Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 677 The Forgotten Place

The Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground next to the carcass of a sea monster. The road ahead was too narrow and impassable for ships, so the crew had to disembark and step onto the ice path made of arabess.

The ice layer was crystal clear, yet exceptionally thin, like a fragile layer of crystal covering millions of bones. With each step, a heart-stopping "crack" sound came from beneath one's feet. This was not the ice layer breaking, but rather the crushing of the ancient yet still hard bone fragments piled up below.

The scene beneath the ice was hazy and terrifying: massive, pale ribs crisscrossed, a dark blue skull staring blankly into the distance, and the sharp edges of broken weapons reflecting a faint, eerie light beneath the ice. Every step felt like walking on the graveyard of gods and behemoths.

The ice path leads to the magnificent palace that the clock face points to, which is mostly collapsed.

Its outline appeared immense and dilapidated in the pervasive, eerie blue light. Broken pillars, like the severed arms of giants, pointed dejectedly towards the dark dome. The palace's slender, towering gate, over seven meters high, was cast from some dark metal, its surface covered with a thick layer of blackish-green grime, like a mixture of deep-sea moss and congealed blood. The gate was ajar, revealing a bottomless crevice from which seeped an even heavier aura of decay, a mixture of millennia of dust and deep-sea salt crystals.

"Be careful, don't stray too far from me." Tang Zijun's voice was low and solemn, unusually clear in the absolutely silent environment, carrying an undeniable warning.

He walked first to the massive door, placing his hands on the cold, rough, and corroded door panel, where the power of time and space silently surged.

With a creak as he pushed in, the heavy metal door groaned as if it had been rusted for millennia, and slowly opened inward.

The sound, like the dying gasp of a giant beast, carried far through the empty city of death, stirring up a chilling echo.

The interior was not as dark as expected.

What came into view was a space far beyond imagination. The dome had partially collapsed, and huge rubble, like suspended meteorites, was frozen in mid-air, its grotesque silhouette outlined by an unknown, eerie blue light. Most of the giant pillars supporting the dome were broken or toppled, like a forest trampled by giants. The ground was covered with huge, flat black divine stones, but covered with deep, spiderweb-like cracks, and the cracks were filled with thick fragments of crystal.

What is most awe-inspiring is the twelve golden thrones arranged along the massive circular wall of the palace.

They stand majestically like mountains, each nearly ten meters tall, and are made entirely of thick gold, which has become dull and even somewhat tarnished due to its age.

The chairs come in various shapes and sizes; some have backrests like towering waves, others have armrests like coiled sea serpents, some are inlaid with huge gemstones that have long since lost their luster, and still others are carved with totems symbolizing different divine powers: thunder, wisdom, war, hunting...

They stand silently amidst ruin and dust, like twelve tombstones burying past glories. Proportionally, the beings that could sit atop them must be as large as mountains.

The entire temple was eerily empty. Apart from the enormous thrones, there was almost nothing else. As far as the eye could see, there was only endless emptiness, cold stone, and an omnipresent, suffocating silence.

"This...is this Poseidon's Temple?" Xiao Xiao's voice trembled slightly, her cool eyes sweeping over the colossal thrones that seemed to silently watch from the darkness, feeling an oppressive sense of insignificance, like dust. "It feels...so suffocating."

“This must be the Council of the Gods,” Afran said. “It’s magnificent. This is truly the mythical era.” “Won’t there be any traps?” Tangcao shrank back and asked in a low voice, her large eyes warily scanning the surrounding shadows and the bases of those massive thrones, as if something terrible might emerge at any moment. Emptiness is often more unsettling than crowds.

"Better safe than sorry," Tang Zijun replied briefly. His gaze swept quickly across every corner of the temple: the ruins of the dome, the cracks in the ground, the base of the throne. He was searching for the lost trident of Poseidon.

However, all that could be seen was emptiness, and still more emptiness.

"What the hell..." Tang Cao couldn't help but mutter under her breath, kicking a small pebble at her feet in frustration, the sound echoing faintly in the empty space. "Such a big place, and there are only twelve super-sized chairs... Where's the trident? Where are the other artifacts? Dude, is there something wrong with your detector...?"

Before she could finish speaking—

An indescribable chill, as if from the deepest, coldest place in the underworld, suddenly descended. It was not a sudden drop in temperature, but a deathly stillness that froze the soul and solidified time.

Xiao Xiao suddenly looked up, her gaze fixed on the golden throne among the twelve thrones, the one that was relatively close to the front, whose style best suited the temple environment, and which was decorated with patterns of waves and storms.

Just moments ago, the throne was empty, but now an incredibly tall figure, outlined by flowing, deep ocean waves and the cold, fragmented starlight, has appeared seated upon it.

Its outline was deep and indistinct, as if condensed from the purest darkness and nothingness, yet it exuded a vast, abyss-like divine pressure that froze all things. Its enormous head was slightly lowered, its face hidden in shadows that seemed to devour light. Only two cold, lifeless beams of light, as if capable of piercing the very essence of the soul, were projected from that deep shadow, silently enveloping the entire temple.

Xiao Xiao's pupils contracted sharply, a chill instantly shooting from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. She stiffly raised her hand, pointing in the direction of one of the twelve thrones, her voice trembling. "...The...the chair..."

Everyone's expression changed as they followed the direction she pointed.

The thing sat there quietly, like an ancient reef, its huge head slightly lowered, as if asleep, or as if watching over these tiny ants that had intruded into its slumber.

"Holy crap!" Chang Lei was the first to react. Crimson energy surged out of his body like a bristling hedgehog, and he instinctively assumed a fighting stance.

Tang Zijun stepped forward, blocking the crowd. The deep blue light in her eyes was more solemn than ever before, and the power of time and space flowed silently in her palm.

He stared intently at the giant of light and shadow, his voice low and menacing. "...Don't move!"

The atmosphere froze instantly.

Tang Cao, who was just complaining, had her mouth still agape in an "O" shape, but now all she could do was gasp for breath.

In the empty temple, only the heavy heartbeats of the crowd and the faint, almost imperceptible breathing of the enormous figure of light, as if emanating from the depths of the ocean...

The giant seated on the throne, simply by existing, seemed to drain all the life and warmth from his surroundings. The dust in the air ceased to move, and even time seemed to freeze under this oppressive force emanating from the deepest part of the underworld.

Just as everyone's nerves were stretched to the limit, the enormous head on the throne, outlined by deep shadows and shattered starlight, slowly rose.

The shadows receded from her face like the receding tide, revealing an indescribable countenance.

It was not made of flesh and blood, but rather sculpted from the deepest blue sea jade and solidified starlight. Its outline was as resolute as a cape that had been eroded for millions of years, with the solemnity and antiquity of ancient Greek sculpture. Thick and curly dark blue beard, like solidified waves, covered the well-defined jawline.

Sleeve's eyes... there were no pupils, only two slowly rotating, eerie blue halos that seemed to contain endless storms and abyssal vortexes.

His gaze first swept over Afran, Tangcao, and Xiao Xiao. The three magical girls felt as if they had been thrown into an icy sea of ​​absolute zero, with a bone-chilling cold emanating from the depths of their souls and their magic power almost freezing. His gaze carried an indifference as if looking down on ants, as well as a kind of inhuman curiosity as if examining ancient relics.

Finally, those two dark blue eyes slowly locked onto Tang Zijun, who was standing at the very front.

A voice echoed throughout the empty, deathly silent temple.

The sound did not travel through the air, but roared directly into the depths of everyone's soul, hoarse and deep, like billions of hectares of seawater slowly rubbing against each other in a deep abyss, carrying endless weariness.

"You're too late... Mirror God..."

On that enormous face, composed of light and shadow, seemed to float a faint trace of melancholy that transcended countless ages.

"...You promised me...you would return here before the eternal night arrives...to send the last of your people into the Dream Realm...The temple gates have already cycled through seven times...the time we agreed upon is already...wait."

His words were like an ancient incantation, carrying the weight of a long-forgotten history. But then, his eyes, formed by a halo of dark blue light, suddenly narrowed, as if piercing through the spacetime power surrounding Tang Zijun and seeing some essential difference. The melancholy in his voice was instantly replaced by a sudden alertness.

"You...you're not the Mirror God I know?"

The giant's hoarse voice echoed, causing everyone to instinctively hold their breath.

In just a few words, Tang Zijun realized that the person in front of her had probably mistaken her for the mirror god from mythology. At the same time, Tang Zijun also recognized the other person's identity. "You are... Poseidon!?"

He narrowed his eyes slightly in disbelief. According to Scáthach's intelligence, Poseidon, no, not only Poseidon, but all the main gods of the Olympian pantheon should have perished.

Upon hearing Tang Zijun's voice, the enormous figure on the throne seemed to realize something and looked Tang Zijun and the others up and down once more.

After a pause, He did not respond to Tang Zijun's words, but instead let out a deep sigh.

"It seems... the plan has failed after all... I didn't expect even the Mirror God couldn't escape that kind of pollution..."

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