Gacha games can't save this bizarre world.

According to Greek mythology, when mortals wanted fire, it was Prometheus, a god, who secretly gave it to them. For this, the gods even brought down calamities.

Western gods have never been merciful.

Now that the gods are gone, reincarnation still consumes a huge amount of resources and comes at a high price. Moreover, it is controlled and monopolized by powerful undead figures like the Councilor.

Therefore, those lost souls can only maintain their existence by working day and night to obtain meager spiritual energy, until they can no longer sustain themselves and transform into evil spirits. Reincarnation is extremely difficult.

Reincarnation is already so difficult, let alone resurrection.

It really does consume a lot of resources and cannot be used lightly.

I had heard Dante say before that in order to survive in the underworld, the dead need to work hard to make a living.

After Zhao Hao had a brief look around the city, he truly understood how hard it was to work as a migrant worker.

The main pillar industries of Julli are gem carving and mineral mining.

The former requires retrieving souls from the River Styx, a highly dangerous job. It is said that the River Styx is fraught with various dangers, resulting in a high number of casualties among the dead.

The latter is hard work, requiring arduous mining underground in the mountains, often only returning to the surface once every ten days or even months.

Moreover, it's not something you can maintain indefinitely just by being willing to take risks or endure hardship, because the consumption of psionic energy will increase, but the meager psionic energy gained from work will not increase.

Income may even decrease due to unforeseen circumstances, such as disturbances by powerful evil spirits or invasions by other forces.

The two most severe ones were the two great wars, in which the underworld was overflowing with the souls of the dead in a short period of time. At that time, various forces and cities would even drive some of the dead out of the city to die on their own.

Labor income has been reduced to the bare minimum!

If you don't want to do it, there are plenty of others who will. Take it or leave it!

Even under normal circumstances, the souls of the dead have a "use period", so they will gradually lose their ability to work over several decades.

Most of the souls who are suffering and waiting to die outside the city had worked in the city a long time ago, but now they are unable to work and survive, and are waiting to "die"!

Zhao Hao was truly at a loss for words.

He suddenly remembered his mission on Wall Street: the endless stream of people jumping off buildings like dumplings.

If they knew that the afterlife was just like this, or even more direct and terrifying, they probably wouldn't want to die, or might even be afraid of dying.

Zhao Hao hadn't expected the Underworld to be so ruthless. Not only did good and evil go unpunished, but they were practically exploiting people for personal gain.

Where are Mr. Ma? Where are Mr. Lie? Where are the teachers? Your great cause is far from over!

However, Dante told Zhao Hao that those who had become great figures would transform into brilliant stars in the sea of ​​spiritual energy and would not come to the Underworld to await reincarnation. Of course, the "Underworld Family" here would also do everything in their power to prevent them from appearing in the Underworld.

Zhao Hao: Aren't there any great celebrities here during their lifetime?

Dante: Yes, like me... okay, just kidding. Most of the philosophers, financiers, and poets are here. A few scientists remain; most choose to reincarnate.

Oh, and most of the novelists are here too, writing day and night~

Zhao Hao had no intention of making any "major changes" in the underworld; he was just indignant for a moment and that was it.

However, he quickly steered the conversation back to the evil spirits.

Zhao Hao was very curious about why Calm had said before that they shouldn't kill too many evil spirits.

Is it simply because souls are a non-renewable resource? But since they've already been treated as disposable items, what's left is just disposable waste.

We didn't cherish them when they were resources, but now that they've become garbage, we're reluctant to deal with them? What's there to cherish?

However, Dante told Zhao Hao a big secret!

"What do you think is the purpose of the Underworld?" Dante asked.

"Purpose? Could it be to shelter the souls of the dead?"

Dante nodded and then shook his head. "Yes and no. Just like the psionic sea, the underworld didn't exist in the beginning, or at least it wasn't like that..."

If you ask others, they might not know the answer. This secret is truly ancient; even in the real world, only those at the core of ancient traditions know it.

That is, Dante, although he was not a core member of any major organization during his lifetime and has been dead for hundreds of years.

However, he was a poet who had explored Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, and after advancing to the Bronze level, he gained the ability to explore true knowledge.

Having spent five or six hundred years in the underworld, he learned this secret.

The underworld wasn't originally like this; it wasn't meant to shelter the dead, but rather to absorb them.

Dante stamped his foot, “The world beneath our feet is alive.”

He loosened his cane, pulled out a huge book from somewhere—much thicker than Sirona's poetry collection—and began to sing the verses in an operatic aria style. Zhao Hao, meanwhile, seemed to find himself in a void.

Long ago, in a corner of the infinite universe, a star radiating infinite light and heat appeared...

After an unknown amount of time, stars began to appear and revolve around this star.

One day, a giant egg drifted slowly from the depths of the universe. Drawn by this star, it stopped at the perfect distance and began to wait to hatch...

This giant egg is the continuation of an unspeakable, great being; its incubation requires light and heat, as well as spirit and soul.

He himself creates a suitable environment, and after the passage of time, life begins to appear above Him, and then the spirit and soul become nourishment.

Life is born and dies, and the spirit and soul permeate the egg, becoming nourishment. As life becomes more advanced, the nourishment becomes more abundant.

However, the existence of these giant eggs also attracted the attention of other beings in the universe. Many beings wanted to steal its power, just as parasitic wasps lay their eggs on the eggs of other insects. Those parasitic eggs were later called "mysterious gods"!

Then humans appeared and quickly evolved to a very advanced level, even comprehending the existence of psychic energy.

It's hard to say whether it was the intervention of those parasitic, monstrous gods, but in any case, some wise people among humanity have keenly perceived the truth of the world.

Unwilling to sit idly by and wait for their doom, they began to try to delay the hatching of the giant eggs.

The underworld appeared, and the sea of ​​spiritual energy gradually formed. The East even established a six-path reincarnation system, attempting to form a closed loop of spirit and soul, completely cutting off the giant egg's nourishment.

Humans wanted to survive, while the freak god didn't want the giant egg to hatch; they were a perfect match.

However, as time went on, the giant egg began to react, and a period of psychic dormancy arrived. All the native gods perished, dying, fleeing, and most of the evil gods also fell silent…

Dante didn't continue the story, and it's not important anymore.

Zhao Hao already knew why the evil spirits couldn't be killed too many times, because those killed would become nutrients for the giant egg.

Zhao Hao suddenly realized: So this is what the end of the world is all about!

……

The following day, the congressman came again and stated his demands directly.

If Zhao Hao and his companions could retrieve just one item from an ancient god's ruin, he would guarantee to help the five of them open a resurrection passage and return to the surface world.

Chapter 379 Dream of the Underworld

Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep, the twin brother of Thanatos, the god of death, and the mother of Nyx, the goddess of night. The two brothers lived together in the underworld, and whenever their mother, Nyx, plunged the world into darkness, he would command his servants to descend to earth and lull humanity to sleep.

He and the sea nymph Pasitia had three sons: Mephisto, Phobthos, and Fantasia. They were the leaders of all other dream gods.

Among them, Morpheus appeared as a human in a dream, Phobthos appeared as a bird or beast in a dream, and Fantasas appeared as an inanimate object in a dream.

The ruins that Zhao Hao and his group of five were about to enter were left behind by the dream gods Morpheus, Phobtholl, and Fantasas.

……

The gods were already in a terrible state of decay when the period of psychic dormancy began.

Because those high-level deities had actually anticipated the period of psychic dormancy, perhaps starting preparations hundreds of years ago. Once the period of psychic dormancy truly began, and they were certain that this "catastrophic disaster" would last a long time, they simply fled. Moreover, they fled in groups.

Only those deities without a strong foundation, or those who were unlucky enough to be hindered, were unable to keep up with the main group and ended up left behind to find their own way or await their death. It is said that in the Western Paradise of the East, the entire relocation took place, including all Bodhisattvas and Arhats! This shows that the Buddhist sect was well-prepared.

Hypnos, the god of sleep, held a significant position in ancient Greek mythology. He even hypnotized Zeus because Hera promised to help him find a wife, causing Zeus to oversleep and miss the Trojan War.

Later, he was banished to the underworld by the enraged god Zeus and became the god of the underworld.

Of course, Hera, the Queen of Gods, was a woman of good character and kept her word. She arranged a wife for him and even gave birth to the three brothers, the gods of dreams.

The fact that the god of sleep could hypnotize the god-king shows that his divine power is extraordinary. The god of sleep was naturally able to retreat with the main force, and his own son would certainly not be left behind.

The three leaders of the Dream Gods all fled with the main force, leaving the remaining lower-level Dream Gods bewildered. They were quickly wiped out during the period of spiritual dormancy.

Therefore, there are reasons why Westerners now experience unstable dreams, nightmares, and various mental and psychological problems.

Let's return to the "Relics of the Dream God".

The three dream gods have left, but many things cannot be taken with them.

It's like moving house, especially a long-distance, cross-border move. In that case, most of the belongings would be abandoned or given away, and only the savings would be taken away.

With everyone fleeing and running away, no one wanted their belongings, so a lot of things were left behind.

These were all cherished items back then, and it's heartbreaking to just throw them away now, so I'm simply disposing of them, hoping they'll find their way back to me.

It's similar to how those powerful figures in the East who are about to ascend to immortality leave behind magical artifacts and cultivation techniques in secret caves.

It's like you're about to graduate, and you leave a note behind a poster of a beautiful woman on the wall, filled with your favorite websites.

I fantasize that one day a junior student will stumble upon this place, treasure it like a precious gem, and be eternally grateful to you, their unknown senior.

Of course, websites that are updated and shut down too quickly are definitely different from time-tested and increasingly powerful tools.

Don't ask me how I know, I heard it from my roommate~

The father of the three Dream God brothers was a famous god in the underworld, who even appeared as a minor boss in Saint Seiya.

Therefore, the three brothers of the Dream God are very powerful and hold a high position in the underworld.

The dead cannot enter their ruins, or even get close.

Even if the five councilors and their top henchmen, the Double Flower Red Sticks, were all bronze-level undead, totaling about ten, they could only watch from afar, and even getting close would be very dangerous.

But those "ruins" were left behind by gods hundreds of years ago. If you don't have some skills, you'll just be wasting your life going in. Ordinary living people can't do it.

So for several hundred years, Zhulerui City has been holding onto clues about the ruins but has been forced to remain silent.

It's like having a large bank card but not knowing the PIN. How much sorrow can one have? It's like a group of eunuchs going to a brothel.

Now, they have finally met Zhao Hao and his group of five.

……

Although exploring the ruins of the Dream God is certainly risky, there aren't many options left now.

According to Dante, it would take three to five months to reach the next city, even if the journey went smoothly.

After all, this underworld has existed for countless millennia, and it contains all sorts of dangerous and strange things.

So we had no choice but to take the risk...