As Godo fully ascended to Sword Saint within the battlefield domain, his strength surged dramatically. The fearsome domain could no longer suppress him and shattered with a boom. Godo’s sword appeared at the Battlefield God inheritor’s neck. The blade still looked utterly ordinary, with patches of rust, yet the Battlefield God inheritor felt bone-chilling terror. He knew he could not withstand this sword.
“You have lost,” Godo said calmly.
“…” The Battlefield God inheritor looked utterly dejected, staring blankly and speechless. The other six Temple of Gods members were equally stunned.
Godo could tell this contest was merely a duel with no intent to kill, so he sheathed his sword, turned back to Ye Chui and the others, and felt relieved that he had not failed Ye Chui’s trust.
Returning to Ye Chui’s side, he finally had time to ask, “What exactly has happened here? Where are we? The rules here feel strange. Why has the Land of Buried Swords been brought here? And you all… your powers seem odd, as though sealed?”
Guni happily clutched Godo’s arm. Usually quiet, she excitedly recounted their recent experiences to him.
When Godo finished listening, his expression turned to utter shock.
Ye Chui walked up to the Battlefield God inheritor and said with interest, “Best of seven, first to four wins. We have won. So by the agreement, should you not join Stan World now?”
The seven inheritors exchanged glances. Since the Temple of Gods was founded, they had fought many battles and annexed domain after domain, growing ever stronger. In their hearts they had long believed the Temple of Gods invincible in the middle layer. Yet now they had lost to a newly ascended world. Most unacceptable was that this new world’s artefact was damaged. They had not even used their full strength…
Defeat left everyone silent.
After a moment, the Battlefield God raised his weary eyes to Ye Chui. “It seems the Temple of Gods is not the favoured domain. The prophesied domain is not ours, but yours!”
“Prophecy?” Ye Chui paused. They had mentioned a prophecy earlier. Curious, he asked, “What exactly is this prophecy you speak of?”
“A thousand years ago, one person single-handedly, without any god domain, won the final victory in the War of Gods. In the end he left the Continent of Divine Sin. Before departing, he left a prophecy,” the Gale God inheritor walked over and explained.
“Someone once left the Continent of Divine Sin?” Ye Chui turned to his companions and continued, “Why have I never heard of such a person? There is no record of this on the continent above!”
“We do not know the outside world, but we are certain that person truly left the Continent of Divine Sin. In fact, the Temple of Gods’ inheritances were left by him,” the Battlefield God explained. His tone and that of his companions showed deep reverence for that person. He went on, “He prophesied that exactly one thousand years later, today, the Continent of Divine Sin would be fully liberated. One person would lead a god domain to rise and ultimately shatter the restrictive rules of the Continent of Divine Sin. I always believed that person was me, and that domain the Temple of Gods. Every battle we won strengthened that conviction, until now.”
The Battlefield God inheritor’s voice grew helpless at the end.
Everyone else had been drawn in by the conversation. Debbie asked curiously, “Are prophecies reliable? And who exactly was the person who left the Continent of Divine Sin? What was his name?”
“That person was…”
The Battlefield God inheritor began, his voice filled with awe.
…
On the Castro Continent.
In mere days, war engulfed the entire world.
The Stellar Empire and the Church went to war. The Rock Empire, led by Princess Linda, joined the fight. Initially the conflict was limited to border skirmishes, but over a week ago the Church suddenly escalated, launching wave after wave of major offensives.
The Yellow Sand Empire and North Ridge Empire had remained neutral.
The Morning Wind Empire, neighbouring the Sacred Heart Kingdom, had long sided with the Church and sent hundreds of thousands of troops to support the Church’s attacks.
Yet just days earlier, a rebellion suddenly erupted within the Morning Wind Empire.
A mysterious cult that appeared out of nowhere swiftly crushed the Church forces inside the Morning Wind Empire. Even the emperor had unknowingly joined the cult long before.
At the time, the Church’s Holy Army numbered four hundred thousand and had entered the mines beneath Doomsday Mountain, preparing to strike deep into the Stellar Empire’s heartland.
The combined forces of the Stellar and Rock Empires immediately moved to intercept. The Morning Wind Empire’s troops followed behind the Church’s Holy Army in support.
As the Stellar forces clashed fiercely with the Church, the Morning Wind troops, meant to reinforce the Church, suddenly turned their blades on the Holy Army, attacking from the rear.
It was later confirmed that the Morning Wind reinforcements had been a ruse all along, intended to trap the Holy Army in the Doomsday Mountain mines, caught between two enemies and annihilated in one stroke.
The Morning Wind regime had long fallen into the hands of the mysterious Axis Cult. And the true master behind this cult was Ye Chui.
Almost simultaneously, hundreds of sea vessels crossed the East Sea and landed on the borders of the Sacred Heart Kingdom. A surprise invasion force of over five hundred thousand, comprising the Tidal Kingdom’s navy and countless pirate ships from the Tidal Sea, stormed the Sacred Heart Kingdom. They declared rebellion against the Church and its expulsion, answering the call of Stellar Emperor Jacob I, and marched straight toward the royal capital of the Sacred Heart Kingdom, the Church’s headquarters.
The combined armies of the Stellar, Rock, and Morning Wind Empires crushed the Church’s Holy Army in the Doomsday Mountain mines in just two days. United, their million-strong force passed through the mines and advanced on the Sacred Heart Kingdom.
At the same moment, the Yellow Sand and North Ridge Empires, which had intended to stay out of it, could no longer remain aloof and chose to join the coalition against the Church.
Prince Bill of the North Ridge Empire even sealed an alliance with the Stellar Empire’s seventh princess through marriage. At this point, the Church’s five-thousand-year rule over the Castro Continent had never faced such encirclement.
With armies bearing down, panic gripped the royal capital of the Sacred Heart Kingdom.
Yet those with devout faith in the Church had not fully abandoned hope. The Church had maintained power for so long because it still held countless terrifying trump cards.
They commanded endless spirits of faith. They controlled the fearsome Divine Punishment Army. In the final hour, they could use faith altars to turn countless believers into mindless corpses, becoming dreadful faith warriors.
But as the armies approached the capital, the great cathedral remained eerily silent, as though deaf to the crowds kneeling in the square outside and their desperate prayers.
In the underground chamber beneath the cathedral, Pope Boris had hidden himself for days without emerging. chapter_content();
Several white-robed nuns of the Divine Punishment Division and the Archbishop who commanded the Divine Punishment Army could no longer contain their anxiety. Defying taboo, they burst into the underground chamber, intending to beg His Holiness the Pope to respond to the fierce war.
In the chamber, the esteemed Pope still wore loose sleeping robes. He sat calmly on a stool, toying with a forbidden tome. He seemed to have known they would come and had been waiting.
“Your Holiness…”
The white-robed nun closest to Pope Boris, who shared his bed, hurried to his side. “Now you must decide. Those sinners who have forsaken the gods deserve immediate punishment!”
“Punishment? Punishment is certainly due… but not for them.” Boris toyed with the tome, his tone strangely eerie.
The nun was about to reach him when she suddenly found her body frozen in place. Alarm filled her face. “Your Holiness, what, what have you done?”
Boris set the tome aside and stood. He walked lightly past her. Her body suddenly crumbled into dust.
The others who had entered the chamber stared in horror.
Their esteemed Pope… what had happened to him?
They assumed defensive stances yet still asked with reverence, “Your Holiness, intruding here was our error. But the Church’s survival is at stake. Even punishment should wait until after the crisis…”
“Error? You are indeed at fault, but not for entering here. You worshipped the wrong god.” Boris continued.
Worshipped the wrong god!?
Within the Church, someone dared openly claim they had worshipped the wrong god?
And that someone was the Pope himself.
“What are you saying!” the Divine Punishment Archbishop cried in terror. “You, you are the Pope!”
Boris smiled lightly.
“I am the Pope, but Pope is merely an insignificant title…” he said softly.
“Then what is your true identity?” A voice like rolling thunder suddenly boomed.
The gods had noticed everything here. They could no longer contain themselves and questioned Boris.
Hearing these gods, or rather devils, Boris threw his head back and laughed. “When I succeeded to the papacy years ago, you suspected my identity but never investigated further. That was your greatest mistake, you empty creatures… I was once imprisoned on the Continent of Divine Sin.”
The Divine Punishment Archbishop and the white-robed nuns stared in shock.
The devils fell silent, but several heavy breaths echoed.
Boris continued, “A thousand years ago I escaped that place, but my body was gravely wounded. I endured for centuries, yet my flesh was ultimately destroyed. However, I used the eternal reincarnation rule of the elves to enter a mortal infant and grow anew. Having once been a god of faith myself, I possessed the supreme faith constitution. Everything went according to my calculations. The previous Pope adopted me, I inherited his name, and I became the current Pope of the Church.”
“Then who are you truly?” the devils demanded.
“My true name is…”
…
Back on the Continent of Divine Sin, in Stan World.
The Battlefield God inheritor told Ye Chui and the others, “That person was… the Magic Emperor Faramo, who battled the God of Gods for tens of thousands of years and ultimately fell to him!”
Hearing the Battlefield God inheritor’s words, Ye Chui and the others were completely stunned. For a long while no one spoke.
“It was that brat…” Celty, now held again by Turtle Treasure, exclaimed. Kuba and the other elves could not help shivering.
Celty was perhaps the longest-lived being in the world aside from the elves. In the ancient era she had found a white-haired boy in a primeval forest and raised him. That boy later learned the essence of magic from a frost dragon, pioneered the age of magic, led humanity’s rise, and created an immortal dynasty. He was called the Magic Emperor.
But this Magic Emperor later, because of his own prophecy, tried to destroy the world and cursed Celty, turning her into the undead headless knight.
Fortunately, just as the continent faced destruction, the God of Gods rose, opposed the Magic Emperor, and fought an eternal war across ten thousand years.
The God of Gods emerged victorious. Afterwards the Magic Emperor vanished. The God of Gods never revealed whether the Magic Emperor lived or died. No one knew his ultimate fate. Not even Celty knew the final outcome for her little brother.
In the endless years that followed, “Magic Emperor” became a vulgar curse…
Yet now Ye Chui and the others learned a shocking truth from the Battlefield God’s mouth. The only person in five thousand years to escape the Continent of Divine Sin was the Magic Emperor!
And he had apparently prophesied that Ye Chui would lead Stan World to end the terrible rule restrictions of the Continent of Divine Sin!
“Could it be that after Faramo was defeated by the God of Gods, he was imprisoned in a god domain? Later the gods fell, the domain collapsed, he escaped captivity, and finally fled the Continent of Divine Sin…” Celty said dazedly. “But why is there no word of him in the outside world? With his personality, if he escaped, he would not hide his name.”
“I feel there is some enormous conspiracy hidden here…” Ye Chui said thoughtfully.
At that moment, Ye Chui suddenly felt something and looked toward the temple.
“My pad upgrade is complete!”
