Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 678 Poseidon!

The deep, hoarse voice of Poseidon's phantom, each syllable seemingly carrying the dust of billions of years, stirred a heart-palpitating echo in the deathly silent temple.

His few words were like a heavy stone thrown into a deep pool, stirring up huge waves in everyone's hearts. In the age of mythology, the greedy god of the mirror world actually stood shoulder to shoulder with the Olympian gods.

Tang Zijun suppressed her turbulent emotions and looked up at the high, lofty figure. "Poseidon, the mirror god you speak of... is he the god of gluttony and greed?"

He attempted to connect ancient legends with modern understanding.

On the giant of light and shadow, whose face was sculpted from deep-sea blue jade and fragmented starlight, the curly beard seemed to ripple slightly with the energy. Deep within its swirling, deep blue eyes surged a pure, timeless bewilderment: "The God of Mirror-Eater's Greed... Who is that?"

His voice carried the indifference and detachment of a deity towards the names bestowed upon him by posterity.

"The Mirror God I know is the ancient being who wields reflections," the one who dwells in the "abyss of illusion and mental imagery," and is also the first being born in the world to be seen through a mirror; his name is Mirror.

Tang Zijun raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.

Not the god of greed who eats mirrors? Yes, that makes sense. How could an existence from the mythological era be a mirror eater? The mirror god Poseidon spoke of has a status and existence far exceeding later generations' understanding of the source of greed. He is the original reflection, the source of illusion, and the progenitor of greed born from the original mirror of the world.

Having figured this out, Tang Zijun stopped dwelling on the name. Once he was certain the other person could communicate, he decisively steered the conversation back to reality. "The dream world you mentioned earlier, is it the dream world you created using all the power of the divine era?"

Poseidon's phantom paused noticeably, and the eerie blue light surrounding his sleeves flickered abruptly, as if his emotions were in turmoil. The name seemed like a key, instantly unlocking the long-sealed gates of his memories.

He gazed intently at Tang Zijun without uttering a word.

Tang Zijun, speaking in a somber tone, presented the catastrophic disaster facing the real world—the imminent collapse of the core of the dream world, the failure of the barrier causing the whispers of the past to erode reality like a plague, and billions of living beings struggling on the edge of madness—to this ancient sea god in the most concise way.

"...The dream world is falling apart. The second-generation gods and the native gods of the dream world are already in decline. With the shattering of the Void Realm, the seals that the gods used to suppress the ancient rulers are also beginning to loosen. The entire dream world is in turmoil. If this is not resolved quickly, the next threat will engulf reality..."

"Poseidon, tell us the truth. What kind of terror were you fighting back then? What kind of being could force the gods and the man in the mirror to join forces, even at the cost of creating a world to build a battlefield, only to ultimately lose everything and have their divine kingdom destroyed?"

A complete defeat... The divine kingdom has fallen.

The enormous giant of light and shadow fell into a long, suffocating silence.

A deathly silence, like a cold tide, completely engulfed the temple, deeper and more despairing than ever before.

The pale blue light flowing around Him became extremely faint, like the last flickering candle flame in the wind. His magnificent body, constructed of starlight and shadow, seemed to be crushed by an invisible burden, revealing a weariness that originated from the very source of His existence, transcending time and space, and an indelible sorrow etched into the core of His divinity.

Finally, Poseidon's hoarse voice, like a bubble struggling to rise from the deepest trench, slowly rang out, carrying a tremor like a nightmare awakening and a desolation that penetrated to the bone.

"They..." The voice was like sandpaper rubbing against cold rock, each syllable imbued with chill.

"...is the enemy of existence, the opposite of order...it cannot be known, cannot be defined..."

nothingness..."

"The gods did not initially take those beings seriously. To us, it is not surprising that any being appears in this world. Just like the Mirror God, He was born from the negative energy and desires of the gods. It is no exaggeration to say that He is the dark side of the gods."

"The more intense the negative thoughts, the stronger the existence within the mirror becomes. This is an understandable evil that exists within the rules, and it is also an evil manifestation that the gods can easily seal or banish."

Poseidon narrated slowly, his deep blue vortex eye seemingly piercing through the veil of reality, staring directly at the indescribable source of terror.

"But those things are different."

"They transcend the shackles of good and evil, and rise above both ends of positive and negative. They are formless, without substance or form..." Poseidon's enormous luminous hand rose, making a futile grasping motion at nothingness, filled with a sense of powerlessness that even gods could not resist.

"...like a worm gnawing at the foundations of the world," it is not born of evil intentions, but rather "like gangrene that has clung to the universe since its inception," an absolute nothingness born from existence itself.

"In the material world...in our divine realm, our divine power is to them like striking the moon's reflection in water with a giant hammer, or burning a flower in a mirror with raging flames. It's not that they are immune, but that their essence" is simply beyond the "level" that the material world can reach. They are the collapse of "concepts," the poison flowing in the cracks of reality."

"Therefore," Poseidon's luminous head suddenly rose, its azure vortex gazing at the void above the temple, "after discussing with the gods of other divine realms, we decided on the plan to create a dream world."

"Only in that realm woven from pure will, collective imagery, and infinite possibilities... in that battlefield where rules are forcibly defined by our will... can we truly capture their ethereal essence, and only then will we have that one in ten thousand chance of victory... to try to annihilate them... or... exile them..."

"I just didn't expect..." Poseidon glanced at Tang Zijun and slowly shook his head. "This plan actually harbors so many hidden dangers, even alarming the beings within the chaos."

Indeed, the dream world was a battlefield created by the gods. They never imagined that this war would drag on for so long, even for thousands of years, nor did they expect that the soldiers they brought would develop a civilization in the dream world.

Their initial target was Nightmare, but after the battlefield was opened up and they had just achieved some results, before they could even catch their breath, they were ambushed by the Great Old Ones. No one could withstand that.

On one side are endless nightmare monsters that can never be killed, and on the other side are the Great Old Ones with bizarre abilities. It's no wonder that the gods of the Void Realm are experiencing a gap in their divine status and that countless native gods of the dream world have been born.

Just as Tang Zijun was deep in thought, Poseidon's voice rang out again, this time with a clear hint of emotion in his tone.

"Who are you? Why do you know the gods' plans, understand the Dream Realm so well, and possess... the authority of the Mirror God?"

"I am...."

"He's just a Kamen Rider who's passing by." Tang Zijun was about to speak when she was interrupted by the unanimous voices of the people around her.

Poseidon clearly knew nothing about Kamen Rider; he simply frowned. "Are you the successor to Mirror God? Why are you so late?"

Tang Zijun pondered for a moment, then said seriously, "To be honest, I am not the successor of the Mirror God. In fact, I don't know the Mirror God. My authority was stolen from a guy called the God of Mirror Food and Greed, so I don't know about the agreement between you and the Mirror God."

Poseidon's gaze was fixed on Tang Zijun. In the depths of that dark blue vortex lay an unfathomable weariness, and an indescribable complexity.

"So, the Mirror God is already..."

The authority of the gods only returns to the world after death. If the god of greed who devours mirrors is also a god, then it proves that the mirror gods before him had already perished.

With a soft sigh, Poseidon spoke again.

"...So, according to you, how many years have passed since Ragnarok?"

This problem is simple, yet incredibly weighty.

Tang Zijun and Afran exchanged a glance. As the heir to an ancient family, Afran had a more systematic understanding of the end of the mythological era and the trajectory of human history, while Tang Zijun was knowledgeable about the details of modern civilization.

"It's been a long time," Tang Zijun said slowly. "So long that... the land and sea in your memory have long since changed."

Afran continued, "Since the light of Olympus dimmed and the era of gods dancing with humans came to an end, humanity has been stumbling forward in the long darkness without the guidance of the gods."

"The eagle banners of Rome once covered the land you knew, etching laws and roads into the mountains. Then, iron hooves and war tore it apart, the empire turned to dust, the land fell into the mire of strife, knights' castles replaced temples, and faith sought solace beneath church spires—that was the long period later known as the 'Middle Ages.'"

"Then, the flame of knowledge rekindled from its repression, and people looked up at the starry sky once occupied by the gods, measuring the world anew with pens and sailboats. That was the era of the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration, when giant ships sailed towards the oceans you once ruled."

Tang Zijun's gaze swept over Poseidon's face, which was filled with confusion and bewilderment amidst the shifting light and shadow, and she continued to describe the earth-shaking changes in modern language.

"Then mankind learned to harness new power. The hiss of steam replaced the roar of sea monsters, and steel giants sailed in your territory. Mankind no longer needed to steal fire, but mastered lightning, and the light of electricity dispelled the long night."

"Later, they took to the skies, like Icarus, but they did not fall. They even set foot on the cold, icy lands beyond the realm where your brother Zeus once wielded his thunderbolts."

"Today, humanity has shrouded the entire planet in an invisible web called the internet, where information flows at the speed of light. They are probing the mysteries of life and wield terrifying power capable of destroying cities and even tearing apart stars."

The two narrated alternately, from the rise and fall of kingdoms and the succession of empires to the explosion of technology and the leap of civilization.

They mentioned cities rising up like steel forests, ships no longer relying on sails and oars, the sky no longer the exclusive domain of gods and birds, and a world that Poseidon found completely foreign, fast-paced, and bizarre, shaped by human wisdom and desire.

Poseidon listened quietly.

He did not interrupt or question.

The enormous, luminous head bowed slightly, its deep blue, swirling eyes reflecting the imagery depicted by Tang Zijun and Afran.

Those visions that He could not comprehend at all.

He was like an ancient survivor forgotten on a lonely island in the river of time, listening to legends from a distant shore about a brand new universe, legends that were bizarre and full of a power that felt strange and even absurd.

The light emanating from him flickered as he narrated, sometimes rising in response to a bloody war, and at other times falling into a near-dead silence of bewilderment due to the incredible technological creations.

When Tang Zijun and Afran finally finished their storytelling, the temple fell silent once again.

The phantom of Poseidon seemed to be washed away by the torrent of information spanning countless centuries, becoming even dimmer and more illusory. He remained silent for a long time.

Finally, He slowly raised His head.

Those deep blue, swirling eyes were no longer scrutinizing, but rather filled with a pure bewilderment and emptiness, like a sleepwalker who had just awakened, facing a completely unfamiliar world, uttering the most instinctive question.

"So...in this world..."

He paused, as if searching for a word that had long since vanished into the dust.

"...Is there still a divine realm?"