Sarman departed with her people.
Before leaving, she secretly asked Sheena why she was traveling with Carlotta.
In response, Sheena didn’t give a complete answer, rely telling Sarman to handle her own tasks first. As for Sheena’s relationship with Carlotta, they’d discuss it later.
Sheena clearly understood that it wasn’t convenient to reveal right now that she’d already recognized Carlotta as her leader. These uninford people would likely be unable to accept it, potentially causing trouble, she didn’t know about Carlotta’s relationship with the High Priestess; otherwise, she might not have made such a decision.
Receiving no answer, Sarman could only leave.
Sheena then continued leading Carlotta and the others toward the city center.
This city was far more vast than imagined. Carlotta and her companions had to fly for quite a while before finally reaching it.
The closer they got to the city center, the thicker the mist beca. By this point, the surroundings were nearly invisible. Even using magic to blow the mist away, very little cleared.
They advanced haltingly, navigating their path, and finally arrived before a massive structure.
"Hmm? Who’s been here already?"
Sheena’s face revealed surprise.
Before the massive building, a door lay shattered, fragnts scattered all around. The damage looked fresh, as if soone had recently arrived and kicked the door open.
However, with so many people coming and going in this city, it wasn’t strange that soone had reached here.
Carlotta simply rely, then walked directly into the building.
"Miss Carlotta, be careful. This is the Land of the gods. Both before and after we beca Impression Entities, we’ve all co here to pay respects to the god."
Sheena said solemnly.
"God? Already gone. Even the front door has been kicked open."
Carlotta said.
"Even so, the god must not be treated lightly. In the Land of the god, proper respect toward the god is required."
Sheena paused here, then said gravely, "As for whoever destroyed the door here, if I ever discover their identity, I will show them no rcy."
Carlotta didn’t say anything, continuing forward into the building.
The structure resembled a castle, only three stories tall, but each floor was extrely high. In terms of the outside world, each level could be equivalent to five ordinary floors.
The castle covered a vast area. Originally, there should have been extensive greenery, but now those areas were nothing but barren land.
Carlotta could casually observe her surroundings, but Sheena didn’t dare to be careless. Instead, she respectfully bowed repeatedly toward the castle ahead before stepping forward.
"This place... why does it feel familiar?"
Alia stared at the castle before her and the surrounding environnt, her expression turning odd.
She rubbed her temples, carefully searching through her mories, yet couldn’t find any related recollections.
This feeling leaves Alia unsettled.
Why did she have this sense of déjà vu? She trusted her intuition, it didn’t co without reason. If she felt this way, then she must have seen this place sowhere before.
Yet, she couldn’t find a single trace in her mories.
After all, she was a practitioner of mory magic, soone with profound understanding of mory. Anything that had ever appeared in her mory should be recallable at any ti. Thus, this situation feels strange, bordering on unreasonable.
"What’s wrong?"
Carlotta leaned over, concerned.
"It’s strange... I feel like sothing’s wrong with my mory."
Alia said, massaging her temples.
"Does your mory have a problem?"
Carlotta frowned, unsure what to make of the situation.
After gaining the ability to practice various magics, she had also trained in mory magic and fully understood its intricacies.
She imdiately asked detailed questions, and thoughtfully raised her hand to smooth Alia’s furrowed brow.
Alia sobbed helplessly, "It’s like I’ve forgotten sothing. That’s odd. I don’t know why I’d forgotten sothing like this."
"Don’t worry. I’m here."
Carlotta patted Alia’s hand.
"I’m not really worried. Although sothing feels off, having you by my side makes feel safe."
Alia smiled.
Besides them, Selina watched the two with a strange expression.
It was truly difficult. After all this journey, she finally heard words she could understand, only for the content to be unbearably sweet.
The first understood conversation she’d heard in a while was this nauseatingly delightful exchange between two girls. Selina didn’t know what to say.
After comforting Alia a little, Carlotta took her hand and walked ahead, not daring to let go.
Inside, however, Carlotta’s mind was far from calm. Deep down, she was extrely serious, because she too sensed that sothing was unusual.
This city had originally lain deep within the Central Ruins. It only appeared at the outer edges after recent spatial fluctuations occurred within the Central Ruins.
That was when the impression entities within the city awakened, allowing outsiders to enter.
In other words, this was a long-sealed city.
Then why did Alia have this sense of familiarity with the castle?
Could it be that an identical castle once existed outside?
That idea was unreasonable. This place was where a god had once resided, how could there be an exact duplicate elsewhere?
Moreover, Alia clearly felt déjà vu, yet couldn’t locate any matching mory. That was highly abnormal.
What exactly was going on?
Carlotta could only tighten her grip on Alia’s hand, preventing anything unwanted from happening.
The group advanced and reached the castle’s main doors.
Pushing them open, they saw a tall, spacious living hall. The furniture and decorations inside were neatly arranged, yet exuded an air of decay, ti’s force lingered throughout.
"You have co."
Suddenly, an extrely distant voice echoed through the hall.
"You have co."
"You have co."
After the initial voice, reply after reply echoed continuously throughout the hall, one after another, carrying an indescribable sense of awe.
Sheena imdiately dropped to her knees, loudly proclaiming her recovery to the god.
Carlotta and the others turned to look at Sheena, strange expressions.
’Is that the voice of a god? Sheena has undoubtedly seen gods before and was familiar with their voices, so she instinctively reacted this way upon hearing it?’
Carlotta thought silently.
Even though being called "Third in World" sounds impressive, it depends on who you compared it to. Compared to a god, it was nothing.
Gods have existed since ancient tis. They had seen countless "First in world." In comparison, what was a re "Third in World"?
Sheena clearly understood this.
After a series of echoes, the god’s voice disappeared as if it had never been there.
Sheena remains kneeling for a while. When nothing further happened, she finally raised her head.
"Where is the god?"
Sheena asked in astonishnt.
"What god? There’s no god here."
Carlotta said with a smile. "It was just a lingering echo. Given a god’s imnse power, if they stayed in a place for long enough, residual echoes would remain. That’s not unusual at all."
Sheena had no reply.
She thought about it, and realized Carlotta was right. She looked around, but found nothing.
"Let’s go. Keep exploring and see what’s here."
Carlotta pulled Alia forward.
Selina quickly followed.
As for Sheena, she said, "Let’s split up and search around."
With a respectful heart, she headed in another direction, hoping to find useful traces.
They hadn’t walked far when Carlotta suddenly halted.
It seed to be dawn.
She had used magic to create an effect similar to an alarm clock, when a crucial mont arrived, she would imdiately sense it.
Carlotta now opened her information screen.
[ 1: Within the god’s residence, only traces left behind by the god remain. Using special tools, one can collect these residual traces and release them when needed, gaining a slightly divine power with astonishing might. The tool for collecting the god’s traces is located within this residence, as shown (a map).]
Carlotta opened the map and saw it pointed toward the castle’s basent, where the special tool was located.
’So it’s possible to collect traces of a god? I wonder what kind of tool it is, but it seems extrely useful.’
Carlotta didn’t want to miss out. Intel said the power was astonishing, so it must be.
[ 2: Alia Fenwick’s maternal lineage originally ca from World Nine. In ancient tis, they arrived in World One and settled here. Generation after generation passed down stories of their origin, ensuring each descendant rembers their roots, until it reached Alia’s mother, Diana Fenwick. Due to Diana’s untily death in her youth, she failed to pass on this knowledge.
The reason Alia feels a sense of familiarity toward the Divine Castle is because mories of the gods have been inherited through each generation. When Alia was young, Diana had shown them to her, but later decided she was too young to know such things, so she deliberately erased her mories.]
Carlotta rubbed her temples, montarily dazed.
She reread the second piece of intelligence, then glanced at Alia, her expression reversed shifting.
So Alia was also soone from another world?
No, that wasn’t quite accurate. Perhaps it would be better to say she carried bloodline from another world.
It was impossible now to trace exactly who Alia’s ancestors were, such a distant past indeed.
Those people had arrived in this world through the Tower of Babel, settled here, and beca part of this world. It wasn’t strange. Perhaps there were other individuals from foreign worlds who had migrated and settled here in ancient tis as well.
But due to the imnse passage of ti, so things could no longer be traced. No one knew what had truly happened in that distant past. Across such long ages, every possibility exists.
The migrating clans might have seen many of their lineages extinguished over ti, or forgotten their origins entirely, fully assimilating into this world.
Just like Alia, unless sothing unexpected occurred, from her onward, their origin would remain unknown.
"Why do you keep looking at ?"
Alia noticed Carlotta’s odd gaze and asked in confusion.
"Because you’re beautiful, of course."
Carlotta stated firmly.
Alia had no reply.
Carlotta smiled, took Alia’s hand, and continued walking, while glancing over the remaining intelligence.
[ 3: The endpoint location indicated by the Lion Key, as shown (a map).]
Carlotta paused, slightly amused. Why tell her the endpoint of the Lion Key now? Still, she could morize this information for later.
[ 4: Locations of Divine traces, distributed as follows (a map).]
Carlotta looked and found that most areas of the castle contained traces of Divine traces.
To her, these were things she could collect. She wondered how it would affect Sheena, who took a different path, would Sheena end up kneeling every ti she heard the voice of a god?
Intelligence was scarce. Carlotta closed the panel and continued toward the castle’s basent.
As they passed through a corridor, a distant voice echoed repeatedly.
"The weather is nice today."
The sentence reverberated many tis through the corridor.
This place was exactly where intelligence ntioned, where Divine traces exist. The gods’ voices from long ago endlessly echoed here.
Carlotta knew it was rely a phenonon and didn’t pay it much mind, continuing forward.
Along the way, she encountered nurous Divine traces. Unfortunately, the words left behind by the gods were mostly mundane, containing no useful information.
Walking steadily, Carlotta finally reached the entrance to the basent and opened the heavy door.
A musty, decaying odor seeped from the dark basent, making her feel uncomfortable all over.
"Do we really have to go inside?"
Selina stared at the basent entrance, a chill running down her spine. She didn’t want to enter.
"You can wait outside for us."
"Forget it."
Selina shook her head firmly.
After all, staying close to Carlotta gave her a greater sense of security.
In her eyes, this city was filled with eerie elents, so much so that even she, a mighty Weaver, had to proceed with caution.
Carlotta said nothing more. She led Alia down, creating a transparent magical barrier around them to block the stench. Ahead, she conjured a light source to pierce the darkness and illuminate their path.
It wasn’t long before Carlotta reached the interior of the basent.
Despite rely being a basent, it appears exceptionally spacious, as if the entire foundation beneath the castle ford one vast underground chamber.
Inside the dark basent lay nurous objects resembling alchemical equipnt, almost like a workshop. Many of the devices were completely incomprehensible to Carlotta.
"Could this be the gods’ alchemical workshop?"
Carlotta speculated.
This made her think of her own Stellar Workshop. As her power and understanding grew, the value of the Stellar Workshop kept rising, still boundless and unfathomable.
Was there any connection between her Stellar Workshop and this place?
Carlotta reached out and touched a piece of paper on a table, imdiately, it crumbled into dust.
"Don’t touch anything here. Everything is too ancient. Even the slightest contact can destroy it."
Carlotta quickly warned.
Selina, who had just reached out, hastily pulled her hand back.
Alia approached another table and examined its contents, regretting, "There are writings on so of these papers, but unfortunately, I can’t understand them."
"Let see."
Carlotta walked over.
The script on the paper, Carlotta couldn’t imdiately recall which world it ca from. However, it recorded the formula of a certain dicine. As for what effect this dicine might have, she was unclear.
After explaining the situation to Alia, Carlotta continued searching the surroundings.
Over the next while, she discovered many remnants of information, but most were either useless or their purpose unknown.
She could only tell that the gods seed to be researching sothing, and their studies weren’t limited to one field.
One of the subjects was clearly the creation of Impression Entities. They were attempting to create such things, and the process appeared extrely complex. Based on the fragntary information here, Carlotta couldn’t understand it at all.
It involved divine thods, unless she beca a god herself, she truly couldn’t comprehend it.
After circling around, Carlotta spotted a box. It was black, exquisitely crafted, placed inside a container filled with liquid. The box was completely subrged, yet showed no signs of damage.
"This should be it."
Carlotta opened the container.
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