While the two were discussing how to lure out the Queen, Linlang had already been walking with Madam Mo for quite some time, looking rather miserable.

"Cheer up, don't look so gloomy."

Linlang gave a half-hearted smile, mentally calculating how much her mission progress had been delayed. Now, three factions were gone, and she wasn't counting on her teammates. Rounding up, there were still five left. She wondered how far they had progressed in their exploration. In any case, her mission progress must be very slow.

Linlang wanted to find out more, so she asked Madam Mo, "Why are you going to the Thorn Land?"

He coughed up blood the whole way, but he didn't go back. The Thorn Land must be very important. It would be good to get some information out of it.

Madam Mo saw through her thoughts and calmly said, "Because that place is very important."

Linlang was speechless; what a bunch of nonsense.

Madam Mo stopped teasing her. Linlang walked ahead of her to shield her from the wind and snow, her eyelashes covered in ice. Even if it was to get information, it was rare for her to persist for so long.

She cleared her mind for a while and said, "I can see you've had a tough journey, so let me tell you a story."

Linlang glanced back. "Another story?"

"Okay, go ahead and tell me."

"A long time ago, there was a couple who loved each other very much. One day, they received a gift from God and had a child. The couple was very happy, but soon they discovered that the child could not survive due to some special reasons. The couple tried everything they could and finally managed to keep the child alive in another way. Although they could not see each other, the child's life was their greatest comfort. But not long after, the child's mother discovered a very serious problem."

Although she didn't understand the connection between this story and the self-abandoned god, Linlang patiently asked, "What's the problem?"

Mrs. Mo said, "My mother has a special ability. She can predict the future and know some things that will happen in the future. One night, she saw her child's heart being taken away."

"If you don't have a heart... then you can't live, right?"

"Yes, so she wanted to change everything, but the thing that took his heart was too difficult to deal with, so Mom had to ask someone more powerful for help."

Linlang seemed to understand something. "Did Mom go and pray to the gods?"

Madam Mo smiled and said, "It used to be so, but back then, the god lost his divine power because of guilt. In order to ensure that my mother could give birth to this child safely, he also suffered a loss of power. Those who hated her found an opportunity to lock her in a maze."

"Then what."

"Then, because the gods' power was greatly reduced, my mother was able to glimpse her entire past and future... cough."

Madam Mo coughed lightly twice, and Linlang offered her hot water so she could calm down before continuing.

After drinking some water, Madam Mo continued, "The deity will return to her place, but to the place others wanted her to be—a bad place, a chaotic wasteland. She will no longer have her own thoughts and feelings, because this deity can absorb all things dark. So all the unfulfilled despair, pain, filth, and sin will be fed to her. She lived like this for a very, very long time before she gained her own consciousness."

Linlang couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness, "...What if she doesn't absorb these things?"

Instead of answering directly, Madam Mo asked Linlang, "Have you heard of the myth of Apophis?"

Linlang honestly replied, "...I've never heard of it."

“It seems to be a different place.” Madam Mo said to herself, telling her, “Apophis is born and dies at dawn every day. He dies and is reborn repeatedly. In this way, he achieves another kind of infinite immortality.”

"Is the god you're talking about the same as Him?"

"Yes, but she absorbed darkness throughout her life, and that darkness caused her unspeakable pain. So she began to pursue death, but as long as the dark side existed, she could not die completely. In the end, like Apophis, she died in the morning and was reborn at night, thus becoming immortal."

Mrs. Mo saw several white dots in the distance and knew they were almost there. She said, "Never heard of Apophis? You should know about snakes, right?"

“I know that,” Linlang answered directly, “Because snakes shed their skin, the ancients believed that they would gain immortality, which is why snakes held a prominent position in many mythologies.”

"Yes, this deity is the same. Every time she is reborn, her body grows a little bigger. Through day and night of transformation, she has an incredibly large body. Because the darkness in the world will not disappear, she will grow stronger without limit. To suppress her power, we cannot let her continue to be reborn and die."

Linlang sensed something was wrong. "Who wants to stop the gods of this world from getting stronger?"

Madam Mo smiled without saying a word and continued speaking at her own pace, "So in order to limit her growth, she was given the consciousness to truly understand this world. She was no longer the unfortunate and hopeless person she once was. She recognized the sun, the wind, the grass, and learned about humans. She even learned their language. As a result, her growth slowed down, and she only molted once every very long time."

As Linlang listened to this story, Shekh's face kept appearing in her mind. She couldn't explain why, but perhaps it was because Shekh could also turn into a snake?

"But slowing down is not stopping. The goddess has been reborn again, but this time it is different from before. She will be transformed and reborn, and she will evolve."

Madam Mo gazed at the sky, her deep, pool-like eyes revealing a mocking expression. "From two to one, it was considered by something to be an existence that would threaten other worlds."

The more Linlang listened, the more strange the phrase "two-in-one" seemed. Logically, gods were beings on par with world bosses, and their abilities were like the boss's skills. So, "two-in-one"...

Could it be that Lady Mo means the divine skill is transforming into a single word?

Linlang had already forgotten the child from the very beginning of the story, and Madam Mo, having reached this point, seemed unwilling to steer the conversation back, even going so far as to state it directly:

"The gods not only abandoned themselves, but also discarded them after they were used. They were afraid that she would become a threat, but they could not do without her, otherwise the place where darkness accumulates would attract misfortune. That's why the queen was able to obtain power that she should not have in a human body, because there were other powers helping her."

Linlang sensed anger in her tone and was just about to help Madam Mo calm down when she suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood.

Madam Mo cursed inwardly for being a sore loser, but her temper flared, and she still managed to tell Linlang, even with her last breath, "Do you see that building ahead?"

Linlang looked in the direction she was pointing. In the distance, on the snow, several towering white cones intertwined, their rough bottoms pressed against each other like a high wall.

She replied, "Frozen Harbor also has this wall, very high and thick, capable of blocking the black fog."

"Go up to a higher place and look."

Linlang obediently ran uphill and took out her telescope to observe.

"Did you figure it out?"

Madam Mo straightened up and gave Linlang a shocking answer.

"Those are the bones of God."

"What?!"

Linlang's mouth was slightly open, and she didn't even realize she had been hit by a blast of cold air.

She picked up the binoculars again and looked very carefully this time.

The overlapping, crisscrossing white cones do indeed resemble twisted ribs, with the uneven vertebrae forming a wall that meanders out a protective line, tightly guarding the city.

Linlang opened her mouth as if to speak, but after a long while, no sound came out.

Madam Mo didn't look at her, and muttered to herself, "People ignore the balance of value when they are given a little bit of sweetness. In fact, these people are not worth it at all."

She pulled her furry hood tighter and walked step by step into the thorny thicket. "But it's not your fault. Who told you to never experience happiness?"

"Madam Mo, wait for me!"

Linlang ran over, stumbling along, to help her up. She felt that without her, Madam Mo's frail body would be blown away by the strong wind.

Linlang: "What are we going to do when we get there?"

Madam Mo must have needed her to do a lot of work to tell her so much information.

Mrs. Mo's eyes were resolute as she said, "Go and sabotage that bastard's plan."