Chapter 485
The War of the Apostles
Dream Realm, the Proving Ground.
This is one of the closest links between the Dream Realm and the Material Realm, the umbilical cord connecting them.
Below the Upper Realm, above the Lower Realm.
All Extraordinary individuals participating in the Ascension Ritual, their souls arrive here in a dreamlike state. It’s like being thrown into the deep sea, but ultimately, one does not sink downwards—because “ascension” is a transcendence. Its direction is upwards.
The Dream Realm does not follow the laws of the Material Realm, with clear and ordered cardinal directions. Each area seems independent, yet they also overlap.
The “Proving Ground” is a lake, and also a water hourglass connecting the two realms. The upright pool is filled with warm amniotic fluid, while the inverted world is soaked in blood. Transparent bubbles float steadily in the pool, each containing nine sleeping souls.
This is the essence of the Ascension Ritual.
Inside each bubble is a miniature world.
And within one of these bubbles, Akropolis’s projection manifests.
The elder Lizardman, holding a serpent staff, looks seriously at “City Breaker” Enyo.
Enyo stops her steps.
“It seems you still remember me, Akropolis!”
Showcasing no fear, she bares her teeth and smiles: “It’s been about eight hundred years, old man! Shall we continue to cooperate!”
Enyo’s appearance is beautiful, her figure excellent, and her skin fair. Purple battle markings are drawn on her face, resembling special eyeshadow. Or perhaps the markings of a cobra.
But compared to her appearance, her voice is extremely heroic and rough. It’s a voice that doesn’t betray gender, and it carries like a battle cry from afar.
Akropolis’s expression is solemn.
Because he knows how troublesome this person is.
Enyo is one of the Bear Heavenly Envoy’s most loyal apostles, a giantess with long red hair who brings bloodshed wherever she walks.
On the current Avalon Island, there wasn’t always just the realm of giants. A group of elves once resided here, and the elves once occupied opposite ends from the giants. Lancelot I’s adoptive mother, Viviane, was a descendant of that generation of elves before becoming a Fairy.
These elves, who did not reside in the Eternal Holy Kingdom, were more adept at fighting than their counterparts in the church. They possessed technology beyond their era, and their capital was once called the “Unconquerable City.”
It was during that battle that Enyo shattered the barrier and broke down the city gates. Her mother was a priestess among the giants, and her father was a giant bear—this giant bear is said to be an avatar of Supreme Heaven.
In that war, she drank strong liquor mixed with elven blood while stirring up a storm that destroyed everything. After breaching the city, she did not intend to end the war but to revel in the slaughter of both sides. Thus, Enyo, along with her brother “Nation Destroyer” Ares, initiated a massacre.
Eventually, the siblings’ atrocities drew the wrath of the Candlemaster. Under the elves’ prayers, the Candlemaster’s apostle, “Eternal Vanguard” Carstenning, descended to the Material Realm and slew these giants.
After their death, the siblings were promoted to apostles by Supreme Heaven. He bestowed upon them new powers, giving Ares a spear burning with flame, and Enyo a war hammer entwined with storms.
When the Bear Heavenly Envoy was still Supreme Heaven, they were worshipped by the giants as gods of war, male and female. They were two of the four most powerful apostles under Supreme Heaven, jointly wielding the authority of war.
“It has indeed been a long time.”
Akropolis said coldly, “But I have never cooperated with you—don’t speak of our relationship as if we were close.
“What, is the Bear Heavenly Envoy so short of manpower under him that he needs the City Breaker to deal with a mere mortal?”
Enyo reveled in the cruelty of war, always making the emotions of both warring parties spiral out of control. What began as mere rational friction would gradually escalate into an uncontrollable, intensifying, and bloody conflict under the saturation of hatred and death… this was Enyo’s influence.
Whenever war entered this brutal stage, it was when Akropolis would save people. This was also why Enyo claimed they had cooperated before.
After Supreme Heaven was defeated by the Crown Heavenly Envoy and lost its leading position in the Path of Power, his body was pierced by a holy sword, transforming into a scarlet giant bear corpse that fell to the ground.
His blood soaked into the Dream Realm and dripped into the Material Realm, forming a blood pool. A starving, emaciated bear cub, abandoned by its mother, drank its blood as milk and gradually grew.
By drinking the blood of Supreme Heaven, it became Supreme Heaven’s successor. When it ascended to the Dream Realm, the will of Supreme Heaven was resurrected from within it. After killing “Savage Heavenly Envoy,” who possessed attributes of both the Path of Love and the Path of Authority, it seized a Heavenly Envoy Fragment and, through the Path of Authority and Transcendence, became the “Bear Heavenly Envoy.”
However, most of its former apostles did not return.
The Path of Power is precisely a path of the strong preying on the weak, where the fittest survive. After becoming weaker, they naturally abandoned it.
Among Supreme Heaven’s four strongest apostles, “Tyrant” was thrice besieged and killed by knights under the Silver Crown Dragon and has yet to be resurrected; “Raksha” was subdued by the Candlemaster; and “Nation Destroyer” was bewitched by the Shadow Heavenly Envoy’s beauty and voluntarily became his follower.
The “City Breaker” Enyo before him is the strongest apostle remaining under the Bear Heavenly Envoy.
“Are you going to stop me? Just an avatar dares to stand in my way?”
Enyo picked up her invisible hammer with interest: “Then come and try.”
“…Heh.”
Akropolis’s eyes turned completely cold, and he let out a sneer.
If the Bear Heavenly Envoy were still Supreme Heaven, Akropolis would absolutely not be able to defeat Enyo.
After all, Akropolis is just a doctor, not possessing such immense power.
The reason Supreme Heaven is called “Supreme Heaven” is because its power is supreme.
In the process of the Crown Heavenly Envoy defeating him, there was direct and indirect help from numerous Pillar Gods, Heavenly Envoys, and Apostles such as the Hourglass, Candlemaster, Lord of Scales and Feathers, Shadow Heavenly Envoy, Ring Heavenly Envoy, and Banquet Master. It’s less that Supreme Heaven died from a challenge by a Heavenly Envoy of the same path, and more that he died from his own reckless attitude.
But the Bear Heavenly Envoy has only returned to the position of Heavenly Envoy for less than two hundred years. He couldn’t grant Enyo much power… and based solely on Enyo’s own strength, she might not be able to defeat him now.
It is only Supreme Heaven’s former Divine Artifact that could make Akropolis hesitate slightly.
The next moment, Enyo took down the human-head wine gourd at her waist and took a large swig.
“Ah—”
As she let out a painful yet loud roar, Enyo’s skin was suddenly stained by the blood that erupted from within her.
As soon as this blood touched the air, it turned into blood mist and condensed into a storm.
In an instant, a scarlet and violent storm continuously surged out of her body.
Bears, wolves, falcons, horses—the scarlet storm transformed into countless beasts, accompanied by countless howling bloody skulls, rushing towards them with a world-devouring, all-destroying momentum!
The surrounding world creaked and groaned. The simulated space created by the Pillar God’s power crackled with red lightning. Cracks appeared and disappeared one after another.
She was too lazy to precisely kill the prey marked by her lord and intended to destroy everyone all at once!
Anyway, as the Host of the Ascension Ritual, Akropolis had to protect everyone and would have to face her attack head-on.
Even if Enyo’s current strength was slightly weaker than Akropolis, if she were the one attacking, she would have the advantage.
Even though the former apostles of the Path of Power were thoughtless brutes, they possessed a cunning like wild beasts in combat. That had now become instinct.
“I have already warned you.”
Akropolis sneered, paused, and tapped his serpent staff: “Then die here.”
Coincidentally, he had bought enough time.
The surrounding world instantly became blurry and fantastical.
Colors seemed to seep out of the void, becoming nauseatingly slippery.
A formless, intangible, colorless, and tasteless “plague” spread around, transforming into streaks of inauspicious black patterns that gradually appeared on Enyo’s body—just as her daughter, the Medicine Heavenly Envoy, controlled medicine and poison, she too controlled the power of plague.
Even while they were talking, Akropolis had already administered the poison, and now she was suffering its effects.
But Enyo showed no reaction to this.
—So what if she herself was attacked, or even killed?
Her lord’s purpose had been achieved.
You still can’t protect them!
Facing the scarlet storm that howled like a ghost, as if it aimed to destroy everything, Akropolis showed no reaction. It was as if he had given up resisting.
He merely maintained the plague that was slowly spreading through the air and gradually turned into a stone sculpture.
But at the moment Akropolis became completely still, another “Akropolis” suddenly appeared!
—That was the true body of “Akropolis”!
“Finally caught up.”
A young and vibrant voice rang out.
This was not a ceremonial clone sent to host the ritual, but an apostle body, just like Enyo’s!
But this Akropolis was not the frail old man, stooped with age, who had to lean on his staff to walk unsteadily.
Akropolis was now a youth in his twenties or thirties.
His eyes were sharp and bright, his muscles perfectly developed. Glossy black scales covered his body, and his tail was thick and powerful. More like an upright dragon than a Lizardman.
He was not holding a serpent staff at this moment, but his hands were empty.
—This was the “Immortality Elixir,” one of Akropolis’s “Three Supreme Elixirs”!
The true Akropolis was indeed in this youthful form.
For he had already consumed the three elixirs he had developed, breaking through the triple barriers of life, time, and fate, achieving the sublimation of mortals!
Resurrection, rejuvenation, and…
Akropolis’s back suddenly swelled with a pair of dragon wings.
His body began to expand further, and the serpent scales on his body gradually turned into dragon scales.
—Immortality!
(End of Chapter)
