Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 676 Underwater Divine Kingdom

Standing at the bow, all that could be seen was the vast sea of ​​bones, a plaza covered with enormous divine stones, stretching all the way to the dark horizon.

Those enormous sea monster skeletons, like the remnants of ancient mountains, had broken and twisted ribs, and their huge skulls were covered with hideous bite marks and penetrating wounds. They had obviously suffered unimaginable pain and struggle before they died. The countless humanoid skeletons scattered among them were even more shocking.

Many skeletons exhibit distinct human-fish characteristics, with thick, extended caudal vertebrae, traces of webbed connections between the finger bones, and even some skulls bearing bony structures resembling fish gills.

They should have been citizens or warriors of Poseidon's kingdom.

Chang Lei's crimson pupils swept across this land of death, forged by both divine war and infighting. His usual greed and savagery vanished, replaced by a cold-blooded clarity.

"Peak? Glory? Ha..."

He let out a mocking laugh, pointing at the bones gnawing at each other.

"No matter how powerful a divine kingdom is, when it rots from the inside, its fate is no better than that of an anthill. Whether you are a god or a demon, once you are breached from within, you will die a more miserable death than anyone else."

Poseidon's gods did not die heroically on the battlefield against foreign enemies, but rather, under some irresistible erosion, they fell into a self-destructive abyss.

Silence fell upon the crowd. The air was heavy as lead. The scene before them transcended mere terror, bringing with it a profound sense of sorrow and powerlessness at the fall of a god and the collapse of civilization. Magnificent temples were reduced to ruins, devout believers became skeletons devouring each other, and the glory of the sea god sank into eternal darkness. This was more despairing and heartbreaking than any battlefield invaded by a foreign enemy.

Chang Lei's voice was slightly hoarse. His greedy instincts made him subconsciously want to absorb this massive negative energy, but his rationality made him feel an unprecedented heaviness and oppression.

"How old is this place? Thousands of years? The negative energy here is so strong it could practically wholesale heretics and demons; it's practically a natural, super-large negative energy reactor core!"

"Huh?" Afran interrupted Chang Lei with a voice filled with doubt and a hint of surprise.

Her azure eyes were fixed on a few scattered fragments beside the massive skeleton of a divine servant, pierced by the ribs of a gigantic sea beast and kneeling on the ground, not far away. "That...that's...?"

Everyone's attention was immediately drawn to her.

At the feet of the pale blue-white giant skeleton of the divine servant, several strange crystals were scattered.

They are about the size of a fist, with extremely irregular shapes, and have a deep, restrained, dark color that seems to absorb all light. But the most peculiar thing is that deep inside the core of the crystal, there is a point of extremely weak, yet exceptionally pure energy.

These crystals were half-hidden in thick layers of ashes and dust, blending in with the surrounding rusted weapons and broken armor, and were almost unnoticed if Avran had not been extremely sensitive to the aura of energy.

"What is this?!" Xiao Xiao also saw it, her usually cool face showing surprise and uncertainty.

"Mirror Cores?" Chang Lei's pupils contracted, and like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, he suddenly leaned halfway out from the edge of the deck, his scarlet eyes fixed on the crystals, his voice distorted with extreme shock and disbelief. "Mirror Cores of the Greedy Ones! How could such things be in this godforsaken place?!"

As a top-tier greedy individual, he was extremely familiar with the condensed matter that forms after the core of a greedy individual's power falls under certain conditions, such as the Mirror Core. The crystal contained the purest, highly compressed and solidified essence of greed.

"Not just there." Tang Zijun's icy voice rang out, his gaze sweeping across the battlefield of skeletons as if it were the most precise scanner. "At three o'clock, inside the abdominal cavity of that giant whale skeleton, there's one; at nine o'clock, beneath that mountain of broken weapons, there are two; and directly in front, atop that hill made of the skulls of divine servants... there's another one."

Following his directions, everyone gasped.

They were horrified to discover that in this city of death, which had buried countless warriors of the divine kingdom and sea beasts, those dark and deep mirror cores were by no means isolated cases.

Like eerie stars hidden in a sea of ​​corpses, they are scattered across the battlefield. Some are half-buried in ashes, some are stuck in the gaps of broken weapons, and some are even deeply embedded in the bones of those tall divine servants or sea beasts, as if their masters fought side by side with these guardians of the divine kingdom in their last moments... or rather, devoured each other.

"Heavens..." Afran covered her mouth, her azure eyes filled with a shocking, mind-blowing shock. "The Greedy Ones... they actually died here, fighting alongside Poseidon's servants?"

Greedy beings, a chaotic group that feeds on negative and distorted desires, are perceived by everyone as destroyers of order and spokespeople for chaos.

How did they end up on the battlefield protecting the divine kingdom, and clearly in the same camp as the gods, until their fall, leaving behind the mirror core that symbolizes the core of power?

Chang Lei stared intently at the massive bone spear, broken yet still piercing a mirror core, tightly gripped in the hand of the nearest skeleton. He then looked at another spot, where a mirror core was deeply embedded in the shattered skull of a divine servant seahorse. Scattered nearby were half of a twisted arm bone belonging to a greedy being, its scarlet pupils churning with complex and unfathomable emotions.

"Perhaps the greedy ones back then...the people in the mirror, also sensed the impending disaster. Only this possibility could have led them to fight alongside the gods," Tang Zijun murmured.

"I just don't know where the heretics were back then."

"Have you seen enough? This godforsaken place is a thing of the past." Chang Lei withdrew his gaze with a complicated expression, then turned and nudged Tang Zijun with his elbow. "Don't forget, we're here to find that fork."

Upon hearing this, Tang Cao shook her head violently, as if trying to shake the horrific images of skeletons out of her mind, then turned to look at Tang Zijun. "Yeah, bro, hurry up and find the Trident, Sister Qin Nan and the others are still waiting."

Xiao Xiao and Afran immediately composed themselves and looked intently at Tang Zijun.

Tang Zijun took a deep breath. The aura of divine decay and death seemed to have no effect on him anymore. His deep black eyes swept across the boundless sea of ​​bones, finally settling on the direction of the tightly closed temple door deep in the ruins.

He didn't speak, but slowly, with a solemn and dignified air, raised his right hand.

hum.

As he raised his hand, the surrounding deathly silent space seemed to ripple slightly.

A point of extremely deep blue light gathered in his palm. The light did not come from external objects, but rather from his own vast origin of spacetime.

The light rapidly expanded and shaped.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, a strange watch face slowly appeared and solidified in Tang Zijun's palm.

It has no hour or minute hands, no numerals, and the entire dial presents a deep, dark blue color, as if it were made of liquid cosmic stars. Fine, sand-like, constantly appearing and disappearing silver specks flow across the surface, like a miniature galaxy.

At the center of the dial, instead of the axis, is a suspended, slightly rotating, three-dimensional skeletonized hand with an extremely complex and precise design. The main body of the hand is dark blue, but the tip emits a pure white gold light that seems to penetrate all illusions.

"Is this... a compass?" Tangcao asked curiously, looking at the rotating three-dimensional pointer.

"Not entirely." Tang Zijun's voice was steady, his deep gaze fixed on the strange creation in his palm. "This is a divine detector."

He lightly touched the floating, dark blue dial with his fingertip, and the three-dimensional skeletonized hand in the center of the dial suddenly accelerated its rotation speed, and the white gold light at the tip burst out with an even stronger brilliance.

"It does not point north or south, nor does it measure time; its 'magnetic poles' are divinity."

"It can penetrate the cover of matter and ignore the barriers of space. Amidst chaos and death, it guides us to the location in this ruin where the divine remnants are most concentrated and purest... which is also the location most likely to contain the trident, the core relic of Poseidon."

"Are you sure this thing will work?" Chang Lei crossed his arms. He knew very well the source of Tang Zijun's ability: using a pure material world skill to search for extraordinary artifacts. It just seemed a bit strange.

"Although this power does not come from the true god, don't underestimate that guy from the wasteland world. They are the most professional in the digital world when it comes to detecting things like energy."

As Tang Zijun spoke, the rapidly spinning three-dimensional pointer seemed to be drawn by some invisible force and suddenly stopped.

The pointer, its tip gleaming with pure platinum light, seemed to be drawn by a magnet, pointing with unparalleled precision and unwavering determination towards the deep ruins and the tightly closed temple gate constructed of enormous coral and mother-of-pearl.

The platinum light at the tip of the pointer was steady and dazzling, like a lighthouse in the darkness.

The air froze instantly, and everyone's eyes were fixed on the tip of the platinum pointer that was steadily pointing towards the temple gate.

"Tap~" Tang Zijun raised her eyebrows at everyone. "See, I told you so."