The Emperor’s Angel of Death

After walking for perhaps ten minutes, Sotha encountered a second spirit bone stele. Here, he saw a Barasovani Lash standing on a towering mountain, then raising his arms as if performing some kind of ritual. Immediately, the mountain shook and the ground trembled, countless rocks and shattered ice collapsing and then merging, quickly transforming into a giant hundreds of meters tall. As the giant strode forward, several massive black pyramids appeared in front of it, emitting dazzling flashes of light that struck the rock giant, only scraping off some of its surface. The giant simply stomped its foot, and a sharp stone锥 rose from the ground, instantly piercing a solid pyramid.

But soldiers composed of cold metal marched forth across the land in despairing numbers, firing upon the towering rock giant in relentlessly uniform motions.

Advance, fire, advance, fire. Some soldiers fell in the giant's counterattacks, but after a moment, they reassembled themselves and rejoined the symphony of destruction, continuing to advance, fire, advance, fire.

Despite its powerful psychic energy, the giant collapsed, becoming a new mountain.

But behind it, more such colossal rock giants strode forward.

Sotha then realized that his previous guess was half correct. The mountain range resembling a skull was indeed the remains of something, but it was not a living thing, but rather the Barasovani Lash's mecha! Or rather, armor!

This showed how powerful their psychic abilities were.

Later on, the spirit bone steles became fewer and fewer. He passed some broken wreckage, and there were places where spirit bone steles simply didn't exist, or their echoes of power were so weak that he needed to get close to feel them.

It seemed that this world had not always been safe, and had also suffered attacks, though he didn't know how many years ago.

When he couldn't find the way forward, Sotha would walk according to his feelings. He knew he wasn't alone. He could feel that there were always eyes wandering behind him, constantly lurking outside his line of sight.

This might be a test, or it might be out of caution, but Sotha was patient because he had many questions to answer.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, Sotha came to the edge of a cliff. Beyond it was an abyss, where he could see a 'sea' formed of diamond-like lava flowing and roaring, and further away, a huge vortex was slowly spinning.

Then, he saw a smooth, round stone egg flying towards him.

As it approached Sotha, the thing stopped. Then, the perfectly smooth surface rotated and opened a hole. Without a word, Sotha jumped in.

The inside of this thing was empty, only smooth and slightly glowing inner walls. He just stayed there quietly, waiting for it to take him to his destination.

After silently counting to thirty, the smooth inner wall opened a hole, and Sotha strode out.

The air changed instantly.

Fresh, humid, warm.

Sotha stood on a buzzing stone ring, its area as large as an open city square, surrounded by luminous spheres and magnificent waterfalls. Above and below were magnificent voids, revealing all kinds of complex scenes. Stars were constantly withering in the void, and stars were constantly bursting forth. Everything was a kind of regular elegant curtain call.

Sotha stepped on the floating stone slabs and advanced to the center of the circle. Here, there was a large lake filled with silver liquid, surrounded by circular paths. The calm water surface shimmered, and a huge golden wheel imprinted with complex symbols was embedded in the wall, projecting thousands of feet of starlight rippling in the lake. There were many black platforms of varying heights around, on which stood a group of gray-white Barasovani Lash. Their flat, round heads showed no expression, and even when Sotha walked over, they didn't even move a muscle.

In the center of the lake was a vortex, and at the top of the vortex was a carved obsidian throne, suspended in mid-air by invisible forces.

Perhaps the master of this place once sat there, but no matter what happened, it was now empty.

"Welcome, Nirvana Phoenix."

Several voices with unique rhythms appeared in Sotha's mind. He glanced around, unsure which one, or which ones, were talking to him.

"I am not Asuryan, I am Sotha Alexey, descendant of Orod."

"Welcome, descendant of the Fallen Phoenix."

"Everyone, I come with questions, and I hope to get answers."

"We may not be able to answer all of your questions."

"Then I'll ask a few simple ones. Is your settlement here related to Asuryan?"

"Yes, this is the last sanctuary it set up for us."

"Orod came here not by chance either, right?"

"In the dark, there are arrangements."

"Are the Old Ones really all dead?"

"Perhaps, but we can't guarantee it."

"What exactly happened in the final moments of the War in Heaven?"

"The Highest Heaven was boiling, and unimaginable things appeared. They attacked every sanctuary, and the guardians tried their best, but corruption spread."

"Corruption? What do you mean? The Old Ones arranged for warp entities such as Asuryan to guard their sanctuaries, so how could they be easily breached? Could it be that there were betrayers? As servants of the Old Ones, there is no reason for you to say you don't know."

This time, the other party did not answer immediately, but was silent for a long time, and finally a decaying and weak voice came.

"They... really don't know, and I have never told them the true tragedy of the Old Ones..."

Before the surging liquid made a thunderous roar, a deep grinding sound had already come from the lake surface, and then the surrounding golden wheels began to spin rapidly, and water spewed out from the frothing rapids. Twisting figures could be seen in the torrent.

Then, an existence, or rather a dried corpse, appeared on the empty obsidian throne.

Compared to the other Barasovani Lash, its body had a clear shrinkage, almost the size of a human. Its skin was also dry and gray, its limbs were sunken like a corpse, and there were purple-black bruises. It was curled up on the throne.

Then the surrounding Barasovani Lash all raised their hands, seemingly paying tribute to the oldest of them.

"It's been a long... long time since we last met, Asuryan... Your plan seems to be very close to completion."

The old, shriveled Barasovani Lash's sandy voice slowly echoed in Sotha's ears, as if he was reminiscing with an old friend.

"I am not Asuryan."

Sotha's attitude was as always.

"You guessed that Asuryan betrayed the Old Ones... In a sense, perhaps it is. It was it who sent away the guardians, and it was it who conveyed information to the Star Gods, but all this stemmed from something more terrible."