She found herself in a stark white void amidst the ruins of a devastated city, where debris—dust and brickwork—floated suspended in mid-air.
A black-haired girl knelt before the remains of a small house—a place that once echoed with laughter and gentle scolding, but now held nothing save for a solitary doorframe. This was the scene from the moment Lucifer's power erupted, plunging her into a coma.
Yet this time, Lin Xi Chen realized the truth of it all.
Fragments of memories from ten years ago began to surface and piece themselves together, reconstructing a story that had long been buried in the past.
Ten years ago, the moment Lin Qiye fell from the rooftop and encountered the Seraph marked the beginning of the chain of events that would follow.
Lin Xi Chen vanished along with countless other Cangnan residents at 2:36:19 PM on October 24th; she vividly recalled the moment she wept and clung tightly to her aunt.
She could feel her body gradually dissolving into nothingness, bit by bit. It was terrifying.
She was subsequently revived by a miracle—specifically, the Seraph's "Divine Ruin"—with Lin Qiye himself unconsciously keeping it active until the time Lin Xi Chen set out on an expedition with her friend.
She dies once again, killed by a mysterious beast, and receives Lucifer's Divine Ruin.
The cycle of death and resurrection shattered her original soul, leaving her body as an empty vessel capable of housing any divine power or the soul of a deity.
This meant she had unconsciously developed a different corrupted spirit within herself—one that attempted to take control of her during the earlier battle on the mountain.
"You know it all...." Lin Xi Chen stared into the empty space before her and spoke to the person standing behind her.
"Maybe... Maybe not." The voice that rang out belonged to Lin Qiye—or rather, Lucifer inhabiting Lin Qiye's body; he stepped forward and surveyed the surroundings.
This was the Cangnan of ten years ago, the very place where the Divine War had taken place and subsequently vanished. "Do you want to kill me for not telling you the truth?"
"...Do you take me for such an ungrateful wretch?" Lin Xi Chen gave a slight scoff and looked at the shattered glass, which reflected Lin Qiye's figure. "If that were to happen, I would die too, because your Divine Ruin is precisely what is keeping this body 'alive'."
"Then there's no need for me to explain much, is there? You've likely met that other personality of yours?"
"Mm... She is an unpleasant person."
"Then again, isn't that very sense of annoyance sometimes what makes you human? Accepting it now and then might not be such a bad thing."
"I never imagined someone like you would come in person to comfort me..."
Lucifer:... I'm prideful but not heartless
"So, will I, my aunt, and my cousin disappear?" Lin Xi Chen's voice was tinged with sorrow and trembled as she sighed; while she had indeed accepted reality quickly, she had no other way to express her grief. Her arm trembled as she wrapped it around herself; she wanted to cry, yet the tears would not come.
"... You should see it for yourself." Lucifer, in the guise of Lin Qiye, gave Lin Xichen a few reassuring pats on the shoulder.
...
Cangnan City.
The old, low houses seemed to have turned into sand, transforming into golden specks of light that scattered in all directions. The streets that had been scattered among the skyscrapers were rapidly receding, the solid asphalt roads disappearing and being replaced by muddy soil.
Streetlights, green plants, signs, cafes, ramen shops, wedding planning stores, Peace Bridge, law firms...
Golden specks of light surged through the air like a torrent, rising and disappearing without a trace...
Everything, like a dream, suddenly shattered.
"Mommy, Mommy..."
On the vanished street, a seven or eight-year-old girl stares blankly at everything before her. In front of her, a woman is looking at her own body in horror.
She, too, is disappearing.
"What's going on? What's happening?" the woman muttered to herself.
She looked up sharply at her daughter, and after confirming that her body had not turned into golden specks of light, a look of relief appeared in her eyes.
In the depths of her eyes, it seemed as if some long-buried memory was being unlocked…
"I see..."
She staggered to her feet, her entire right side of her body having vanished without a trace. She walked up to the girl, a slight smile playing on her lips, and gently stroked the girl's head with her left hand.
"Tian Tian, it's time for Mommy to get through this... The happiest thing for Mommy over the past ten years has been having you... From now on, you'll have to face everything alone."
She looked up at the sky, a look of relief appearing in her eyes.
"The miracle has finally come to an end..."
Scenes like this are happening in every corner of Cangnan City.
Countless people watched in horror as their loved ones and friends gradually disappeared beside them, their eyes filled with panic.
But in the eyes of the missing person, a sense of relief finally emerged, as if they had finally remembered everything and smiled as they bid farewell to the person beside them.
In the entire city of Cangnan, 90 percent of the population has disappeared...
Boom—!!
The cup collided with the thunder, unleashing a massive shockwave that shattered the surrounding earth!
Master Chen was sitting in the carriage, about to continue his attack, when suddenly he seemed to sense something and his expression changed drastically!
"Master, Master!" came the anxious voice of the page from outside the carriage. "The city, the city... is disappearing!"
Master Chen's face was extremely grim. He sighed deeply, and a look of helplessness appeared in his eyes.
"This day has finally come..."
"Master, what's going on?" the pageboy asked in confusion. "Why is this happening? Has another deity struck against this city?"
"No," Master Chen took a deep breath and slowly began, "All of this is simply because this city... it should never have existed in the first place."
"Shouldn't it exist?"
"Do you know what caused that divine war ten years ago?"
"Isn't it for [Shiva's Lament]?"
"Yes, but not entirely," Master Chen said calmly. "Ten years ago, Zeus, the Greek king of gods, peered into the fate of the world and prophesied that two unprecedentedly powerful blasphemer were about to be born. He also accurately calculated that they would be in Cangnan City of Great Xia."
"In order to eliminate his existence as soon as possible, Zeus sent Gaia, the Earth Mother, to join forces with some of the Norse evil gods to attack the border of Great Xia."
"[Shiva's Wrath] is part of their plan, and also a weapon used to eliminate blasphemers."
Master Chen continued, "Cangnan City is just a small city in the Great Xia Dynasty, and it's located far from the border. Even with the combined efforts of five of the strongest human beings... they simply couldn't break in. So, they resorted to [Shiva's Wrath]..."
The pageboy, as if struck by a sudden realization, exclaimed in shock, "You mean...?"
"That's right." Anger flashed in Master Chen's eyes. "After obtaining the [Shiva's Lament], Mother Earth Gaia spared no effort to expend her power and inscribed a name on the surface of the parchment..."Cangnan City.""
"They used [Shiva's Wrath] to wipe out a city?!" The page boy's eyes widened.
"In order to kill two blasphemers who had not yet been born, they did not hesitate to wipe out an entire city... After that name was written, the entire Cangnan City was as if it had been wiped off the face of the earth, disappearing without a trace."
Not even a pebble, a patch of dust, or a drop of blood was left behind.
A city, and its million inhabitants... were simply wiped out.
The pageboy stared wide-eyed at the scene before him, utterly incredulous. "But...but...isn't this city right here?"
"It still exists because of Lin Qiye." Master Chen slowly closed his eyes.
"After the entire Cangnan City was wiped out, his sister was unlucky at that time somehow and end up only one person survived... that was Lin Qiye."
"No one knows how he, at only seven years old, escaped the destruction of Shiva, but later, in that low, old house, our people found fragments of three sacred artifacts…"
"They are a silver bracelet, a broken crystal ball, and a uniquely shaped ring."
"These three divine artifacts were buried beneath the low house, forming a mysterious array. Lin Qiye's survival might be attributed to them, but we still have no clue as to who left these three artifacts behind."
"Even if Lin Qiye is the only survivor, what about this city?"
"After Cangnan was wiped out, Michael, the angel king with the god number 003, chose the only survivor in the void city to become his agent, namely Lin Qiye."
"After inheriting the Divine Ruins, an extremely large amount of divine power was poured into his body and buried in his subconscious."
"Then, a colossal divine ruin covering the entire city of Cangnan unfolded."
"That is... [Divine Realm of the Mortal World]."
Master Chen paused for a moment, then continued:
"Lin Qiye, carrying the [Mortal Divine Realm], was like a walking terminal, subconsciously using the divine power in his spiritual world to reconstruct the entire Cangnan City and revive the Cangnan citizens who should have been wiped out..."
"In short, he revitalized the entire Cangnan."
"Even though he himself was completely unaware, he was constantly using [Mortal God Realm] to maintain the daily operation of the city. He was the soul of the city, and the city... existed only because of him."
"The divine power that Michael poured into him was enough to sustain the operation of this divine realm for ten years. After ten years, dust will return to dust, and ashes to ashes... In fact, even without this incident, the city would have vanished in half a month."
"Ten years is enough time for many things to happen, because every person in the city is a living, breathing human being."
"They can work, live, and leave Cangnan to go to other places... because they already have the mark of the [Mortal Divine Realm] within them, and they will continue to exist unless the divine realm disappears."
"Although they have been wiped out, they can still marry and have children in the [Mortal God Realm]... Most importantly, their offspring are completely beyond the [Mortal God Realm], meaning that even if this god realm disappears one day, their children will still survive."
"These past ten years have been a decade of bloodline continuation."
The pageboy's eyes were filled with shock, "[The Mortal Realm of Gods] actually possesses such heaven-defying abilities?!"
Master Chen closed his eyes and slowly said, "If we were to label all the top ten divine ruins, then Sequence 008 [Shiva's Lament] would represent 'destruction,' while Sequence 003 [The Mortal Realm of Gods]..."
"That means 'miracle'!"
"This city, these past ten years, have existed solely because of Lin Qiye—the greatest 'miracle'!"