Chapter 455: The Truth of the Great Destruction
"Back then, before he left, he left a prophecy deep within this Great Wall."
Zoey held tightly onto Aiden’s sleeve, as if she were holding the only torch in the endless darkness.
"He said that after a thousand years, the seal would eventually loosen. The claws of the Abyss would tear open the sky again, and Earth would face an even more terrible end."
"But one day, someone would come to me."
"That person would carry an aura like his own-maybe even stronger than his."
"He told me that I had to trust that person and help him, because he would carry the last hope of Earth."
Zoey stared hard at Aiden. The golden light in her eyes seemed bright enough to pierce the empty space in front of her.
"The aura on you... is exactly the same as what he described."
"Aiden, you are the one from his prophecy!"
Boom!
A loud roar exploded in Aiden’s mind. At that moment, the Strength inside his body seemed to answer some kind of call and began to surge wildly.
The 10,000x Critical Hit System, the mysterious Transmutation Altar, the Key of Destiny, and the Artifact Spirit of the Golden Great Wall before him...
All these heaven-defying chances, which had seemed completely unrelated before, finally connected into one clear line.
Yves.
This human Divine Emperor from a thousand years ago had already set up a shocking plan that crossed a full millennium before he fell-or before he left!
He had not been struggling just to stay alive.
He had been preparing for the next Great Destruction. For the future of humanity, he had personally forged the sharpest sword that could defy fate itself!
And Aiden was the chosen one meant to wield that sword.
Aiden took a deep breath and forced down the shock rolling through his heart like a storm. His gaze became sharp as lightning.
"Where did Yves go?"
Aiden’s voice was low, but it carried a power that allowed no doubt.
"With his strength, if he had lived until today, what would the ranking of the countless Abyss races even matter?"
"And... if he left behind an inheritance, why is there not even a trace of his complete will inside the Strength within me?"
Zoey shook her head. Her small face was filled with pain and confusion.
"Ninety percent of my database was destroyed in that great war. I don’t know where he went..."
"But I remember that before he left, he did something extremely cruel to himself."
Zoey closed her eyes.
Deep in her memory, the most important scene finally began to appear with great difficulty, awakened by the finest essence of the universe from the Transmutation Altar.
It was a void stained red with blood.
A towering man stood with his back to all living beings. From his chest, a nine-colored divine light suddenly burst out, lighting up the entire universe.
His face showed no emotion.
Then, with his own right hand, he stabbed straight into his chest.
Splurt.
Divine blood spilled out and turned into stars across the sky.
When he slowly pulled his right hand back out, there was a mysterious ball of light in his palm.
It was so bright that no one could look directly at it. It was wildly devouring all the laws around it.
That ball of light gave off a supreme pressure that made all things bow down.
Aiden’s pupils suddenly shrank to the size of needles, and the energy around his body went completely out of control.
Rumble!
The terrifying pressure of a Level 95 Venerable swept across the world. In an instant, the violent Ninefold Chromatic Thunder turned the void within ten thousand miles into a sea of lightning.
Because the aura of that ball of light was exactly the same as the 10,000x Critical Hit System hidden in the deepest part of his body.
Exactly the same!
"Return."
Aiden took a deep breath.
The violent Ninefold Chromatic Thunder that filled the sky rushed back into his body in an instant, like countless rivers flowing into the sea.
But the shock and heaviness in his eyes could not be hidden.
Zoey’s small face had turned pale under the terrifying pressure of a Level 95 Venerable just now, but she still stubbornly raised her head and stared at Aiden.
"Aiden, the Strength inside you really is exactly like his."
Aiden held back the waves in his heart and stepped forward. His voice was low and firm.
"Tell me. What is the real truth behind the Great Destruction?"
Zoey gave a bitter smile. The golden light in her eyes dimmed slightly, like a candle about to go out in the wind.
"Most people believe the Great Destruction was just an invasion launched by the rankings of the countless races of the Abyss to steal resources."
"But they were wrong. Completely wrong."
"Earth is not some ordinary civilized planet. It is the central node of the entire universe."
"The Abyss is nothing more than a garbage pit rejected by the laws of the universe. The myriad races rank suffer endless pain there, and every moment, they move closer to destruction."
"Only by fully taking over Earth and seizing control of the central node can they escape their fate of being trapped in the Abyss."
Aiden frowned deeply.
This was indeed a shocking secret, but it still did not feel like enough.
"That alone would not be enough for Yves to pay such a heavy price."
Zoey took a deep breath. Her small hands twisted tightly together, and her voice became extremely low, as if she was afraid of waking some terrifying being.
"Because... the true horror is hidden deep inside Earth’s core."
"An unspeakable ancient being is sealed there."
"It is the true source of the Abyss!"
Boom!
Aiden’s heart shook hard.
It felt as if thousands of thunderclaps had exploded in his mind at the same time.
The source of the Abyss had been sealed inside Earth all along?
Inside the very planet humans depended on to survive?
"Once every era, that ancient being tries to wake up."
"Every breath it takes causes Earth’s space barrier to collapse completely. That is what starts the Great Destruction that sweeps across both worlds."
"And with every Great Destruction, the will of the Abyss spreads a little farther, swallowing large parts of Earth’s original space."
"A thousand years ago, after Yves drove back the Abyss Demon Emperor, the first thing he did was rebuild the Golden Great Wall."
Zoey turned her head and looked at the endless, towering wall beneath their feet. It stretched far into the distance, giving off a faint golden glow. Her eyes were filled with sorrow.
"Most people only know that the Golden Great Wall stopped the Demon cavalry and protected human lands."
"But they do not know its true purpose."
"It is actually a huge sealing chain, locking down the ancient being deep in Earth’s core."
"But it is ancient now."
"After ten thousand years of time wearing it down, the seal has grown old. Its core laws have been lost, and the Strength of the Great Wall has weakened by more than ninety percent."
Aiden’s eyes sharpened like lightning.
He instantly thought of Zoey’s strange state from before.
"So you have been burning your own source energy to keep the Great Wall’s seal working?"
"Yes."
Zoey gave a sad smile. At that moment, her once solid body became faintly unreal.
"If I had not been burning my source energy all this time, that ancient being would have fully awakened a hundred years ago."
Aiden took a deep breath.
The pale, delicate face of Kelsey, princess of the Great Shaw Empire, flashed through his mind.
"Then what about Kelsey’s strange illness?"
"What is really going on with her?"
"She is not sick."
Zoey shook her head. A trace of pity and helplessness flashed through her eyes.
"Her soul was born extremely sensitive, even more so than that of ordinary gods. That is why she can sense the movement deep in Earth’s core from across the endless void."
"That is not an illness. It is the ancient being calling to the child of destiny before it wakes!"
Aiden’s face darkened completely. The killing intent in his eyes almost seemed to turn solid.
The crisis of the Great Destruction was far closer than he had imagined.
And far more hopeless.
"How much longer can you hold on?"
Aiden stared at Zoey. His voice carried an authority that allowed no doubt.
Zoey was silent for a moment.
Her small shoulders trembled slightly, and her voice was so low it was almost impossible to hear.
"My source energy is almost burned out."
"If the Golden Great Wall is not repaired soon, I will not survive the next Great Destruction."
"And to repair the Great Wall, we must recover the energy cores that were lost in the war back then."
Aiden’s eyes narrowed.
The aura around him gathered with a roar.
"Where are the cores?"
Zoey slowly raised her hand and pointed toward the depths of the void, to a shadow filled with killing and death.
"Yves sealed them in the Ancient Battlefield!"
The Ancient Battlefield.
Aiden silently remembered that name.
After the founding of his Celestial Imperial City, that place had already been his next target for conquest.
But compared with the truth of the Great Destruction, there was something else that concerned him even more right now.
It was the "10,000x Critical Hit System" inside his body, the heaven-defying power that had followed him all this way.
"Zoey."
Aiden looked at the Artifact Spirit of the Golden Great Wall before him and slowly spoke.
His voice was calm, almost frighteningly so.
"You said the aura on me is exactly the same as the ball of light Yves left behind back then."
"Can you sense where it is inside my body?"
Zoey tilted her head. A trace of confusion flashed in her eyes, and then she gently shook her head.
"I can’t sense its exact form. But I can feel that the essence of your soul has an unbreakable karmic link with Yves."
"That ball of light was something Yves tore out of his own body before he left, using an extremely cruel method."
Aiden’s breathing tightened slightly.
His hands, hidden inside his sleeves, clenched hard.
"What exactly was it?"
"Back then, Yves used the eyes of a Divine Emperor to see the future. He saw that the next Great Destruction, a thousand eras later, would be more terrifying than anything before."
Zoey’s voice trembled. It carried a deep, indescribable awe for that Divine Emperor.
"He knew that with the Strength he had at the time, he could not completely destroy that ancient being. If nothing changed, the human race would be wiped out."
"So he chose a very special way to keep existing. A way that almost went against the laws of heaven."
"He forcefully pulled his most powerful and most heaven-defying class talent out of his own soul."
"Bane of All Races."
"Then he sealed that pure talent law into a special rule-based vessel and sent it into the river of fate, so it could search for a successor in the future."
Zoey sighed, showing that she did not know what form that vessel had taken.
"I only remember that he once told me the three main signs it would show after awakening."
"First, it could ignore the rules of the universe and forcefully absorb the abilities of others, then perfectly merge them into the host."
"Second, when the host faced extreme pressure, it could ignore bottlenecks and forcibly break through rank limits."
"And the third one was the most terrifying."
"It could amplify the Force of Laws understood by the host hundreds, thousands, or even ten thousand times!"