Transcendent Dawn

“Lady Moon is a capricious divine spirit, She likes Moon Grass, Colorful Flowers, and rituals composed of Soul Stones… Both the Necromancy and the undead are under Her protection.”

“She controls the ‘River of Underworld’, a river believed to run in the Spirit World, only the deceased can enter… Her followers believe that they can be reborn through this river.”

“In each world’s largest, or rather highest church, the goddess would perform miracles to visualize the river, showing a real tributary… If circumstances permit, all followers would throw their bodies into the tributary after death, believing that in this way they would reach the goddess’ God’s Domain and obtain a new life.”

“The River of Underworld… The river that runs in the Spirit World? I’ve never heard nor seen it before…”

Su Lu felt enlightened and a little exhilarated, “Given the scale here, I don’t think there is any larger church in the world… Could it be that the tributary of Lady Moon’s River of Underworld is located nearby?”

Thinking of the considerable souls that were thrown in and looking at his attributes, Su Lu had a hunch that he might harvest some experience points there.

After all, through experimentation and detection, he is increasingly convinced that the acquisition of experience points is related to the core essence of souls – the True Spirit!”

“I’ll scout around and look carefully; I should make some findings…”

Su Lu originally thought this would require careful scrutiny and searching.

Unexpectedly, he found the ‘Tributary of the Underworld’ behind the church!”

Because this place of worship and offering by believers is not some concealed area, there is even a signpost.”

But the ‘Tributary of the Underworld’ that appeared was slightly different from what Su Lu had imagined.”

It was not in the form of a river, but a large lake!”

This was an artificial lake made up of cobblestones and Obsidian, forming the stark pattern of black and white, surrounded by circles of white bones.”

More importantly… it had already dried up, with not a single drop of water inside.”

“The River of Underworld?”

Su Lu released his inspiration but failed to discover any anomalies, the same from the Spirit World.”

Yet, he felt something was off.”

Because the white bones here seemed more like they were fleeing for life rather than worshiping!”

Most of them had their backs towards the lake, some had run a considerable distance, but still fell dead on the ground, giving off a sense of mass instant death.”

And many of them, judging from the hardness of their bones and their ornaments, were definitely Transcendent!”

He walked to the side of the lake, near a white skeleton dressed in armor.”

This was one of the rare worshippers who faced the lake without running away. The skeleton had left a will with its finger: “Oh Divine… why have you abandoned us? Why have you inflicted upon us the punishment of the River of Underworld?”

The words had been carved deep into the marble floor, obviously, this was a powerful knight when he was alive, and he bore heavy resentment.”

But in the face of the choppy waves of the Underworld River, he was no different from ordinary people.”

“Divine… River of Underworld… Abandonment?”

Su Lu’s inspiration was struck, as if he saw a scene.”

It was the boiling turmoil of the artificial lake, a large amount of Underworld River water swept in all directions, the Transcendent around started to scream and run for their lives, to no avail!”

Death instantly enveloped everything, not sparing even the crowd worshipping in the church!”

“Did Lady Moon manipulate the River of Underworld and harvest the followers here?”

Su Lu, not being a follower of the goddess, stared suspiciously at Her: “If that’s the case, it could explain why everything here dried and died so ‘clean’, not even a single Revenant was left…”

Because all the souls were ‘recycled’ by the ‘River of Underworld’.”

“So why would she slaughter her own followers? Did Lady Moon fall into insanity? Or did the followers here betray her?”

Su Lu was unsure and unwilling to ponder any further.”

“If the River of Underworld remained, I would have found traces in the Spirit World… hence, the sole explanation is that after killing all followers, Lady Moon’s will left this world, and the tributary here gradually dried up!”

Su Lu felt a bit regretful.”

But, he thought and sent a shadow clone to the bottom of the lake.”

“It’s very safe! No traps!”

“It really seems… like everything has vanished.”

“The relationship between divine spirits certainly holds secrets! Yet these are out of my reach… Moreover, I’ve received information from the Ancient Snake Society and even myself, that the Seven Major Orthodox have been resisting similar occurrences, starting from legends, they should have received a degree of attention…”

Su Lu sighed and walked to the side of the artificial lake.”

There are many altars around, with mottled and ancient traces, evidently used for the followers’ worship.”

According to the rites described in the teachings, after the followers die, their bodies need to be carefully prepared, decorated with Moon Grass and Colorful Flowers, then placed on a small boat woven from thorn wood, after praying, the boat is put into the lake.”

At the end of the ceremony, the water of the Underworld River swallows everything, taking away the souls of the dead.”

“If Lady Moon had a long period of belief in this world, even driving her followers to build such magnificent structures… then the number of followers buried in the water here could be terrifying. Among them, many are Occupational People…”

He jumped down and arrived at the bottom of the dried lake, casually picking up a cobblestone.”

An overlay appeared on his attributes, popping up:

[XP+3]

“It really exists!”

Su Lu drew a deep breath. Although the experience on this stone was weak, he glanced around.”

This was a huge lake. After drying up, black and white Obsidian and cobblestones were everywhere, almost creating an ocean!”

“It seems, I’ll have to camp here for a while.”

Su Lu had a faint smile.”

The reason he explored all kinds of ruins was to create another source of experience points.”

And now, a rich ‘depot’ was right in front of him!”

“Indeed… how could a world that once had the Dawn of the Gods possibly lack experience points?”

Su Lu clenched his fist excitingly, feeling like a mouse that had fallen into a grain store.”

“And the source of experience, as expected, is related to True Spirit!”

“Perhaps… although the River of Underworld took away most of the Spiritual Bodies, just the remaining ‘dregs’ alone are enough for me to harvest a large amount of experience and jump over the half-legend chasm…”

Experience points not only exist in killing but also in ancient books and even marvels.”

Su Lu believed that these items contained some ‘True Spirit Energy’.”

And here with the River of Underworld, the accumulation of experience over time was extremely terrifying!”

In fact, perhaps the energy that the River of Underworld had taken away wasn’t what the attribute bar needed, and they remained, precipitating here!”

He felt a bit emotional about the impermanence of life.”

Who would have thought, the Black Death Society and Lady Moon, considered enemies, ended up helping him step over the threshold of legend!”