Northern part of Daxia.
Snow covered the rolling mountains, and in the snow-covered forests, a few birds were startled and flapped their wings as they flew into the sky.
Suddenly, a dark patch began to spread across the distant sky.
In a distant town, an old man who was dozing at home inadvertently looked at the sky, suddenly sat up, and rubbed his eyes.
"My dear wife! My dear wife!! Look at the sky, why is it half day and half night?"
"You silly old man, talking in your sleep again in broad daylight!" the woman scolded from the kitchen.
The old man stared blankly at the distant sky, muttering to himself, "Damn it...it's like seeing a ghost!"
...
Under a black sky.
The birds were enveloped in this darkness. Suddenly, their bodies jolted, and they fell straight to the ground, lifeless, as if an invisible hand of death had silently extinguished their lives.
But a few seconds later, these dead birds began to convulse, and then they actually stood up again, flapping their wings as they had in life, and flew into the black sky.
The darkness continued to spread.
In the wilderness, several scattered graveyards were shrouded in darkness, and from the deathly silence, eerie rustling sounds began to emerge.
Bang—!
Suddenly, a patch of earth exploded, and a heavy coffin lid flew several meters away. A skeleton, whose death was unknown, slowly sat up and actually stood up from the coffin, its empty eyes igniting with eerie black flames.
Bang bang bang bang——!!
Several sounds rang out in succession, and all the skeletons in the graveyard came back to life, stiffly turning their heads and slowly walking towards the distant city, following the direction of the darkness.
In this darkness, the boundaries between life and death seem to have blurred.
The darkness moved silently, bit by bit, towards the city, and the scent of death spread through the air...
Until it met that man.
In the pristine white snow, a middle-aged man, about forty years old, sat wearing an ordinary dark red cloak, with a standard-issue Star Blade stuck in the snow beside him.
He glanced at the approaching darkness in the sky, took a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and slowly lit it.
In the instant the flames burst forth, a dazzling Buddhist light emanated from him, like a surging golden wave, crashing directly into the darkness before him, while faint chanting echoed in the air!
He thus blocked out the darkness.
The man sighed, slowly stood up, drew the Star Blade from beside him, gazed into the distant darkness, and slowly spoke:
"Let me introduce myself. I am Ye Fan, the Supreme Commander of the Great Xia Night Watch."
On the horizon, a figure emerged from the darkness, like a gentle breeze that slowly drifted towards Ye Fan.
The moment he appeared, the forests for miles around withered instantly, and the snow seemed to be stained with ink, with a thick aura of death filling the world.
"Venerable Ye Fan," the ethereal figure spoke slowly, "I know you. In the divine war ten years ago, your body was shattered by Gaia. I never expected you to still be alive."
"No destruction, no construction. My survival is my destiny," Ye Fan said calmly. "But you... I didn't expect that after ten years, you still haven't given up on [Shiva's Lament]."
"That item is too dangerous; only Olympus is qualified to keep it."
"Hehehe..." Ye Fan sneered, "That's right. After the fog descended, only your Greek gods were preserved in the most complete way. Let me guess, besides sacrificing all your people, how many of your own gods did you sacrifice?"
"Thanatos, the god of death; Hypnos, the god of sleep; Hemera, the goddess of day... You've almost wiped out all of Nyx's children, one of the five great Greek creator gods!"
Ye Fan seemed to have remembered something and said with a smile, "Oh, right, perhaps you don't know, but half a year ago, Nyx appeared in Great Xia... When she fully returns, I wonder if Gaia alone can withstand her wrath?"
Upon hearing this, the void visibly trembled; even though Ye Fan couldn't see its face, he could sense its shock.
"Impossible, that woman is dead!"
"You are the renowned Hades, the god of the underworld. No one in this world understands death better than you..." Ye Fan said slowly, "but in this mist, nothing is impossible."
Hades' death aura intensified as he stared intently at Ye Fan, and the pressure of the King of the Underworld suddenly descended!
"Hand over [Shiva's Lament], or... I will turn this realm into my underworld of death!" Hades' voice seemed to come from the netherworld, chilling and terrifying. "This time, you won't be as lucky as you were ten years ago..."
"Is that so?" Ye Fan raised an eyebrow slightly. "You all don't seem to be as strong as you were ten years ago."
Hades' pupils suddenly contracted.
"This sudden fog has cast you gods down from mythology to the mortal realm. As long as you remain within the fog, you will grow weaker and weaker. In another hundred years, you may become no different from ordinary mortals."
"I suspect Gaia didn't come in person this time because she wanted to preserve her strength by hiding on Olympus?"
Ye Fan's lips curled up slightly. "Like... a dog clinging to life."
Boom—!!
The surging death energy of the netherworld crashed into Ye Fan, constantly eroding the Buddhist light surrounding him. Hades raised his chin, squinted at Ye Fan, and spoke coldly:
"Foolish mortals, I will show you... God is always God!"
...
It is 20 kilometers away from Cangnan City.
A Maybach roared past on a deserted highway.
In the driver's seat, a thin young man had the car window down, his left hand resting on the door, his fingertips tapping rhythmically to the music, looking incredibly dashing.
Just then, a figure in a yellow uniform rode an electric scooter alongside him, keeping pace with him.
On the back of that uniform were four bright, large characters.
——MiTuan takeout.
The cool young man was taken aback, glanced at the data on his dashboard, then looked at the delivery rider beside him, feeling somewhat confused.
His speed has now reached 130 mph! What kind of electric scooter can go that fast?!
Just as he was wondering, the delivery guy rode his bike with one hand, and with the other hand, he rummaged in the bag on the back of the bike for a while, pulled out a pizza box, and handed it to the young man.
"Hello, this is your takeout."
The young man shook his head. "Are you crazy? I didn't order takeout."
The delivery guy raised an eyebrow. "You must be Loki, the god of mischief, number 018? This is your delivery."
Beep beep!
The pizza box popped open automatically, revealing a neat row of explosives inside, glowing with an eerie blue light.
The young man in the driver's seat froze instantly!