Chapter 171

As the Feathered Serpent God slew his enemies and survived, covered in wounds, the initial battlefield scene—triggered by the Feathered Serpent God's words brimming with cruel slaughter—and the resonance it stirred across vast spacetime, dispersed.

People sank into silence.

No one spoke; their gazes toward the Feathered Serpent God had changed.

Those wounds, in their eyes, were no longer grotesque or terrifying—they inspired awe, even honor!

A Chuan and the others snapped back to reality, their faces instantly ashen; the hope kindled by the arrival of the Seven Angels shattered in an instant.

The terrifying power displayed by the Feathered Serpent God was suffocating.

Even without that, as a superior, reading expressions and tone was basic skill—they could hear it clearly in his voice: he was not afraid of the Seven Angels at all; there was condescension, a questioning disdain, as if to say: Do you dare block me? Are you tired of living?

Their legs turned boneless; A Chuan and the other high-ranking officials collapsed to the ground. Though clad in thick coats, they still felt cold—cold to the marrow, trembling with dread.

In contrast to A Chuan's group's panic, Mexico in Beimeizhou and nations worldwide were shaken, cries of shock rising and falling without pause.

"The gods of Aztec mythology, the gods of the Inca Empire… all dead?!" Director Takahashi's eyes brimmed with unparalleled shock.

The final phrase shouted by the Feathered Serpent God in the initial battlefield scene echoed in everyone's minds—unforgettable, unerasable.

It was merely one sentence, yet the weight of information it carried was enough to shake the entire globe.

Though gods had now returned and online discourse overflowed with divine and mythological content, making people understand myths and gods better than ever before, they now knew that "Indigenous American mythology" actually referred to three distinct mythologies.

It was precisely these three mythologies that formed the grand tapestry of Indigenous American mythology.

Yet now it was discovered that two of the three great mythologies' gods had been wiped out entirely—this shock struck like a sledgehammer to the skull, shattering nerves, halting all thought, leaving minds blank, dizzy, and numb.

"The gods are all dead," murmured an elderly Mexican religious figure, his gaze lost, slumped on the ground, desolate, on the verge of tears.

Mexico, too, was a nation steeped in divine culture, and the mythology it passed down and worshipped was Aztec mythology—thus holding greater reverence for Aztec mythology than any other.

Yet the gods of Aztec mythology were all dead…

"O gods!!"

Thinking of how the Aztec gods had fought on the initial battlefield to protect their people, how they never retreated, fighting until every last god perished, the religious elder could no longer hold back his tears.

In the Superhuman Response Department's conference room, silence pressed heavily; Director Takahashi and the others stared at the documents on the table.

Since China had shown no anomalies, Murakami Murakami had investigated every nation with mythology, seeking to determine whether all myth-bearing nations had divine anomalies upon the gods' return, and whether any, like China, had mythology without anomalies.

They discovered that not all myth-bearing nations had divine anomalies—many had mythology but no divine signs.

"Could it be that the gods of those mythologies never returned, just like the Aztec gods?" asked Minister Saito.

No one answered—but not because they couldn't; because they silently accepted it.

The horrific scene of the initial battlefield had been witnessed by all; they understood clearly: even gods perished there, and this alone proved… the gods of the unreturned mythologies had almost certainly died on the initial battlefield.

Surviving such a battlefield was too difficult.

Their eyes flicked to the comparison chart prepared by Murakami Murakami, tallying divine anomaly counts against the total number of global mythologies.

The latter outnumbered the former by over twenty…

Director Takahashi and the others felt their hearts tremble—over twenty mythologies' gods had been annihilated? How many gods had perished?

Grief welled within them; sighs never ceased.

What Director Takahashi and the others realized, many across nations also realized, and they too sighed in sorrow.

For thousands of years, gods had fought for their people, dying until none remained—yet humanity knew nothing, unaware that gods had secured centuries of peace behind them, unaware that wave after wave of gods had fallen, buried in foreign lands unseen, unacknowledged, unmourned.

"Perhaps more than that," Professor Beishan suddenly said.

His meaning was clear: perhaps more than twenty, for as time passed, countless mythologies vanished into history, forgotten by the world, uncountable because no evidence or records of their existence remained.

But what if the gods of those mythologies had also existed? What if they too had fought on the initial battlefield?

How tragic that would be.

Gods fought on the initial battlefield, while behind them, time changed, and their mythologies were forgotten—yet they still fought silently, perishing unseen, dying without leaving behind myth, name, or trace.

Even!

People had never known such a mythology existed, such gods had ever been.

At that moment, Director Takahashi and the others recalled the return anomaly of the Greek gods: the first-generation Earth goddess Gaia, the second-generation Twelve Titans—none reappeared in the divine anomaly until the third-generation Olympian gods emerged.

If one traced the history of those mythologies, the initial battlefield must have existed for an immeasurably long time.

Unconsciously, Director Takahashi and the others shuddered violently.

"When exactly did the initial battlefield begin?"

If traced back, it must stretch to a distant past, existing long before recorded time—if true, how many gods had perished over those ages? A flood of curiosity and confusion surged within Director Takahashi and the others.

When did the initial battlefield come into existence?

What caused its emergence?

"Have all the gods of Chinese mythology also perished?" asked Minister Saito abruptly. Judging from the Feathered Serpent God's words in the anomaly, unreturned mythological gods were almost certainly dead—so were China's gods the same?

He felt Chinese gods were different from other unreturned mythological gods; they didn't seem like gods who had all died.

This wasn't baseless speculation or intuition—he had grounds: satellite images of Asia showed only China's region untouched by the radiance of any gods, uniquely distinct, standing out alone.

Others turned to look, their eyes flickering—they shared Minister Saito's thought.

"I think…"

"Look quickly!" Professor Zhongtian interrupted.

All instantly turned to the large screen.

Earth. Beimeizhou.

Under the gaze of millions, the seven angels, bathed in holy light, looked toward the Feathered Serpent God. They did not answer his words, but said:

"Most of them are believers of Heaven."

Was this surrender? Were they afraid?

No time to wonder why the angels avoided direct reply—the Feathered Serpent God's voice, vast as thunder, resounded with overwhelming slaughter.

"So what?"

……