Watching Zhou Huai's expression, Chun rolled her eyes, her face revealing disdain.
"What kind of expression is that?" Chun glared at Zhou Huai irritably and huffed, "Being able to hold him back for ten days is already good enough! Who do you think that is? That is Duan! A monster who can casually rewrite the underlying code of the Heavenly Dao System! If it were you, you wouldn't even be able to delay him for a single finger!"
Taken aback by Chun's sharp retort, Zhou Huai rubbed his nose, rarely failing to refute.
It was true; if he were to face Mr. Duan right now, he would have no power to fight back, other than fleeing in a panic.
Chun steadied herself against the low table and sat down on the stone stool, her face turning even paler.
"Alright, tell me about your plan." Chun waved her hand, her expression serious. "I have already done everything ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) I could. My Origin has been completely absorbed by Duan, and now I can only barely survive by relying on the residual life Origin within this Clone."
She looked at Zhou Huai: "As I am now, I have no combat power left. Everything that follows will have to depend on you all."
The great hall fell silent.
Anubis gripped his Reaper's Scepter and walked down from the golden steps. He came before Chun and looked down at her.
"I truly don't know whether to praise your fearlessness or call you stupid." Anubis looked at Chun, his tone cold. "You have made such a huge sacrifice, even throwing in your true form. If we fail, if the eighth relic cannot stop Duan, then everything you have done will have been for nothing, right? You won't even have the chance for a final Reincarnation."
Faced with Anubis's questioning, Chun did not waver.
She raised her head, met Anubis's gaze, and smiled.
"Do you think we really have a choice?"
Chun's voice was very soft: "In the face of this cataclysm of era cleansing, no one has the opportunity to protect themselves. You hide in the pyramid, clinging to life, but do you think Duan will spare you? Will the will of heaven spare you?"
She smiled self-deprecatingly: "Since it's death either way, we can only gamble on it."
"And besides..." Chun looked at Zhou Huai.
She turned her head with an ambiguous smile, her gaze passing over Anubis and landing directly on Zhou Huai, who was not far away.
"The one I believe in has never been you, this calculating god of the Netherworld." Chun looked at Zhou Huai: "It is someone else."
Watched by Chun's gaze, which carried a hint of profound meaning and expectation, Zhou Huai remained expressionless.
To him, what was needed now was information and a way to break the deadlock.
Zhou Huai turned around, looked at Anubis, and cut straight to the point.
"Let's continue our previous topic." Zhou Huai's voice was calm as he looked at Anubis. "What secret is hidden in the eighth relic you mentioned earlier? Why do you believe it is the only way to defeat Mr. Duan?"
Faced with Zhou Huai's questioning, Anubis put away his sentimentality. He walked back to the golden throne but did not sit down, instead using his fingers to stroke the Netherworld gem on the Reaper's Scepter, which emitted a ghostly light.
The entire great hall fell quiet, with only the crackling sound of burning torches remaining.
After a long while, Anubis raised his head. In his gray eyes, stars of countless eras were being born and dying.
"That is a period of history that even the Heavenly Dao System is unwilling to record." Anubis's voice was deep. "Although I died in the Sixth World and my Physical Body was completely destroyed, my Soul did not perish due to a System loophole. Instead, like a ghost, I drifted in the new world."
He looked at Zhou Huai and said, word by word: "I was a bystander, having watched the entire process of the Seventh World and the Eighth World from their birth to their Peak, and finally to their destruction by the Heavenly Dao."
In the vast black stone hall, the light and shadows of the torches flickered on the walls, stretching Anubis's tall figure into an extremely thin shape.
He held that Reaper's Scepter emitting a ghostly light, his gray eyes reflecting the vicissitudes of changing eras.
"As for the Seventh World, you Daxia people have an old saying, 'deep water and scorching fire,' which is the most suitable way to describe it." Anubis's voice was deep and ethereal, as if it had crossed endless eras, carrying a suffocating sense of heaviness.
Zhou Huai did not interrupt, just sitting quietly by the low table, his dark golden pupils tightly locked onto this god of the Netherworld from the old era.
"That was a version completely swallowed by the ocean." Anubis lightly tapped the ground with his scepter, and a miniature water-blue light image appeared in the Void Realm between the two; it was a blue planet wrapped in an endless ocean.
"Land hardly existed, and humans could only survive like ants, clinging to life on those few and far between scattered islands. And in that bottomless ocean, countless terrifying exotic beasts, large enough to swallow islands, were hidden."
In the light image, gale winds howled, and raging waves swept over fragile islands. Huge sea beasts thrust their giant, fang-filled maws out from the abyss, swallowing countless desperate humans along with shattered rocks into their bellies.
"The Heavenly Dao, that high and mighty System will, seemed to be doing it deliberately, wanting to use this extreme method to completely exterminate the humans of that era." Anubis sneered. "Not only did they face all kinds of irregular tsunamis and natural disasters, but also the endless attacks of sea beasts. It can be said that the humans of the Seventh World lived the most miserably of all eras."
Chun, standing to the side, frowned slightly. Although she was the Goddess of Nature of the First World, she knew very little about the subsequent eras. Hearing such an extreme setting, a flash of pity crossed her eyes.
"If Mr. Duan had not intervened, the humans of the Seventh World would have died very quickly, without even the chance to develop Advanced Professionals." Anubis changed the subject, his tone carrying a hint of complex emotion.
"Duan intervened?" Zhou Huai's eyes flickered slightly. "Wasn't he always hiding in the shadows, planning his so-called god-making project?"
"At that time, he did not yet have the absolute strength he has now. He needed power, and even more, he needed chess pieces that could help him fight against the Heavenly Dao." Anubis looked at Zhou Huai. "But it was precisely because the environment of the Seventh World was extremely harsh, in that desperate situation where they hovered on the edge of death every day, that human potential was infinitely stimulated, leading to the emergence of many Peak powerhouses possessing powerful Heart-Nature and terrifying strength."
"It was also at that time that Duan found his method. He began to master the use of the origin sacred tree's core to collect the Souls of those Professionals who died in battle."
When Anubis said this, he took a deep look at Chun, who was beside him.
Chun's expression changed slightly; she knew that was the Origin core that Duan had forcibly dug out from her body.
"Duan collected the Souls of those top-tier powerhouses from the Seventh World, avoided the scan of the Heavenly Dao's great cleansing, and brought them to the next world—the Eighth World—where he used the water of origin to reshape their flesh and blood and profession panels."
