I, the final BOSS of the beta test server!

"Let us be at the end of the story, the end of the fairy tale..."

"See you again."

He had just finished speaking.

The night, like a veil, gently covered the girl's slim figure until it disappeared.

Chapter 158 The war between humans and gods is always a fight to the death (5k)

The abyss roars, and the wind and tide rise and fall.

The waves on the dim sea were surging, creating huge waves like mountains collapsing.

Rast stood on the high tower, gazing at the illusory sea below the cliff for a long time.

Not until he could no longer see the figure of the girl with the blood of both humans and gods flowing in her veins in the gauze-like night and the rising and falling waves did he slowly turn around and withdraw his gaze from the abyss.

Then, Rast turned his gaze back to the top of the Tower of Babel, the constantly fluctuating field of fertility and the distorted and twisted branches and leaves.

"The fairy tale heroine has returned to the world."

"So, what I have to do next is—"

"The only thing left is the final finishing touch."

His voice and expression remained calm, like an eternal and unchanging deep pool.

but--

at the same time.

At the root of Rast's soul, in the spiritual world embodied by mental images, there is a completely different landscape.

The mental world that originally belonged only to Rast was now tainted with a touch of dark filth.

It was an extremely dark darkness that swallowed up all the light and enveloped Last's spiritual world... Then, the darkness was eroding and corrupting it bit by bit from the outside world, and it was about to corrode Last's mental barrier and invade the darkest darkness into his spiritual world.

Just like the nightmare Axia had when she slept in the ice coffin—an eternally dark sky and an extremely cold blizzard...

And when the blizzard completely engulfs the faint glow of the fire...Last's personality and entire self will also be wiped out.

This is the corruption from the god of death, the erosion caused by the remnant of the old god of death, and it is also the result that Rast must face.

When he used the "King-Rook Castling" method to rescue the imprisoned queen from the dangerous situation of certain death, helping her escape from the night world and return to reality - an equivalent exchange had already taken place.

The price of equal exchange... is that Rast, as the "chariot", will bear all the consequences faced by the "king".

Axia, the perfect vessel of human-god hybrid and vessel, has vanished from this world. Then, Rast becomes the last straw that saves the remnant of the god of death...

He had no choice but to occupy the body of the human in front of him and turn Rast into a new container.

boom--

In the spiritual world, the remnant of the ancient god turned into a dark tide, constantly hitting the boy's spiritual wall, burning out one empty hole after another.

This was destined to be an unfair duel from the very beginning...

After all, this is the divine consciousness of the god of death. Even after a long period of slumber and decline, even if it is just a broken soul, it is definitely not something that ordinary humans can contend with.

They were the supreme ancient gods who once ascended to the clouds in the distant Age of Gods and overlooked the mortal world for tens of thousands of years. In their eyes, humans at that time were like livestock kept in a pasture.

In front of the magnificent will forged by tens of thousands of years of life, the memories and self-will of ordinary humans, who only have a few decades at most and less than a hundred years, are as lowly as dust.

Just like those tainted by the plague, retaining all their memories but losing their humanity... reduced to beasts living only for sadism, the Iron Crosses of evil gods' lackeys. The pollution of the ancient gods corrodes and corrupts the human soul as easily as a high-powered steamroller crushes gravel.

The balance of victory and defeat had already completely tilted towards the gods before the gambling game even began.

The only remaining fairness is that the stakes of both parties are equal, and the loser will lose everything, whether it is God or man.

click-

click-

In the spiritual world, there were crackling sounds.

That was the remnant of the old god of death that eroded the wall of Rast's mind. After a long period of corrosion and infection, it left cracks on the mental barrier.

The process of invading the mental world of this strange human boy in front of him was so long that it was beyond the imagination of the old god of death.

As an ancient god, he had spread faith among the human community and used polluting means to develop his own followers... However, he had never encountered such fierce resistance.

The mental walls of ordinary humans should be as fragile as paper in front of the divine thoughts of a god, and can be broken with a snap of a finger.

Only those strong human beings who have completed the transformation of the essence of life and ascended to the throne of legend... can the originally ethereal spiritual power be sublimated and perfected, manifesting as a spiritual ocean, allowing them to overlook their own souls and minds from a higher dimension.

Generally speaking, only legendary strongmen have the possibility to briefly resist the divine thoughts and not be instantly infected and corrupted. If the extraordinary people below the legendary level are no different from ants in the eyes of the gods, then the legendary level means that they are no longer ants that can be destroyed in the blink of an eye, but have the qualifications to stand before the gods.

However, at this moment, the container invaded by the remnant of the god of death... after putting aside the authority stolen from itself, its true status is only the fourth or fifth level.

Obviously, he is not a legend, but the process of invading his mind is extremely difficult. His mental power is no longer an illusory existence, but like a legend, it has materialized into a spiritual ocean and a real mental world.

but--

Even so, the erosion was eventually complete.

Once you break through the mental wall... you will be able to invade their mental world and directly interfere with their memory and mind.

As long as one is human, there will be human weaknesses and spiritual flaws, and even legends are no exception.

Therefore, although the process seems a little difficult... but once the invasion is completed, one only needs to use these weaknesses as a breakthrough point to destroy the opponent's self bit by bit.

Just like the nightmare that Akshia experienced not long ago, that nightmare was the process of death eroding her self bit by bit.

Such a thought flashed away in the ancient god's residual thoughts.

And then, the mental barrier of the human boy was finally completely broken through.

The wall of the world let out a fragile groan, then shattered and scattered into countless scattered points of light.

The remnant of the god of death finally broke through the barrier and entered Rast's mental world.

However, next.

In the divine consciousness, the ripples of thought...stopped in an instant.

As an ancient god from the Age of Gods, the master of death, and the king of countless souls in the underworld - the old god of death has witnessed countless spiritual worlds and mental landscapes.

These masters of the spiritual world come from different races, some are strong and some are weak, and there are even some truly legendary mental images among them.

However, Death had never seen such a scene before him.

What kind of mental world is this?

The ground cracked with huge fissures, collapsed buildings, hot winds carrying scorching smoke and dust, and metal pipes twisted and deformed in the high temperature.

It was a desolate wreckage, the ruins of a small town called "Canaan".

On the distant horizon, burning flames are leaping.

The dark sky was filled with countless huge gears that blocked out the sun. The gears were interlocked and slowly rotating.

This is a world like an ironworks. Apart from the ruins of a small town in the red wilderness and the huge gears slowly rotating at the end of the gloomy sky... there is nothing else.

The actions of the Grim Reaper suddenly came to a halt... The plan that had been originally prepared to find the weaknesses of human nature in Last's mind, corrupt and erode the weaknesses, and bewitch Last's consciousness, now froze at the starting point and could no longer continue.

Normal, intelligent humans always have various desires.

Take male desires for example. What they want are nothing more than a few things - either wealth that can rival a country, or power to rule the world, or the power to look down on all living beings, or a beauty that can captivate the whole country.

The same is true for women, who want to be beautiful, stay young, and have a true and happy love...

This is a common human trait. Even if one reaches the legendary level, one cannot avoid these desires.

Of course, most people have learned how to hide their desires from outsiders and not to express their greed and what they want directly.

However, in the spiritual world, in the mental landscape that embodies the essence of the soul... those desires that people usually try so hard to conceal will be revealed without reservation, turning into clearly visible concrete objects.

Similarly, these concrete objects born of desires and emotions are also human weaknesses, which are the weaknesses and flaws that the remnants of death want to find and exploit.

However, in Rast's mental world, such a thing does not exist.

Apart from the desolate ruins in the red wilderness, there was nothing else in his spiritual world.

Having abandoned human desires and lost the understanding of worldly emotions——

All that remained was the end of the gloomy sky, and the huge gears that filled the entire sky, interlocking with each other and slowly rotating.

This has always been Rast's spiritual world, the mental landscape forged during the three hundred years in Deep Blue Harbor.

The gears of the spirit slowly turned, and the soul burned like the core of an ironworks furnace.

The interlocking gears and cores drove this hollow body and the life of Rast, living like a machine, all for the purpose of fulfilling the purpose of being called "Shore Keeper."

Apart from this, his mind was empty.

Therefore, the old god of death certainly could not use the flaws in human nature as a breakthrough to erase Rast's will as he had previously eroded Axia.

A world where machines run on gears and there is nothing but ruins... How can one find human weakness in such a mind?

[Iron Heart]

[Category: Inherent Skills]

The endless cycle of the same day, the repetition of time, is not a blessing to humanity, but the most despairing curse. Even the most sincere feelings and fervent ideals will eventually decay and deteriorate in the face of the long passage of time, ultimately turning into empty dust.

[The spirit that moves like a gear is a heart of iron that sneers.]

So, what is it that keeps this dilapidated body moving forward...?

[Skill Effect: Your soul resistance increases by 50%. The effects of pollution, corruption, bewitchment, mind manipulation, hypnosis, and mind reading abilities targeting you will be greatly weakened and will backfire on the user.]

This inherent skill bestowed upon the boy by the Night World wasn't so much a reward for a mission...

Rather, it is the most realistic portrayal of his inner world.

The extremely dark consciousness of the God of Death stood in the crimson wilderness, but it was extremely rare that it fell into a stagnation.

He consumed a huge amount of divine consciousness to invade Last's spiritual world, hoping to find the opponent's flaws, but in the end he got nothing.

"Surprised, huh?"

Amid the whirring of giant gears, the young man's words came from the end of the dark sky, echoing throughout the entire red wilderness.

"To think that the human mind world could be so damaged and desolate, it's practically no different from a vegetative state..."

"However, precisely because it's so dilapidated and empty...that's precisely why I can't begin. I can't take over this body as easily as I had hoped, transforming it into a vessel for your revival."

The young man sighed: "To be honest, I feel helpless that my mind has become so damaged."

"If you want to blame someone, then blame your colleague from the Age of Gods, the guy who created the Iron Cross Plague on the continent."

"It was that evil god worshipped by the Iron Cross who caused my spiritual world to become what it is today, a state neither human nor ghost."

"Iron Cross..."

In a rare instance, the remnant of death responded.

The supreme god would not talk to an ant. The reason why he responded... was because in the judgment of this divine consciousness, Last was no longer an ordinary transcendent, but like a legend, he had the qualifications to talk to him.

The ancient god's voice rang out like the clashing of bronze weapons: "The Bound One?"

"Do you have any intersection with Him?"

Although it has fallen for several epochs, the Remnant of Death can still roughly know everything that happened on the continent thanks to the backup plans he left in the Underworld and Paradise.

The culprit behind the Iron Cross Plague was the ancient god known as the Bound One.

In the First Age, that distant Age of Gods, both the Bound Ones and the God of Death were great beings who had ascended to the throne of God.

However, time passed, and with the demise of the Age of Gods, the Age of Gods came to an end... The God of Death chose to actively annihilate himself, attempting to be reborn as a human, while the "Bound One" chose to hide on the threshold of the Seraph to maintain his own survival.

"The evil god who created the Iron Cross Plague is called 'The Bound One'?"

Rast paused slightly, this was a secret he had never known before.

As expected, these guys who have survived from the Age of Gods to the present day are living knowledge bases. Any leak of them will become secrets that are taboo in later generations.

"Yes, I've been killed by that unfortunate thing tens of thousands of times... As for the number of times I've been infected by the Iron Cross Plague and had my mind corroded by the will of the evil god, it's even more numerous, too numerous to count."

"That guy has polluted and corrupted me too many times. To resist that pollution, I have had no choice but to transform my mental image and spiritual world into this dilapidated state."

"Because, only in this way can I maintain my sanity under the influence of the Iron Cross and preserve my integrity."

"So if you want to blame someone, blame your colleague."

"He has practiced the process of his soul being eroded for me so many times, so much so that I've become a doctor, or perhaps developed a resistance to the medicine..."