Chapter 193: Don't Let Them Steal the Light

The petrification layer on its body kept cracking apart, revealing the fair, petite, and delicate Seraphim beneath; the moment its mouth could move, the very first thing that came out was a furious roar: "#%￥…#@￥*"

That outburst left everyone dumbfounded. Loser thought he had misheard, so he turned to Lisa beside him and asked: "Great-great-grandmother, was it just now greeting someone? Greeting the Gods of Light?"

Lisa couldn't be bothered with the matter of address anymore, and said in disbelief: "It… it seems so."

If this were at the entrance to a vegetable market, with a Minotaur auntie greeting someone that way, it would feel perfectly natural; but for a six-winged Archangel to bellow such vulgar words was truly jaw-dropping.

Everyone was stunned by that roar, staring blankly as the petrification layer fell away.

The six-winged Archangel kept its weapon-slung pose and continued to bellow: "Prepare to die! You evil gods — is life really so cheap in your eyes!"

But right away, something felt off. It looked down: "Eh, where's my cannon?"

It checked both hands, then flicked the bracelets on its wrists. The two unremarkable bracelets clicked and clacked as they transformed, rapidly assembling into a crossbow-shaped weapon — but the bow-frame was a cylindrical weapon — the Petrified Bow.

At the same time, it spread its wings, a pair of black-feathered wings, and four streams of black holy flame burst from the base of the wings, forming four black light-wings.

The black holy flame poured into the Petrified Bow, and the energy reaction on the bow's body rapidly intensified.

But when it raised its head, it immediately froze, loosened its grip on the Petrified Bow, and obediently raised its hands — because twelve Guardian Gods had surrounded it on all sides, ready to tear it to shreds at any moment.

"I… did I get teleported here? I… I didn't do it on purpose." The six-winged Archangel held its hands up, ducked its head, and said timidly.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si poked his head out from far away and called out loudly: "Hello, your name is Seraphim Luna, right? Do you remember what happened?"

Just like the God of Balance, she was a bit groggy from sleep. Only after Lord Nai Ge Li Si asked her this did she blink her eyes: "Let me think… I used the Light of Petrification to blast the Balance God with one shot. Where's the Balance God? Where is this place? Twelve Guardian Gods — this is the world transit station of the Undying Empire!?"

"Why did you blast the God of Balance?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si continued to ask.

"He betrayed the Light!" Seraphim Luna said without a moment's hesitation: "They betrayed the Light! And they killed my pet."

Xia Mala's whole body trembled, and an excited look appeared on her face — the excitement of meeting a kindred spirit.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si was taken aback. Why did she have to specifically mention killing her pet? Why did she seem even more agitated when talking about the pet?

"The Balance God is behind you," Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

Turning her head, Seraphim Luna saw the God of Balance inside the Undying Coffin, with only his face exposed.

"Evil god, look at you now." Seraphim Luna clenched her small fist, itching to go up and punch him, but in the end she held herself back.

Shifting her attention away from the God of Balance, Seraphim Luna's gaze fell on Lord Nai Ge Li Si. She frowned as if she had recognized something, and asked tentatively: "God of Knowledge?"

Now it was Lord Nai Ge Li Si's turn to be bewildered: "You know me?"

"Of course I do. I know every god whose name can be spoken." After saying this, she frowned and asked in confusion: "How did you get so thin?"

"…Can this even be called thin?"

"Not only thinner, your very life-form has changed — you've become a corpse dragon. The last news I had about you was that you were captured by Jian Gu Luo Ke, so you were killed by Jian Gu, and your soul stuffed into a young dragon's body?" Seraphim Luna asked.

"He didn't kill me, just imprisoned me," Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

"Ah, do they also like keeping pets?" Seraphim Luna asked curiously.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si nearly spat out a mouthful of old blood — had he really been downgraded to a pet?

"What's the current situation? Is this the world transit station? Twelve Guardian Gods — how did they get so dilapidated? Has it really been many years? How many years have passed?" Seraphim Luna asked.

"A thousand years," Lord Nai Ge Li Si replied.

"A thousand years? That long? The Balance God wasn't rescued on the spot — did something happen to the gods? What happened?" As Seraphim Luna asked, she looked around, and quickly spotted the inverted Heavenly Kingdom in the sky.

Although the vertical landing point was the Demon Valley, the Sacred Heavenly Kingdom was simply too massive — like a satellite, its shadow could almost be seen from anywhere in the Abyss.

"The Heavenly Kingdom is descending? What's going on? Why has the descent of the Heavenly Kingdom stopped — is it stuck?" Seraphim Luna asked.

"Yes, it's stuck," Lord Nai Ge Li Si answered honestly. In his heart, he had already formed some guesses about this Seraphim Luna.

"If it's stuck, it could pull back, but it hasn't pulled back now — the Heavenly Kingdom has lost control. Hahaha, snatching the control key was indeed useful." Seraphim Luna burst into laughter.

"Control key?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si exclaimed.

"It's the key that controls the Sacred Heavenly Kingdom. Without it, the Heavenly Kingdom runs according to its preset patterns — even if it gets stuck, it won't retreat… Wait, no, it's been a thousand years. If I had just snatched the control key, it might still be stuck, but a thousand years have passed — surely someone must have solved the control key problem? Unless all the Gods of Light are dead."

Seraphim Luna muttered to herself, then arrived at a conclusion she herself could hardly believe, and turned her gaze to Lord Nai Ge Li Si for confirmation.

"Whether they're dead or not, I don't know, but all the Gods of Light have vanished — only the God of Balance remains. Originally I wanted to interrogate him about the whereabouts of the Gods of Light, but after hearing you say this, I suddenly sense something's wrong. Could it be that when you were petrified, the Gods of Light were still around?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

The Gods of Light had vanished?

Not only the Archangel Seraphim Luna, but even the God of Balance inside the Undying Coffin showed a look of shock.

Seeing their expressions, Lord Nai Ge Li Si knew it was all over — the hope of getting answers about the Gods of Light and the Undying Sovereign from them had been shattered.

"So, you invaded the Heavenly Kingdom and brought us out?" Seraphim Luna guessed.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si nodded: "I think I know who you are now — the Supreme Seraph, the Cherub. So your name is Seraphim Luna."

There are three Supreme Seraphs: the Cherub, the Seraph, and the Throne. However, there is already conclusive evidence proving that at least one Supreme Seraph died at the hands of Jian Gu Luo Ke — from the records of the Purple Bone clan, it was very likely the Seraph.

The Cherub is the highest-intelligence representative among the Seraphim Angels, these weapons of war — the ones who command and direct battles are basically all Cherubs. Who would have thought one had actually fallen, and even betrayed the Gods of Light.

"A name is just a code." Seraphim Luna did not deny the guess. Her gaze fell on Xia Mala, and she asked: "You — why are you the same as me?"

Xia Mala said: "The gods betrayed me, betrayed the Light."

Seraphim Luna showed a surprised expression: "I didn't expect a mortal to have the wisdom to see through this. You're not bad."

As Seraphim Luna spoke, the light-wings on her back folded in, transforming into a ball of light.

She raised her hand and tossed the ball of light toward Xia Mala: "A gift for you. The gods call our power the Power of Falling — don't believe it. Power has no distinction between noble and fallen. As long as we have the ability to define holy light, then light can be colorful."

Then she slid the bracelets off her wrists and tossed them to the ground, reached back and tore off the folded true wings from her back and tossed them to the ground, and then punched a fist into her chest, pulled out a palm-sized disc, and tossed that to the ground as well.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si was dumbfounded: "What are you doing?"

"I don't have much time left. These things are for you. If you can, please destroy the Gods of Light — don't let these guys steal the light anymore." Seraphim Luna said.

Not much time left? Lord Nai Ge Li Si took a careful look, and sure enough, Seraphim Luna's body was turning to ash — only very slightly, so subtle you couldn't tell unless you looked closely.

"Uh, what's going on?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si was somewhat bewildered.

"I'm injured. My Seraph Heart was shattered — I can't hold on much longer. I didn't expect the Light of Petrification to seal me until a thousand years later. It's all yours, no point wasting it." Seraphim Luna said nonchalantly.

"Then why don't you give it to her?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si pointed at Xia Mala: "You should share the same characteristics."

Seraphim Luna shook her head: "She can't bear my power, and she can't protect these things either."

As Seraphim Luna spoke, the speed of her body turning to ash kept accelerating, producing visible motes of flying ash.

Nai Ge Li Si quickly asked, "Why would you say they mustn't be allowed to steal the light anymore?"

"Light should be warm and something people yearn for. The light those evil gods defined isn't like that at all. My understanding of light is completely different from what they had me do. Until one day, I woke up — but they said I had fallen. Ha — no, it was they who had fallen. They mustn't be allowed to keep defining light so recklessly, otherwise the whole world will plunge into darkness…"

As she spoke, the ashification of Seraphim Luna's body grew faster and faster; in some places bone was already showing.

"The world won't fall into darkness. A thousand years have passed, and the Gods of Light have vanished — probably because they did something bad and got slapped dead by the Sovereign." Nai Ge Li Si said.

"Ha, that would be for the best. Now that I think back on it, the Undying Sovereign is the one most fit to define light. He… gave everyone hope…" As these words left her, Seraphim Luna's flesh and hair all vanished into the air, leaving only a spotless skeleton. Crack — it scattered across the ground.

Gave everyone hope? What does that mean? Hey, hey, hey — don't stop talking halfway!

"The Petrification Bow? A weapon that can even petrify gods?" Nai Ge Li Si picked up the pair of bracelets, flipped them over a few times, and tossed them to Seeing Ange.

Seeing Ange slipped them onto his hand-bones — a perfect fit. Although his hands were only bones, Seraphim Luna had only been about one-point-four meters tall, so her wrists were about the same thickness as his bones. Besides, the thing came with an adaptive function: pour in a little Holy Light and it would cling snugly to the hand-bones.

He kept pouring Holy Light in; the bracelets went crack-crack as they reshaped, and soon they took the form of a cylindrical crossbow. But after Seeing Ange drew the bowstring, he realized — there were no arrows.

"No arrows." Seeing Ange pointed at the Petrification Bow.

Nai Ge Li Si leaned his head over to study it for a while, then said, "The Petrification Bow shouldn't need arrows. Look — there are a few gems here. You pour Holy Light in, they should light up. Once all the gems are lit, it can fire."

"Oh." Seeing Ange bowed his head and poured Holy Light in.

"Awoo!" The little angel let out a pitiful cry, pointing at the angel's true wings on the ground.

"Awoo!" Seeing Ange shook his head.

The little angel already had a pair of true wings — ones dug up in the Purple Bones Plane, about the same size as this pair, very likely a Seraph's true wings.

"Awoo!"

"Awoo!" (Not giving them.)

"Awoo~" Crestfallen.

In the end, Nai Ge Li Si picked up that palm-sized disc: "Is this the control key to the Holy Heaven?"

Lisa and Luther all crowded over curiously: "With this control key, can we control the Heaven?"

"Probably not — it can't be that simple. At most this is just a key to open the control room, like the door key to our relay station's control room."

"Does our control room door even have a key?"

"Uh, no. Can my lord's hand count as a key?"

"What's the point of saying so much? Won't we know once we try? There's no one in the Holy Heaven anyway — let's go up and try." Someone suggested.

Nai Ge Li Si's heart surged. If their group could control the Holy Heaven, not to mention moving it — just receiving the faithful. Those devout believers, once received into the Heaven, step out and see a skeleton waiting up ahead to lead the way…

Hehe, the expressions on those believers' faces would surely be priceless.

No, no, no — just thinking about it is thrilling. That mischievous streak inside Nai Ge Li Si had surfaced again, and he just couldn't hold it down.

But very quickly, he thought of a very practical problem: "Without Voidfoam Stones, we can't get up there."

Coming back we can use the Heaven Stairway to project up, but how do we get up there? Without Voidfoam Stones, no one can carry the Wind of Repose and fly up to the Heaven.

"Where are there Voidfoam Stones?"

"They should be produced in some plane especially rich in wind element. Let's ask the Mercenary Guild later, or post a bounty."

After all the problems were dealt with, only one last trouble remained.

"How do we deal with him?" Everyone gathered around the God of the Scales, discussing.

Seeing Ange wasn't interested; he went on setting up the Petrification Bow by himself, pouring a full three hundred streams of Holy Light into it. The first gem of the Petrification Light finally lit up under his hand — four more to go.

No wonder it could even petrify the God of the Scales. Using Holy Light as the yardstick, its energy intensity was at least thirty times that of Holy Light Flash.

"Let's ask him about news of the Sovereign. If he doesn't know, chop him down." Someone suggested.

Nai Ge Li Si leaned over to the hole in the Undying Coffin and asked, "Do you know where the Undying Sovereign went? Where the Gods of Light went?"

The God of the Scales said calmly, "I don't know."

"Don't know? You don't even know that? Then you have no value — you'll get chopped down, you know." Nai Ge Li Si threatened.

The God of the Scales showed a disdainful expression: "Do you really think an Undying Coffin without the Undying Sovereign can hold a Lord God of Light captive?"

"What do you mean?" Nai Ge Li Si instantly grew alert.

Seeing Ange suddenly tossed aside the Petrification Bow in his hand, yanked Nai Ge Li Si out of the way in one motion, and his Locke's Hand trembled as he threw a punch straight into the God of the Scales' face.