Once upon a time there was a greedy snake.

Chapter 208 The Fall of the Underworld
The Chosen Champion Elias withdrew a portion of his soul, achieving a state where he was half on each side. Although this state would prevent him from performing well on either side, it was fine for observation purposes.

This allowed Elias to witness firsthand how the ancient serpent roasted meat with its body while its soul moved freely in the warp.

"This……"

Elias was speechless for a long time.

It's one thing to be weaker than the imagined strongman, but it's quite another to be weaker than the strongman in front of him. Especially since he just said that if you're not a top-tier expert, you absolutely can't do this kind of thing—yet right now, right in front of him, this ancient serpent has done it with ease.

"Could it be that this ancient serpent is one of the top-tier powerhouses?"

A tremendous sense of frustration immediately overwhelmed Elias.

However, as the chosen champion of the God of Courage, Elias was quite experienced in dealing with such defeats. Moreover, he had lost to this ancient serpent before, a loss of over two hundred levels to a level one. So, in retrospect, his loss was quite reasonable.

After all, this ancient serpent is indeed exceptionally talented in some aspects, so his defeat was truly deserved.

"You're saying this is talent?"

Du Yi showed no joy at all when he heard Elias's lavish praise.

It even carried a hint of melancholy.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, this control over his body is a manifestation of some kind of talent, but only Du Yi himself knows how much hard work and how much training he has undergone.

This is not a joke; it is a fact in the true sense.

After all, he had no hands or feet after turning into a snake, so doing anything was extremely difficult. Indeed, his tail was now even more flexible than a normal arm—but he himself had no idea how many times he had practiced in secret to achieve this.

Perhaps he didn't know about the relationship between the soul, consciousness, and body before, but how to make his body move according to his own will had long been integrated into his instincts through repeated attempts and practice.

"But... even the soul, is it shaped like a snake?"

Thinking of this, Du Yi couldn't help but look down at his own snake body.

He originally thought that this method of pouring out a part of his soul would give that part of his soul a human appearance—it wasn't that he disliked snake bodies, but mainly that without hands and feet, he really couldn't do many things.

But now it seems...

"The body, maintaining the shape of the soul?"

Feeling that even though a part of his soul had been separated, he was still the same snake body, Du Yi's understanding of this sentence deepened.

However, now is not the time to worry about such things. They still need to explore the Underworld itself first. So, Du Yi used his long tail to lift up Ujat, who had the head of an eagle and the body of a human, to see if he could extract anything else from him.

This time, the sun god Ujat did not put up any resistance, but simply told him everything he knew.

"First, the soul of a person who has committed a grave sin must be allowed to go to the underworld..."

"Ah."

Du Yi nodded, signaling Ujat to continue.

However, it was at this moment that Ujat laughed.

"How can you go to the underworld without the souls of those who have committed grave sins?"

"……Um?"

Du Yi and Elias exchanged a glance.

Haven't they already arrived? Isn't this the underworld?
"How could this be the Netherworld? This can only be considered the outer perimeter of the Netherworld!"

The sun god Ujat burst into laughter.

"We need the souls of those who have committed grave sins to lure out that crocodile-headed monster so that we can follow the trail it took to retreat down to the underworld... Now you don't even have the souls of those who have committed grave sins, and you can't even summon the Scales of Judgment, so how could you possibly get to the underworld?"

"You boy!"

Before Du Yi could make any move, the chosen champion Elias grabbed the neck of the sun god Ujat.

Even without armor right now, he is still the chosen champion of the God of Courage. How dare this damned birdman fool him... Does he really think he has a good temper?
"Maybe we should just kill him."

Du Yi shook his head repeatedly. After all, this was the first or second time that the Eagle-Headed Sun God had acted uncooperatively. Even though the Eagle-Headed Sun God was a pretty good barbecue grill, he didn't really want a barbecue grill that wouldn't cooperate with him.

"By the way, a corpse doesn't affect fever, right?"

After thinking for a moment, Du Yi added a sentence.

"If it causes any problems, I'll deal with the useless corpses later."

"No, you won't die."

The chosen champion, Elias, shook his head.

"We just need to extract the birdman's soul completely for now. If that doesn't work, we can just put it back in later. It won't affect its use."

As he said this, Elias gripped the neck of the sun god Ujat tightly.

As Elias tightened his grip, the body of the sun god Ujat became noticeably more solid. Du Yi could also feel that Ujat's body, which was like papyrus being smashed into thin pieces, was gradually getting cold.

Clearly, removing the soul will affect the efficiency of this solar-powered barbecue grill.

The good news is that the extracted soul can be put back in, so Du Yi's new energy barbecue grill won't be completely ruined—but the bad news is more troublesome, because this birdman's soul is actually useless.

"It should be a problem with the subspace access mechanism."

Elias frowned slightly.

“The soul of a person who has committed a great sin… that is to say, at least be judged to be a human being.”

Humans can do it, but birdmen can't, so the whole system couldn't be activated from the start. "How about... I do it?"

Taking a deep breath, Elias stepped forward himself.

This startled Du Yi; he never expected that the chosen champion would go crazy at this moment.

However, Elias then explained his reasons.

First of all, as the chosen champion, he himself couldn't remember how many he had killed. Although he hadn't had time to kill many on this planet, his fierce aura made him an easy target for judgment as a major sinner.

"Secondly, I came here to challenge the guardians of this place."

Elias gripped his longsword tightly.

"If I need to use my soul form to lure out the guardian hiding here, then I have no reason to back down."

"you……"

Seeing that Elias was so insistent, Du Yi could no longer persuade him.

This was a battle Ilias chose himself, and all he could do was respect it.

As a result, the body of the sun god Ujat gradually regained its temperature, while Elias's body gradually grew cold—a sign that his body had lost its power source. At this moment, Elias had forcibly transferred his entire soul to the underworld.

And when Elias's soul completely arrived in the underworld.

The enormous phantom with the head of a jackal also appeared in mid-air.

A colossal phantom with a jackal's head held an equally enormous scale in its hands, and the soul of the chosen champion Elias was involuntarily pulled to one side of the scale.

On the other side of the scale, however, lay a light, fluttering feather.

Yet this very light feather managed to tilt the scales, even though Elias's soul was on the other side. The section holding the soul of the chosen champion was tilted high, lighter than a single feather!

"Lighter than a feather."

Du Yi subconsciously thought of this word.

It was at this moment that the earth began to tremble.

A huge crack appeared in the gloomy ground, and a massive monster sprang out from it. The monster had the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, but its hind legs were as short and thick as a hippopotamus's.

Upon seeing the soul on the scales, the monster, which resembled a collection of animals, immediately opened its blood-red maw, ready to swallow the soul that had fallen from the scales whole!
However, the soul falling on the scales still held a longsword in its hand.

The runic sword, covered in dark red rust, was now shimmering with a blood-red light!

"You're the one I've been waiting for!"

boom--

It was just a single sword strike, yet it carried the power of an apocalypse, and the ferocious monster with the head of a crocodile was directly cleaved in two by the fierce sword light!

"I won."

With a somersault, Elias landed on the ground and started to walk back.

"Next, let's follow the path this monster came from... hmm?"

Elias suddenly realized that something was wrong.

This is because the earth-shattering tremors have not yet stopped.

Even though he had already sheathed his sword, the earth-shattering power still did not stop. The already overcast sky became even more gloomy, and even the earth trembled continuously.

It's obvious that this wasn't caused by that one sword strike.

It's more like it triggered some kind of mechanism.

"not good!"

Just as Elias was about to say something, the dark clouds in the sky crashed down!

In an instant, Elias's figure disappeared into the darkness.

As for Du Yi, he wasn't in much better shape. When the sky collapsed, it didn't even distinguish who it was targeting. He and the sun god Ujat, whom he had suppressed, were both enveloped by the dark clouds that descended from the sky, leaving only darkness in their field of vision.

However, this didn't affect Du Yi much. Even without sight, snakes can still perceive their surroundings without any problems – which is one of the advantages of a snake's body over a human's. Even without hands and feet, it still has some strengths.

However, after a brief search, Du Yi's vision was quickly filled with light again.

As the blinding light gradually faded, Du Yi's vision began to clear—this was clearly an old bedroom. The swords and shields hanging on the wall proved that a warrior lived here, while the papyrus scrolls with fresh ink stains by the bed also suggested that the warrior living here was not just skilled in wielding swords and spears.

"Where...is this place?"

Du Yi subconsciously lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Yes, both hands.

With his tall and robust body, strong and powerful legs, and arms as strong as cast iron, he once again took on a human form.

only……

"Who is this again?"

Looking at the completely unfamiliar face in the bronze mirror, Du Yi was speechless for a long time.

(End of this chapter)