Chapter 272 - 258: Meeting the Deities, a Vision of Destruction

Chapter 272: Chapter 258: Meeting the Deities, a Vision of Destruction

Jon took a few steps forward and looked up at Poao’s statue.

Molten gold seemed to flow from the statue’s eyes, which were as brilliant as the sun itself. A searing radiance poured down, gently enveloping him.

Then, the deafening roar of fanatical praise receded like a tide, blurring into a distant hum. His vision was consumed by pure light. Then, space itself seemed to be rewoven by an invisible hand.

The sensation of the hard quartz floor tiles under his feet vanished, replaced by a strange softness, like stepping on a carpet of flowing light.

Jon looked around and found that his surroundings had completely changed.

Before him was a hall whose magnificence was beyond words.

The towering dome was formed from condensed, liquid sunlight, like an ever-glowing golden river. Massive pillars, like solidified beams of light, supported the sacred space. The air was filled with a serenity so pure it was absolute, carrying the cool touch and hopeful scent of first dawn.

Jon, who already had some knowledge of the Sun Scripture, knew this was the Dome of Solar Brilliance, Poao’s Saint Hall. Everything he now saw matched the descriptions in the Scripture.

’I bet not even every Archbishop in the history of the Sun Church has had the chance to visit this place.’

He curiously sized up his surroundings while following a faint guidance in his heart, heading deeper into the hall.

The light rippled faintly under his feet, as if he were walking on a mirror of water.

After walking just over a hundred steps, the scene at the front of the hall suddenly opened up, revealing a courtyard made of pure white light.

In the center of the courtyard, a brilliant pool was quietly embedded in the ground of light. It silently overflowed with iridescence, as if it had melted down all the world’s purest spectrums, refracting magnificent, ever-changing halos.

At the edge of this iridescent pool, a small figure stood quietly.

It was a boy who looked to be about seven or eight years old in human terms.

He had hair the color of pure, smelted sunlight and a pair of pure golden eyes. He was draped in a simple, ancient-style robe of golden gauze.

The gauze was so thin it was nearly transparent, its edges flowing with fine motes of light, shrouding His small body in a soft, yet undeniable, holy halo.

But these external appearances could not hide the presence He exuded.

Because this was a deity.

One of the most powerful deities in this world.

He simply stood there, like the Sun itself, making it impossible for one’s gaze to fall anywhere else.

Jon stopped a few steps from the pool, his ice-blue eyes meeting that pair of pure gold.

After a brief silence, he nodded slightly.

"Poao, I’m here."

There was no reverent fawning, nor any deliberate distance—only a calm gaze, as if facing an equal interlocutor who deserved to be treated with sincerity.

The boy—the avatar of the Sun God Poao—showed no emotional fluctuation on his face, which was as exquisite as a divinely wrought sculpture. Only the halo of light deep within his golden eyes seemed to shift slightly.

He spoke, his voice ethereal and clear, carrying a divine echo that transcended age. It was like the resonance of countless dawns, ringing directly in the depths of Jon’s soul.

"Traveler from the Otherworld, you have come as promised."

"Yes. I’ve come for the ’secret’ you spoke of."

Poao nodded slightly but did not get straight to the point.

His pure golden eyes gazed quietly at Jon, as if to pierce through every fiber of his soul.

The swirling motes of light all around seemed to freeze for a moment under His gaze.

"You have seen Mother?"

The Deity’s avatar’s voice was still ethereal, yet it carried an indescribable weight that struck a chord in Jon’s heart.

Jon’s ice-blue eyes blinked as he keenly caught the subtle pause in the other’s words.

His mind raced, but his expression remained calm.

"I didn’t truly see her, I only heard her voice—"

He answered honestly, with no intention of hiding anything.

Trying to be clever in front of a deity was simply ridiculous.

"But... she asked me to save the Goddess of Luck, Phoebe... Do you know anything about that?"

In that moment, Poao’s gaze seemed to pierce through the dome of light, reaching into dimensions far beyond mortal comprehension. A vision of countless lights being born and extinguished flashed and vanished in the depths of His molten-gold eyes.

But He immediately shook His head gently, the movement stirring ripples in the motes of light at the edge of his gauze wrap. The ripples carried a rhythm that was almost a sigh.

"I cannot glimpse her whereabouts... She and her brother, Wyatt, are the most elusive of Mother’s children."

"The threads of Destiny and luck are, by their nature, entangled in the world’s deepest mists."

The deity’s statement was delivered with an air of detachment, yet it also concealed a hint of helplessness at being unable to fully control the situation.

Not getting the expected answer from the deity didn’t discourage Jon.

He had long known that the deities of this world were not some great, omniscient, and omnipotent beings. His earlier question was merely asked in passing.

The next question was the crucial one.

"What about the Yino Goddess? When I heard her voice, she sounded very weak and exhausted..."

He paused for a moment before adding.

"It was as if the message had been sent across an extremely vast distance."

At the mention of the Mother Goddess of Creation’s condition, the first flicker of emotion appeared on Poao’s exquisite, statue-like face—a ripple so subtle, yet powerful enough to shake the entire courtyard of light.

He sighed softly. The sound was like a long breath taken by the light of the entire Saint Hall, accompanied by the faint rustle of falling motes of light.

"This is precisely why I invited you here, traveler from the Otherworld."

Poao’s voice deepened slightly, its ethereal quality now weighted with an undeniable gravity.

Then, without another word, He beckoned toward the iridescent pool, the gesture carrying an ancient and elegant rhythm.

"Come. Come closer and look at this pool."

Jon did as he was told and took a few steps forward, the soles of his boots silent on the carpet of flowing light.

He cast his gaze into the pool and then froze for a second.

’This pool... it looks a lot like something I saw in the game...’

But before he could think about what it was, his consciousness was overwhelmed by a much larger torrent of information.

And when he recovered the function of "cognition," he was equally speechless.

Before him was a hazy nebula.

His intuition told him this was the region where "Yino" was located.

Then, he saw it—a wisp of shadow spreading through the starry sky. It effortlessly captured the nebula where Yino’s world resided, crushed it, and turned it into a speck of dust.

Just like a grain of sand washed away by the waves, it vanished without a sound, without a single trace of resistance.

The development was so bizarre that for a moment, Jon didn’t know what kind of expression to make.

’What was that?’