Apotheosis

"How could this be..."

Since the moment Nicholas had crashed into the ground, Lorena had been on high alert.

Right now, Zen was leaping over hurdle after hurdle on his way to becoming a top-rank True God. She couldn't believe she had been complacent enough to have exposed herself like this, at this time.

'How could I have been so careless!' she thought.

The space she had created over the years with the help of the nether power was independent and separated from the outside world.

Indeed, the last time Zen had entered the underground, only one layer of the space had been connected to the outside.

However, now Harold and Zen were here, she had not separated the space from the outside at all.

The divine land was not just a very large ship. It was, in fact, enormous.

In Lorena's opinion, it was impossible for the enemies to monitor and police the entire divine land all the time.

But she was wrong. This was the complacence that had gotten her in trouble.

Zen, however, hadn't noticed any change in his mother.

There were other things on his mind. In his inner world, he was still concentrating on transforming the Spiritual Darkness to form his own Godly Tile...

The avatar that had formed from Lorena's thoughts was staring at Zen in silence. She was trying her utmost to keep calm on the surface, but in fact, her mind was in chaos.

'I, I must keep them out...' Lorena thought to herself.

The real Lorena, however, still in the cave, was ready to make her move.

She patted her hands gently, and a force began spreading out from them.

Cracks formed under her feet...

As the cracks spread quickly along the floor of the cave, the stones on its perimeter began to break too. Soon, the giant beasts that had been sealed within the stones for thousands of years were finally released, one by one.

The stone spirits climbed out of their stones, and slowly traipsed towards the entrance of another nearby cave.

The power of these spirits was great: they were not much weaker than Holy Beings.

But that was only true of their physical strength.

The reason why the Holy Beings were so invincible was that they had more than just physical strength.

Therefore, the stone spirits were still far from being on a par with the Holy Beings, or even Demi-holy Beings and consummate True Gods.

One could not rely on the stone spirits to defeat Holy Beings.

Nicholas dived, following the passages dug by Harold. A black fireball was spinning in his hand.

Whether it was ordinary so

Nicholas moved forward in this new, complex cave. The Holy Beings that followed him had come to kill the stone spirits.

"They are coming too fast..."

Meanwhile, Lorena, who remained at the bottom of the cave, frowned.

With so many Holy Beings coming together, she would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Although she still had an advantage in the divine land, now was not the time to use it.

Zen was still absorbing the Spiritual Darkness with his eyes closed. Oblivious, he didn't know how close his mother was to desperation, nor did he know that danger was approaching fast.

As time ticked by, her eyes filled more and more with despair.

Consumed with anguish, she realized that she had no choice but do the only thing she knew would work in this situation.

"Zen, I'm sorry..."

She stared at Zen with a complex expression on her face, sad but resolved. It seemed that she had made up her mind to take a gamble.

She raised her finger gently, and a small purple jade plate appeared in her hand. A purple circle of light shot out from the jade plate and completely enveloped Zen.

Lorena's movements were precise and extremely subtle. Zen, all his attention focused on his inner world and his avatar, didn't notice a thing.

A strong space fluctuation shot out from the purple circle of light shrouding Zen's body. Then, the fluctuation suddenly formed a whirlpool, and Zen disappeared into nothingness.

At the same time, Lorena stood up, a smile on her face, a beautiful, but sad and desperate smile. She reached out and gently flicked her fingers. The center of the cave cracked, and a stream of cyan magma poured out from it. It was the Lethal Fire Magma.