The sight of Land Dragon knights galloping across the earth in great numbers was truly awe-inspiring.

Along the way, the various beast-herding tribes either kept their distance upon seeing the vibrant banners and armored knights of the Temple Knight Order, or knelt in prayer once they recognized them as people of the Temple of Ten Thousand Serpents.

In the eyes of ordinary herders, these were all messengers of the Divine.

However, the condition of these Land Dragons was clearly abnormal. They were in an agitated state, their eyes tinged with red.

One could even see blood mist emanating from their mouths as they breathed.

The Temple Knight Order possessed secret techniques, created by the captain of the Temple Knights herself.

With the captain leading, she could use these techniques to grant the Land Dragons a physique akin to beasts, allowing them to gallop tirelessly without rest.

However, this method consumed the life force of the Land Dragons. At this point, there was no time to worry about such things.

The wastelands were a high, barren, and desolate mountain region in the north.

They bordered the Fire Demon Marsh.

One side was incredibly fertile, but covered in wetlands. Tusk beasts were ill-suited to life there, with only the fishing and hunting Avel people surviving among the countless lakes and swamps.

The other side was so barren that no vegetation could be seen, leaving only desolation. Only near the western edge close to the sea did some plant life gradually appear.

Some Avel people made their homes in that area.

Only the weakest and most marginal beast-herding tribes of the Royal Court of Ten Thousand Serpents grazed at the foot of these wastelands.

So when the Temple Knight Order arrived in this area, they saw the population gradually thinning out, with few nomadic beast-herding tribes in sight.

“The easternmost passage into the wastelands is just ahead,” reported a Land Dragon knight returning from scouting.

“According to the message, there are nearly ten thousand regular troops here, along with accompanying Ability Users from the wilderness. They’re also harassed by numerous small-scale units. These people all came from deeper in the western wastelands. Xiuborn and King Sidi of Avel have recently subjugated many of these Avel settlements,” the captain of the Temple Knights had received considerable intelligence about the Avel people.

“But as long as we break through their defenses, we can open an escape route and allow our soldiers to return to the beast-herding plains,” a knight responded.

However, as the entire knight order ventured into the wastelands, winding through the towering black stone ridges, they realized something was amiss.

They hadn’t encountered any enemies at all.

Some earthen forts clearly built for defense and outposts meant for surveillance all stood empty.

“They left less than half a day ago,” reported those who went to inspect.

“Do they know we’re coming?” someone questioned uncertainly.

It seemed these people had known in advance that the Temple Knight Order was coming, and aware they couldn’t withstand them, had retreated ahead of their arrival.

The captain of the Temple Knights immediately furrowed her brow, her beautiful features revealing a trace of concern.

She felt that something wasn’t quite right.

“They retreated?”

A member of the Temple Knight Order spoke up, equally puzzled: “Could it be a trap?”

The captain pondered for a moment, then shook her head.

“If they knew we were coming, they’d know setting a trap would be useless.”

“Even if Xiuborn himself came, it would be pointless.”

“So why would they do this?”

A knight beside her also spoke: “Then they must have learned of our approach in advance and fled.”

The Temple Knight Order heightened their vigilance and attention as they pressed onward.

As a result, they encountered the previously encircled Royal Court army midway through.

The convoy stretched for dozens of miles, marching rapidly, appearing desperate to leave the north.

Both sides were startled as they came face to face.

But upon halting, they immediately recognized each other as allies.

Soon, someone from the army rode out on a Land Dragon, approaching the captain’s mount.

The rider dismounted and prostrated himself.

“Captain, it really is you.”

“When I heard the Temple Knight Order had come, I knew you’d led them to save us.”

More and more people came to pay their respects to the captain of the Temple Knights, as if they’d found their guiding light.

Among them were military commanders, temple attendants, and knights who had previously left the Temple Knight Order.

“Captain!”

“Captain!”

“I wondered why they retreated. So it was because you came, Captain.”

The captain of the Temple Knights also breathed a sigh of relief. Retrieving these people meant she had accomplished a large part of her mission.

“Where are the others?” the captain asked.

“Some are trapped near the Fire Demon Marsh, while others have been scattered,” replied the person prostrated beneath the Land Dragon.

The captain of the Temple Knights nodded, immediately making arrangements.

“Post guards here to secure this escape route and receive all those retreating.”

“After regrouping, send people to find the others and gather intelligence on the City of Avel’s army.”

The captain had no intention of fighting for the Royal Court of Ten Thousand Serpents against the Avel people. Her purpose in coming was to retrieve those trapped in the north.

She immediately took command, then began arranging and instructing the others.

Everyone else followed her orders, some beginning to regroup, others dispatching cavalry scouts.

The chaotic, retreating, routed army finally began to show some semblance of order.

Suddenly, the captain of the Temple Knights’ expression changed abruptly. She swiftly turned her head to look behind her.

The warning barrier she had placed in Fort Pence had been broken.

This immediately triggered her awareness, and the image of the city falling in that instant flashed through the captain’s mind.

She saw a ship laden with ghosts smash through the city walls and floodgates, raising huge waves as it plunged into Fort Pence’s wide canals.

Behind the Ghost Ship was an entire fleet, along with fully armed soldiers.

One by one, ghosts filled with hatred and vengeful resentment surged out from the Ghost Ship, circling in the sky.

All of Fort Pence instantly fell into panic and screaming.

She immediately lost her composure, her body involuntarily trembling.

Those who had just been reporting to the captain of the Temple Knights now looked at her with questioning gazes, still unaware of what had transpired.

“Captain,” one of them spoke. “What’s wrong?”

The captain of the Temple Knights’ hands were shaking. For the first time, her face showed an expression of terror.

“Someone has breached Fort Pence.”

“The Temple of Ten Thousand Serpents… is in danger…”

Her speech was even somewhat halting, skipping words in her urgency.

But even so, those around her heard clearly what had happened.

Everyone lost their composure, becoming utterly disoriented.

For a long while, no one spoke.

The captain of the Temple Knights said with great agitation: “I must go back.”

However, at this point, even if she rushed back, it would be too late.

One could see expressions of frustration, regret, and intense anger flashing across her face, ultimately culminating in a scream that pierced through mountains and sky.

“Hiss!”

In her desperation, the power that had always been sealed within the female knight’s body, which she could never access before, was fully released for the first time.

She seemed to hear a great serpent hissing, emitting a sound that rent the heavens.

Her body began to change.

Under the terrified and shocked gazes of everyone present, a massive shadow writhed behind the female knight’s body.

That shadow extended from the earth all the way to the distant horizon, covering the far side of the mountain range.

A blood-colored mist suddenly rose, enveloping everything around.

Finally, within the blood mist, a serpent thousands of meters long materialized. She let out an anxious and fearful hiss, then urgently unleashed her power.

With one sweep of her tail, she toppled a small mountain in the distance, producing a sound like the earth splitting open.

The giant serpent coiled her body and soared towards the sky.

She pierced through the firmament, gliding along the sea of clouds, disappearing into the distance in the blink of an eye.

At this moment, the blood mist gradually dissipated.

Everyone gazed at the giant serpent vanishing into the distant sky, their faces pale, as if they hadn’t yet recovered from the serpent’s power and intimidating presence.

“Was that…?” someone spoke, their teeth chattering constantly.

“Was that our captain?” Herds of Land Dragons had been frightened into lying flat on the ground, with the knights atop them unable to believe what they had just witnessed.

“A giant serpent, that’s the legendary…” someone began to say, but immediately covered their mouth.

For the truth was too horrifying, or rather, they simply dared not believe what they suspected in their hearts.

“The Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents?”

At the foot of the Mountain of Life’s Origin.

Temple of Ten Thousand Serpents.

The female temple attendants atop the temple stairs looked at the frenzied figure below, their mouths agape, eyeing Xiuborn with suspicious and wary gazes.

Everyone was at a loss, bewildered by Xiuborn’s madness, unable to understand why he had become like this.

“Is he insane?”

“What is he saying?”

“Something about a God… Could he have been cursed by a God?”

Xiuborn, however, seemed to have completely lost awareness of his surroundings. His eyes were fixed solely on the figure standing atop the stairs, protected at the center by the crowd.

He could not fathom how she had appeared in the mortal world.

“How can you be here?”

“Why are you here?”

He asked in bewilderment.

Yet those on the stairs merely looked at him as if he were mad, not understanding his confusion.

Xiuborn twisted his serpentine tail, his body straightening once more.

But as he raised his head to gaze at the top of the stairs, his body trembled involuntarily with excitement. He could not truly stand upright, but rather leaned slightly forward.

He could not help but be excited.

The Life Sovereign whom his ancestors had worshipped for generations, the God Xiuborn had believed in for half his life, was right before his eyes.

Countless times he had professed his faith before her statue, yet he had never imagined that one day he would truly see her.

He stumbled and swayed as he reached out his hand, ascending the stairs as if drunk.

His appearance was frenzied, his mouth muttering incoherent words.

“Boom!”

At this moment, a sound like thunder resounded in the sky.

The previously clear sky was instantly filled with vast swathes of blood-black clouds.

The captain of the Temple Knight Order, who had been rushing back since the moment the city fell, appeared on the distant horizon at this very moment.

In less than an hour, she had returned from the wastelands. The moment she returned, she saw the frenzied Xiuborn walking towards the Holy Maiden, who was protected by the crowd.

The enraged voice of the giant serpent echoed from the sky: “Stop right there!”

The voice began far away, but by the time it ended, the giant serpent had already arrived above Fort Pence.

The giant serpent descended from the heavens, her tail still in the sea of clouds.

Her enormous head peered down from on high, fixated on the madman who “intended to harm” the Holy Maiden.

The giant serpent opened her mouth, and a black beam of light shot down from above.

The beam connected earth and sky, enveloping Xiuborn and the surrounding twenty to thirty meters.

This power was not something a third-rank Ability User like Xiuborn could withstand.

Xiuborn had no time to react before being engulfed by the all-consuming force, with no possibility of escape.

At this moment, Xiuborn’s gaze finally shifted from the God to the sky.

He saw the giant serpent coiled in the sea of clouds, identical to the one in myths and legends.

“Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents… Sermos!” he exclaimed in recognition.

He finally truly confirmed that the little girl before him was the one to the left of the Creator’s throne, the progenitor of all Snake People.

The God he had once believed in.

“So… it really is a God!”

Xiuborn felt himself being swept into a massive vortex. His previously stable Witch Spirit form shattered in an instant.

He was about to dissipate.

The giant serpent in the sky was still blinded by rage. She seemed to fear that Xiuborn might not be dead, worried that he might harm the Holy Maiden in the temple atop the stairs before his death.

The giant serpent redirected the beam from her mouth, lifting Xiuborn into mid-air.

A tail swept down from the black-red sea of clouds, intending to completely obliterate him.

But at this very moment, the Divine Artifact Polik’s Right Hand within Xiuborn’s body erupted with intense light, sensing Xiuborn’s mortal peril.

A powerful force connected the real world to the edge of the illusory realm.

A channel surging with power opened, guiding mythical force from another domain into the mortal world.

The Door of Truth.

It pierced through reality from the edge of the Dream Realm, descending upon this land.

An unimaginably massive door fell upon Fort Pence, its shadow covering the entire city.

This door no longer appeared as broken as before, but it was still bound by layers of chains.

Only now, several of the chains had snapped, trailing on the base below.

This was the handiwork of the Ruhe beast Sele Sea Spirit on the frozen plateau last time.

Everything happened in an instant, the Door of Truth appearing in a single moment.

Neither Xiuborn nor the giant serpent had time to react.

The black beam spewed by the giant serpent struck the Door of Truth directly. The black devouring force swirled and spread, transforming into a massive black sphere of light.

The chains sealing the Door of Truth also danced in this power, clanging loudly as they whipped through the air.

“Clang clang clang!”

The giant serpent’s tail, unable to retract in time, slammed into the Door of Truth.

The Ruhe beast had already struck it once before, and now with the giant serpent’s consecutive blows, the chains binding the Door of Truth could no longer withstand the force.

“Bang~”

“Hum~”

Two tremendous sounds overlapped.

The chains Asai used to seal himself shattered layer by layer.

The Door of Truth, sealed for over 200 million years, opened completely.

The two tightly closed doors pushed outward, emitting a deep, rumbling sound.

That sound echoed in everyone’s consciousness, impossible to avoid or escape even by covering one’s ears.

It shook people to dizziness and nausea.

“Ah!” Someone cried out in panic from the shock.

“This sound, what is this sound?” Someone covered their ears and crouched on the ground.

“It seems to be ringing in my mind. I can’t block it out.” Everyone looked at the massive door in terror, the sound alone making them sense crisis and the breath of death.

All in the city were dumbfounded. The series of reversals today were utterly unpredictable.

First, the Avel people stormed into Fort Pence, throwing the city into chaos.

Then, black-red clouds covered the sky, and a terrifying giant serpent descended.

Finally, an enormous door appeared, so large that those standing in the city or at its base could barely see the top.

This scene was something perhaps only myths and legends had records of, yet now it was laid bare before all mortals.

The chaotic Fort Pence came to a complete standstill. Everyone looked helplessly at the sky, at the giant door and the great serpent.

Compared to these two, they felt like insects.

Beings that could be wiped out with a mere wave of their hand.

Whether kings, nobles, soldiers, commoners, or slaves, whether aggressors or the plundered, their identities lost all meaning at this moment.

They stopped all movement, trembling beneath the sky like prisoners awaiting judgment.

“Giant serpent? Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents, Sermos?” Some guessed the origin of the giant serpent. This wasn’t difficult, for even after a thousand years, the Snake People still had clear records of the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents.

Moreover, this was at the foot of the Mountain of Life’s Origin.

“What is that door?” But no one had seen the Door of Truth before. Apart from beings from the previous era, no one knew the history and past of this door. Even Xiuborn only knew its name was the Door of Truth.

“What exactly is going on?” Someone tried to look at the words and patterns on the door, but the more they looked, the more confused they became. After looking for a while, their minds went completely blank.

The power within the Door of Truth leaked out, enveloping Xiuborn who was about to dissipate, immediately halting his dissolution.

He became a spirit floating in white light.

But Xiuborn looked at his own hands. He could feel his power dissipating, his life form descending from a living being to a dead object.

His Book of the Witch Spirit had just been destroyed.

His current form had become a rootless drifting ghost.

The female knight hadn’t anticipated such a situation.

She had only meant to kill a madman who dared to harm the Holy Maiden, when suddenly a door sealed by chains appeared, unexpectedly opened by her actions.

Xiuborn also hadn’t expected the Door of Truth to open at this moment.

He was even less aware of what consequences might arise from the uncontrolled opening of the Door of Truth while a demigod was still dormant and unawakened.

The female knight sensed a powerful destructive force gushing out from the Door of Truth, with all of Fort Pence in its direct path.

She clearly felt that if this force were released, not a single person in Fort Pence would survive.

“No,” she exclaimed. “It can’t be allowed to open.”

The giant serpent immediately coiled around the Door of Truth, replacing the function of the previous chains.

The giant serpent continuously constricted her power, trying to close the Door of Truth once more.

But the already pushed-open door was not so easily closed, and the leaked power and light could not be easily retracted.

The two sides produced a tug-of-war effect.

The power from within the Door of Truth was already pouring out unstoppably like a flood.

White light spilled from the door like a deluge, covering all living beings in the city, whether Snake People, Land Dragons, Tusk Beasts, or other animals, even schools of fish.

When covered by the light, they instantly stopped all movement.

Everyone’s consciousness was pulled into an illusory realm, losing control over their bodies.

Immediately following, a terrifying colorful light burst forth after the white light, the two separated by only an instant.

It was the Light of Original Sin.

It would annihilate all mortal beings present, dragging everyone into that world of ghosts.

It seemed the doomsday from billions of years ago was about to happen again.

The last time it occurred was because the Anhofus needed a sacrifice.

This time, it was because the struggles between mortals had disturbed the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents, breaking the seal left by Asai.

The girl in front of the temple stood right before that huge door, directly facing the continuously opening Door of Truth.

As the door opened.

She would be the first person covered by the light.

As the light was about to pour down, covering the Holy Maiden and the temple attendants in the temple.

“No!” The giant serpent let out a hiss.

The Holy Maiden wasn’t afraid, but rather looked curiously at the rumbling, continuously opening door.

“What is this?” she asked.

The giant serpent lunged down, trying to coil into a ball to wrap around the entire hall and temple.

She wanted to shield the Holy Maiden, and the Door of Truth also completely lost its restraint.

But the speed of the light shining down far exceeded hers.

In the blink of an eye, the light emitted by the Door of Truth had already covered the temple.

However, when the light covered the stairs and shone into the threshold of the temple.

“Bang!”

The Door of Truth emitted a huge sound and suddenly stopped.

It seemed as if it had pulled in an unbearable dream.

The weight of the remaining consciousness hadn’t been pulled in.

It directly pressed on the Door of Truth, making it creak.

“Thump thump thump!”

In an instant, the Door of Truth began to shake and sway back and forth like a pendulum.

The Holy Maiden felt the light bathing her body. She turned her head to look around, seeing that everyone else had already fallen asleep.

“Yawn~”

She drowsily yawned, feeling somewhat sleepy.

“Why has everyone fallen asleep?”

Something stirred beneath the earth.

The originally solid ground instantly turned black, then became transparent, as if crystallized.

Light seeped out from underground, gradually changing the color of the earth.

As the light spread, it was as if an immense eye was slowly opening.

It was a huge black eye with white patterns, so large it was beyond imagination.

Its pupil condensed as it looked towards the sky, gazing at that enormous door.

Countless tentacles extended from beneath the earth, reaching towards the sky.

They stretched towards the Door of Truth, towards the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents, and towards the Temple of Ten Thousand Serpents.

They engulfed everything.

The entire Fort Pence, this whole expanse of land, was covered in dense tentacles.