The Abyss.

The war between Fallen Angel Melde, master of the First Layer, and Bone Demon King Yafuan, master of the Second Layer, grew increasingly fierce as its effects spilled into the outside world.

Both Snake People and Winged People observed more and more monsters withdrawing from the Avel Peninsula.

Joining the war, Fallen Angel Melde sought to crush Bone Demon King Yafuan to dust for stealing her Abyss authority, while Yafuan aimed to seize the title of master of the First Layer from her.

The layers of the Abyss were not divided according to up, down, left, or right…

Whoever was strongest would be ranked first.

Whoever was stronger possessed more Abyss authority.

From the filthy black mud at the bottom, thousands upon thousands of monsters broke free from the sludge.

Dense swarms of Eagle Demons filled the sky, and a rotting Wing Demon with a hundred-meter wingspan let out a piercing screech that sounded like a war trumpet.

Terrifying Swamp Demons surged along great waves, clinging to the cliff walls of the Abyss as they climbed to the Second Layer, charging into Bone Demon King Yafuan’s domain.

Fallen Angel Melde sat atop a Wing Demon, gripping a scepter in her hand, her face cold and murderous.

Heart-Burning Demons whispered around the Wing Demon as they spun around Fallen Angel Melde.

This master of the First Layer led her monster army up through the massive fissures of the Second Layer, riding her rotting Wing Demon as she soared through cracks in the ground to glimpse the distant dark palace.

In the barren, dark land of the Second Layer, flames erupted from the ground, and magma flowed freely along the cracks in the earth.

Thousands of skeletal monsters crawled out from beneath the ground, surrounding the dark palace and obeying Bone Demon King Yafuan’s commands.

A Skeletal Flying Dragon flew out from the palace, spewing a stream of scorching flame that extended a hundred meters from its mouth.

Atop the Skeletal Flying Dragon was a figure wrapped in a black cloak.

His body was swathed in bandages, but his eyes were terrifying and sharp.

One after another, winged Bone Demons flew out from the palace, following at his side.

These were Bone Demons transformed from fallen Winged People or modified Eagle Demons. Recently, large numbers of monsters had flocked under Bone Demon King Yafuan’s command, accepting the inheritance of Demon Spirit Fire.

Their Demon Spirit Fire could be inherited or taken from one another. Through constant slaughter and plunder, they grew stronger.

This was the Law of Pride that Bone Demon King Yafuan brought to the Abyss.

Bone Demon King Yafuan wore a skeletal crown on his head and gazed at Melde with cold, arrogant eyes that filled her with burning rage.

Melde waved her scepter, and dense clouds gathered above the Abyss.

Black rain fell from the sky.

The demon fires across the Second Layer were extinguished one by one, while the monster army led by Melde grew more agitated.

Melde’s voice spread throughout the entire Second Layer, “I am the only King of the Abyss, the apostle recognized by the divine.”

“You despicable, filthy thief will turn to ashes under divine punishment.”

Bone Demon King Yafuan looked at Fallen Angel Melde leading her sky-covering monster army and showed no sign of retreat, instead letting out a contemptuous laugh.

“Divine?”

“The Abyss is destined to have only one god, and that is me.”

“Foolish woman, I will strip you of everything and enslave this entire world.”

The two Abyss kings were far from rational beings.

Their monster armies immediately clashed, engaging in fierce slaughter.

The monsters under Bone Demon King Yafuan all possessed high intelligence, organized like true armies divided into upper Abyss legion commanders, lower Abyss guards, Abyss servants who could only use the most rudimentary Abyss divine techniques, and at the bottom, Abyss monster soldiers.

They formed precise formations, their eyes filled with bloodlust and a violent desire to kill.

Fearless of death, they wanted only to plunder and rise above others, striving desperately to climb higher, to become servants, guards, and legion commanders of the Bone Demon King.

They followed the orders of Bone Demon King Yafuan and other powerful Abyss races, each with their own role and different responsibilities.

But the monsters under Fallen Angel Melde also had their own characteristics, with their numbers seemingly endless.

Melde, wielding the power of the Law of Desire, could summon massive armies of monsters through reproduction, and these creatures served as cannon fodder for her.

The Bone Demon King rode his Skeletal Flying Dragon and collided with Melde’s third-rank rotting Wing Demon.

After exchanging a few probing strikes, Bone Demon King Yafuan transformed into a skeletal form over a hundred meters tall, standing on the ground of the Second Layer like a demon god.

He waved his hand, and his giant bone hand swept across the ground.

Hundreds of monsters were crushed into bloody paste.

With one step, the Abyss ground trembled.

Melde gave no quarter as she raised her hand and drew a dark vortex behind her.

A puddle of rotting mud fell from the vortex, merging with the rotting Wing Demon beneath her.

The rotting Wing Demon’s power began to surge, its form swelling like a balloon.

“Hiss!”

It transformed from third-rank to fourth-rank.

The rotting Wing Demon spread its wings with a truly sky-covering sweep.

The black rain in the sky turned to a downpour, suppressing the power of the Demon Spirit Fire in the Second Layer.

The wind that arose from nowhere carried supernatural power, directly reducing some fragile skeletal monsters to powder.

Puddles of black mud flowed from the vortex, enveloping those monsters and transforming some ordinary second-rank beasts into third-rank ones.

With Melde’s forces surging in power, combined with their already vast numbers, they appeared to completely surround Bone Demon King Yafuan.

Just as Bone Demon King Yafuan was about to be encircled, the figure atop the Skeletal Flying Dragon let out a roar of fury.

“Bone Field.”

Yafuan once again used this signature power from the Evil Sorcerer Anhofus of the previous era.

Instantly, the entire legion underwent a qualitative change.

One after another, giant skeletal puppets, each tens of meters tall, emerged as the skeletal monsters’ Demon Spirit Fire burned intensely.

The power of the field radiated from Yafuan’s body, connecting the power of all monsters together.

The legion was him. He was the entire legion.

Melde and Yafuan could not determine a victor, but it was evident that Yafuan’s monster legion was stronger.

A well-organized army with diverse troop types was entirely unlike scattered forces.

Like a sharp blade piercing the heart of her legion, they pushed Melde’s forces back step by step.

Once, Yafuan had no power to fight back against Melde’s strength. When faced with even the monsters she summoned, he could only flee in disarray repeatedly.

But this time, he could fight her to a standstill, and after unleashing the power of the Bone Field, he directly suppressed her.

Although Melde was also fourth-rank, she clearly had no inherited abilities, as all her apostle-level powers were self-taught.

Yafuan, however, had obtained the 【Anhofus Bone Demon Transformation Secret】 perfected by the Door of Truth.

Although both Yafuan and Melde were parts of the Abyss, it felt like a conflict between two sides of the same coin, with neither able to overcome the other.

Neither could kill the other. Even those monster soldiers who died could not be said to have truly died. Their death here only meant they had become part of the Abyss again.

But whichever of them could defeat the other would gain more Abyss authority and become master of the First Layer.

This war was born for this reason.

Bone Demon King Yafuan’s monster legion was advancing layer by layer from above, invading the First Layer.

Fallen Angel Melde grew increasingly anxious because she did not understand where Yafuan had acquired so many divine techniques or how his Bone Field could merge the power of all monsters into one.

Melde flew down to the Gate of Spirituality of the Lord of Radiance, kneeling on the ground in prayer.

“Open, Divine Gate!”

At this critical moment, Melde used the power of the mythic gate.

In the boundless sea of black mud, a white giant gate tilted in the mire and burst forth with intense light. That light targeted the source of all wisdom races, destroying their most fundamental power.

Swathes of skeletal monsters lost their consciousness, power, and spirituality under the influence of the mythic gate.

They transformed into corpses, their white bones scattering from above.

After driving the Bone Demon King from the First Layer, she retained her position as its master.

The Bone Demon King’s legion that had invaded the First Layer collapsed layer by layer, and even Yafuan could only ride his Skeletal Flying Dragon to evade the mythic gate’s power, fleeing back to the upper layer.

However, Melde could not move this mythic gate.

The authority she possessed only allowed her to mobilize a tiny fraction of its power.

She could only watch helplessly as Yafuan departed.

This great battle of the Abyss legions thus subsided, with the two Abyss kings each returning to their palaces, waiting for the next great war to erupt.

Within the palace built of black stone, the Bone Demon King, though he had suffered a setback, felt no discouragement.

He believed he was destined for victory, growing stronger with each confrontation, and would one day suppress Melde to become master of the First Layer.

Then he would become the true master of the Abyss.

Upon the skeletal throne, the flames in Yafuan’s eye sockets danced.

“I am destined to become the true master of the Abyss, to become an eternal divine being.”

Yet as this Bone Demon King spoke these words, he suddenly felt something was amiss.

Why?

Why was he so obsessed with becoming master of the First Layer? Was it merely because he wanted to become stronger?

“I seem to have forgotten something?”

“Those Snake People?”

“Those lowly ants, what did they want to do?”

The Bone Demon King struggled to remember something, but beyond those memories of weakness and unworthiness, he could find nothing.

Finally, he said arrogantly.

“A group of mortals.”

“What do they have to do with me?”

He returned to his train of thought, “To become stronger, what reason do I need?”

“To become stronger, to become as powerful as a divine being.”

“Power is the reason, to rise above all else is to be divine.”

At this very moment, outside the Abyss, Winged Queen Duma, accompanied by several Sky Messengers, had just arrived in this area. They landed in what was once a Winged People’s village.

One of the Sky Messengers raised her hand and annihilated over a dozen Eagle Demons within the village with radiance. Then they settled into the abandoned village.

Duma had finally agreed to King Sidi of Avel’s request, consenting to this alliance.

However, before this, she had also arranged for the Winged People to undertake their third migration, allowing the final batch of Winged People to embark on their journey of departure.

Regardless of whether Duma herself failed or succeeded, the Winged People would not return.

They would begin a new future beyond the Desert of the Fallen Sun.

So those remaining here now were the last few of the Winged People.

Most Winged People’s villages were built on steep cliffs, and this one was no exception.

Duma stood on the outskirts of the village at the edge of a cliff, gazing into the distance.

She watched as groups of monsters returned from afar, rushing into the Abyss, joining the great war between the two Abyss kings.

Duma looked in the direction where the monsters were heading, silent for a long time.

A nearby Sky Messenger also walked over, following her gaze to where there had once been a mountain range soaring into the clouds.

“The Winged Mountains, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen them.”

Unfortunately, there were no more Winged Mountains, only a bottomless Abyss could be seen.

At the other end of the Avel Peninsula, inside a cavern, a hidden village established by the Avel people was now home to over a thousand people.

This was the northernmost outpost in monster territory, mostly occupied by soldiers and personnel gathering intelligence on monster movements.

“Drip, drip, drip!”

In the quiet cavern, one could hear the crisp sound of water droplets falling.

The cave contained numerous items, temporarily stockpiled food, armor, weapons, and various supplies.

In the deepest part of the cavern, Nia stood alone in a corner.

Above her head was a naturally formed hole, like a skylight bringing in light from outside.

She held a glowing stone in her hand, within which scenes could be seen changing and flowing.

Sounds came from the stone.

It was a voice both familiar and strange to Nia, hoarse and cold.

“A group of mortals.”

“What do they have to do with me?”

The scene in the stone showed a very strange angle, actually revealing everything the Bone Demon King Yafuan could see.

This was a stone that only a demigod could create.

It was part of the Path of Wisdom, one of the Knowledge Stones from the four-part secret art of God’s Grace Stone.

The secret technique for making such stones was originally used by Anhofus to create the Little Person in the Bottle, an artificial god. It could be traced back to the Royal Bloodline Samo family’s exploration of the Secret Art of Immortality through generations.

Later, Xiao obtained all the experimental data from his teacher Lan, and then received the four-part secret art of God’s Grace Stone from the Little Person in the Bottle, which truly opened this path for mortals to immortality and myth.

This, to be precise, should be Yafuan’s Knowledge Stone.

This was formed when Yafuan requested the God of Knowledge and Truth to extract all his memories about the plan before it began.

Before his fall, Yafuan had extracted this memory from his consciousness, concealing all memories of the plan.

Even Yafuan, the Abyss Bone Demon King, did not know his original plan.

The only thing he knew was that he wanted to become master of the First Layer of the Abyss, while the Snake People hoped that Melde would remain its controller.

This was also what the current Abyss Bone Demon King wanted.

Moreover, this Memory Stone had become a channel directly to the depths of the Bone Demon King’s heart and served as a weakness and backdoor that Yafuan had left for himself.

But even so, exploiting the weakness of a fourth-rank ability user and Abyss king was not something an ordinary person could accomplish.

After seeing the Bone Demon King speak those words, Nia’s eyes lost their luster and focus.

She knew everything could never return.

The moment Yafuan fell, the true Yafuan had already died.

“Lord Yafuan.”

When Nia usually uttered this name, it was with joy and happiness.

But now only bitterness remained.

A female divine servant walked in from outside, just in time to see Nia with her reddened eyes.

Nia stood at an elevated spot as the sun rose, with a beam of light shining directly on her.

Yet in the light, she was so sorrowful and helpless.

“He is a hero, a hero of the Avel people.”

“He should not be forever submerged in darkness.”

The divine servant did not know how to respond and could only say, “Lord Yafuan is a true hero.”

Nia quickly composed herself and asked the divine servant, “What do you need from me?”

The divine servant nodded, “A Winged Person has come, bringing a letter.”

Nia asked, “Where are they?”

The divine servant said, “They left immediately after delivering it, but it was a Sky Messenger, not an ordinary Winged Person.”

“She must have come representing the will of the Winged Queen.”

Nia immediately opened the letter, her face lighting up, “It’s a letter from King Sidi. He says everything is ready.”

“The Winged Queen has left Moonlight Island and gone to the vicinity of the Abyss.”

“Now! It all depends on our side.”

Yafuan had prepared two plans.

The first was, of course, if all went well, they would initiate the real Abyss Sealing Project.

The second was a contingency plan that could use the Bone Demon King to severely damage the Abyss, even putting Melde into slumber or sealing her, thus giving the Snake People a chance to breathe.

Now, they could basically abandon the latter.

Nia walked down from her elevated position, slowly taking a book from her bosom.

It was none other than 【The Book of Xiuborn】 that Yafuan had previously forbidden Nia from reading.

But Yafuan had eventually left this book to Nia, even though it contained curses and dangers.

It was also a book that could change fate at a critical moment.

Tucked under the book was a piece of paper containing text translated into the Snake People’s language for those who could open it and look carefully.

One could even see a drawing on it.

The drawing depicted a terrifying monster from the previous era, a being symbolizing the power of destruction.

It depicted one of the Ruhe beasts, the Moon Magic Fern.

As Nia walked down, she asked the divine servant beside her.

“Have you heard of the Blind Prophetess?”

The other had never heard this term and could only shake her head in confusion.

The divine servant was young, born on the Avel Peninsula, and had never seen the Snake People’s ancestral home, Ruhe Beast Island, let alone these secrets from the island.

Nia continued, “In the temple of our former enemy, the Royal Court of Ten Thousand Serpents.”

“Legend has it there was a prophetess who could foresee dangers and glimpse fate.”

“When the Royal Court of Ten Thousand Serpents was still a small tribe, they relied on the prophetess’s foresight to escape danger time and again. This allowed them to survive the cruel competition of the Beast Herding Plains and eventually establish the Royal Court of Ten Thousand Serpents.”

“In reality, they did not know that what they gained was not some ability of foresight.”

“But they did not truly gain foresight. Instead, they communicated with beings beyond their imagination, borrowing their eyes to observe the world.”

“They were not prophets at all.”

Nia shook her head, “If I were to give them a name, I think they should be called witches.”

“Although they did not truly inherit the power of witches, they accidentally established connections with those ancient and great beings.”

For example, one of the titles of another demigod, the origin of the Scarlet Witch, came from a being called Stuen.

She was once Stuen’s apostle.

Stuen was her childhood friend and later became her companion and comrade-in-arms. Together, they fought against and defeated the Evil God.

Most of her achievements to this day were inseparable from this childhood friend.

Therefore, even after becoming a demigod, she still kept this title.

The divine servant beside her still listened in confusion, and Nia patted her shoulder.

She told her, “The ritual I asked you to prepare earlier is a ritual to communicate with these great beings.”

With this, the divine servant finally understood.

Nia instructed her to go, “It is time now, we must begin!”

The divine servant bowed and withdrew, “I understand.”

In a hall converted from the cavern, dense runes were engraved on the floor, walls, and even the ceiling, forming a large ritual array with gems embedded at many nodes.

Those gems were inscribed with symbols of spiritual realm contracts, used to reinforce and stabilize this ritual array.

Ordinary ritual arrays certainly did not need to be so complex and massive.

But clearly, this ritual array was not ordinary.

Most of the array patterns were designed not for communicating with a great being or powerful artifact through the spirit realm, but to conceal one’s perception of the other and weaken the other’s influence.

One could imagine the being this ritual array sought to communicate with was an extremely dangerous and indescribably powerful existence.

Nia led many divine servants, and they immediately moved to various nodes.

Nia’s gaze swept over the others, and then she spoke.

“Put them on!”

Everyone immediately took out a piece of cloth and covered their eyes.

“Plug your ears.”

Everyone then took out earplugs and plugged their ears.

It seemed that what was to come was something they could neither see nor hear.

Only then did Nia prostrate herself at the center of the ritual array, waving her hand to pull away a cloth covering the rock wall and reveal the carving behind it.

It depicted a being that looked like intertwining vines or a towering tree connecting heaven and earth.

Upon closer inspection, one could see moonlight illuminating the entire world, drawing everyone into an illusory realm of terrifying shadowy figures.

One could even hear the protagonists of the previous era, the most ancient rulers of the earth, whispering about its terrifying tales.

Even in the voices of those most ancient ones, one could hear their fear of this being, their voices containing incomparable dread.

They trembled, they worshipped.

“Royal Bloodline… throne…”

“Monster that destroys the world… death’s… horn.”

“Ruhe… Ruhe… Ruhe…”

“Shadow that devours… the world.”

Although Nia had personally carved the wall inscription, she had not dared to examine it closely.

She had nearly fallen into madness several times from those whispers.

She clasped her hands before her chest, bowing to the being on the rock wall with a humble posture.

From her mouth, she finally began chanting this being’s true name.

“Servant of the supreme Life Sovereign, great Ruhe beast Moon Magic Fern, the moon’s shadow enveloping the world.”

“I call to you, I pray to you, I long for you.”

“Please respond to my call.”

The other divine servants cooperated, activating the ritual array.

This call, through the ritual of the spirit realm, was transmitted to the other side of the world.

Strange plants in the Moonlight Jungle suddenly opened one after another, phosphorescence shooting toward the sky.

Though night had not yet fallen, the sky became filled with stars.

This caused great panic among the city-state people living around the Moonlight Jungle.

One of the highest-ranking beings under the Life Ability suddenly awakened a trace of will.

It cast its gaze toward the distant Avel Peninsula.

That terrifying will descended into the cavern, and Nia’s beautiful eyes instantly melted into two streams of bloody tears.

Her Wisdom Ability power was shattered in an instant.

Before she could cry out in pain, her vision and will plunged into darkness.

Her core consciousness was enveloped in the dreamy starlight of the Dream Realm, which proved stronger than she had imagined and the ritual more effective than she had thought.

If not for the spiritual realm bonds blocking most of the other’s aura, being gazed upon by such a being for an instant would have resulted in something more unbearable than death.

Not a single one of the thousand Snake People in this entire village would have survived.

Even with their eyes covered and ears plugged, those nearby who still faintly heard the chanting collapsed instantly, letting out miserable screams.

“Ah!”

One by one, they deformed instantly, turning into pools of rotting flesh.

Some sprouted multiple hands with eyes appearing one after another on their skin until their bodies finally burst apart.

Some had their bodies turn to wood, becoming plants on the spot.

But through the spiritual realm contract, Nia, the main protected subject of the ritual, was enveloped by the light of the Dream Realm, preventing her from dying instantly and allowing her consciousness to establish a connection with the Ruhe beast Moon Magic Fern.

In the darkness, Nia finally saw a part of the truth of this world.

Her will floated above the heavens, revealing the continent-like Ruhe Beast Island.

She also saw the Avel Peninsula, which from this perspective did not seem far away.

She saw the black storms dissipating around Ruhe Beast Island, and peering deeper, she saw an even more terrifying scene.

She saw seven terrifying and great beings, life forms so enormous they defied imagination.

They carried a vast, boundless continent, forming countless homes where life could exist.

Those black storms emanated from these beings, unconsciously dissipating power as they slumbered.

“That is… Ruhe Beast Island?”

“The giant island is alive? No… it is being carried on someone’s back?”

Nia certainly understood what those beings were.

They were precisely the beings she wanted to communicate with, whose power she sought to borrow.

“Servants left in this world by the Life Sovereign, the most terrifying destructive beasts in the world.”

“The Ruhe beasts.”

Nia completely collapsed. She had previously guessed that these Ruhe beasts might be located in the Creator’s Domain.

But she had never imagined that they were, in fact, their former homeland, Ruhe Beast Island.

“We… lived on the backs of Ruhe beasts?”

Nia’s consciousness turned blank with terror. She could not imagine how vast their power was, nor what kind of life form could support an entire world.

To her, Ruhe Beast Island was an enormous world.

And their former world was carried on the backs of several such beings.

And they were just a group of insects nesting on the bodies of giant beasts.

No, they couldn’t even be considered insects.

Despair appeared on Nia’s face, and she finally understood the feeling Yafuan once had, “Divine beings are like the sun. Whether mortals are too close or too far, it is a disaster that will drown them.”

As she focused on Ruhe Beast Island, she also felt her consciousness continuously sinking.

Only then did she react, crying out loudly in her heart.

“No!”

“Don’t look!”

“Don’t look.”

A powerful attractive force pulled Nia’s consciousness from the sky toward the ground.

Nia knew if she went down, she would fall completely into darkness, never to find herself again.

She was just a weak second-rank ability user. Once she truly merged consciousness with such a being, it would mean direct annihilation and death.

She could only constantly recall other things in her mind, stabilizing her will to prevent herself from collapsing.

She used memories and speech to pull back her consciousness.

“So, Ruhe Beast Island bears the name ‘Ruhe’ because it is carried on the backs of seven Ruhe beasts.”

“So, all those legends were true.”

“The divine blew the horn and the earth rose from the sea.”

Nia involuntarily recited the myth they had read countless times as children. As a child, she believed it completely, but as she grew older, she became skeptical.

But now she discovered that everything was actually true.

“Myths… are truly myths.”

Nia continually recalled those ancient myths, and finally her consciousness stopped falling, stabilized by the ritual.

Up to this point, the method of communicating with the Ruhe beasts had been stumbled upon by accident by the Royal Court of Ten Thousand Serpents, although the ritual had since become more orthodox and refined.

But next was the true step to becoming a witch.

That was truly the deadly part.