There were some murals on the ruined walls of the interior of the temple. Although they could barely be seen because they had been largely ruined, it could still be vaguely seen that the murals were scenes of some past battles.
Seeing them, Lin Li could not help but be doubtful. He could tell from the architectural style of the temple and the morsels of information revealed on the walls that the ancient God of Light that the Illuminati believed in was probably not closely related to this place. Could it be that this temple was not created by the ancient God of Light? Apart from the Ancient God of Light, could there be other gods that exist here?
In fact, even Edmund and the others were full of doubt after seeing everything in the temple. Clearly, the information that Edmund had could not fully explain the existence of this temple.
While looking at the murals around them, the group arrived in the main hall in the middle of the temple where there were several damaged statues of deities. Only a portion of each was left, but it could vaguely be seen that one statue was that of the Serpent of Light, Shagar. The power of the Serpent of Light released by Lin Li also escaped into the damaged statue, seemingly trying to rely on the Power of Faith in the statue to obtain a rebirth.
However, Lin Li and others could sense that there was no longer a trace of the Power of Faith in the ruined statues, as they had already turned into ordinary mud statues. The few of them searched carefully, but did not find anything valuable, let alone find out the origin of the temple.
Nonetheless, Lin Li did not give up. He could instinctively sense that the appearance of the temple definitely implied an extraordinary existence. Hence, he was investigating in greater detail than the others. Before finding any clear and useful information, Lin Li scrutinized every single piece of rubble and broken stones.
Seeing how insistent Lin Li was, High Priest Poer naturally wouldn’t miss the chance to mock him again. He said to Edmund and Zumar, “This is just a very ordinary ruin. There are many ruins like this in the desert, he can’t possibly unearth and scour every single one of them, right? Some people just like thinking that they can receive benefits for nothing. They always think that they can easily get treasures just by reaching out. How can there be so many treasures in this world for him to unearth? I bet he’s just wasting his time.”
However, Lin Li did not bother to pay attention to High Priest Poer, and instead continued to rummage through the pile of things that was considered garbage in the eyes of others. On the other hand, Elder Zumar, who seemed to find his words atrocious, hurriedly tried to persuade Poer. “Poer, you can’t say that, President Felic just wants to find out more about this place. It might be helpful to our mission if he can really find any useful clues.”
“Zumar, fancy you speaking up for him. Don’t forget what kind of relationship he has with us. He extorted quite a lot from you when we were in the Breezy Plains back then, didn’t he?” Naturally, High Priest Poer would not listen to Zumar. He even brought up Zumar’s encounter in the Breezy Plains.
However, while High Priest Poer and Elder Zumar were having a small argument over the outsider Lin Li, Lin Li suddenly stopped in his tracks, and began observing a stone carefully.
Seeing this scene, High Priest Poer was about to mock Lin Li a few more times, but to his surprise, Edmund had already walked over. At this moment, Poer had no choice but to drop the idea before getting a clear idea of the situation. He decided to wait and see what Edmund was going to do before doing anything lest he got scolded.
“President Felic, have you found anything?” Edmund walked towards a spot near Lin Li, and stopped in his tracks at the right juncture. He did not immediately get over to see what Lin Li had found, and instead tried to ask him about it.
Lin Li did not pretend to keep them in suspense or anything, and tossed the stone over, as if he hadn’t noticed the change in Edmund’s attitude. He then said, “There seems to be something recorded on this, but there are too many defects, and I can’t figure out what it means. There should be some other stones that are similar to this, maybe they can provide some clues.”
Edmund took the stone piece and looked at it, only to see that there were only a few ancient words inscribed on it. They were not in the Titan Print, but another type of ancient common language. After careful scrutiny and identification, he could only confirm that the words written on it roughly meant “Our God”, and there was no special significance.
However, Lin Li’s discovery made Edmund rather surprised too. He turned around, and said to Zumar and Poer, “What are you two waiting for? Look around and see if there are any stones with such ancient words.”
Despite being reluctant, High Priest Poer did not dare to disobey Edmund at all, and had no choice but to follow Elder Zumar, and pick up the rubble in the temple to examine it like what he had mocked Lin Li for doing earlier on.
On Lin Li’s side, Connoris and the two Undead servants did not slack off, either. They could almost be considered to be digging through the ground and looking for some useful clues. Even when they saw some stones that were scratched, they would turn them over and check if the scratches meant anything at all.
After the search, they really discovered lots of things, especially hundreds of such lettered stones. However, even so, they could not be put together to form a complete object, as most of them had completely turned into dust.
When put together, they could roughly form a stone slab, but of course, most of it was missing. Lin Li and Edmund were standing in front of the badly damaged slab, and trying to identify the words on it in a bid to discuss the general meaning of the message.
To be honest, that was even harder than finding the pieces of stone. After all, too much of those statements was missing, and almost none of them were complete. One could imagine how difficult it was to infer the real content recorded on the stone slab from the words incoherently put together.
After the discussion between Lin Li and Edmund, they roughly pieced the stones together to form some sentences. First of all, it was mentioned on the stone slab that endless light rose from the east, which was clearly not referring to sunrise. In Lin Li and Edmund’s opinion, it could very likely be referring to the power of the Ancient God of Light, Zagar. In particular, it was mentioned in the latter part that the Divine Kingdom had been dissolved, and eventually collapsed. Afterwards, the noble gods gathered the courage, while the millions of believers offered their lives. However, they still couldn’t stop doomsday.
The owner of this Divine Kingdom would temporarily be called the God of Bravery, and perhaps this temple was meant for the God of Bravery, but the sudden descent of the ancient God of Light Zagar had destroyed this place. The God of Bravery probably didn’t end up well, and was likely to have fallen with his own Divine Kingdom.
The fact that the Ancient God of Light killed the God of Bravery was actually not that big of a deal, because the Ancient God of Light was not an ordinary deity, and it was originally much stronger than the average god. The reason why they were called ancient gods was because they were born as gods, and were supreme existences that had godhood ever since the world existed. They were a powerful race where even infants had a divine position.
Gods were different. For example, the so-called God of Bravery gradually improved his strength through his own hard work in order to become god. That could actually be seen from his name as a god and his mastery of power. The ancient gods generally mastered the most essential Laws, while those that had newly become deities often mastered some derivative Laws.
If the Laws were compared to a tree, the gods that mastered the branches would be examples like the God of Bravery, God of Speed, God of Strength, God of Forging, God of Wine, and so on. They were all relatively new gods as opposed to ancient gods. The core of the tree was the power mastered by the ancient gods, such as the Ancient God of Light, Ancient God of Darkness, Ancient God of Fire, Ancient God of Water, and so on.
After getting such a piece of information, Lin Li was genuinely a little dumbstruck. In the beginning, he thought that even if there was a Divine Kingdom that had descended, it should’ve been the Divine Kingdom of the Ancient God of Light that the Illuminati believed in. He also thought that the incarnation of the Twin Serpents of Light and Darkness should’ve also been created by the Ancient God of Light. After the Immortal King came here, he destroyed the Divine Kingdom of the Ancient God of Light, and left the ruins there while suppressing the Ancient God of Light.
However, there was now a new God of Bravery. Although he should be considered a new god based on his power, the fact that he could have a Divine Kingdom meant that he definitely had extraordinary strength too. In that case, what secrets were hidden in this place? Why did a deity get attracted? Why did an ancient god come, and start a war between the two gods?
Lin Li then thought of the Immortal King who had come all the way here, and he couldn’t help but wonder what secret he was seeking. Did Geresco also lead him here from that world, all for the sake of that secret? What kind of secret could it be? It actually attracted so many powerhouses!
On the other hand, although Edmund’s expression was as per normal, he was also staring at the stones for a long time. The piece of information was obviously also beyond his expectation. Perhaps no one among the Illuminati could have imagined that a god had landed on their sacred land.
“Saint Edmund, I wonder what your take on this matter is. You didn’t seem to have mentioned to me before that such a thing had actually happened on your sacred land.” Lin Li could actually tell that even though the people of the Illuminati definitely knew more about this place than he did, their knowledge was definitely very limited too. He was not trying to mock Edmund by asking that question, but rather he wanted to use this to find out more about the Illuminati.
As expected, after hearing Lin Li’s question, Edmund could not help but smile bitterly. Not bothering to hide anything more, he honestly said, “President Felic, you might have misunderstood something. Although this sacred land used to belong to the Illuminati, no one among the Illuminati has ever stepped into this place except for the founding Saint, Lord Aquilo. We only managed to find out more about this place from the notes that Saint Aquilo had left behind back then.”
“Oh.” Lin Li nodded, and didn’t say anything else that would put Edmund in an awkward spot. Edmund’s answer had also further confirmed Lin Li’s conjecture that the Illuminati’s knowledge of this place was obviously not much deeper than his. Besides, even if the Illuminati had notes left behind by Aquilo, thousands of years had passed, and God knew what kind of changes had occurred there. Hence, even if the Illuminati had obtained some information, it wasn’t actually reliable.
After decoding the contents of the stone pieces, Lin Li and Edmund left the dilapidated temple with their respective subordinates. However, the discovery that they made in this temple clearly did not give them any unexpected surprises, but made their hearts heavier instead.
Indeed, the God of Bravery had fallen, and the Ancient God of Light had also been suppressed by the Immortal King. Hence, it seemed that there was no longer any danger there. However, no one could be certain if the shocking secret hidden here would not cause any unexpected changes again with the arrival of Lin Li and the others. Lin Li and Edmund were both more apprehensive and suspicious of this place.
After leaving the temple, the two teams were back on their journey. Edmund was still following the ancient information of the Illuminati, and led the team in the direction of the possible existence of the holy relics.
Although Lin Li did not trust the information that the Illuminati had, he did not bother to question the direction that Edmund was leading them in. After all, no matter what, Lin Li was clueless about this place, and regardless of whether Edmund was reliable or not, he at least knew some information.
Soon after the two teams left, several vortexes appeared in the surrounding desert. Immediately afterwards, a group of giant scorpions that were larger than carriages climbed out of the pit, and began attacking the two teams.
The appearance of the giant scorpions was similar to that of the giant scorpions that appeared in the deserts of Anril. However, their bodies were glowing, and it was as if they were clad in silver armor. It was probably because of the environment here. Besides, their strength was generally at the Legendary-level and above, making them terrifying beings in Anril.
However, the two teams had already seen plenty of powerful existences; hence, none of them made a big fuss about the Legendary-level Radiant Giant Scorpions.
Faced with the attack of the Radiant Giant Scorpions, the several Sanctuary powerhouses did not strike, and instead left it to their subordinates. After all, given the environment that they were in, they definitely had to be on guard against any accidents that might occur at any time. God knew if there would be another horrifying creature like the Radiant-winged Giant Python again.
