Linde stood on a collapsing crystalline plain, trying every method he could think of—from forcibly tearing space apart to using the [End of Annihilation] to attack the weak points of the divine realm's barrier, and even attempting to communicate with any remaining magical network nodes in reverse… without exception, all of them failed.
This divine kingdom is like a sinking island, completely cut off from the outside world.
Theolandis's final exile was not simply throwing him into a closed space, but severing the divine realm's conventional connection with all known dimensions, making it a truly "forbidden zone."
Unless the structure of the divine kingdom itself completely collapses and its energy dissipates, it is almost impossible for him to find his way back by his own power.
And wait for the divine kingdom to naturally dissipate? According to the preliminary calculations of [Deconstructing the Halo], at the current rate, it would take at least several hundred years, or even longer.
He couldn't wait, Blackrock Territory couldn't wait, and the new era of the continent of Til, which had just broken free from the shackles of the gods and fallen into chaos, couldn't wait either.
"Are we really going to be trapped here and die, like a miser, slowly absorbing this enormous inheritance until the end of time?"
A sense of despondency, rarely seen in his mood list, was like a cold, venomous snake, quietly gnawing at his heart.
Even though he possessed the power to kill gods, understood the secrets of the origin of gods, and held the ultimate key to the Zedu civilization, he felt a sense of powerlessness in the face of this magnificent yet hopeless prison.
Those so-called ultimate secrets, whether it be the vast starry sea beyond the continent of Til or the glorious past of the Zedo civilization, all seem so pale and... useless in the face of the immediate practical problem of "how to get out".
He tried to accelerate the process, fully utilizing his own light and darkness origins, absorbing the scattered divine energy around him like a whale swallowing its prey.
It has some effect, but compared to the size of the entire divine kingdom, it's like a drop in the ocean. At this rate, it will probably take decades or even centuries.
Just as a rare ripple of irritation stirred within him—
Buzz!
A soft murmur, not from the outside world but from the very essence of his soul, suddenly rang out.
The [Halo System], which had been dormant and seemed to exist only as an auxiliary computing tool, started up on its own without his active prompting!
Deep within his consciousness, the multifaceted crystal, which served as the core of the system and radiated a profound purple light, no longer passively projected its halo interface as usual. Instead, it began to rotate on its own, like a sleeping behemoth opening its eyes, slowly yet with an irresistible will.
It started slowly, but then the speed increased dramatically!
A suction force, thousands of times more violent and efficient than Linde's own absorption, suddenly spread outwards from him in all directions!
It's no longer the kind of "absorption" that Linde needed to transform and adapt to, but rather something closer to... "devouring"! It's a forceful plunder and digestion at the rule level, targeting "unowned divine power" and "broken laws"!
An invisible vortex formed around Linde.
The chaotic magical energy, shattered magic array runes, and even the fragments of laws that form the foundation of the divine kingdom in the surrounding space were all forcibly torn and pulled as if they had encountered a black hole, and frantically poured into Lind's body—no, more accurately, into the wildly spinning purple crystal in his soul!
The speed at which the divine kingdom is collapsing is visibly accelerating!
The structure, which might have taken hundreds of years to completely disintegrate, emitted a desperate cry as it approached its limit under this terrifying suction force.
Vast swathes of crystalline mountains were directly transformed into pure energy streams that were drained and disappeared; the aurora curtain in the sky was torn apart and swallowed up; and the ancient chains of laws hidden in the deepest layers, maintaining the last stability of the divine kingdom, were also forcibly extracted, crushed, and absorbed!
Linde could even "see" the vast plain beneath his feet shrinking and disappearing rapidly, like the receding tide, revealing the void of darkness below.
This speed... is too fast! So fast that it even made him a little scared.
He immediately looked inward and saw that after absorbing a massive amount of divine energy and laws, the purple crystal's surface radiance became increasingly profound and restrained. Inside, it seemed as if countless galaxies were being born and annihilated, and its structure had become more complex and more... "complete"? An indescribable aura, as if it had touched upon some higher level of rules, faintly emanated from within the crystal.
The interface of the [Halo System] was frantically refreshing the data stream in his mind. It was no longer the clear list of projects as usual, but a more fundamental and complex torrent of rule information, as if it was being reconstructed and upgraded.
[High concentration of unowned divine law source detected... conforms to absorption protocol...]
[Initiating deep assimilation process...]
[Analyzing the underlying structure of the concept of "magic"...]
[Complete the system's core rule base...]
[...Evolution level increased...]
A series of cold, inhuman messages, seemingly from a distant creator, flashed by.
Lind understood instantly.
The [Halo System] he had always regarded as a cheat code, used to analyze everything, was actually far more mysterious and powerful than he had imagined. It was not merely an auxiliary tool; it was itself a higher-level... "existence."
It needs "nourishment", and a divine kingdom that has lost its master and is collapsing is undoubtedly one of the best sources of nourishment!
Its previous silence may have been due to insufficient energy, insufficient authority, or perhaps... it was waiting for a suitable "prey".
And now, the time has come.
The divine kingdom of Tiolantis became the catalyst that prompted its "awakening" and "evolution" once again!
The slight sense of discouragement in Linde's heart vanished instantly, replaced by an extreme calmness and a spirit of inquiry.
Instead of stopping the system from devouring the energy, he proactively released control over all the energy and even guided more fragments of the divine kingdom toward the purple crystal.
Since the chances of getting out on my own are slim, then relying on the power of this mysterious system is the only and most efficient option.
He wanted to see what the [Halo System] would become after devouring the entire divine kingdom as "food." And where would it take him after fully absorbing the legacy of the God of Magic?
"Accelerate," Lind whispered, his voice unusually calm amidst the rapidly collapsing world. "Let me see where your limits are."
He stood silently at the edge of nothingness, like the calmest point in the eye of the storm, watching everything around him—mountains, rivers, cities, laws—being swallowed by the invisible vortex and merging into the increasingly dazzling and mysterious purple light deep within his soul.
The process of the demise of the Kingdom of God was greatly shortened in a brutal and unreasonable manner.
Time loses its meaning here.
It may be just a moment, or it may be a long period of time.
When the last piece of the sky, composed of solidified magical radiance, was torn apart and swallowed up, Lind's surroundings fell into an absolute "nothingness," where even the concept of "nothingness" seemed to cease to exist.
The divine kingdom has vanished completely.
The purple crystal deep within his consciousness, as if having had a full meal, slowly stopped spinning.
It became more profound and more restrained, as if the essence of the entire divine kingdom had been compressed into that small polyhedron.
The light flowing on the surface is no longer dazzling, but carries a kind of darkness that seems to be able to see through the essence of the world.
Immediately afterwards, an unimaginably massive flow of information surged into Lind's consciousness like a floodgate being opened.
No longer chaotic fragments of energy and laws, but rather the ultimate knowledge about "magic" that has been systematically organized, purified, and even optimized!
From the most basic arrangement of elements to the most obscure definition of rules, from the technological pinnacle of the Zedo civilization to Tiolantis's transformation and control of the magic network after becoming a god... almost all the mysteries of "magic" were revealed to him without reservation!
At the same time, the interface of the [Halo System] has stabilized again, becoming simpler and more profound. The original [Deconstruction], [Brightness], and [Shadow Abyss] halos seem to have merged into one, or rather, sublimated into a more fundamental "rule-based operation permission".
The system's cold notification sounded again, but this time, it carried a different kind of... "activity"?
[Divine fuel fully absorbed... Core system privileges partially unlocked.]
[New module acquired: "Law Weaving (Beginner)"]
[New permission granted: "Dimensional Coordinate Positioning (Incomplete)"]
[Strong host desire to return detected... Initiating scan for fluctuations in adjacent dimensions...]
[Locating source coordinates: Til Continent, Blackrock Territory...]
[Activating directional dimensional travel... Energy output... 10%... 50%... 100%...]
Buzz!
A purple door, not of light but of pure rules, slowly opened before Lind in this absolute "nothingness".
On the other side of the door, a familiar scent faintly wafted through the air—the steel and order of Blackrock Territory, the warmth of the Light Vein, the taste of home.
Linde looked at the door, then glanced at the purple crystal in his mind that seemed to contain infinite possibilities.
This desperate situation not only failed to trap him, but instead brought him good fortune, allowing him to truly uncover the tip of the iceberg of his greatest secret.
Without any hesitation, he stepped out and entered the door of rules forcibly opened by the system.
The moment the figure disappeared, the absolute nothingness formed by the complete annihilation of the divine kingdom slowly subsided, as if nothing had ever happened.
Only Lind knew that he had taken away the entire legacy of a divine kingdom, and a mysterious system that was beginning to truly reveal its magnificence.
When he returns, that wild new era will surely be stirred up by his return, creating even more turbulent waves.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com