Chapter 554: The truth of the world

Translated by: La0o9

Proofreader: Arya

The Dead Soul Demon King couldn’t chase after them for now.

Sensing what happened behind him, Gu Qing Shan quickly understood.

Before, during his pursuit of the Fuxi Empire’s founding emperor, which was the black-cloaked skeleton, Gu Qing Shan once used [Even a sea of suffering shall pass] on the ocean.

But now, its effects seem to have increased.

Was it because this world was created by the Old Gods?

Or was it because this is the peak of the Gods, where they specifically chose to build their divine temple?

Regardless, with the Chao Yin sword in hand, Gu Qing Shan had a certain feeling from deep in his mind—-

That the entire world was following his will.

This feeling wasn’t faint at all, it wasn’t just an illusion. It felt like the Chao Yin sword’s range of influence stretched across the entire world.

…don’t tell me the entire plane below this was an ocean?

Gu Qing Shan felt even more suspicious.

Together with Laura, he was flying down the deep end of the watery abyss.

…

Outside of the ice cavern.

Clutching its head from pain, the Dead Soul Demon King felt an unrestrained sense of anger.

Why can’t I get into the water?

It didn’t bother to think about this at all.

Facing absolute power, all obstacles will be destroyed.

Roar!!!

The Dead Soul Demon King stood up as a silent black light covered both its hands, diving straight towards the water surface again.

Thanks to its grand power as a Chaotic Demon Lord, a deep crater was blasted away on the surface of the water.

Wherever the black light passed through, the water turned into a solid black substance, cracked and crumbled to dust.

But the crater only lasted for the blink of an eye.

The water around quickly flowed back in to fill up the crater, forming a shining new water surface in no time.

The Dead Soul Demon King kept attacking.

The water kept replenishing itself.

No matter how powerful the Dead Soul Demon King’s attacks were, the water simply filled back up without a sound.

As if there was no end to it.

While that was happening, something else occurred without sound or warning.

This place was the divine temple of the Old Gods, the peak of the mountain of the Gods.

As Dead Soul Demon King kept attacking it, the entire mountain seemed to have woken up.

Countless mystical golden runes appeared on the outermost layer of the ice mountain, even the divine temple itself was giving off an overwhelming majestic presence.

While flying down the deep end of the water, Gu Qing Shan was surprised and looked back at the changes on top of the mountain.

“Look, those are the Old God’s Script”

Laura pointed at the runes on the layer of ice outside and exclaimed.

“I see them, no wonder the Old God’s divinity still lingers on this mountain” Gu Qing Shan commented in shock.

He had learnt all the languages in the Spire Keeper Association’s standard dictionary, so he naturally knew that these scripts were the oldest kind found in the 900 million World Layers.

A language script created by the Old Gods.

This type of script was extremely rare; if one learned how to recreate these runes using divine power, they could imitate simple divinities.

Unfortunately, even that much was a knowledge only known to very few Demis.

Deep below the ice cavern.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly felt a certain great power.

This power was similar to the [Divinity: Solemn] that surrounded this entire ice mountain, only several dozen times stronger.

“It is divine power, divine power is being gathered and accumulated by these Old God’s script” Laura quickly explained to him.

Gu Qing Shan nodded.

It seems the mechanisms left behind by the Gods in this world haven’t actually disappeared.

At the top of the ice mountain, the golden lights connected together.

The clear blue ice mountain turned into a majestic divine mountain.

In the blink of an eye, a golden beam of light shot out from the ice cavern all the way to the sky.

The Dead Soul Demon King was struck by the beam head-on, crashing through the dome of the divine temple and flew to the sky.

Under the overwhelming pressure of this golden beam of light, the 2 million demonized Combatants all around were forced to prostrate to the ground, unable to move a single finger.

The golden beam of light only lasted for a short breath before dissipating.

The Dead Soul Demon King could no longer be seen in the sky.

Both the Dead Soul Demon King and God’s Might were disintegrated, leaving nothing but ashes that quickly got swept away by the winds of the snowstorm.

When the golden light faded, the world returned to a dim shade of grey and white.

The divine mountain of the Gods also returned to its original clear blue color.

It wasn’t until a while after that the demonized people dared to slowly rise again.

They stood still in place, not a single one of them tried to climb one step higher.

“That was a Chaotic Demon Lord! And it died just like that?” Laura was completely speechless.

“Now I kind of understand why [Origin] couldn’t get what it wanted” Gu Qing Shan commented.

Indeed, the will and divinity of the Old Gods never left this place.

With a mere 2 million demonized people, [Origin] wasn’t able to clear all of the Old God’s preparations.

Some sort of terrifying secret must be hidden deep inside this world.

—-and such a world belonged to Triste.

Even stranger than that, she actually exposed a world like this to outsiders.

What is she thinking?

Gu Qing Shan went silent briefly before asking Laura: “How long has this world been in Triste’s management?”

“How long?” Laura was a bit confused, but tried recalling: “This world was something my mother gave her, alas, about 6 days”

“For what reason did your mother decide to give her this world?” Gu Qing Shan instantly asked.

“It was because Triste was the head of the royal guards, responsible for protecting the royal family. Since my coming of age ceremony was about to come up, my mother had hoped that she would perform her duties of protection well, and so she gave her this world”

Gu Qing Shan fell in thought: “Only 6 days, such a short time…”

“That is correct, today would be the sixth day”

“What was Triste’s reaction when she received this world?”

“She appeared to be extremely emotional as she thanked the grace of my mother over and over”

“Not counting today, she had only gotten this world for a total of 5 days. It’s likely that she didn’t know this world too well during such a short time period” Gu Qing Shan formed a conjecture.

Laura recalled something and told him: “I remember she had only discovered that this world contained ancient life forms just yesterday, at the time she was extremely happy”

“Of course, to be able to supply [Kindling] with such a large amount of Soul Points, of course she would be happy” Gu Qing Shan sighed.

While they talked, Gu Qing Shan and Laura were quickly descending down the body of water.

No matter how fast he was going, the water would always split apart in front of him, forming a path for him to go down.

Flying in full speed, it took him just a few breaths to reach the foot of the mountain from the top.

Gu Qing Shan kept going downwards.

As they passed through the transparent layer of ice, the large numbers of demonized people could be clearly seen standing on the outside, down to the expressions on their faces.

From the outside, the demonized people were staring at Gu Qing Shan and Laura nonstop, their eyes full of rage and unwillingness.

——-but with the Dead Soul Demon King’s death, none of them dared to climb to the top anymore.

Back inside the mountain, Gu Qing Shan held Laura on his shoulder as he silently descended through the water like a falling asteroid.

Both sides caught sight of each other for only a brief second before moving away.

Time quickly passed.

Gu Qing Shan was now at the bottom of the ice mountain.

Pieces of ice were mixed in water, moving slowly and dully along the side of the mountain. But as soon as they reached the foot, there was no more ice to be seen.

The waterflow here was intense and turbulent, and if you entered it without a spell or technique to shield yourself, you will be swept away by the current without knowing where you were going.

The water here was a deep and cold shade of blue, and nothing could be seen at all.

Gu Qing Shan glanced at the War God UI.

Apparently because this place was created by the Old Gods, the speed at which his Soul Points decreased was extremely slow, only 1 Soul Points was being consumed every 3 seconds.

If that was the case, with how much Soul Points Gu Qing Shan had right now, he didn’t need to worry much.

Gu Qing Shan swung the Chao Yin sword to part the water and kept going towards the deep end.

A few dozen meters.

A few hundred meters.

A few thousand meters.

10 kilometers.

The Chao Yin sword finally tried to tell him something.

While diving deeper, Gu Qing Shan felt what the Chao Yin sword was trying to convey.

He quickly understood.

Raising the Chao Yin sword, he asked: “This world is the same as the ancient Shen Wu world? A world covered in an endless ocean?”

The Chao Yin sword nodded with its sword tip.

“That can’t be right, if this was the ocean, why can’t I see even a single ancient creature?” Gu Qing Shan asked again.

In response to that, the Chao Yin sword pointed to the water below and let out a constant ‘wu wu’ sound.

Gu Qing Shan solemnly listened.

He was able to communicate telepathically with Chao Yin, but he found what Chao Yin was telling him to be extremely unbelievable.

“The world… is hidden below the ocean…”

Gu Qing Shan muttered.

It was now that he reached the bottom of the ocean.

Beneath him, dark-blue ice had formed a crust.

Through this thin crust of ice, Gu Qing Shan saw the scenery below.

Mountains.

Rivers.

The earth.

And more importantly——

Cities.

Scattered dim lights of a number of cities were shining in the dark of night.

Staring at what he saw below, Gu Qing Shan felt truly shocked.

He suddenly realized something.

Triste’s collection world was covered in snow and ice on the surface, fooling everyone to believe that this was its true face.

But that wasn’t the case.

What the ice covered was only the outer layer of the world.

Below the ice was a vast ocean.

And below this ocean, an entire civilization left behind from the Age of Gods was still thriving!

This was the true world!