Shrouded in darkness, the convoy escorting the sealed coffin grew increasingly panicked. All eyes turned to the Abyss Cult members ahead, who commanded terrifying Seal Spirits. Confusion rippled through the ranks as everyone glanced around, utterly unsure of what to do.

“What are they doing?” The question echoed through the convoy. Ahead stood several Third-Rank cultists from the Abyss Cult, each holding a top-fifty ranked artifact. The bronze lamp in their possession was powerful enough to completely overpower ordinary apostles. It was a terrifying sight.

“They’re trying to trap us! We need to get out of here, now!” Everyone began searching frantically for an escape route.

“It’s too late.” By the time they realized the truth, the trap had already sprung. Their enemy had been fully prepared, lying in ambush, and most knew escape was now impossible.

Amid the panicked crowd, King Osis pulled on the dragon-controlling leather reins.

He turned his head and saw the Dark Domain converge in the blink of an eye. The exit to the outside world shrank rapidly, becoming a single point before vanishing completely.

“We can’t get out,” he said, his voice flat.

From the way things stood, King Osis knew that escape was no longer an option for his party.

His eyes landed on the Divine Artifact, the Bronze Lamp of Greed, and he understood. The cultists standing before him were merely pawns. The true masterminds had yet to reveal themselves.

The Abyss Cult members gazed at them coldly, as if staring at meat on a chopping block.

The air grew oppressively tense, like drawn swords and nocked arrows.

In an instant, the Seal Spirits behind the Abyss cultists stirred, moving one after another.

“Get ready to fight!”

“Start the ritual formation!”

“Stay alert!”

Though panicked, the Ability Users on Osis’s side were skilled. They quickly fell into combat formations, preparing to counter the attack.

To their surprise, however, the Abyss cultists did not attack.

Instead, the cultists knelt simultaneously, as if welcoming some great power.

Several massive Seal Spirits also dropped to their knees, mirroring the cultists. The Ability Users commanding them prostrated themselves, though their leader continued to hold the Bronze Oil Lamp high.

“Kings of the Abyss.”

“Your servants welcome your arrival.”

The Land Dragon beneath King Osis let out a hiss. His own sharp gaze shifted downward. “They’re below.”

Everyone on high alert instinctively glanced down. A sharp, collective intake of breath followed.

At some point, a pitch-black, enormous pit had opened beneath their feet.

It was seemingly bottomless, as though it extended all the way to the earth’s core.

Looking down, they saw the Dark Prison Abyss filled with vengeful Fire Corpses, the Fire Abyss where legions of Bone Demons stood in formation, and the Black Mud Abyss where black sludge churned and surged.

Densely packed demonic creatures crawled upward. Fire Corpses, Bone Demons, Eagle Demons, and Snake Demons climbed like ants, their sinister and terrifying roars echoing from the depths.

Hiss~

A massive, rotting Wing Demon spread its wings, which spanned nearly a hundred meters, and rushed to the forefront.

It spiraled upward from the bottomless pit, surging forth with relentless energy.

At the very deepest point of the abyss, three shadows stood.

One was a towering figure gripping a longsword, its body like a flaming, charred corpse. Beside it stood a skeleton cloaked in dark fabric, a Bone Demon with ominously glowing eye sockets. The third figure was a fallen angel, its striking black and white wings marking its otherworldly presence.

Though their forms were not especially tall, they stood out starkly against the densely packed monsters. Even the massive, rotting Wing Demons and the Swamp Demons dozens of meters tall seemed insignificant before their power.

They were the three kings, Wrath, Pride, and Lust.

King Osis saw them. He had suspected an Abyss King was behind this from the moment he saw the Bronze Oil Lamp. He had not, however, anticipated three of them.

A laugh escaped him as he shook his head in disbelief.

“The King of Wrath, Dark Moon. The King of Pride, Jokic. And the King of Lust, Melde.”

“To have three Abyss Kings mobilize just for me, should I feel honored, or unlucky?”

He knew, however, that the three kings were also guarding against the goddess’s appearance. Their plan was to seize Akmanmon’s sealed coffin and immediately retreat into the safety of the Abyss.

The one named Jokic, the King of Pride, was once a subordinate of the first-generation King, Yafuan. He had only ascended to the throne after the true Yafuan’s death. Among the three Abyss Kings, he was the weakest.

This weakness, of course, was only relative.

Among the three, the towering charred corpse on the left suddenly moved.

Without a single word, he slowly drew the longsword. Magma seemed to flow within his parched, cracked arm, emanating a faint light.

The longsword rose high, radiating intense brilliance.

Then he swung down with force.

The blade traced an arc like a crescent moon, slashing toward Osis.

The flaming corpse’s movements were not fast, yet they were impossibly sharp and fluid. Every gesture sent vibrations through the air, radiating undeniable power. This was the work of a master swordsman.

The flaming crescent moon sliced through space, ascending from the abyss into the Dark Domain. As it emerged, an intense heat wave surged forth, filling the air with a suffocating presence.

Moments later, red light engulfed the entire world, drowning everything in its overwhelming brilliance.

It was a familiar sight. Once before, the King of Wrath, Dark Moon, had harnessed the power of the Abyss to nearly split Mooneclipse City in two with a single strike. Only the Earth Witch’s intervention had stopped him. Now, that same scene was unfolding again.

Some stood frozen with mouths agape. Others clutched their heads, shrieking in shock, while a few collapsed to the ground, muttering incoherently.

Their movements were visible, but no sound emerged from the chaos.

The sword light’s fierce passage through the air, its sheer force evaporating everything in its path, had drowned out all cries.

The scene was a paradox, alive with frantic motion yet steeped in an eerie silence.

The only sound was the clamor of the blade’s light. Those waiting for death were quiet, unable to make a sound.

The eerie scene unfolded as waves of fire consumed everyone in their path.

Bodies blackened into charcoal, their faces locked in terror, frozen in the fleeting moment before the end.

Ash replaced flesh, scattering into the wind as if they had never been.

With a single strike, all were erased.

Nothing remained.

King Osis’s body disintegrated completely, finally transforming into a pool of blood that spread outward.

The sheer volume of blood was astonishing, resembling a small lake.

The body of the snake person was not what shared the Life Template with the Scarlet Goddess, nor was it part of the endless cycle.

That power belonged to the tattoo on its back, the Trilobite Symbiote that inhabited it.

The towering flaming corpse skillfully sheathed his sword. Only then did he speak.

“It’s finished.”

There was not a single wasted motion.

The moment he struck was the moment it ended.

The King of Lust, Melde, let out a cold laugh. “And they call that a divine species?”

She added, “Only Duma is a true divine species, a true child of God.”

The motionless Bone Demon King remarked, “It seems that without a divine being present, the so-called divine species merely shares in the divine glory.”

In the depths of the Dark Domain, the Abyss cultist gripped the Bronze Oil Lamp tightly. He rose to his feet and stepped forward to seize the object the three Abyss Kings so desperately coveted.

His prize was to be Akmanmon’s sealed coffin and the god ascension secret scripture, The Path of Wisdom, which the other party had promised.

But within the peculiar pool of blood left where Osis’s body had collapsed, something was beginning to stir.

A silver leaf slowly floated up, stirring layer upon layer of ripples.

The ripples gradually spread, revealing a faint and indistinct image.

Within the reflection of the spreading ripples, a figure departed, heading toward some unknown place.

Between one life and the next, King Osis felt as if he were dreaming, sensing a mass of starlight guiding him.

Soon, he saw a giant vine that reached from heaven to earth.

The vine stretched upward, piercing through the clouds and sky, reaching toward the Dream Starry Sea.

King Osis stood upon a vast lake, its surface calm and endless.

In this place, it felt as though time had come to a complete standstill.

Everything around was shrouded in mist, as if even the air flowed with extreme slowness.

King Osis gazed around in bewilderment. His surroundings were unlike anything he had ever encountered. The vine loomed impossibly large, a colossal pillar that seemed to hold up the heavens themselves. Such a thing could not exist in the mortal world.

“What is this place?”

“How did I get here?”

“No, wait… Akmanmon’s sealed coffin! It’s about to be taken.”

“The three Abyss Kings want the god ascension secret scripture, The Path of Wisdom.”

One thought after another surfaced in Osis’s mind. At this moment, ripples stirred across the water’s surface.

A silver-haired, golden-eyed young girl walked across the lake, coming to stand before Osis.

“Don’t be anxious,” she said. “You’re in my dream, communicating with me through your consciousness. Time is different here. In the outside world, it passes very slowly.”

“It’s sort of like the moment before death, when the Divine Boat comes to receive you.”

It was a strange example. An ordinary person would not understand it at all.

Common people could not know what state they entered after death. After the Divine Boat came to receive them, it was impossible to speak of the experience again.

King Osis looked at her, his eyes widening in recognition.

“Herna? Is that you?”

“How did you get here? How did I get here?”

Herna replied, “You came here to barter with me, didn’t you?”

Osis realized it instantly. “The Dream Vine leaf… you gave it to me?”

Osis just hadn’t expected that the reflection on the surface of his own blood could complete the barter ritual.

He also knew that an ordinary Lake Nymph wouldn’t appear for such a thing. Herna’s presence must be for another reason.

The nymph told Osis, “I sensed that you were dying, so I came to see you.”

But after thinking about it, she felt that for a Trilobite Symbiote, the word “dying” wasn’t quite appropriate.

“No,” she corrected herself, “you don’t really die. It’s more like this life of yours is about to end.”

The Lake Nymph Herna, childlike in her nature, looked at Osis with curiosity.

“Osis.”

“You’re a Trilobite Man from the last era. Are you about to begin your next life?”

“That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? To continuously begin new and different lives. It must be very exciting.”

Herna was curious, but she could not say she was envious.

Hearing Herna say this, Osis burst out laughing.

“I am about to die, yes. I will return to the Goddess’s Kingdom.”

“I don’t know when the next cycle will begin. All I can do is live this life well and complete what I am meant to do.”

“It’s just that…”

The nymph noticed his laughter had become forced. “Do you have regrets?”

King Osis thought for a moment before letting out a deep sigh.

“I’ve done many things, but it seems I still haven’t managed to create a perfect ending for myself.”

The nymph couldn’t help but ask, “Last time, you said you wanted to accomplish something. Now you say you’ve accomplished many things, but you’re still regretful. Why?”

“You’ve already done so much. Why does it have to be perfect?”

King Osis stood upon the Spirit Lake and began to tell the spirit of his past.

“Did you know that long, long ago, I was the King of Yinsai?”

The nymph tilted her head, thought for a moment, and asked, “Was that a great thing to be?”

Hearing this question, King Osis froze for a moment.

“Great?”

A laugh escaped him, but it was a broken sound, and tears streamed down his face as he laughed.

“No. Not great.”

“I’m not great at all.”

“But my ancestors were truly great. They were children of the Divine King, part of the Royal Bloodline. They were the kings who shaped an era, the heroes who stepped in when everything was on the verge of falling apart.”

“My ancestors for generations all lived in epics and myths. Their names were sung and recited by countless people.”

“Only I…”

King Osis paused, the words catching in his throat.

“I have nothing. I am…”

Osis’s face still wore a smile, but his muscles twisted together. His smile looked uglier than crying.

At the same time, he could no longer speak.

After a long silence, the nymph remained quiet. She did not know how to comfort him, nor could she understand the weight Osis carried on his shoulders, the greatness of his ancestors, or the ancient epics he spoke of.

However, finally, Osis gradually recovered. He took a deep breath and spoke again.

“Not long ago, I finally understood why I was brought back to life!”

A new understanding settled over him, and with it, the conviction that he could not give up like this. He could not let things end this way.

“I understand now why the Goddess let me, this disgraceful king, return to life. I know why She let me, a junior who has disappointed Her so many times, reach this era.”

“This time, I will leave with glory.”

King Osis’s spirit gradually recovered, as if returning to long, long ago, to that moment when he stood before the Wisdom Palace accepting the worship of all Trilobite People.

King of Yinsai, Osis.

“There’s still a chance,” he said, his voice firm. “I can still complete what must be done.”

King Osis turned back to Herna. “I have one trading opportunity. May I use it now?”

The Lake Nymph remembered Osis’s previous question about his most precious possession. Assuming he wanted to trade it, she said, “But your former body is in the Wisdom Palace garden in the God-Descended City. You must be able to obtain it before you can trade it.”

King Osis’s most precious thing was, of course, his former body, the shell buried in the palace of the God-Descended City.

Though it had long since petrified, its value still exceeded ordinary imagination.

Osis shook his head. “No, I am not trading something away. I want to place something here with you, to be bartered for later.”

Herna nodded. “What is it you want to place here for barter?”

“And what will be the price for its exchange?”

Osis told Herna, “The item is Akmanmon’s sealed coffin. As for the price…”

King Osis worried that if he set a price, someone else might quickly claim the coffin. He could set a price that no ordinary person could pay, but then a future version of himself might not be able to retrieve it either.

After thinking it over, he had an idea.

“The price will be the body of the last King of Yinsai. My former body.”

“Then, perhaps one day in the future, I will personally come to reclaim what I have stored here.”

Herna’s eyes rolled upward in confusion.

“You want to use your own thing to exchange for your own thing?”

“That’s very strange.”

Herna had never heard of such a request. “But this isn’t a place for you to store things for free. What happens if your item is never exchanged?”

Herna wanted to ask if it would then belong to her.

Though she didn’t know what this Akmanmon’s sealed coffin was exactly, it must surely be a great treasure.

King Osis told Herna, “One thousand years. The barter must be completed within one thousand years, or it will lose its meaning.”

Because after one thousand years, the King of Ghouls inside the coffin would die, and a new Akmanmon would be born. By then, the coffin would be worthless.

Herna tilted her head. “One thousand years isn’t very long.”

Herna had spent time among beings like Spirits and Wood Nymphs, listening to countless legends of divine entities and even witnessing some herself.

These experiences had altered her perception of time, despite her own youth.

This was especially true given that the flow of time in the Divine Kingdom of Creation was different from the mortal world, making their sense of it stranger still.

Herna cupped her face in her hands and made a thoughtful hmm sound.

It reminded her of a joke Osis had once made. She let the silence stretch, waiting until Osis grew anxious, fearing something might go wrong in the mortal world. Only then did she smile and speak.

“I agree.”

King Osis breathed a sigh of relief. At that moment, his consciousness began to detach from the Lake Nymph’s Barter Dream.

Suddenly, he asked a question he had always wanted to ask.

“Is this the Divine Kingdom of Creation?”

Osis looked around, his mind racing with speculation.

The Lake Nymph told him, “This is my Barter Dream. I can’t let you enter the Divine Kingdom of Creation.”

“However, the scene you are seeing is the Spirit Lake from the Divine Kingdom of Creation.”

King Osis turned his head, looking toward the peculiar sun in the sky.

“The God-Given Land must be there!”

That place was the Creator’s dwelling, the temple of the Supreme Divine Being, and also the homeland of the Trilobite People.

Unfortunately, they could never return.

Like the sun of the present world, His radiance arrives each day, but He Himself remains forever out of reach.

The image gradually faded until it disappeared from view.

In the depths of the Dark Domain, the Abyss cultist clutched the Bronze Oil Lamp as he inched forward. Opening the domain had clearly come at a terrible cost. Half of his body was already scorched into blackened charcoal, because the lamp oil burned by the Bronze Oil Lamp was himself.

However, his eyes at this moment held only madness, along with his master’s mission.

He passed through the strange pool of blood on the ground and stood before the sealed coffin.

“The King of Ghouls,” he whispered. “The path to godhood.”

“Master, you will ascend to true divinity.”

The eyes behind his mask were filled with extreme madness. To him, the sealed coffin was the very path to divinity itself.

Just as his hand was about to touch the coffin, which was bound by Abyssal Magic Gold chains, an intense light suddenly erupted from the pool of blood. A mysterious force coiled itself around the coffin.

The surface of the blood began to shimmer, reflecting an entirely different scene. In that moment, the sealed coffin sank into the reflection, disappearing from reality in the blink of an eye.

“What is happening?”

The Abyss cultist froze, the eyes behind his mask dilating in blank confusion.

Even the three kings within the Abyss all rushed out together.

Unfortunately, before they could charge into the Dark Domain, they were blocked by a powerful force.

The Dark Domain could not withstand their descent either.

This did not, however, prevent them from transmitting their power. They struck out simultaneously, trying to stop the sealed coffin from being taken.

“Attack!”

“Stop it!”

But it had no effect whatsoever. That strange Power of Law was completely unaffected by them.

Akmanmon’s sealed coffin disappeared along with the ripples. Even its reflection could no longer be seen.

The King of Wrath, Dark Moon, recognized the power instantly. “The Law of Space?”

The King of Lust, Melde, remembered something. A black-haired young girl wearing a flower wreath and holding a colorful branch had once come before her, but she had refused the offer. “A Wood Nymph?” she muttered.

It was not just any Wood Nymph, but an extremely powerful one. The Storage Nymph, Saint Raphael.

In this place between reality and illusion, a domain shaped by the Dream Realm, not even a demigod could seize treasure from Saint Raphael’s grasp.

“What is happening?”

“Why would a Wood Nymph intervene?”

“They can’t interfere randomly. Someone must have offered it to them.”

“But who?”

Shock and doubt filled the Abyss cultist and the three Abyss Kings. They had no idea what had just occurred.

The King of Wrath, silent until now, wore an expression that shifted between dark and light. He gripped his sword hilt tightly, furious that he had not anticipated such an outcome.

It had been right within his grasp, only to be defeated by a single Dream Vine leaf.

At that moment, the Abyss cultist realized the pool of blood beneath him was surging upward, accumulating layer upon layer.

Just as he was about to cry out, he was pulled into the pool of blood by an enormous force.

Ah!

He only managed to let out a single scream before falling silent.

The vast quantity of blood instantly gathered and condensed into an egg, finally transforming into a human figure.

It was no longer the body of a snake person, but an existence with God’s Form being born from within.

The Trilobite Symbiote, Osis.

The King of Wrath cast his gaze from the abyss toward the Dark Domain. He, the other two kings, and countless Abyss Monsters all fixed their eyes upon the resurrected Osis.

“You’re not dead yet?”

The moment the King of Wrath, Dark Moon, finished speaking, he immediately prepared to strike.

But his hand pressing on the sword hilt suddenly stopped. He seemed to have discovered something, looking gravely toward where Osis stood.

The King of Pride, Jokic, and the King of Lust, Melde, also saw enchanting red flowers blooming one after another from the pool of blood.

Their expressions changed as they sensed something was wrong.

“Blood Mist Cups.”

“Has the Scarlet Goddess arrived?”

The Scarlet Goddess had not arrived. Rather, the automatic program of the Blood Kingdom, which welcomed the rebirth and return of Trilobite Symbiotes, had been activated.

A Trilobite Symbiote’s mortal body could be destroyed in the mortal world, but its essence was indestructible.

That is, unless one possessed the strength to challenge the power of a divine being.

The petals of the Blood Mist Cups opened one by one, finally transforming into a sea of flowers.

And Osis stood within that sea of flowers.

The flowers of the divine kingdom had come to welcome him, welcoming the wanderer’s return home.

The Trilobite Symbiote Osis looked toward the three Abyss Kings. “Next time,” he said, his voice cold, “it won’t be like this.”

The three Abyss Kings sensed that this was not a divine descent. Without hesitation, they struck out at Osis simultaneously.

Black mud, thick and terrifying, poured down like a torrential flood. The domain of bones expanded, covering everything in its path. Above, the wheel of fierce flames began its descent, blazing with an intense heat.

In response, Osis hurled a Bronze Oil Lamp forward. It was the very artifact he had just seized from the hands of that Abyss cultist.

The moment the Bronze Oil Lamp was flung out, it erupted, creating a dark curtain to block the way. An instant later, it was overwhelmed by the power of the three Abyss Kings.

BOOM!

The dark curtain was instantly pierced and torn apart.

At the same time, the Dark Domain shattered, and reality rushed back in.

Osis turned around and gazed at the distant City of Fire Protection.

He knew he should return to the Blood Kingdom.

However, before making his way back, there was one last thing he wanted to do.

The sea of flowers enveloping Osis had already broken through the Dark Domain and vanished from sight.

He was never to be seen again.

The Dark Domain vanished. The boundary connecting the abyss and the mortal world was completely severed.

Deep within the abyss, at the shattered opening of the dark giant egg, the three Abyss Kings stood side by side.

They remained silent and speechless.

After a long while, the King of Lust, Melde, spoke, “Divine species.”

It was as if she had said this a second time, but this time the meaning seemed completely different.

The King of Pride’s eyes revealed an intense unwillingness to accept defeat. “The power of the divine.”

The King of Wrath turned and departed, no longer looking outside. He was pondering a single question.

“Where did Akmanmon obtain The Path of Wisdom?”