"There are still Heaven Demons here?"
Orson's brow tightened. The presence of Ancient Dragon God laws in this place was absolutely bad news for him.
Granted, he could tell these three laws weren't complete.
They were weak—only forbidding flight, teleportation, and resurrection. The Faith Store had plenty of high-end items that could do the same.
For instance, the advanced version of the Demon God's Banner, the Demon Sealing Diagram, sold for seventy million faith points and even negated damage reduction.
Since the Ancient Dragon Gods' laws affected him, it was likely they'd also constrain the Heaven Demons stuck here.
Orson looked up and his expression darkened. The corners of his mouth twitched.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Two suns blazed overhead, surrounded by a cluster of blue galaxies. It was obvious this place wasn't Earth.
No wonder he'd never unearthed Era of Immortals relics in the fused world…
As a self-styled veteran archaeologist, he'd always believed those artifacts were buried deep underground. Turned out he'd been dead wrong.
Madhorse and BlazeKing only entered the Era of Immortals after death. It was the same later, during the game's Hardcore Mode, when reality and the virtual world merged.
Under normal circumstances, beings powerful enough to move mountains and reshape continents should have left Earth drastically transformed. That had always been a puzzle that gnawed at Orson.
Now, seeing this foreign sky, he understood.
The answer was simple: those godlike titans had waged their wars in another world entirely.
What about the Radiant Shuttle tombs back on Earth, along with the piles of bones and weapons found inside? How did those get there?
If the tombs were built by the descendants, the Ten Overlords of the US, then…
Who transported all those remains and relics from this world?
That would be a colossal project spanning star systems. Even if humanity had interstellar travel now, it wouldn't have happened overnight.
"It must have been… them."
A chill ran through him. His thoughts returned to whoever had unleashed the Ocular Demon. Only someone who could open the Cycle Gate at will would have that capability.
He shook his head. Every time he thought he was close to solving the riddle, new mysteries sprang up like weeds. It was maddening.
Best to focus on the task at hand—securing the Heavenly Spirit's Heart.
He and Aeloria moved over a carpet of bones. The air here was stiflingly hot. The ridges surrounding the plain were barren, not a blade of grass in sight.
If not for the countless skeletons and the distant ruins of the Dragon Capital, he might have believed he was standing on Mars.
Luckily, his phoenix blood made him immune to the heat. Any other adventurer would have started losing health to burning damage before long.
After walking for quite some time, the bones underfoot thickened into drifts. Orson occasionally picked through them, studying scraps of metal and shattered gear.
"These really are a completely different system from the Infinite Dimensions era."
He tossed aside a broken ornament that had belonged to a "Sword Will Adept." It seemed to have once held some special effect.
He'd noticed the simpler gear often came from adventurers with the same base class: the Qi Cultivator.
All the fancy professions—Spirit Rune Master, Sword Will Adept—were just advanced evolutions of that core class.
"Qi Cultivators, huh. What, were they about to pop golden cores and become immortals?" Orson snorted with laughter.
Two eras of players, different systems, same endpoint: tools of the gods.
Only rare geniuses like the First Emperor, who earned the gods' acknowledgment, could break free of that fate.
Not that Orson found that path admirable in the least.
"This is taking forever."
An hour later, sweat streamed down his face despite the heat immunity.
He glanced at the enormous dead World Tree—still looming just as far away as before.
Then he checked his stamina and hunger bars and chuckled wryly.
A "frail" mage like him needed a mount. In Hardcore Mode, running everywhere would drain him to zero fast.
This wasn't Infinite Dimensions where exhaustion just shaved off a bit of health. In the fused world, starvation, dehydration, and fatigue could kill you for real.
No wonder supplies were so absurdly expensive.
Aeloria spoke up suddenly.
"Oh? I thought you were still mad. Feeling concerned for me?"
Orson flashed her a teasing grin. She shot him a sideways glare.
"I fear my master is utterly unprepared… and would die a meaningless death."
The double "utterly" left him stone-faced. Thoroughly worthless, in her eyes.
Before he could complain, she grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him onto her shoulder with brute force. Then she broke into a sprint.
"This—this isn't carrying! This is riding a warhorse…"
He squawked in shock, trying to wiggle around to adjust. Aeloria shut him down with a cold snap.
"Uh… sure, whatever you say."
His face turned bright red. If he still had any dignity, it was scattered in pieces all over the ground.
So there he was, legs dangling over her shoulders, bouncing through mountains of bones.
"Go get 'em, big bad dragon!"
Berenice popped her head out and cheered.
Aeloria bared her teeth, sending the tiny dragon egg retreating with a squeak.
But Orson noticed something off. The dragoness was tense, clutching her bone sword tightly, scanning the ground with wary, glowing eyes.
Something here had her spooked.
Before long, the bone piles rose into veritable hills. Aeloria had to leap hundreds of meters to find patches clear enough to land on.
Orson's eyes darted around. They'd reached a bizarre clearing. All around them were mounds of corpses, yet here the bones were strangely sparse.
At the center of the clearing knelt a massive skeleton over two meters tall. It rested on one knee, like it had died in mid-supplication.
Its bones gleamed gold, like a statue cast from molten metal. Only its right arm lay detached nearby, spoiling the eerie perfection.
Its skull was nothing like a human's—long, huge, with sword-like fangs.
Three gaping holes the width of bowls punctured its head, clearly where it had been struck by something far larger than arrows or spears.
Orson frowned and inspected it.
"Lower God of the Galaxy, Anubis, Divine Remains."
The words sprang up in gold letters. Orson nearly froze.
He glanced around, noting how countless sword points and shattered blades all seemed to aim at this spot.
A wild, terrifying thought formed.
All these countless adventurers… they had been slaughtering a god.
And judging by the scene… they'd won.
A jackal-headed Anubis. The very Egyptian god of death.
Orson's heart thundered. Was this where BlazeKing led Radiant Shuttle to turn against the gods? The site of their final battle?
His pulse raced. He muttered under his breath,
"A true god can be killed. This is the proof."
A divine corpse lay right in front of him. His mind spun.
If they could forge weapons from this… no, artifacts beyond artifacts… wouldn't that be perfectly logical?
But before he could try, Aeloria swung her sword.
The god's neck snapped apart, skull and body crashing down separately.
"What the hell was that for?" Orson spun on her, furious.
"I… I don't know. I couldn't stop myself."
She looked just as shocked, staring at her blade in confusion.
The corpse of Anubis crumbled. In seconds, it was nothing but drifting golden dust.
So much for that dream.
"I guess I was overthinking it. Once the god's dead, there's no divinity left."
But then something caught his eye.
"Wait… there's still something there."
Among the gold dust, Anubis's severed right hand remained. Its fingers clenched tight, as if holding onto something precious even in death.
Orson tentatively nudged it with the tip of his Supreme Arcane Blade.
The brittle bones shattered.
A fist-sized chunk of greenish metal clattered to the ground.
"You have discovered a fragment of the Tiamat Chaos Cauldron!"