Worlds’ Apocalypse Online

Boom!

A sun-like ball of scorching light continued to burn.

Under the destructive light of the spell, the entire library slowly collapsed and got burned to ash.

The warlock stood among the debris, incredibly angry.

Damn it!

A Divine Armament was taken!

I already know that a building under the blessing of Divinities can obscure my sense, but I didn’t think they would bury it inside the wall.

But now that I know about that——-

The warlock wielded his staff.

Under his manipulation, the ball of light shot off rays of light in all directions, striking the surrounding buildings.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

One by one, the structures collapsed.

But there were still so many buildings left and even more on the faraway mountain.

The warlock continued casting spells one after another.

The light of his spell illuminated the entire labyrinth structure.

Under the howling wind and snow, the scene of carnage continued.

—-until the door to the hallway opened once again.

The black-skinned man appeared.

The warlock stopped to look at him.

“Bastard, release my wife and child!” the black-skinned man shouted furiously.

The warlock coldly replied: “You were taken back here by the Divinities, what does that have to do with me?”

“You stole our souls and took control of our bodies” the black-skinned man gritted his teeth.

The warlock suddenly laughed: “The damned had died, the living will naturally live”

The black-skinned man was a bit surprised, unable to understand what he was saying.

He said nothing else and leapt forward, attacking the warlock.

On another side of the labyrinth.

Most structures here have already been levelled by the spells.

At a secluded area, a butterfly was hiding behind the branch of a certain tree.

It had pulled its wings back, tightly holding onto the backside of the leaf to make sure it wouldn’t be blown away by the gusts of snowy wind.

This was Gu Qing Shan.

He silently watched as the warlock destroyed the structures one by one until the black-skinned man arrived.

“The damned had died, the living will naturally live”

He silently pondered his statement.

What does ‘the damned had died’ mean?

And what is ‘the living’?

What standard is the creature using to determine if someone lives or dies?

While Gu Qing Shan was thinking about this, Little Dusk suddenly called out to him in his mind.

“Gu Qing Shan, if it destroys all the structures here, will the remaining two Divine Armaments also be destroyed?”

Little Dusk seemed a bit anxious.

Gu Qing Shan regained his focus and told her: “I heard that a warlock siphons their power for their spells from the Weave of Law, so each of their attacks is just as powerful as the last, enough to destroy everything”

Little Dusk was surprised: “So you knew? Wait a minute! When you took the Divine Armament, did you purposefully leave a trace to make it destroy the building?”

Gu Qing Shan replied: “Yeah, but I need it to be angry more than calm, because no matter who or what it is, when angered it will subconsciously reveal more about itself one way or another, allowing us to understand it better”

Little Dusk said: “Then what about these buildings? The Divine Armaments might have already bee——– no wait! You already know where the other two Divine Armaments are!”

Gu Qing Shan replied: “The second Divine Armament is right under the bell tower, and the creature just helped us level it to the ground. Over there, the second building on our left, it’s a product of alchemy that didn’t have an entrance, but there was a hidden underground path, and now we can go straight down from here instead”

Little Dusk: “You… used the creature to make an entrance…”

“Let’s go, time to get the second Divine Armament” Gu Qing Shan said.

The butterfly took a chance and lightly flapped its wings, landing on a snowflake that drifted towards the thick blanket of snow below.

Then the butterfly disappeared without a trace.

A mole appeared below the layer of snow.

It stopped breathing, rubbed its claws together to activate a presence concealment seal, then after a bit of hesitation, turned into a smaller ant.

The ant activated its skill in the direction of the bell tower.

It suddenly disappeared.

A snowflake appeared where the ant originally was while the ant replaced the snowflake, silently hiding beneath another thick blanket of snow.

From the outside, the snow seemed absolutely still as if nothing had happened at all.

Divine Skill, [Shadow Shift]!

Originally, the ant was already smaller than the tip of a nail, now that it has the reinforcement of the presence concealment seal, as well as using [Shadow Shift] to move, it was as good as nonexistent.

After moving once, the ant remained still.

It was staying close to the ground, silently listening.

On the other side of the labyrinth, the battle was becoming quite intense.

The warlock was quickly unable to endure the black-skinned man’s intense attacks, stepped back and turned back into a statue.

A second later, another Abyss of Sin warden appeared.

——–the creature had just changed bodies.

This time, it chose a slender shadowy assassin.

The assassin wielded two long daggers as he slowly crept up behind the black-skinned man in just a few steps.

A cold gleam.

Kih!

The dagger and tail stinger clashed with a sharp, ear-piercing sound.

The assassin snuck back into the shadow.

The man angrily roared and pursued.

The battle began anew.

On the other side.

The ant sat still underneath the snow, waiting for two breaths.

As soon as the assassin and the black-skinned man clashed again, the ant activated [Shadow Shift].

This time, it went directly where the bell tower once stood.

——–sure enough, a flight of stairs heading downward was right among the rubble.

The ant followed the stairs downwards.

But the path was long, after just a few minutes, it had become so steep it was almost a cliff.

The ant felt a bit impatient and leapt from the wall, free-falling down the path.

A few moments later, it landed on the ground at the bottom.

This place was a relatively primitive storage facility that contained various alchemy tools.

After countless years of wear and tear, these tools were already ancient and were in no state to be used again.

The ant nimbly avoided the tools as it crawled to the center of the storage and expanded its senses.

It quickly found what it came for.

An unassuming brick at a corner of the room.

The ant crawled over and touched the brick with its antennae to sense the aura of a creation of the Gods.

After confirmation, the ant slightly stepped back.

A sword suddenly appeared out of nowhere above the ant and lightly tapped the brick.

The brick let out a faint, invisible wave as if it was sensing what kind of creature the attack came from.

Sha!

Then the brick shattered into tiny grains of fine sand and fell to the ground.

A beautiful box about the size of a hand appeared.

Gu Qing Shan dispelled the [Mystery of All Beings Equal] and put the box away.

He took out a formation plate, arranged several presence concealment and trace erasure formations before setting up a warp formation.

After preparing everything, he took out the two boxes.

Two boxes.

One came from the library, while the other came from the bell tower.

Gu Qing Shan stared at the boxes and fell silent.

“What are you hesitating about?” Little Dusk asked doubtfully.

“I think something seems a bit strange” Gu Qing Shan told her.

“What is?”

“Little Dusk, you said that to seal this creature away, you had to exhaust your powers, that’s why you were restrained and sealed by the Divinities, is that right?”

“Yeah”

“That’s what seems strange” Gu Qing Shan slowly muttered, “back then, your powers exceeded that of the Divinities, yet you had to exhaust everything in order to seal the creature away—— but now, the Divinities are nowhere to be found, all that’s left are three Divine Armaments that doesn’t have an owner, so how could they seal the creature away?”

Little Dusk froze briefly before thinking: “Maybe during the years that I’ve been sealed, the seven Daemons became stronger and they could easily seal this creature away”

“That makes even less sense if the seven Daemons have become truly that strong, how did they die in the first place”

Saying so, Gu Qing Shan’s expression turned serious.

“Due to the lack of information, I can only assume one of three circumstances”

“Firstly, the seven Daemons aren’t actually dead, they have become so powerful that they can now easily seal this creature away. So why didn’t they appear? I think it might be because they have some sort of hidden agenda, so they hid in the shadow, preparing for something. Which means these three Divine Armaments are actually under their control, and that’s how they plan to seal the creature”

“Secondly, the seven Daemons aren’t actually dead, but they’re still the same as all those years ago and don’t have the power to seal the creature”

“Thirdly, the seven Daemons are already dead, their powers aren’t enough to fight against the more powerful sinful creatures that later showed up. According to this line of thought, we can assume that they didn’t actually become that much strong, which means they still aren’t as powerful as the past you”

“If it’s the first situation, we don’t need to do anything and simply do as we’re told; but if it’s the second or third situation, then these three Divine Armaments must have some sort of unknown use”

While talking, Gu Qing Shan had already opened the two boxes.

The two Divine Armaments silently laid inside.

Only one more until everything was done.

According to what the figure of light said, the creature will be sealed away again, and since Gu Qing Shan was the one to obtain the Divine Armaments, he will receive untold praises and honour ——— he will become a Demigod.

And Gu Qing Shan does in fact knew exactly where the third Divine Armament was hidden.

If it was anyone else, they would have already made a mad dash towards the final Divine Armament and quickly sealed the monster away.

But Gu Qing Shan didn’t do so.

He was staring at the two Divine Armament with a slightly anxious expression.

Seeing his expression, Little Dusk encouraged: “What are you worried about? Don’t worry about it. Divinities may like to make all sorts of hidden arrangements, but they wouldn’t bother to do anything against a mortal like yourself. In fact, they actually love mortals like you who help them seal away sinful creatures”

“You can’t think that way, Little Dusk. You had better remember well, we can never let our fate become dependent on the joy or sadness of anyone, not even a Divinity”

“…I’ll keep that in mind”

Gu Qing Shan muttered: “The current situation is one where we can’t guess what the Divinities are thinking, and we can’t determine what would happen after the three Divine Armaments are gathered, so we have to stop”

“We do?”

“Yep, we need to collect more information to reassess our current circumstance”