Chapter 401 - 10: Temple of the Water God and the Change of an Era

Inside the study, a Lighting Technique embedded in the crystal chandelier pulsed with white light. As Elias pointed to a map and explained everything step by step, Su Zhou began to get a general picture of this world.

Tartadis was a Continent World made up entirely of mountains, plains, and hills. It grew colder the farther one traveled toward its edges and warmer toward the center. The entire world had no seas; instead, it possessed abundant underground water resources.

Now, Tartadis was on the eve of destruction. The return of the Demon Tide was regarded as the final Dying Glow before the end. Outside of the various Shelter Cities, the land was filled with reawakened spirits, Monsters, and all sorts of wanton bandits. Besides powerful mavericks known as Wilderness Wanderers, only large merchant guilds could travel between the major Shelter Cities.

A thousand years ago, before the apocalypse descended, the world had Four Great Kingdoms. The Thousand Lakes Country, home to the Naisel family, was one of them. It was also the nation with the most abundant water resources. Throughout the country, a network of crisscrossing rivers and lakes naturally demarcated one territory from the next.

The Earth Father God was the Supreme God worshiped by all the people of this world. Besides Him, there were no other Deities in the Tartadis World that were worshiped openly.

"Oh? Not a single one?"

Su Zhou was slightly taken aback when he heard this. "In that case, doesn’t that mean the entity behind that Mysterious Organization is your Earth Father God?"

He remembered the dying Knight’s Curse—the man had said a God was backing them. Su Zhou hadn’t paid it much mind at the time. After all, in Western-style fantasy worlds, whether in games or novels, there was always an absurd number of gods. If this were a setting like Fusang, some of those gods probably wouldn’t even be as strong as he was now.

After all, with Su Zhou’s current ability to Call the Wind and Summon the Rain and Summon Thunderbolt, he could have easily passed for a minor Thunder God in ancient times and claimed a Divine Position.

He never would have imagined that this world had only one True God.

"Yes, sir."

In response to Su Zhou’s question, Elias nodded and stated as if it were a matter of course, "Besides some Ancestral Spirits worshiped by specific Races, which could perhaps be considered racial gods, the Earth Father God is the only True God."

"However, a thousand years ago, when the world began its descent toward apocalypse, He stopped issuing Oracles. He never contacted any of the Saints again... I’m afraid He must have fallen."

Elias’s expression grew grim as he spoke. He gave a bitter smile and said, "As for the ’god’ that Mysterious Organization speaks of, it’s probably one of the false gods that emerged during this apocalyptic age. It couldn’t possibly be the Earth Father God, in any case. After all, He severed all contact with the mortal world long ago."

’This world is a bit strange.’

Su Zhou muttered to himself, complaining to Yara in his mind, ’Never mind that this world doesn’t even have seas—it only has one God... How should I put it? It’s like it’s half-finished! Is this the kind of world the Silent Lord fancies?’

"Let’s hear him out first." Yara was terse, simply nodding thoughtfully and gesturing for Su Zhou to continue listening to Elias.

That was the general state of the world. Next, Su Zhou learned even more information about it.

In particular, he learned about the "Underground Maze."

The Maze was something that had only started to appear after the world began its slide toward apocalypse.

After the Earth Father God lost contact with the Church, massive rifts began to appear at random across the land. They were responsible for the tragedy of several cities being swallowed whole, and these rifts served as entrances to the Underground Maze.

The Tartadis World was not particularly vast; it was only slightly larger than Zhengguo. The Four Great Kingdoms occupied three-quarters of the world’s territory, and the remaining uninhabited mountains and dense forests served merely as natural borders. These areas had long been explored. To the people of the past, the entire world was a known quantity, holding no mysteries left to explore.

The Maze, however, was a complete unknown. This bizarre subterranean structure, which appeared only after the fall of the Divine Beings, descended level after level. No one knew how deep or vast it was. In that underground expanse, which seemed even larger than the known world, dwelled many Extraordinary Creatures long extinct on the surface. And deep within the Maze, there were even numerous Divine Objects, likely created by some ancient civilization.

There was also a Maze near Naisel City. With the support of generations of Dukes, local adventurers had already explored it down to the sixth level—at least, that was the official public information. The true extent of the exploration was perhaps deeper, a secret known only to the Duke himself and his personal team.

"It’s said that the Underground Maze holds the secrets of the apocalypse, since the end of the world and the Maze appeared simultaneously. Moreover, with the surface world now being gradually consumed by the Gray Mist, only the underground is considered safe."

Elias wasn’t clear on the Naisel family’s progress with the exploration either, as he had only just returned to the capital city. So, in response to Su Zhou’s questions about the Maze, he could only shake his head apologetically. "I’m not entirely sure about that myself. I’ll need to open the family’s secret archives and review the records within to give you a definitive answer. I’ll go check them shortly. If I find anything, I will let you know at once."