Chapter 975: Successively

How strange.

This doesn’t seem right.

The more the Soul Shrieker observed the bell ringer dog, the more suspicious it became.

During their exchanges earlier, this black dog was radiating with the ancient and powerful power of Death.

But now, this dog isn’t giving off even a little bit of the power of Death.

——what exactly is this one up to?

Staring intently at the other party, the Soul Shrieker recalled the past of the 7 Holy Churches.

Through paradigm shifts and countless hardships, the 7 Holy Churches had already become empty husks, now controlled by Abyssal entities while acting as their puppets that rule over the Strife Zones.

The Demigods of the Holy Churches haven’t said anything about this up to now.

Furthermore, for the sake of survival, they normally choose to abide and cooperate instead.

But now, right at this moment, the bell ringer dog of the Holy Church of Death had awoken the power of Death.

It had already stopped two of my attacks.

The Soul Shrieker’s caution was turning heavier.

「 It seems you have become an opponent that I need to be serious with 」the Soul Shrieker’s male voice spoke.

Following that, the female voice shrieked in a high-pitched tone: 『 Let us engage in deathly combat, let this era decide by itself whether the one who gains control over it would be the stale Gods of the remote past, or the boundless and active [Chaos]! 』

The Soul Shrieker stared closely at the black dog; its presence skyrocketed.

—–it was prepared to risk its life!

—–however, the Soul Shrieker felt even stranger as it noticed that the higher its presence rose higher, the tail of the black dog facing it was becoming tighter and tighter.

Seems like it’s also preparing for one final struggle.

The Soul Shrieker displayed a vicious grin.

Good, let’s go, let us engage in mad combat!

The change in its attitude had been clearly seen through by Black Hound.

Black Hound smirked and revealed its mouth full of sharp teeth: 「 Very well, then let me show you personally, the power of Gods isn’t something you can face 」

It made a stance to attack.

Recalling their two precious exchanges, the Soul Shrieker couldn’t help but prepare itself to defend.

Immediately after that, perhaps ashamed of this reaction, the Soul Shrieker howled: 『「 Death cannot block my path, and neither can you! 』」

Its steps quicken, swiftly charging at Black Hound.

Seeing that, Black Hound suddenly shouted: 「 Wait! 」

Not knowing what was going on, the Soul Shrieker paused.

Black Hound stared intensely at it and begrudgingly spoke: 「 Shameless bastard, you actually ordered people to destroy our Holy Church during our decisive battle! 」

The Soul Shrieker was shocked.

Black Hound shouted in anger: 「 Soul Shrieker, you are not a true warrior! You are trying to stall me here! 」

Saying so, its body shrank and turned back into a black dog.

Black Hound didn’t hesitate for a single moment and hurriedly ran towards the Strife Zones.

Its speed was fast, clearly running with all it had.

—–at a glance, it seemed to be hurrying back to save its Holy Church.

A few moments later.

Black Hound went far out of sight.

The Soul Shrieker stood still in place, thoroughly confused.

What’s going on?

I… didn’t send anyone specifically to destroy the Holy Church of Death…

Just as it was about to give chase, it stopped.

What am I trying to chase it for?

Chasing after it just to fight, wouldn’t that be a waste of my time?

What does it matter to me if the Holy Church of Death gets destroyed or not?

The Soul Shrieker slowly regained its senses.

It turned to look at the direction of the Mystic Zones.

There was no one else blocking its path.

「『 I’ve wasted too much time; I need to hurry up! 」』

The Soul Shrieker muttered.

Roar——-

With a resounding response from the void, a humongous figure comparable to several solar systems arrived next to it.

An Abyssal Behemoth.

Its speed was the fastest within the Abyss, capable of traversing several planets with every step.

The Soul Shrieker jumped onto the Abyssal Behemoth’s back and quickly left this part of the space vortex.

Black Hound was running in the opposite direction.

When it noticed that the Soul Shrieker wasn’t giving chase and instead sped up in another direction, it sighed in relief.

This is too dangerous, I’m lucky I didn’t get devoured whole.

「 Hmph, fool, I still managed to escape in the end 」

Black Hound coldly said.

Its tail stood straight up, waving happily from side to side.

For some reason, the tail suddenly stopped.

Black Hound sighed and muttered: 「 Hah, this is the limit of what I can do, let’s hope that Anna will be able to succeed 」

…

Let’s rewind time for a bit.

The Bramble Bird Kingdom.

The royal palace.

Inside a particularly open room.

A man opened his eyes and sat up on the bed.

He stayed silent for a few moments.

“My wounds have all been treated…”

“It seems someone saved me at the last possible moment”

The man plopped himself down again, putting his hands behind his back and spoke with a troubled tone of voice: “An existence like myself, saved by someone else… how very embarrassing”

“——Should I kill the one who saved me, or think of a way to repay him?”

“How conflicting”

The man muttered, then gradually smelled food.

He noticed that he was hungry.

The man stood up, got off his bed, and looked around.

The carpet was luxuriously soft, simply standing on it allowed him to feel vitality rushing into his body through his feet.

Across from the bed was a long table made of pure gold, filled with steaming hot dishes of food ready to be enjoyed.

A pair of sunglasses sat at the corner of the table that were acting as a paperweight for a sheet of paper.

The man walked over, pulled the sheet of paper out, and looked through it.

It said:

[Your glasses were broken, we’ve made another pair of the same size, although the material was different, it should achieve the same effect, hope you can forgive that much]

[Your wounds are quite severe, please rest well, if there’s anything you need, ring the small bell next to the bed. There will be servants always ready to serve]

The man put down the sheet of paper and picked up the pair of sunglasses.

This was his original pair, not only were the lenses broken, even the frame had been warped.

——this was something I had Demon Dragon buy for me when I saw someone else wearing it, it seemed quite nice.

—–I didn’t expect it to break so fast.

The man picked up another pair of sunglasses.

This was a brand-new pair of glasses, it was light, sturdy, and completely clean. It had an automatic dust vacuuming function as well as resistance against the 5 main Elements.

“Heh…”

The man put the glasses on, then sat in front of the table.

Seeing the entire table full of delicious food, the man felt hungrier.

“In any case, let’s have a meal first, if they taste good, I won’t kill you people”

Saying so, the man began to enjoy his meal.

At first, the man ate very slowly, but it didn’t take long for him to start gorging food down like a vacuum, swiftly emptying plate after plate of food.

“Ah… it’s truly delicious”

“The level of energy in this crab is exactly what I needed”

“Ah? Is this the legendary Starsea Lobster? And Demon Dragon claimed that we didn’t bring enough money to eat this last time we went out, really…”

“Very good, very good!”

The man occasionally sighed emotionally.

——-don’t be ridiculous, this place was the wealthiest country in all the 900 million World Layers.

How could the food that the master of this kingdom personally picked out to be any lacking?

After happily finishing his food, the man even tried drinking a black liquid with what seemed to be bubbles rising from inside.

“Yah… this black bubble liquid, why do I feel so fulfilled after drinking it?”

The man smiled and put his cup down.

This meal satisfied him.

After some thought, the man pulled out a book from the void of space.

“After I was unconscious” the man declared.

The book opened by itself.

Lifelike images started to unfold in front of his eyes.

Being caught by the wooden arm; the Bramble Bird ship; the conversation between Gu Qing Shan, Laura, and Lin; as well as everything that happened after that was recorded and displayed in the book.

The man looked closely at Gu Qing Shan, seemingly recalling something.

“The Book of Fate had told me to look for this person, who would’ve thought we would become acquainted by way of the saviour and the one being saved”

He sighed emotionally.

The book continued to turn.

The man continued to watch as the book displayed everything up until the final page.

The page depicted Gu Qing Shan’s group leaving a room, about to climb onto the ceremonial platform.

In reality, when the man saw this page, the ceremony in the palace had only just reached his point as well.

Gu Qing Shan and Zhang Ying Hao were disguised as guards to escort Ye Fei Li onto the platform.

The man closed the book and rubbed his chin.

“I’ve lost too much of my power now, the only thing left is the Book of Fate”

“That World Destroyer’s drinks would most likely be able to directly cure my wounds, although I will need a lot, there should be nothing better than these beverages”

“How ironic, a World Destroyer awakened a Mystic-type ability specifically to help others—— is this his own desires?”

The man thought to himself.

All of a sudden, a dignified voice resounded outside the palace from the sky:

「 Empress Laura, the True God is waiting for your presence in the Divine Sanctuary of the Strife Zones 」

The Divinities have arrived.

The man sat still in contemplation for a bit before slowly standing up.

His figure blinked and disappeared from the room.