The Answer is: The Older, the Stronger!

Faust spread his arms, focusing all his senses on everything around him.

He could smell the stench of rot and feel the bloody breeze brushing through his hair. He felt the rise and fall of his chest with every breath, and even the friction between every inch of his muscle and bone.

His sensations were incredibly real, making it impossible to distinguish between the dream and reality.

“The dream royal sister maintains is indeed stable.”

Faust nodded with satisfaction, then began to observe this decadent and desperate world in detail.

The scenes he had just witnessed were undoubtedly Mephistopheles’s past memories, and they were truly like purgatory.

Although Faust had long heard of the Golden Age’s great fame—nearly everyone said it was a distant and beautiful era, especially the Sanctuary, which spared no effort in praising and singing of its greatness.

“We once briefly reached the future!”

The prince had initially thought such talk was just a noisy exaggeration, but seeing it with his own eyes, he realized it was true. No wonder the Sanctuary remained obsessed with it.

And why did such a beautiful and glorious era end? In the Sanctuary’s narrative, it was an accidental natural disaster.

But having seen the memory, Faust had a different perspective.

He didn’t say it out loud, but Mephistopheles spoke up on its own:

【I did it. All the curses, all the disasters—I was the one who brought them down.】

【I make no denials regarding this. Yet the Sanctuary of later generations, knowing this full well, still worships it. That is why I call them lambs.】

“...”

Good grief, it turns out your K/D ratio is the highest, Mephisto. Compared to you, the evil dragons and great tyrants of history were practically humanitarians.

【What? Now that you know the dark truth about me, are you afraid?】

“Heh, I’ve known for a long time that you aren’t some ‘good fairy.’ It’s just as I expected. But I’m not a ‘good boy’ either, so it cancels out.”

【I simply love your defiant attitude. Love ya, Faust.】

【The curse laid upon this land has turned it into a Land of Slaughter. By immersing yourself in combat here, your skills and power will grow.】

【Though you’ve seen the hunting night of the blood moon before, and I’m not just bragging, there is simply no comparison. That was merely a clumsy imitation of me.】

“Is that so? Hey, you’d better not get my hopes up too high.”

Faust chatted with Mephistopheles while beginning to explore this dreamscape.

Woven by Mephistopheles and maintained by Yusewood, the quality of this dream world was terrifyingly high. Faust couldn’t wait to grow properly here.

Just as he passed a hill of corpses, Faust saw the first “living thing”—if it could truly be considered alive.

Its battered armor was pitch black, as if it had been charred, and was covered in clotted blood. The helmet’s plumes hung down like ash-white hair. One hand gripped a rust-stained long straight sword, while the other held a broken spear.

【Oh, that was a knight who devoutly served the Sacred Deity. Under the curse, he has been reduced to a Hollow. He should be the final victor who slaughtered everyone in this area. If you want to prove you’ve made a breakthrough and continue forward, you’d best defeat this Hollow.】

Faust had just felt the thrill of finding a challenge and hadn’t even reacted when, in the next second, the Hollow knight raised the spear in its hand and hurled it with all its might.

Whiz—!

Accompanied by a shrill whistling sound, Faust tried to sidestep and dodge, but crimson bloomed in his vision.

Even though the prince’s reaction was already fast, the spear pierced his flank. The tearing pain made him furrow his brows.

So fast?!

Faust didn’t have time to think, because the Hollow knight immediately lunged forward in a violent charge.

The prince of Qingxi immediately thrust out a Sunlight Spear. The sharp, lightning-tipped point was unstoppable, driving straight into the Hollow knight’s unprotected abdomen.

Yes! It worked!

But before Faust could celebrate, the Hollow knight reached out and grabbed the front end of the lightning spear.

Sizzle—!

Ignoring the wound in its abdomen, the Hollow knight pushed through the impalement, stepped forward quickly, and swung its sword down.

Splat—!

Intense pain, dizziness, and blurred vision followed. Faust judged that his head must have been split in two.

“...”

Faust’s consciousness sank into darkness. He felt a faint throbbing in his skull; this was his first time experiencing a near-death sensation.

“Wait, what kind of intensity is this? Is that really just a common mob by the roadside? That hit just now definitely had the stats of the 【hero】 rank. And it wasn’t just any path—it had to be a top-tier path like 【martial saint】!”

The prince didn’t consider himself weak; in the modern era, he was someone who could be called a powerhouse or a hero. How could he be kicked to death so easily?

【You were the one who asked to turn up the intensity. In this era, the path system for the son of man hadn't even fully taken shape. Because of that, there were no limits on their growth. They could break through again and again with ease—it was even more outrageous than the Age of Gods that followed.】

【So there’s no need to belittle yourself. They just benefited from the era. Your strength is decimal, while the people of the Golden Age are binary. You win!】

I get it. The answer is: the older, the stronger!

Faust figured that made sense. After all, even the 【frost-walker】, which was just an engineering robot in the Golden Age, was considered a nation-suppressing ultimate weapon in the modern era. You had to accept it.

So the era I live in is actually an era of spiritual energy depletion!

...

When Faust opened his eyes again, he saw Yusewood’s stunningly beautiful, cold face looking down at him with an expression of disdain.

“What did you encounter in the dream? To be so... excited?”

“Sorry, I played it too reckless that time.”

Faust thought the royal sister was blaming him for dying too quickly and causing the dream to collapse.

But he quickly realized that wasn't it. Yusewood was using tissues to wipe her entire body, which had just been drenched by the “fountain”—from her neck, chest, and abdomen down to her thighs, her entire gauze dress looked like it had been coated with a face mask.

“Truly foul and filthy. Why must I do such a thing, letting you shamelessly stain my entire body and the whole room with your scent?”

“...”

If you could actually suppress the corners of your mouth, those words would be more convincing.

But forget it. Faust’s mind wasn’t on that right now. He’d just treat this as a reward for Yusewood and let her take what she wanted.

“Royal sister, I’ll have to trouble you to continue.”

Faust lay back down on the bed and asked Yusewood to reconstruct the dream.

The silver-gray-haired princess sighed and said, “I will maintain the dream continuously. Even if you suffer a failure within it, you will not wake up. Instead, you will immediately be rewound to the starting point.”

“That couldn’t be better.”

Entering the dream once more, Faust returned to that battlefield ruin.

Even if he could claim the moral high ground, the Hollow knight’s stats were the real deal. Faust didn’t dare to be careless anymore. He picked up weapons and armor from the battlefield; these battered scraps would likely be considered mystical curios in the future.

Then, following his memory, Faust lay in wait near the Hollow knight.