Jiang Lin stood on a hill twenty miles south of the rift, his golden eyes staring at the dark red scar in the northern sky.
There was no one else around.
Lothar and Good had gone to the newly built outpost in the east, Mavis and Selene were handling believer affairs in the south, Cyrus was holed up in town studying the Demon God crystals, and Dorian and Victor were scouting further north.
He had stayed behind alone under the pretext of 'needing quiet cultivation'.
He waited for a moment, and after confirming there was no sign of anyone else within a radius of several miles, he leaped down from the hill and walked into a weathered rocky hollow.
The hollow was not large, surrounded by towering gray-brown rock walls that completely blocked any view from the outside.
He raised his hand, and a bloody color spread out from beneath his feet as a rift appeared out of thin air in front of him.
On the other side of the rift was a boundless bloody void and countless crimson eyes.
With a slight thought, a peak 4th-rank crimson claw-wing poked its head out of the rift, its bony wings folded, its dark red eyes glittering with a cold luster in the twilight.
Jiang Lin squatted down and pressed his hand against the crimson claw-wing's head, establishing a mental link.
“Go, take a look inside.”
The crimson claw-wing did not hesitate.
It soared into the air from the hollow, its bony wings spreading as it dashed toward the dark red rift in the north.
Jiang Lin sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and sank his entire mind into his mental link with the Blood Demon.
The vision shifted.
He “saw” the world through the eyes of the crimson claw-wing.
The gray-brown earth flew past beneath it. The burnt-sweet scent in the air grew stronger and stronger, mixed with a more primitive, ancient sulfurous smell that felt like magma deep within the earth's crust.
The sky gradually changed from pale purple to off-white, then transitioned into a sickly dark yellow, as if it had been stained from the inside by something.
The rift continued to expand in its vision.
At first, it was just a thin slit in the sky, but as the distance closed, it gradually expanded into an irregular oval, its edges burning with dark red flames.
The flames had no heat; instead, they emitted a bone-chilling cold.
The crimson claw-wing was extremely fast, reaching the edge of the rift in less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
There was no ground here.
The area that should have been a plain had completely collapsed, forming a massive crater several miles in diameter.
At the bottom of the crater was a dark red, solidified magma-like substance, its surface slowly bubbling and bursting, releasing a puff of pale red mist with every pop.
The rift floated about a hundred meters above the crater.
The crimson claw-wing hovered in front of the rift, its dark red eyes staring at the burning spatial rift.
Through the rift, the world on the other side was visible.
It was an eternal, dark red void. There was no sky, no land, only countless tiny, star-like points of light flickering in the void.
Jiang Lin hesitated for a breath, then issued the command.
“Enter.”
The crimson claw-wing folded its bony wings and plunged headfirst into the rift.
The moment it crossed the rift, Jiang Lin felt an indescribable pressure rushing in from all directions.
This was a more fundamental weight that acted directly on the soul.
It felt as if an invisible hand were squeezing his heart, making every beat require ten times more effort than usual.
He steadied his mind and observed his surroundings through the Blood Demon's vision.
This was the Abyss of Slaughter.
There was no sky, no land, only an endless dark red void.
Countless fragments of various sizes floated in the void.
Some were rock, some were metal, and some were of completely unrecognizable materials.
They floated silently; some had surfaces as smooth as mirrors, while others were riddled with holes, looking like decayed wood eaten away by insects.
Further away, massive outlines could be faintly seen.
The outlines were extremely blurry, resembling the ruins of some buildings or the skeletal remains of colossal creatures.
They were so gargantuan that Jiang Lin could not judge their distance or size, only feeling a suffocating, overwhelming sense of presence.
The crimson claw-wing began to fly forward.
It flew over a floating boulder, bypassed a slowly rotating mass of dark red mist, and approached the nearest massive outline.
Then, Jiang Lin saw creatures he had never witnessed before.
Those things moved slowly in the dark red void, devoid of any fixed shape.
Their bodies looked as if the limbs of countless different creatures had been forcibly stitched together—there were octopus-like tentacles, insect-like jointed limbs, fish-like fins, and mammalian fur.
Various organs were randomly distributed across their bodies, some wriggling, some breathing, and others secreting a sticky fluid.
They had no heads, no faces, and no eyes, but Jiang Lin knew they could “see” him.
The feeling of being watched was incredibly intense, so much so that the crimson claw-wing's body began to tremble slightly.
At that moment, he suddenly discovered that the crimson claw-wing's life force was draining at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The Blood Demon's flesh was slowly shriveling, and its once-abundant magic essence was continuously dissipating.
This draining force did not come from those grotesque creatures, but from this very world.
Ever since entering the Abyss of Slaughter, the Blood Demon's robust life force had been gradually slipping away.
He checked and found that it was losing about five percent of its total life force every minute.
In other words, a peak 4th-rank Blood Demon could only last twenty minutes at most in this place.
Suppressing the shock in his heart, he had the crimson claw-wing continue flying forward while carefully observing the movements of those monsters.
He saw them closing in on this newly arrived creature.
They surged forward slowly from all directions like a rising tide.
Those tentacles wriggled in the void, those jointed limbs paddled slowly, and those unknown organs secreted a pale green slime.
The crimson claw-wing accelerated, attempting to squeeze through the gaps between them.
But there were far too many monsters, so many that no gaps could be found.
They swarmed from every direction of the dark red void, surrounding the crimson claw-wing, and then...
A tentacle touched the crimson claw-wing's bony wing.
The moment they made contact, an icy-cold, nauseatingly viscous energy surged through the tentacle and into the Blood Demon's body.
That energy was entirely different from the Demon God power; it was more primitive, more violent, and far more... ancient.
Jiang Lin felt the crimson claw-wing's consciousness get drowned out by something in that instant.
It felt like a drop of ink falling into clear water, the blackness spreading with unstoppable speed, swallowing up the original color entirely.
It even attempted to corrode its way back to Jiang Lin's main body, far outside the Abyss of Slaughter.
Without hesitation, he made a decisive decision and severed his mental link with the Blood Demon.
The vision cut off.
Jiang Lin opened his eyes, the gray-brown rock walls reflected in his golden gaze.
He could feel that the crimson claw-wing was still alive.
But it no longer belonged to him.
Jiang Lin sat in the hollow for a long time.
From entering the rift to losing connection, that peak 4th-rank Blood Demon had lasted less than five minutes.
It wasn't because it was weak, but because that space was simply not meant for "living" creatures.
The Abyss of Slaughter actively corroded all life that entered it, not merely killing them, but transforming them into something... he could not describe.
Those monsters, those shapeless things stitched together from countless creature limbs—what had they once been?
Were they the Blood Demons of other intruders?
Or something else entirely?
He did not know.
But he knew that with his current strength, entering the Abyss of Slaughter was suicidal.
It seemed the next phase of the system's quest would be quite difficult.
He stood up, patted the dust off his clothes, and walked out of the hollow.
The dark red rift still hung in the northern sky like a scar that would never heal.
He glanced at it, then turned and walked toward the south.
“My rank is still too low,” he muttered to himself. “I should at least reach the 9th-rank... before considering this place.”
For the next twenty days, Jiang Lin did not approach the rift again.
He spent his time on two things:
First, he continued to dig "tributaries" on the Demon God statues, increasing the number of modified statues from eleven to seventeen.
Second, he organized the faith data and rune array experience he had accumulated during this period, recording them stroke by stroke on blank crystal plates, preparing to take them back for the three in the mansion to see.
The growth of his faith value slowed down noticeably in the final days, with the conversion rate of new believers dropping from a peak of several thousand a day to just a few hundred.
This was normal; the places where it was easy to spread the faith had already been covered, leaving only those remote, isolated villages that remained wary of all external things.
The seventeenth node was activated on the hundred and forty-sixth day.
The nineteenth node was activated on the hundred and forty-ninth day, just in time for the deadline.
On the hundred and fiftieth day, in the early morning.
The sun of Caeous rose from the east, its white rays piercing the pale purple sky and painting the gray-brown hills in shades of off-white.
After months of purification, the pungent odor in the air had faded significantly, and a hint of soil and hay could occasionally be smelled.
The eight of them stood in the square of the original town, the seven statues of the righteous gods glowing with halos of different colors in the morning light.
The God of Holy Light was pale gold, the God of War was dark silver, the Lord of Arcane was deep blue, the Goddess of Life was emerald green, the God of the Hunt was amber, the God of the Dark Moon was silver-white, and the God of Contracts was gold.
Eight figures, eight Apostles of God.
“It's time to leave,” Lothar's voice was still low and steady, his dark brown eyes sweeping over everyone present. “Once we go back, I don't know when we'll meet again.”
“Is it that hard to meet?” Mavis crossed her arms, her fiery red curls fluttering slightly in the morning breeze. “We're all within the Temple system anyway. If we run into each other on a quest, it's fate. If not... then so be it.”
“You certainly are easygoing,” Good scratched his bald head. “I still have to write a quest report when I get back. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.”
“Writing reports is more tiring than fighting,” Dorian spoke up voluntarily for once, his voice still low. “I'd rather fight ten more battles.”
Selene laughed softly, then turned to Jiang Lin:
“Thank you for taking care of us during this time.”
“We took care of each other.”
The others all focused their gazes on Jiang Lin.
Lothar extended his hand, and Jiang Lin shook it.
Lothar's palm was still rough and powerful, but this time his grip was slightly tighter than when they had first met.
“Until we meet again.”
“Until we meet again.”
Mavis winked at him and slipped a fiery red crystal into his hand:
“Keep it for fun, it can be used as a protective amulet.”
Good patted his shoulder, nearly knocking him flat:
“Next time we meet, I'll buy you a drink!”
Dorian nodded, saying nothing.
Victor still stood in the shadows, but his gaze lingered on Jiang Lin for a moment before he gave a slight nod.
Cyrus pushed up his glasses, pulled a thin notebook from his robe pocket, and handed it to him:
“These are the insights on rune arrays I've compiled during this period. You're smarter than me, so you should find them useful.”
Jiang Lin took the notebook and put it into his spatial ring.
“Thanks.”
“No need,” Cyrus pushed up his glasses. “The methods you taught me for embedding spatial anchors are worth far more than this notebook.”
The light of the teleportation array lit up in the center of the square. A pale gold light surged from the pedestals of the seven statues, weaving and gathering in the air to form a stable spatial tunnel.
Lothar was the first to step into the tunnel, with Good following close behind. Dorian and Victor walked side by side, while Mavis and Selene walked arm in arm. Cyrus took one last look at the town where they had stayed for a hundred and fifty days before turning and stepping into the light.
Jiang Lin stood at the edge of the teleportation array, not stepping in immediately.
He raised his head, looking toward the dark red rift in the north.
The rift was still there, its color much deeper than when they had first arrived, and the dark red flames at its edges were even more intense.
But it had not expanded—at least, not noticeably.
Perhaps it was because the establishment of the righteous gods' faith had stabilized the space in this area, or perhaps the annihilation of the Demon God Apostles had deprived the rift of some sort of guidance, or perhaps both.
He withdrew his gaze, his golden eyes sweeping over the natives in the square who were currently in morning prayer.
They knelt before the statues with their heads bowed, their lips moving.
Some of them had already begun to show extremely faint ripples of holy light, a natural phenomenon after initiating the breathing technique.
Some of them might, in a few years or a decade, grow into 1st-rank or 2nd-rank transcendents.
Perhaps in the far more distant future, the first native paladin, the first native priest, or the first native mage would appear on this planet.
But those were matters for the future.
Jiang Lin turned and stepped into the teleportation array.
The pale gold light swallowed him.
The familiar feeling of weightlessness returned, his body feeling as though it were being carried by a warm river, drifting toward some distant destination.
Nebulae and stars appeared in his vision, sweeping past him, some as bright as diamonds, others as dim as dust.
When the light beneath his feet solidified once more, Jiang Lin found himself standing in the Statue Hall of the Royal Capital Temple.
The stained glass windows of the dome filtered the morning light into a soft, pale gold, spilling over the seven statues.
A faint scent of incense floated in the air, mixed with the dry smell characteristic of stone and old wood.
The deacon on duty stood at the end of the corridor with his back to him, seemingly organizing the candlesticks on the wall.
Jiang Lin took a deep breath.
He was back.
...
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