even smeared with dark green light for that moment.

Immediately afterward, countless rays of light shone. The Sacred City shook. The radiance flowing over the huge enchantment resisted the impact from the poisonous branch. But the branch was alive, and it could even be regarded as a part of Menti. Since it lost its momentum as it came, even most of its power, it reduced into a black light, swaying like a live snake.

Like taking root in a boulder, it wormed its way through the weak part of the music theory, and ran through the enchantment towards the real body of Ye Qingxuan.

In an instant, it penetrated Ye Qingxuan's holy sphere.

One layer, two layers, three layers…

With the fragmentation of the former spheres, new spheres formed again. Ye Qingxuan manipulated the music theories of the bell towers, as if he was resonating with thousands of Master musicians. Thus, it was quite hard to know exactly how many spheres collapsed and reformed in just an instant.

In the end, the sphere had become a long and narrow one, like a box, getting the dim and black light embedded in it.

The poisonous branch couldn't even move a bit.

Like a dragon in a shoal, a tiger in a cage.

Ye Qingxuan stretched out his hand and pressed on the poisonous black branch through the holy sphere—nature intervention!

Thus, the poisonous branch that contained the essence of Menti's music theories and could be regarded as the quintessence of the abyss trembled, fizzled, and cramped in the box. However, it still couldn't get rid of the music theories of Ye Qingxuan.

In the end, as the holy sphere broke down, it changed into a piece of dead branch which then fell into Ye Qingxuan's hand.

"Such a good stuff." He stared up at the furious Menti in the Aether World and waved with a smile on his face. "You left me such a good gift, dude, even if I made you leave! Okay, please go now, don't hesitate!"

Roaring!

The abyss black branches disappeared.

It was completely silent between heaven and earth.

Ye Qingxuan finally felt relief, and found himself gasping with fatigue.

Finally…

Ended?

No, not really.

The real boss had not yet unveiled his face. Ye Qingxuan had barely driven away a small dog, let alone ended the war.

For the real two parties, this wasn't even the start.

Even so, Ye Qingxuan still felt proud and delighted.

The projection of the abyss black branches in the Physical World was destroyed by the last blow, and it was even driven back to the Aether World .

It was the second dark minister Ye Qingxuan had defeated.

Menti said that in the abyss, there were already four dark ministers who hated him badly. Apart from Paganini, he had no idea who those dark ministers were. If he counted the two incarnations of Hyakume as dark ministers, there would be six of them?

Even Ye Qingxuan himself found it incredible.

It was too bad.

In the meantime, the abundant power and inexhaustible energy just faded like the tides and disappeared. With the end of the Ninth Symphony Prelude, he separated from that marvelous state.

When he recalled what had happened in those dozen seconds, he felt like it was just an illusion.

At that time, Ye Qingxuan had been like an almighty god, manipulating land, water, fire, wind, and nearly everything. But now, the clear memory blurred rapidly.

Like a dispelled dream.

But at least…

He looked down at the final authority in his hand.

The repaired Sacred City enchantment was still in his hands.

"Even such a big fight couldn't draw you out!"

In the core of the Central Temple, he opened his eyes, stretched out his hands, and pressed the keys that surrounded him, whispering, "Let me see… where are you hiding?"

As the hands bounced flexibly, the pipe organ sounded loudly.

In the machine room underneath the Central Temple, the loud sound came back. The hot steam rushed through the pipes like a flood. After running through many diverting valves and pipes, the steam hit the reeds, causing the reeds to burn red, vibrate, and sound loud noises.

Thousands of sharp sounds overlapped. Like the hub of the enchantment, those machines allocated the resources and submitted summarized information to Ye Qingxuan.

Finally, he resaw the huge nebula of the Central Temple.

The sparkling nebula permeated the Sacred City, and each sparkle represented a person's aether wave.

The huge enchantment now seemed to become an enormous transparent mirror, revealing every detail of itself in front of Ye Qingxuan. A huge amount of information that was too much for an average person's brain to store had been categorized by the way of deciphering.

About four-fifths of the information was useless and had been deleted, and most of the redundant information among the last one-fifth had also been deleted. At last, via the music theory, the information was transformed into some simple music notes, which Ye Qingxuan bore in mind.

He only needed to turn the music notes into different intervals and put them in a fixed place. Then, the music theory of the way of deciphering would help him find the variate he needed within this big formula.

Where on earth was the variate that represented Ye Lanzhou?

If he looked at the world through this big formula, he sometimes felt puzzled. But once he figured out what the variates and complex music theory really stood for, the world would instantly make sense to him.

Especially when the huge enchantment was constantly sending information to Ye Qingxuan, he indeed felt puzzled.

His ears and eyes could no longer observe the immediate surroundings, and his brain could not function at the same time.

Ye Qingxuan realized that it was necessary for him to change the way he was attempting to do things.

Albert had spent his whole life observing this world via the way of deciphering and grasping how this world functioned. He hoped to make a breakthrough by deciphering the music theory, but he failed to read people's minds.

Still, he created a very good tool for Ye Qingxuan, so Ye Qingxuan could find what he needed from this chaotic and complicated world.

Sadly, Ye Qingxuan failed to find the Silver Cellar where his teacher was imprisoned after searching the whole Sacred City.

Even people at the top of the church group did not know where the Silver Cellar was. If it was not in the Sacred City, then there was little chance Ye Qingxuan could find it, since outside the city, there were too many places where this Silver Cellar could be.

Ye Qingxuan was silent for a while, then he stopped thinking and began to play the keys.

The transparent mirror delicately changed its angle.

The structure of the formula started to change.

There were too many secrets in this city. If one wanted to look into every one of them, his whole lifetime would be spent on finding out the secrets hidden deeply in this city.

So, Ye Qingxuan decided not to focus too much on the details, but to explore this city in a more macroscopic way.

In just a few seconds, Ye Qingxuan's spiritual sensing covered the whole city. In his mind, countless formulas and variates changed and combined with each other and formed a vague model.

This model started to zoom in, following the order given by Ye Qingxuan's mind, and most of the model blurred—the equation was balanced. Which meant that in this part, there was no variate.

Soon, Ye Qingxuan was stunned. In the blurred part, there was a place that was not supposed to be.

The place was the habitation of the Holy Spirit, a place where the King of all generations and the Holy Spirit were sleeping!

Every Holy Spirit that was going to disperse from this world would come to this place to get its own stone coffin, and bury itself in advance. In this way, it could stay longer in this world.

Until now, more than ten Holy Spirits had dispersed in their coffins. Among them was the oldest Holy Spirit, the King of Romulus, who was respectfully addressed as "Aeneid," the Spirit of Thunder.

Normally, there should be hundreds of scepters kept in this place. If the enchantment was the shield of the Sacred City, then these holy spirits were the spear of the Sacred City.

After observing this place through the transparent mirror, Ye Qingxuan found the situation in the habitation to be much worse than he thought.

When the enchantment of the Sacred City was occupied by the demogorgons from the abyss, they knew once this habitation was destroyed, the whole Sacred City would fall into pieces.

At that time, layers of layers of seals and single enchantments were all activated. The soldiers stood outside to guard the palace. A large group of musicians were killed by the demogorgons.

The whole plaza was soaked with blood and covered with dead bodies, looking like hell.

However, these soldiers and musicians never knew that inside the palace, there was nothing.

Ye Qingxuan adjusted the transparent mirror. His spiritual sensing extended into the coffin, then he fell into silence.

It was empty!

Every coffin was empty.

The sleeping holy spirits had all disappeared.

Ye Qingxuan was shocked, then he looked in the direction of the Pope palace and smiled, as if he had understood something.

I do not know who did this. Although he managed to transfer all the holy spirits, he has not been of any help in defending this city. Countless civilians were killed…

At last, the exploring model was completed, and the Instrument of harmonious melody that was set outside the city received many signals.

Ye Qingxuan had already known what was going on in this world.

Apart from the Sacred City, more than sixteen cities in this world sent an SOS to Ye Qingxuan. More than seven catastrophes came to the human world from the Dark World, killing people and destroying cities.

All the countries had been fighting with them by using their unique tricks, but were still at a disadvantage. However, if they would be willing to use the artifacts they had been kept for so long, they could definitely defeat the catastrophes.

Surprisingly, Ye Qingxuan had not received an SOS from Anglo.

The Anglo was in dead silence and shrouded in a mist.

That made Ye Qingxuan feel very worried.

Could it be possible that Anglo was already destroyed by the catastrophe?

Surely that is not possible…

The ringing sound made by Hyakume had woken Leviathan up, and Leviathan could be attacking Anglo now. Still, Anglo had gone into war status in advance of the other countries. Even if Ye Qingxuan was not there, they had both the Stone Sword and the Lance of the Dragon Slayer. Besides, Maxwell could well defend his city without Ye Qingxuan.

In Ye Qingxuan's view, it was impossible that Anglo had been destroyed by the demogorgons.

However, no matter how hard he tried, he still did not receive any signal. Anglo was still shrouded in a mist, as if it had been isolated from the world. Moreover, Bayer, the director of the Association of Musicians, did not make any connection.

The whole country, including the sea around it, was all shrouded in a layer of thick fog. The fog was like a sleeping monster that had just devoured the whole country.

No one had come out of the fog.

The aether channel of the fifth department was in chaos, and apart from many disturbing random electronic waves, Ye Qingxuan could only hear the sound of people who were doing field service.

He kept silent for a while, then he gave an order with his limit of authorization: everyone should stay where they were right now, and once he got the signal, they should all go to Anglo.

In fact, abnormal phenomena were happening in every corner of the world, not just in Anglo. This was due to the disruptions of the basic music theory.

Currently, there was too little distance between the Aether World and the Physical World. In the wild, where there was no church, the rule of the Physical World had been covered by the disruptive music theory.

Luckily, in every city or place where people congregated, there were either churches or bell towers built by the church groups. So these places were still fine.

But in the pioneering manors, the wilds and the abandoned fields, everything was in chaos.

In some areas, the gravitation went unbalanced; in other areas, the gravity grew more than ten times. The components of the air started to change, and in some places, there was nothing but oxygen in the air; if there was a spark, the whole region would turn into a sea of fire. In some places, there were dead bodies of animals everywhere, and in other regions, there were even cracks in the sky, and through the sky, one could see the dark universe.

These abnormal phenomena were moving across the land like storms. The human inhabitants were being stricken by the storms and attacked by the catastrophes at the same time.

The Eagle Wing Mother had destroyed one-third of the cities of the Federation of Caucasus. In the Snowy Highland, the cousin of Asgard became as fierce and courageous as Asgard. They formed a line of bodies to prevent the crows led by Eagle Wing Mother from getting into the country.

Ye Qingxuan continued to observe, and at last, his eyes focused on the area beneath the Pope Palace.

Although this place was shielded by the broken pieces of the Aether World, he could still feel the scary aether wave behind them.

Ye Qingxuan had no idea what was going on there. Still, he was sure that Ludovic had been suffering, and this made him feel a bit relieved, but more worried as well.

Following the disturbance of the music theory, Ye Qingxuan found that something was happening in the Aether World.

In the Aether World, terrifying explosions were constantly happening. With every explosion, the rules in the Physical World and the music theory of the Aether World would change drastically, causing serious consequences.

With the help of the transparent mirror, Ye Qingxuan finally managed to see what was going on: two enormous figures were fighting with each other…

The two figures were in a form that was out of humanity's comprehension and beyond the category of any living creature.

The Aether World had been torn into two parts, and they were fighting with each other.

A gigantic wriggling shadow crawled out of the abyss and fought with ubiquitous light. The shadow looked like an enormous snake that was trying to swallow something big into its stomach. At the same time, its opponent was fighting back.

Compared with this shadow, even Jörmungandr that was kept by the School of Dragon Stone that belonged to the School of Summoning in the Aether Wonderland was just like a tiny mote of dust.

The shadow was Hyakume…

It had become a being that was far superior to the body, the consciousness and the existence. It became something ubiquitous, a poisonous tumor parasitized in the core of the world.

The tumor now wanted to usurp its host!

Led by the Pope, the God that the Holy Ax stood for was fighting back with full strength. This God was made up of countless music theories engraved on the originator.

Compared with their fight in the past, this battle between the two was a milder one. In the past, when the two were fighting against each other in the originator, one-third of the world was destroyed.

If it were not for the Quiet Moon, the human world would have already become a desert.

But now, the two were fighting against each other in the Aether World.

The energy wave caused during the war spread out, changing the sky and the earth. The doomsday was coming.

Watching this, Ye Qingxuan was silent. He was shocked by the scary collision between the shadow and God, something that was out of his comprehension.

Compared with the two of them, everything else on the world was all meaningless, mere ornaments to them.

Ye Qingxuan understood a question that he had never thought to ask before—what on earth was the thing that was addressed as God by humans?

In the silence, a fire burned in the Sacred City.

Although the demons were no longer there, the chaos continued.

However, through the door of the shop, the turbulence and changes seemed to have already disappeared.

It was like staring at the world through an oil painting. There seemed to be big waves that could reach the sky, but those were still far away.

The noises and screaming in the distance highlighted the tranquility and serenity in the shop. All disasters and misfortunes were far away from here. Only the warm fire was burning and making people feel sleepy.

However, a lonely shadow was still standing in front of the shop window.

The white-haired young girl looked up at the sky silently and intently. She was staring at the white moon that slowly disappeared, and a figure that was as majestic as a god against the Holy Emblem.

In heaven, the projection of Menti burned off. The scorching artificial sun lost its radiance and became the moon again, recovering its softness and quietness. The moonlight flowed like water.

She seemed to be relieved, and a slight grin lingered on her tight lips. She couldn't help reaching out and touching the window, as if she could touch the the figure that was so far away from her.

In the reflection of the moonlight, she felt satisfied and relieved.

"How beautiful the moonlight is!" she whispered.

"Bai Xi, your attention is misplaced."

On the sofa, Hermes lazily waved his hand. "Here is the center of the battlefield. Don't get it wrong! If you can't move your eyes from him at such a young age, you will definitely be locked up by him after several years. Don't tell me that you will never get married if he is not the groom. As an apprentice, you are losing face for your master!"

The response was an antique flying towards him.

Hermes smirked, tipped his head, and let the golden candlestick pass by his ears. Then it was nailed the counter, and rang.

He waved, and the scene in front of the window suddenly changed.

The shop window shone through layers of barriers in the sky, and got into the center of the Aether World where she saw two giants fighting against each other and countless turbulent changes of music theories.

Like sitting in a special box in the theater, she could see all the changes up there.

"After so many years, they finally fight again. It's really worthy celebrating," Hermes shouted wearily. "Bai Xi, go take a bottle of wine from my rack. Let us celebrate for them."

Bai Xi didn't move, but stood in front of the window. She looked up at the two huge and horrible silhouettes in the aether sea with surprise.

After a long time, she frowned.

"Is that… what God is?"

"Why not?" Hermes asked, and laughed strangely. "When you mention God, will you take it for granted that a god is someone who can fly and cast lightning over the sky? And even has a halo over his head? Or a pair of big wings on his back?

"This kind of setting was quite popular during the Renaissance period which was a hundred years ago. Hmm, it was a trend that I started after all. All the people who painted murals copied my settings at that time. I really miss that."

After he pondered for a long while, he shrugged and said regretfully, "What a pity, Bai Xi. I doodled it for money… How could God be like a human being? They are different from humans.

"They are completely different in shape, nature, and level. The relationship between them is opposite to what humans thought it would be. From another perspective, it may be considered as that between… 'cause' and 'result.'"

"Oh."

Bai Xi responded to him with no interest, which made Hermes swallow the words he was going to say. He was awkward, and sighed after drinking half a glass of wine.

"…Bai Xi, as a student and an apprentice, you should show more curiosity to that."

"Oh." Bai Xi glanced at him: "If you have anything to say, just speak up! Otherwise, leave me alone."

"Ok." Hermes scratched his head. Despite being the student, Bai Xi still treated him like that for some reason. His desire of expression and explanation overcame his urge for the dignity of a master. He suddenly become exultant, as he began to explain. "We'll just skip the details, and then we'll have to talk about another thing that happened before—"

Bai Xi interrupted him. "Make it brief!"

"How badly do you want to see him…?"

Hermes saw the thing that Bai Xi took in her hand before he finished the sentence. Thus he put up his hand and surrendered. "Wait, I'll make it brief. Don't throw it! It is the skull of the first King of the Black! The only one in the world! I'm hoping to sell it for my annuity!"

"Just go ahead…"

"Alright, alright."

Hermes shook his head and sighed.

"Mankind has indeed found the Holy Caldron that lead them to the Originator, and created a god. But the specific process is not like what is said in the Holy Bible. Man and god didn't make a covenant by rainbow on the cliff…

"It's more like alchemy… Anyway, that's also what I made up. In short, humans created a vector in the Originator through the Holy Caldron. As a result, the Qing ascended and the Zhuo descended.

"The ascender was shaped as the God, but the God is incomplete, because he does not even have his own consciousness. In other words, people stripped the consciousness of the God on purpose."

"On purpose?"

"Yes, on purpose."

A quizzical smile appeared on the corner of Hermes' mouth. "After all, who would like to have something above their heads that made arrogant remarks or criticized them?

"It can be said that the position of God is only a useless throne. Although it does exist, it has no meaning. Therefore, it is appropriate to call it a Holy Caldron, because it is empty inside.

"Those who descended gathered together and became the Hyakume. Compared to the Holy Cauldron, the dark world is the place where the demons of the world are gathered. The Hyakume produced a goal because of its self-existence. Hyakume is the brutal god who controls the dark world."

He paused and involuntarily threw his sight into the deeper part of the Aether World .

"The dividing line between Qing and Zhuo is the Silent Moon."

"Among the three gods, it is totally different from the other two. Although it is called a natural disaster, it doesn't have its real body, let alone independence. It is only a benchmark that relies on the other two.

"It is an insurmountable 'border.'"

"You can think of it as a rule of music theory that is beyond human understanding. It is a measurement level that was born because of the existence of the Holy Caldron and the Hyakume. It maintains an absolute balance.

"The Hyakume wants to integrate with God and turn the Originator into chaos again. Unfortunately, it is completely opposite to God. They are incompatible with each other. If they wanted to merge with each other, everything in the world, including the balance among the Aether World, the aether sea, and the Physical World, would be destroyed.

"Even the Originator couldn't bear such a huge impact."

"That's why the Silent Moon was born. It can be said that it is the closest to the nature of the Originator among the three gods, because it was the 'boundary' created by the Originator itself.

"It is a balance valve that restricts the battle between the Holy Caldron and the Hyakume. It has only appeared once in the past when the battle between the Hyakume and the Holy Caldron got extremely brutal, and even the Originator was affected.

"At that time, everyone saw that the Pale Moon and the Indigo Moon overlapped in the sky and the Silent Moon came out.

"As a result, the cold eradication and reconstruction began, and everything involved in it, whether it was people or demons or even natural disasters, was completely erased.

"Until balance reappeared in the Originator."

"It is an insurmountable boundary, the guardian of the scale and itself. Therefore, human beings use the phenomenon of 'the Silent Moon' to describe it.

"Because of it, the Hyakume had to make a detour and go into the Physical World. To get rid of the Silent Moon, the Hyakume paid a huge price.

"In order to make itself complete again, it chose to start from the Holy Caldron… Unfortunately, it was down on its luck that year, and it offended me. That was why it got itself into such big trouble!

"Sometimes, humans are terrible things."

Bai Xi looked at him in silence.

"Are you finished?"

"Yes." Hermes nodded. "Why, did you miss something?"

Bai Xi frowned. "Where is the consciousness that has been stripped from the Holy Caldron by humans?"

"Who knows?" Hermes shrugged his shoulders and smiled meaningfully. He chose a very comfortable position to lie on the sofa, lowered his eyes, and whispered, "Perhaps it is still floating in the Originator…"

At that moment, Ye Qingxuan suddenly opened his eyes in the Central Temple with ecstasy.

"Finally…"

He looked into the deepest part of the Sacred City.

"Found you!"

The low and deep sound of the harpsichord echoed in the air. Hearing this, the third son of the king began to feel more depressed.

He backed away a few hundred steps, and finally felt the music theory inside his body begin to function properly again.

In fact, the music theory itself had gravitational force. The steadier and more powerful a theory was, the stronger the gravitational force became. Sometimes, a person could be drawn in and killed simply by the force itself.

Many people believe that the third son of the king would become a saint in ten years. However, he could not even stand the power of Bach, and was sweating like a beast. He was extremely shocked and terrified.

Earlier, when Bach began to play the harpsichord, he immediately lost control of all the music theories inside his body. If he hadn't managed to collect himself, he would have been killed by his own music theories.

After he backed away a few hundred steps, he was finally relieved.

Around Bach, everything with physical form had been replaced by the tumbling aether.

The scepter had not revealed itself, but it had already turned the immediate surroundings into a world full of aether. With the sound of harpsichord echoing in the air, the music theory gradually changed and replaced all the principles and rules of the Physical World.

Bizarre scenes began to appear in the huge snow plain, and at the same time, thunder crashed among the clouds.

The clouds were glowing and some burning stars penetrated the clouds. The stars were flying across the sky!

Each star was giving out frightening aether waves, and there were hundreds of stars. As they drew closer, he saw that the stars were actually holy spirits!

There were one hundred and seventy holy spirits in this world, and they all gathered here today!

Each of them was a powerful man or musician in his life, and each of them had developed their own interpretation of music theories and had pursued the truth of music theory.

The burning stars were moving with the melody of Bach's music, and all the holy spirit's' power fused together. Water and fire, heaven and earth, war and peace, and anger and mildness—countless elements that contradicted each other coexisted as Bach's music played.

"King of Blue, you are indeed something," the third son of the king murmured. Throughout history, each musician who had been granted the title "King of Blue" or "Bach" was extremely powerful.

There were hundreds of thousands of musicians in this world, and since each of them had their own way of interpreting music theories, there were also hundreds of thousands of different ways to interpret music theories.

Bach had managed to grasp the core of all the different methods of interpreting music theories, and make them his own. Because of this, he was not confused by the constant changing of music theory, and managed to combine all the contradictory elements into a whole.

One whose mind was trapped by insignificant or trivial things could never reach Bach's level, and neither could someone who paid too much attention to themselves.

Bach had managed to make the whole world his tool! Thus, he could freely play the music theory of Bach and take control of the huge system that was supported by the holy ax.

Bach had turned the whole system of music theory into his own music movement! The magnificent and holy sound of harpsichord echoed in the air, and all the burning stars were trembling along with the sound, creating enormous power.

"I will always obey you and do anything for you, your majesty." The head of the holy spirits, who was wearing a silver crown above his head and holding an ancient sword in his hands, genuflected in front of Bach. "For the sake of the Sacred City."

The ancient sword began to make sound. Throughout history, every Pope had used it before. It stood for the glory and solemnity of the Sacred City.

The Gate of Heaven!

"For the sake of this world," Bach murmured. He held the broken pieces of the Gate of Heaven and fate and said, "The killings that happened in the past, are happening now, and will happen in the future are all for the sake of justice."

"Please bless us." Bang! There was a cracking sound and a ray of extremely bright light.

The crowd backed away and covered their eyes with their hands; they were too scared to look. The broken pieces of the Gate of Heaven and fate were colliding with each other and making deafening noises.

The blade of the Gate of Heaven fell into pieces. Gone was the long sword that represented the solemnity and glory of the Sacred City; instead, there came a ray of extremely bright light.

Countless holy spirits began to play the solemn and holy "passion music"! Bach adjusted the music system and it began to operate, with the help of hundreds of scepters, he played a music movement that stood for the grief of God!

Blue fire danced around his body. At that moment, he came out of his physical body and turned into a new existence. The blue fire that was dancing above his head formed into a real thorn crown.

"Amen!" Bach gazed the sky and murmured. He continued to play the music and pushed it to its climax. At the same time, the whole seemed to have been buried in pure darkness, since Bach had changed all the light in the world into a burning spear!

Both the Physical World and the Aether World were trembling! The power of the tumbling sea of aether spread in all directions, and in the next minute, it filled the whole human world, then broke the limit and poured into the Dark World.

"The glory, the scepter, and the holy kingdom are all yours." Bach stared at the burning spear in his hands and said, "Forever!"

The next moment, the burning spear flew away. Everything in the world became still and was shrouded by the light of it. In the static world, only the burning spear was moving fast to the south, to the center of the world where the Sacred City was located, to the crack of the abyss.

In the blink of an eye, the burning spear flew across the sea of aether and penetrated the abyss!

Ludovic's face was twisted by inhuman temperaments, and pure darkness was pouring out of the abyss. It struggled to leave, wanting to close the crack and go back to the state of "nothingness," because only in this way could it prevent itself from being hit by the burning spear.

The music theory created by the oldest three kings was burning inside the spear and giving out infinite light and heat. When it fell into the abyss, it would clear out everything that was in its way and destroy the enemies of God!

Seeing this, Hyakume could no longer calm down and jumped out of the abyss. A ball of darkness rose up from the abyss; in the next moment, the darkness covered the sky and condensed into a pure dark cloud.

The crystals inside the cloud sparkled. The enchantment of the Sacred City was totally destroyed by the gravity of the cloud.

In the Sacred City, those musicians who were not under protection exploded.

Hyakume revealed his identity and played an extremely terrifying temperament.

Stimulated by the gun of fate, Hyakume did everything he could do to transfer his energy to the Physical World to enhance himself.

Meanwhile, he suddenly heard a mildly strange sound. The strange sound mixed with his music theory, and though it was mild, it almost destroyed his music theory.

As his music theory was affected, so was his body. For the first time, Hyakume lost control of his own temperament.

The strange sound came from… after realizing this, Ludovic shouted!

"This is 'fear.'" Ye Lanzhou smiled. "This is not my doing, and the reason it happened was because you were afraid."

Hearing this, Hyakume became furious.

"Be patient." Ye Lanzhou laughed and stretched out his hands to Ludovic. "We all have to go through tough times, and there is still much pleasure you have not experienced."

"Smile," Ye Lanzhou said. "Smile for your life."

Hearing this, Ludovic's face was twisted but he smiled as well.

"Fear is part of humanity. Being afraid of fire, ferocious beasts, and death… and then we realized we could also be courageous," Ye Lanzhou said. "Are you feeling very confident with yourself after hearing what I have said? Don't be afraid, the entire human race is just motes of dust, and the so-called 'Sacred City' is just a shabby place, and even the gun of fate was trivial."

In the sky, the cloud suddenly shrunk to its half size, and it seemed that it was going to disperse. In the abyss, Hyakume scorned this world.

The humble human being…

In the dead silence, a horrifying voice came.

Under the Sacred City, something was swallowing and drinking with great joviality!

The monster that had been imprisoned under the Sacred City could finally have a great meal after having hungered for several hundred years.

When people heard that sound, their expressions became extremely pale. They finally remembered that just under the Sacred City… was something they had totally forgotten.

It was the horrible monster that caused a huge disaster even before the Remote Time, and burned half of the Sacred City to ashes. It was the real "natural enemy" of people in the Physical World.

It was imprisoned hundreds of years ago, so nearly everyone had forgotten it or thought that it was already dead. But it was still alive after so many years of being imprisoned.

It woke up from a long sleep and devoured the blood greedily, like eating manna.

Once the monster was born, it was sealed by three kings of ancient times working together. It had only woken up once, but almost destroyed the entire Sacred City.

It was a crowned beast.

The dragon of disaster!

"Wake up, sleepy son!"

Ludovic laughed, stretched out his hands, and shouted, "The long sleep is over! Continue this blood sacrifice and turn everything into ashes!"

The response was the roaring of the dragon from the deepest part of the earth!

The steel city trembled, and everyone was unable to stand steadily in this terrible turmoil. The earth shook as if there were great waves rising up under the ground. The ripple-like quake emerged on the steel ground.

Snarls sounded from deep within the earth.

It was like a giant monster had finally gotten free.

The loud noises continued.

The earth distorted, and the steel structure buried deeply under the ground was torn up and contorted by an enormous force.

With the loud roar, fiery flames rushed out of the earth, rose upward through small cracks, forming a well of blue fire.

In an instant, the Sacred City was like a steel cauldron on fire, and people felt the horrible heat from hell.

The flames burst out from the inside, lit and melted the steel. The melted steel spread in all directions with the blue fire of natural disasters.

At that moment, in the central square, the earth was burnt red by the fire, and slowly bulged like a soap bubble blown by children.

Snap!

It sounded as if a huge pustule broke open.

The hot and poisonous fire blew out.

Surrounded by the flames of terror, the central square had become a big hole, like the entrance to hell. Something furious was snaring, and climbing upwards from down there. It couldn't wait to pounce on the long-lost light!

People's music theories were driven away just by the bellow of the dragon.

People who heard that, no matter how far they were away, lost their minds at the same time. They trembled, knelt on the ground. Then they went insane with their consciousness frozen by their own fear.

There was no reason for that.

They seemed to be unable to resist the greedy appetite shown through the bellow; everything was doomed!

"This is your end," Ludovic mocked, looking at the indifferent King of Red. "Accept your fate, because it was given by God! It was born to be your calamity and end. All struggles will be completely useless, and what you need to do is resign yourself to your fate with sincerity. "

From the very beginning, the Red Dragon of Doom was a weapon that was created by Hyakume to fight against humanity.

In an effort to clear up the remaining people in the Physical World, the Hyakume stepped over time and intercepted from the Originator a future era that should have been after thousands of years—a record of humanity's destruction and end.

It took him a lot of effort to integrate it with a growing natural disaster embryo.

The destruction in the future was born hundreds of years in advance. What was created was a natural disaster weapon especially targeted at humanity.

The Red Dragon of Doom!

Its arrival declared the end of mankind.

No measures nor creations of humans could change their fate.

The core scepter element determined humanity's extreme fear of it.

It was the symbol of despair, an entity of destruction, and the doom of humanity that came ahead of schedule.

Human couldn't kill it, or even defeat it. What they could do was to delay the doomsday through all the measures that they could adopt.

The ancient three kings paid heavily with blood to seal it and exchanged for three hundred years of peace. Hundreds of years ago, the King of Red of that age took the risk of turning many sacred gears into a shackle, which might have been at the cost of the entire Sacred City, all holy spirits and hundreds of scepters, and sealed the dragon under the Sacred City.

It was sealed in a place that seemed to be the safest in the world…

Hundreds of years had passed and it had not yet died.

At an unprecedented juncture of the Sacred City, having been nourished by Hyakume with blood, it finally broke away from the seal and climbed out of the deepest part of the Sacred City.

It climbed up, and up…

It marched toward the place with light frantically, swiftly, wanting to return to the sky that belonged to it. It stretched out its wings, and dropped a shadow of death on the earth again.

The end was coming!

But at that moment, like an illusion, Ludovic saw…

On the stony face of the King of Red appeared a mocking smile.

In the next moment, the hot and red earth was suddenly broken, and the angry red dragon finally…

Broke out!

Dead silence.

Still dead silence.

All people were stunned and stared at a skeleton with a broken skull, messy flesh and blood, and an incomplete body…

Was this the Red Dragon of Doom that the legend said could bring an end and destruction to humanity?

What a joke!

It was obviously a large roast chicken left by someone!

The bloody, giant dragon crawled out from under the ground, struggling to fly in the air and making pained groans, as if it was running for its life.

Ludovic froze.

He was dumbfounded.

In the dead silence, one giant hand reached out from a crack in the ground and grasped the remaining wing of the Red Dragon of Doom gracefully.

Like tearing a piece of paper, the wing was pulled off.

The giant hand drew back, and a creepy chewing sound came out of the depths of the crack, as if it was chewing chicken wings and swallowing them bony.

Immediately afterwards, the giant hand stretched out again, groped on the ground, and got stained with the flames of the melted steel on the ground. Then it broke down the body of the Red Dragon of Doom and dropped it into its mouth.

There was only the fierce roaring of the Red Dragon of Doom in the dead silence.

In the end, it was pulled back into the crack while it struggled and screamed out of fear. Then the chewing sound came out again. After a long time, a skull that had not been chewed up was spat out.

The bare skull was flew out of the crack, fell onto the ground, rolled, and eventually dropped into the melted steel that was gradually solidifying. In the end, it was like it had been welded onto the steel.

It became a quirky sculpture.

Dead silence.

Still dead silence.

Everyone stared at the crack, dumbfounded. They were guessing what was hidden there, that could chew such a monster like a snack.

Numerous aether fears spewed out of the crack in the dead silence.

A vague shadow was visible within.

The huge and distorted shadow seemed to have three heads and hundreds of arms, holding flames, lightning, swords, and Aquarius in those hands that could destroy everything!

That was…

"Hecatoncheir?!" Ludovic's body trembled with anger, and his dark face twitched. He snarled, "You stupid monster with an empty body! Don't you forget the pain you've suffered! You chose to stand on the human side. I want to cut you into pieces!"

"You are wrong." A sigh came out of the crack, which stunned Ludovic.

The air seemed to be frozen, and a half-naked figure crawled slowly out of the crack.

The figure was so thin, as if it had been hungry for decades. Although it had drunk the blood river, and eaten the Red Dragon of Doom, it remained as lean as a rake, and only got some color on its face which then got a bit ruddy.

"I'm not done yet. The cooked duck just flew away. It's really unpleasant… For so many years, you haven't changed at all, my 'old buck,'" it lowered its head and whispered.

But Ludovic got stiff and his eyes widened, as he stared at the thin figure.

"Ye, Ye…"

He uttered a hoarse sound from his mouth with difficulty. "How could you be… here?"

The figure seemed to know his shock, so it looked up, wiped off the dirt on the corner of its mouth, and smiled happily. "Oh, long time no see."

"Ye Lanzhou!!!!"

At that moment, Ludovic's roar began to come out of his lungs. The sound was full of anger and fear, sharp and ear-piercing, like the colliding sound of steel.

His voice resonated with the strange eye in the sky, and then a thunder-like sound burst out suddenly.

"You… You…!!!"

Ludovic, no, the Hyakume growled, "How dare you do that!"

"Eh? Is there anything wrong?" Ye Lanzhou could not help laughing softly.

"…"

The laughter made the earth turbulent, the steel shook quaked and echoed between heaven and earth.

"I did follow the instructions of the Single Heart Brother to give the Hecatoncheir consciousness, and enable him to evolve his own personality and be himself. But you didn't say where the consciousness, personality, and self should come from, am I right?" Ye Lanzhou whistled. "Well, I admit that I was just curious and wanted to have a try. You can't blame me for an accidental success!"

"…"

Ludovic was silent, his expression changed, and he suddenly turned around and walked away.

An ethereal figure turned into a dark mist. He abandoned the Holy Cauldron, escaped from Sarroman Temple in an instant, and flew into the sky.

"You are gone already?"

Ye Lanzhou looked at the back of the figure. "We are old friends after all, and we haven't met for a long time. We should at least say hello. Em, now, what should I say?"

He kept silent for a moment and then snapped his fingers. "What do you think of this?"

Saying that, he bent down exaggeratedly and playfully, then saluted the evil eye in the sky. "The majestic and honorable lord of darkness, the Hyakume, your majesty, who rules all the vicious spirits and thoughts in the world…"

When he raised his head, a sense of indifference appeared on his face, instead of the modesty and respect showed through his words. In his dark pupils that looked like a human's were anger and killing intent.

He said,

"F**k your mother!"

The next moment, hundreds of thousands of arms appeared in the huge shadow that was behind Ludovic, and moved to the sky.

The arms all folded!

Bang!

A hurricane appeared and swept across the land. Wherever it went, it tore all the barriers in its way to pieces as easily as blowing away dust.

Countless palms appeared and cruelly opened the slowly folding abyss to its extent. Then, the palms reached to the huge abyss.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ludovic was tightly held inside the folded palms, like a mosquito that had been tightly squeezed by two hands. He struggled to get out, and his face twisted due to the extreme pain.

The land was rising, and the Sacred City made of iron and steel collapsed. The ruins of steel and iron were drawn into the air by an invisible force. The light reflected from the steel and iron and lit the hurricane.

All the steel and iron drew together and formed a metal giant that was hundreds of thousands of meters tall.

The abyss shook and a piercing sound came out of it. The infinite air of abyss spurted out and shrouded the giant.

The Sacred City was buried in darkness. The fire burned and the steel and iron collided with each other. A terrifying energy wave was spreading in all directions and destroyed one-third of the Sacred City.

The hundred-armed giant was roaring. Due to the powerful sound wave, its body made of steel and iron fell into pieces and merged together again and again.

At that very moment, the scary aether wave was spreading across the sky. The will of Hyakume, all the dark devils, and countless demogorgons' power together pushed the abyss to its limit, making it exert a magnificent power.

The air was rolling, as if the real catastrophe was coming.

The land was falling apart and collapsing, and it seemed that the whole world was shaking. The Pope Palace, the central holy church, the holy praying hall, the inner circle of the city, the central area, and the outer circle of the region all shook.

Tens of thousands of countries were shaking! Because of the vibrations, the seawater moved rather quickly, creating huge tsunami; the mountains and hills fell into pieces.

The flying birds were torn apart by the sweeping hurricane; the earth cracked and collapsed; the plain turned into a basin. The whole topography was transformed.

Everything in the center of the Sacred City was distorted.

However, the hundred-armed giant was still alive. The shaking had not killed it, in fact, it was immortal. Among the Four Living Creatures, it was famous for its immortality and was addressed as an abomination.

Even God could not kill it and could only seal it in the ruins, waiting for the day when the last breath left its body. However, it was still alive; it had been imprisoned in the ruins for a few decades, but it was still alive.

It walked out of the ruins and went back to this world. "Like I have said… don't hurry to leave," it said, while staring at the abyss, where the iron and steel giant turned red after being burnt.

It was sneering and its face was hard to see clearly. The steel and iron giant had grown a few times larger, and half of its body was in the Aether World. It was embracing the abyss. In part of its chest, the flesh made of steel and iron as well as the bone beneath the skin slowly opened like a blossoming flower. There was a heart made of iron stone, and right on the heart was sitting a slim figure.

The slim figure was Ye Lanzhou.

"You know what? All these years, I have been thinking about a question…" Ye Lanzhou rested his elbows against his knees and held his chin while staring at Ludovic, who had been sealed by the invisible hands. "When the abyss is staring at me, I am also staring at it!"

Hearing this, Ludovic's face twisted. He knew what Ye Lanzhou's words really meant. His body began to convulse and he screamed, "Ye Lanzhou!!! How dare you…"

Ye Lanzhou snapped his fingers, and the next minute, Ludovic stopped screaming. It was completely silent. Ludovic's body became stiff and still, as if he had turned into a mud-made statue. His furious face now became emotionless and numb. Still, his eyes were moving and tracking Ye Lanzhou's slightly moving finger.

If Ye Lanzhou's finger moved to the left, Ludovic's eyeballs would move to the left and vice versa.

"I knew it. Hyakume is really something." Ye Lanzhou sighed slightly. "Your 'personality' almost resembles a real human's, and your consciousness connects perfectly with your body. Apart from your sophisticated thought, your subconsciousness and emotion reflection are almost perfect. In fact, you are just like a real human. I never thought the technique which was designed for Hermes would be so compatible with you."

A roaring sound came from the abyss, and a scary blast wave fell onto the steel and iron giant. The giant died on the spot and became alive again.

Ye Lanzhou sat still, while staring coldly at Ludovic.

Ludovic was both motionless and emotionless. Beneath his skin, the purple blood veins were swollen, and his heart was beating very fast, as if it was going to explode.

"Are you angry? Are you feeling regret? Hyakume," Ye Lanzhou said darkly. "I think you expected this would happen, and you have stored your consciousness in your incarnation. But the consciousness is bound to influence your incarnation, which is Ludovic himself. Besides, the influence is not something like the conflict between the senses and feelings of a human. Rather, it was something more metaphysical—the conflict between divinity and humanity. Creating Ludovic's personality may have seemed a good way to get into the core of the Sacred City, but you should remember that when you are staring at a human, the human is also staring at you. When you turned yourself into a human, you became easier to understand and defeat… That is why you lost."

Hearing this, Ludovic convulsed, and the purple veins crawled up to his face. His body was controlled by Ye Lanzhou and he could not move at all. There was a powerful energy flowing all over his body, and the energy controlled Ludovic's vocal cords. He began to speak in a very ancient and strange tone.

It was not a human language but a murmuring of the abyss. It sounded like a strange symphony and the symphony's notes had overlapped all together. This sound was the mind of God, a bunch of bizarre syllables that no one could understand.

Ye Lanzhou smiled. "Don't you think it is already too late for you to grant me some good stuff in exchange for sparing you?!"

Boom!

The abyss raged.

The majestic might blew out of the cracks and hit the body of the Hecatoncheir.

No one had seen this before—the scene in which "life" was ignited. Thousands of means of death overlapped at this moment, and then were imposed on the Hecatoncheir.

If death could be quantified, then the death which came for the Hecatoncheir would have been enough to turn all humans, birds, beasts, and even plants in an entire country into ashes.

Death, rebirth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth…

It was a cycle of hellish tortures.

Ye Lanzhou was expressionless.

"Rawr!!!"

Ludovic roared, and the abyss shook with him.

But this time, the intention of Ludovic was easier to understand than before.

Let go of him!

Ye Lanzhou smiled and shook his head slightly.

"You just figured it out. Isn't it a bit late?"

There was light.

On the North Ice Field of Asgard.

At midnight, it was as bright as midday.

In the sky, clouds that had lingered here for thousands of years, glowed like iron and lit a fire in the sky.

Endless shards of ice and snow, like blades, fell from the sky with the coldness that could sting a human's soul.

The snow and ice whirled and drifted in the hurricane and fell to the ground again.

Sp only a fragile white land was left between heaven and earth .

Only the faint flames above the barriers danced, burning, with a thread of black smoke rising upward. But with thousands of flames, there were thousands of threads of black smoke. The smoke stretched in the hurricane and interwove together, then disappeared in the air.

Like a burning soul that disappeared in the wind.

In the white world, it was scarlet everywhere on the smoky ground. Those frozen blood layers piled on top of the snowfield and overlapped with each other. After centuries, they were still as scarlet as before.

The dead people left their blood and souls here, which turned into the frozen blood layers.

Now those scarlet layers were moistened with new blood, as if they turned alive. They were like ashes that had been rekindled, flames with the glorious light of death.

It was breathtaking.

By contrast, the innumerable dead bodies that had lost their lives on the snowfield were insignificant.

Those dead bodies belonged to the innumerable demons.

As soon as those demons set foot on the snowfield, they encountered an unpredictable power of terror and were destined to die.

It was the same even to those terrible heaven catastrophes.

Right in the middle of the snowfield, at the deepest part of the cobweb covered by ice and snow, a giant monster that was half-human, half-spider still kept its original standing posture.

But it was dead for good.

Still burning.

With the blood as fuel, the blue flames danced over its head, but there was no temperature or even light.

It was like an illusion.

The monster was the Son of Spider, a heaven catastrophe.

The big threat had slept deeply under the North Ice Field for hundreds of years, and only once broke through the outer barriers.

But it had been dead for a long time, together with its countless children and descendants since the instant it came above ground. Even the innumerable spider eggs hidden in the frozen earth were burnt to death by those blue flames.

At the moment, soldiers and musicians were busy running around to clean up the mess on the battlefield. But here it was silent, and everyone avoided the place in awe.

"No wonder you are the King of Blue."

In front of the burning spider stood two figures.

The young man in an eagle emblem cloak whispered. The light and pure white robe he wore blended with the snowy ground.

His slender fingers, covered with black iron rings, pressed on the directing knife on his waist that had never been drawn.

With no color of blood in his face, he seemed to be ill and weak. He looked as beautiful as a girl, and spoke slowly.

He didn't look like an Asgardian, nor the third prince who had been safeguarding the North Ice Field for a decade, and was extremely ambitious to conquer the throne.

Instead of being arrogant and frivolous as usual, he became modest, gentle, and full of awe as he stood behind the gray figure.

The King of Blue.

He was the guardian of the world and people, the pioneer of the dark world, so he deserved to be the strongest and the king of musicians!

"It's cold." Bach looked at the burning heaven catastrophe in front of him and suddenly whispered, "Even though I have already been here a few times, the coldness still make me sad. Terrible wind and gray sky are so unpleasant. It must be very hard to live here for the Asgardians, right?"

"Although the soil on the wasteland is frozen, it can still support people," the third prince said. "People can grow crops on the soil under the frozen mud. If they are lucky, they can keep on farming for three months each year before the arrival of the cold front. Although it is a hard way to live, it is still better than to die."

"Unfortunately, every time we exploit new lands, what we find are wastelands… Next time we will go deeper and may find a warm place for you."

Bach turned his head back, revealed his white beard and eyebrows, and whispered, "What time is it?"

"It is eleven thirty, almost midnight."

"It is the time." Bach nodded. "Be ready to get started, waiting makes me flustered."

"Yes, your majesty." The third prince lowered his head, and waved behind them, then two priests in gray coats who had been standing in the distance stepped forward.

The two priests were different from ordinary ones, because they didn't wear the emblem of the church, nor look nice or gentle.

Although they were wearing robes, there were armor pieces sewed on the lining of the robes and locks that linked the hems. It was not so much a robe as a heavy armor.

They kept short whiskers, and had scripture tattoos on their heads instead of hair. The tattoos extended upward from the neck and back from their ears.

On the back of their heads, there were gear emblem tattoos, the variant form of the sacred emblem.

The Chainsaw Fraternity.

"They are the holders of the holy relics in the Chainsaw Fraternity." The third prince introduced them to Bach and bowed to the them. "Thanks to the sacrifice of the Chainsaw Fraternity, the Asgardians and the Sacred City will always keep that in mind."

"You don't have to, because both of us can take what we need through this."

The elder one nodded. He was not humble to Bach, nor flattering to the third prince. He just said indifferently, "The holy relics that can only be worshiped are meaningless. After all, it is still a weapon that should be used on the battlefield. We are happy to see if it can make any difference."

The third prince nodded. "So, did you bring the holy relic here?"

The two priests looked at each other. The one behind nodded to the other. Then he took off his robe and revealed his naked upper body. He knelt on the ground and bowed to the elder one.

There were scars on his back and the spine had long been replaced by steel.

The elder one pulled out a dagger expressionlessly, stabbed the other priest and pulled away his flesh. His blood spewed out, fell on the snowy ground, and drifted into the scarlet blood layers.

The elder priest pulled out a black iron box from the semi-mechanized body.

The younger priest was guided away after being roughly bandaged.

Everyone's sight fell on the palm-sized iron box in the hands of the elder priest.

"This is…?" the third prince asked.

The elder nodded his head.

"In order to avoid leaking the news, we disguised the characteristics of the holy relic, and Yevgeny carried it along the way." The elder delivered the iron box to the third prince. "The sealing wax on it was set by the patriarch to prove that it is intact. We followed the order of the patriarch and delivered it to you. Our mission is completed."

In silence, the third prince took the dagger, levered up the sealing wax, and opened the black iron box. He took out something wrapped in silk and unwrapped it carefully.

Finally, he saw the dark iron piece sleeping in the box.

Feeling the air of the demons, it woke up, glowing with faint golden flames that stung people's eyes. The iron piece quivered slightly and made a gentle whistle, echoing in people's ears like a long sigh.

"Is this the last piece of destiny?" the third prince whispered softly. "Such an honor to see it."

Different from the Stela of Destiny that stood in the Square of the Sacred City, it was once the unique "destiny" and real miracle.

The three kings of the first generation set up the Holy Caldron system on which they forged a holy relic named "Destiny"—the Spear of Destiny.

With that, humans had created a golden age for themselves.

The cost, though, was that it fell down and fell apart in the first battle between the Holy Caldron and the Hyakume. The three pieces that remained also dispersed into the world.

The owners of the pieces were eager to repair it and restore its former radiance.

The Pope of the second generation put one of the pieces into a furnace and used alchemy to sublimate the vast amount of metal into the "star antimony" of which the swords of the Popes and the "the Gate of Heaven" of the King of Red were made.

The second piece was later retrieved from the deep sea by the Knights of the Round Table.

Arthur's descendants expected it to cut their destiny, take out the curse in their own blood and suppress the dragon's blood. Therefore, they built it into a sacred gun to kill the dragon, named it "the dragon killer" and the "fallen iron." Unfortunately, the final result was not satisfactory.

Well, this was the last piece held by the Chainsaw Fraternity.

"What a pity." The third prince couldn't help sighing.

A hand stretched out, picked up the piece of destiny, and held it in his hands. "There is nothing to be regretted about the dead things. As long as people still exist, they can be remade in the future…"

It was Bach.

He handed the long scepter in his hand to the third prince. "Go backwards. Ordinary people can't bear the changes that will happen."

"I am also a musician." The third prince stood persistently. "Of the best kind."

Bach glanced at him, smiled, and didn't say anything.

In the next moment, the bass of a harpsichord sounded.

Like the sound of the Big Lu, it made the earth quake, and the aether trembled. All the music theories got involved in its frequency involuntarily and danced.

The third prince became pale, hesitated a second, and stepped back.

Then, one more step back.