Chapter 2231: Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Seventy-Six: Dragon-Language Spell: Sword of Light

"Alright, then I'll just wait to encounter those illusions."

Xia De nodded. His feet made sounds as they stepped on the gravel, but the lady beside him did not; by now he was drenched in sweat, and his breathing had grown heavy and audible, yet the lady beside him remained perfectly composed.

"I actually have one last question—truly the last one... Why have you appeared here? What do you want to do?"

Such a question was naturally somewhat presumptuous; Xia De only dared to ask it after thinking it through.

Fortunately, the deity was not angered. The brown-skinned lady smiled and countered:

"What do you think?"

Since the god had posed a question, Xia De had to answer:

"Grandmother Signord believes in the Tree Father. Miss Sandel is a mermaid, and her status shouldn't be low; I happen to know that mermaids always believe in gods of the ocean lineage. Miss Knight is just an ordinary person, but I heard her prayer earlier—her deity is connected to justice.

The faiths of those three have nothing to do with you. You didn't come because of them—at least that's my current inference... Illusions... You want to use illusions to strengthen your power? No, no, it's too naive of me to consider such things from a mortal's perspective... The Oasis Heart is also useful to your followers? Of course, this is only a guess."

The god did not evaluate whether Xia De's guess was correct, and continued with a smile:

"Since you've asked about my purpose in coming here, what do you plan to do in this desert?"

"The most important thing is definitely finding the Oasis Heart."

Xia De was panting heavily as he climbed the dune alongside the lady. The slope of the dune was absurdly steep; he practically had to use both hands and feet to ascend, while the brown-skinned lady merely bent slightly to keep her balance. Though it felt somewhat sacrilegious, the saintly body she was using really did have an excellent figure.

"Wait, have I been corrupted by desire? Why am I thinking about this now?"

He shook his head slightly:

"But besides that, there are three other things now. The first is the sun. Next time I plan to bring my cat and see how it reacts to that altar. Since I was able to receive a blessing from it, my cute cat at home should be able to as well."

Talking while climbing the dune was even more physically taxing. Xia De actually wanted to take off his clothes—after all, he wouldn't get sunburned now—but obviously he couldn't do that:

"The second additional thing is light. The light in this desert is very strange; maybe I can figure out what's peculiar about it."

He bent down, grabbed a handful of sand, held it close to his eyes, and laughed:

"As expected, the sand itself is glowing too. Actually, everything here is glowing—not just reflecting and refracting. It's very similar to what's happening around me."

"Then what's the third additional thing?"

The well-figured Mist God asked again, without making the slightest move to help Xia De walk easily through the desert.

Xia De panted a few times before answering:

"I have a unique miracle: Dragon's Roar. It lets me record exactly one dragon-language spell. I recorded one a few days ago, but I didn't dare use it in the ordinary world, to avoid causing too much commotion and bringing trouble."

He paused to catch his breath evenly:

"It's really hot. But here I don't have to worry about disturbing others, so I can try out the effect of that dragon language.

I can't be certain whether this is actually a spell, but I really did record it... Golden thunder split down from the sky onto the clock tower, the hero raised the Sword of Light to face the demon... That dragon roar at the time, probably many people will never forget it for the rest of their lives."

"For mortals, especially ordinary people, the spiritual contamination of Dragon's Roar itself is indeed difficult to eradicate."

The god commented, then smiled and encouraged Xia De:

"Try it now. Before we reach our destination, this can count as entertainment."

So the two of them stopped walking together. On the golden dune, Xia De closed his eyes, raised his head toward the sun, took a deep breath, and his ring of fate appeared from behind through the unusually scorching steam mist.

Miracle—【Echo】 and Blasphemy—【Dragon】 bloomed with spiritual light together, but under the dazzling sunlight they weren't particularly radiant.

Using the miracle Dragon's Roar, Xia De made a sound toward the sun:

"Roar~"

The dragon language shook the air, causing changes in spirit and elements. No golden thunder split down from the sky—the cloudless sky was hardly likely to thunder.

Only warm, gentle light gathered toward Xia De's right hand. When Xia De looked down at his hand, he was unmistakably holding a great sword of golden light.

The great sword's design was extremely similar to 【Moonlight Great Sword】, except the translucent blade was emitting something that was absolutely not moonlight. That supreme, blazing light, along with the ancient sun-thorn patterns on the blade, together declared what this truly was:

"Hmm... Sunlight Great Sword?"

Xia De said doubtfully, swinging the sword a few times in his hand, then suddenly leaping up and slashing toward the distant sea of sand.

The golden, blazing sword-mark cut through the air, flying toward a place beyond sight. After landing, Xia De looked again at the sword in his hand, swung it a few more times, then looked at the deity.

The light-brown-skinned lady smiled at him, barefoot, and continued leading Xia De onward:

"Do you have an answer now?"

Xia De looked thoughtful:

"Yes. The spell that dragon roar represents lets me condense light into a sword under light. Under sunlight it's the Sunlight Great Sword, under moonlight it's the Moonlight Great Sword, under strange lights it's a strange great sword. Looking at it this way, the origins of 【Sunlight Great Sword】 and 【Moonlight Great Sword】 really might be connected to that sword of the Dragon God."

He used the great sword in his hand as a staff to walk across the sand:

"Although I expected I wouldn't be able to summon that ancient god's sword through this, the great sword summoned through this dragon-language spell seems much weaker than the 【Moonlight Great Sword】 I cast myself."

Xia De certainly didn't know 【Sunlight Great Sword】 before this, but he had seen the thirteen-ring sorcerer from Tobesk, Mr. Hoger Lundel the "Sunlight Great Sword," use this miracle, and had also heard Yi Lu Na—who was devoted to learning this miracle—describe the specific power of 【Sunlight Great Sword】.

Simply put, the "Sunlight Great Sword" summoned through the dragon-language spell was far weaker than any form of 【Moonlight Great Sword】 Xia De cast himself, and casting the latter didn't require the hassle of roaring.

As he spoke, Xia De's left hand summoned a silver Moonlight Great Sword from the void. When that pure, radiant moonlight and the gorgeous blade appeared, even the deity turned to look.

Xia De raised both weapons high with his left and right hands, wondering whether he might be the first ring-sorcerer to hold both kinds of great swords at once, then suddenly struck them together in the air.

After a clang~, there was no shattering of the golden great sword as expected—only silver and golden fragments sprayed in all directions, quickly merging back into the blazing sunlight.

"But the advantage of the Dragon's Roar spell is that when the light I borrow is strong enough, the summoned great sword is also enhanced. For example, in an environment like this, the power of the Sunlight Great Sword is actually already very close to the Moonlight Great Sword. It's just that obviously, the light in this desert won't appear in reality."

Xia De said, dismissing both weapons at the same time, and continued following the deity forward. He was very politely trailing half a step behind the lady, rather than walking beside her.

The god then commented:

"The dragon roar you imitated is actually the sound that ancient Dragon God made in the Second Epoch—an echo lingering in the material world. If your body and soul weren't strong enough, and if your miracle didn't originate from the Tree Father, even you would have no possibility of making Dragon's Roar work in human form."

"You mean I'd get better results using this dragon-language spell in dragon form... Then is it possible that, through this spell, I could ultimately truly summon that sword? After all, this is only my first practice."

Seeing that the deity didn't mind offering guidance, Xia De asked again.

But the light-brown-skinned lady simply smiled and didn't answer the question. So Xia De didn't press further, and thought that since his "Transformation Form" would be restored by the Tree Father when he returned to the Sixth Epoch, he might as well try it before leaving this time.

He continued following the deity deeper into the desert. Earlier at the Sun Temple, Miss Meist had said that walking faster, they could reach the destination in fifteen minutes, but when Xia De saw the ruins half-buried in yellow sand through the heat-shimmering air in the distance, his own sense was that only ten minutes had passed since departure.

The blazing sun made it impossible for evil spirits and other creatures to survive, so no monsters appeared to block the way near the ruins. When Xia De followed the deity closer, he indeed found it to be an extremely standard temple complex.

Among the third-year courses at St. Byrons were classes on ancient architecture, especially temple architecture. Xia De made a quick assessment and identified the locations of the main hall and the entrance.

The deity had no intention of standing aside and letting Xia De find the clues on his own. After entering the ruins, She was still leading the way. When the two of them reached the core of the ruins—the spot where the temple's main hall should have been—She stopped, raised Her foot, and gently tapped the sand like grains of gold with Her right big toe:

"Last time when I came with the elf, she discovered something beneath here."

Saying this, She stepped back two paces. Xia De nodded, closed his eyes to sense the space, and after confirming there was no large cavity beneath the ruins, he summoned the "Moonlight Greatsword" once more and used the sword to dig through the sand.

Soon, half a stone stele buried beneath the yellow sand appeared before Xia De's eyes. He crouched down and carefully cleaned the stele out of the sand. Trying out 【Toy Making】 on it and finding it useful, he turned it into a toy, planning to decipher it after returning to the temple.

"Over here too."

The brown-skinned lady continued to lead the way. After winding past the broken walls and crumbling remains, she stopped behind an earthen wall that was only half a person's height tall:

"There's something inside the wall, near the surface of the sand."

"Alright—Stone to Mud."