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This was a great help to his work, allowing him to avoid constantly recalibrating his position, and instead, he continuously dug a diagonal corridor thousands of kilometers long.

In theory, such unsupported holes are prone to collapse, but after all, this is a mythic world, and the site of the Mount of the Gods is extraordinary. So, as Cohen dug downward, he encountered no accidents along the way.

During the excavation, in order to obtain food, Cohen also hunted beasts multiple times. Gradually, he found that creatures like the giant beast he encountered before were not uncommon.

These beasts that suddenly gained strength were not the only ones; even plants were among them. Some were strong, others weak, and their abilities varied. A few had reason and knew how to seek advantages and avoid dangers, but many more seemed to have their sanity destroyed, becoming extremely crazy.

After Cohen hunted them down one by one, he found similar special substances in the bodies of the animals. Undoubtedly, this miraculous stuff was the source of all the changes.

However, Cohen did not continue to merge them, even though they seemed much weaker than what he had obtained before. He kept them in golden boxes, as Cohen discovered that the substances had a strong propensity for fusion, yet seemed to have no reaction to gold.

“Truly the root of calamity.”

Shaking his head slightly, although he had yet to emerge from underground at that time, Cohen had roughly figured out what had happened.

One day after the war of the gods, many streaks of light fell from the sky, landing on the earth. Since then, these things had started to appear.

This was told to him by a Flower Elf he encountered, whose homeland was destroyed in the previous disaster, but she had used her own power to protect her essence. However, according to her, the Spring Elves weren’t so lucky; as fellow Nymphs, their essences were immovable.

Cohen had rescued this Flower Elf from the clutches of a mad giant eagle. To kill this strange beast, he was even slightly injured.

“Heaven-sent fire raining down… I hope the world can recover peace soon.”

He sighed and stood at the bottom of the tunnel, lifted his pickaxe—wrapped in his own energy—and struck downward again.

He had been doing this every day, and today was no exception. But unexpectedly, his strike hit empty space this time, nearly causing him to lose his balance.

In front of him, through the cracks he had chiseled, a vast hollow space appeared.

“Is this it?”

Feeling somewhat surprised, and facing the dark, lightless underground space, Cohen’s eyes turned gold. Under that special power, it seemed as though he had changed perspectives, minutely observing his surroundings from a bird’s-eye view.

Soon, through the cracks, Cohen saw a scene at the bottom of the hollow space below. It was a cavity that had naturally formed from the subsidence of the earth, possibly under the protection of Divine Power. There were collapsed houses and shattered trees, but these were not his concern.

It was only in the central position that Cohen discovered his target.

That was the Temple of Corolla. It was a bit far, and even his extraordinary abilities couldn’t make it out clearly. Nevertheless, Cohen felt that the shape of the temple was somewhat strange.

It seemed to not be in perfect condition.

“Impossible…”

Muttering to himself, his right hand tightened unconsciously, and the pickaxe he was holding began to deform, emitting a creaking noise.

“It must be an issue with the lighting.”

He reassured himself quietly; it was impossible to see clearly here. So Cohen used his hands to break away the remaining rubble and then leaped down.

After a full ten seconds or so, Cohen landed on the ground. This underground hollow was hundreds of meters high, causing him to create a not-so-small crater upon landing.

The environment around him was both familiar and strange, with its past appearance completely changed. After landing, Cohen proceeded along the cracked path. The scattered surroundings seemed to disclose to any visitor what had happened here, giving him an ominous premonition.

The further he went, the slower he became. After nearly half a day, Cohen finally crossed the last barrier and reached the vicinity of the once grand and towering Temple of Corolla.

There was nothing obstructing his view now; the full size of the temple could be directly seen. However, as he passed over the fallen giant rocks, Cohen just stood there, stunned in his place, gazing at the scene in the distance.

“…why… why would it be like this?”

“Where is the power of the gods?!”

He cried out, even though a war among the gods had erupted before and shook the surrounding area underground, Cohen never doubted the safety of this place.

The temple had been blessed by the power of the Divine King since the day it was built. The great Cronus himself had proclaimed that as long as he was in this world, nothing could harm it. The Temple of Corolla would stand with the world forever, eternally enduring.

But now, it had collapsed. Although the main structure was still there, anyone could see its dilapidation. The broken columns seemed to silently convey a message as if the promises of the past were just like nothingness.

“No, what about the Stele Forest?”

Realizing something at that instant, if even the temple had collapsed, how could the place where the Golden Humanity was buried down below possibly remain intact.

Cohen immediately ran to the open ground in front of the temple, as if he had forgotten that he could directly see that place. Eventually, when he arrived at the entrance of the monumental structure, what presented before him were only ruins strewn everywhere, toppled steles, and a few cracked but empty tombs.

Nothing was left, everything was just like a dream.

“They’re all gone… Why… But where are their bodies? Where did they go?!”

An invisible shockwave exploded around Cohen as he clenched his fists. How could the bodies of the Golden Humanity, which do not decay for a thousand years after death, just disappear without a trace?

He frantically uncovered every place where there should have been buried corpses, turning over grave after grave, yet what faced him was disappointment after disappointment. It was as if they had never existed, and everything in the past was an illusion.

The Human King did not know that when Mother Earth exerted all her might through the scepter, all objects with energy existing within the ground around Mount of the Gods had been stripped of their power. And what could be a finer nourishment than the Divine Blood and Prime Liquid contained within the bodies of the Golden Humanity?

Without strength, a body is but an empty shell. With just a slight vibration, the remains of the Golden Humanity crumbled into dust, returning to their original form.

After all, humans were created from soil and stone.

“… And the temple, yes, the deities will answer me.”

Turning over the last grave, which was that of his once friend Hewa, Cohen stood in a daze for a long time, finally remembering the ruined building in the distance. He ran to the Temple, roughly pushing open the decayed doors and bursting into the inner sanctuary where the Divine King was worshipped.

Cohen gazed at the central position. There should have been a towering colossus holding a scepter, a hundred meters tall, instilling awe in all who saw it.

But now, it was empty.

plunk—

After a long silence, like someone devoid of strength, Cohen collapsed to the ground, momentarily stunned. He didn’t know what to do, feeling that everything about himself was insignificant.

Though in the past, when the Golden Humanity was still present, he often told others that the deities did not care for the humans’ worship. Even if the deities chose to ignore them, that was a given, and they should still revere the deities above all else. But in truth, Cohen had harbored doubts, quickly suppressing those thoughts.

He was more ‘whole’, so he was the only one who would ‘question’. The reason he said that was just because everyone else thought the same. Had it been any other Golden Humans, they wouldn’t need to convince themselves that it was ‘just a lack of understanding of the deities,’ for they never had doubts.

But now, Cohen felt he was mistaken.

“So the deity… is no longer there.”

“Or is it that the deity has abandoned us.”

“Or perhaps…”

“They never existed in the first place!”

His voice was soft. Looking at the empty altar, Cohen couldn’t help but doubt many things from before.

Do the Golden Humans truly ascend to heaven to become Heroic Spirits after death, as Prometheus had told them? Cohen had never witnessed this himself.

Are deities truly omnipotent? If so, where is the Divine King now?

The gods had promised that as long as they were worshipped, they would enjoy eternal happiness and peace, but why didn’t he, so devout, feel any happiness at all?

Cohen did not know. After all, in the past, he was merely a mortal. Everything he knew was bestowed upon him by the deities. Naturally, he wouldn’t know what he shouldn’t know. He had always believed in the greatness of the deities, but now, the once grand image in his heart had quietly collapsed without him knowing when.

Or perhaps, the cracks had always been there. As the Golden Human King who had seen the Civilization Stele, the innate constraints had never applied to him. What had restrained him in the past was only himself.

“… Maybe I should take a look and see what the world is like.”

“Whether it’s as the deities said, or something else altogether.”

After a long silence, Cohen slowly stood up.

He cast one last glance at the altar before walking out of the Temple. As he passed through the clearing, Cohen looked at the scattered broken steles but didn’t try to tidy them up, letting them remain strewn about.

Stele exist to carry words. Words exist to depict History. History gives meaning to the beings that are buried within it. But if the traces of existence themselves have vanished, if everything they believed in was a lie, what value does such a record hold?

The slates are no longer needed. His very existence is the past of the Golden Humanity.

Light emerged, gently lifting Cohen’s body as he floated up. He went to the spot where he had previously jumped down and stood firm. After one last look back at the cave,

Desolate, ruined, silent — this was the last remnant of a destroyed civilization.

“I will return… I definitely will.”

“… Once I find the answers!”

Turning away, Cohen covered the cave before departing without a second glance. With his departure, the relics of ancient times once again returned to darkness and silence.