You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
The air in the Colosseum seemed to freeze for a moment.
Ian stood on the charred ground, his silver-white magical armor still fitting tightly to his body. His wand remained firmly in his grasp, and his gaze was calm and unwavering. His breathing was steady and his heartbeat normal, as if what he had just experienced were merely an ordinary magical experiment and not a duel with a god.
Across from him, Anubis stood in place. Beneath the golden jackal mask, his deep eyes quietly observed Ian.
The trial had ended.
Ian had won.
Not through sheer magic. Not through brute strength. But through willpower, intellect, and by completely challenging the rules themselves, he had defeated the god of death.
Anubis was about to turn and hand over the oar of the River Styx when Ian suddenly spoke.
But Ian suddenly spoke up.
"Anubis."
His voice was not loud, yet it carried an unusual calmness and candor.
"There's something I must admit."
Anubis paused mid-step. He did not turn around, but his golden eyes narrowed slightly.
"My power... isn't a paradox."
Ian slowly raised his hand and looked at his palm. A faint, almost self-mocking, smile touched his lips.
"It's simply power I plundered. Paradox was something I once seized. I wasn't born powerful. I just never refuse anything that can make me stronger."
That was Ian's philosophy of cultivation. He paused, his eyes fixed on Anubis's back.
"I don't deny that I'm a plunderer. I'm just a plunderer who knows exactly what he's doing."
He sensed Anubis's sincerity and responded in kind. That was Ian's nature; when met with honesty, he returned it.
The air seemed to solidify. Anubis slowly turned around. His divine golden eyes locked onto Ian.
His pupils contracted sharply. The dim yellow light of the Underworld cast uneven shadows across his sharp jackal features, making his astonishment even more apparent.
Ian seemed to see something familiar within his words. Of all the challengers of the past, none had ever calmly admitted their true nature like this.
Anubis merely nodded slowly. His golden cloak fluttered in an unseen wind.
"Plunder?"
The ancient Egyptian god of death's voice remained steady, though the faintest tremor lingered at the end. His eyes flickered with turbulent emotion, but whatever thought had surfaced remained unspoken.
"You claim the divine authority of Paradox was…"
There was something strange in his tone.
"Stolen," Ian replied casually, spinning his wand between his fingers. A cunning gleam flowed through his eyes. "Taken from a so-called new god, a legendary wizard who proclaimed himself divine."
Honest Ian was being honest.
"He looked fairly human at first. Then he turned himself into a monster."
He described the shocking truth in an offhand manner. He was referring to what had happened in Pompeii.
Suddenly, the wind of the Underworld stilled.
In the stands, the phantoms of the undead warriors flickered unsteadily. A few disintegrated into particles of light—the instability of Anubis's divine domain mirrored the unrest in his mind.
Unconsciously, the God of Death ran his slender fingers across the sacred inscriptions carved into his staff.
His knuckles turned faintly pale. It seemed he had confirmed a suspicion. But in the end, he said nothing.
Ian observed his reaction with interest.
Suddenly, Ian felt a gaze from beyond time and space, as if countless eyes had opened and shut simultaneously from the depths of the Underworld.
Anubis sensed it, too.
He abruptly looked toward the far end of the River Styx. A flicker passed through his golden eyes.
Was it vigilance?
Or fear?
"Take it."
The oar of the River Styx."
Anubis said in a low voice.
"It carries the sins of billions of souls."
He slowly and solemnly extended the oar, as though presenting a holy relic unfit for mortals.
Indeed, it was no ordinary object.
Forged from obsidian and gold, its surface was engraved with ancient hieroglyphic runes. Each rune seemed to whisper spells of death. A silver-white chain wrapped around its handle as if connecting it to the far shore of the River Styx.
When the obsidian oar was tossed toward him, ghostly blue flames flickered along its surface.
The moment Ian caught it, an icy chill surged up his arm and spread throughout his body.
He could feel it.
This was not ordinary cold, it was the wailing of souls. The curses and resentments of billions of deceased souls who had sunk into the river screamed directly into his mind.
He closed his eyes and sensed the power within the oar.
He heard the cries of drowned infants. The roars of battlefield spirits. The excuses of traitors. The prayers of martyrs.
Countless years of sin had transformed into black thorns that spread wildly up his arm.
Just as the thorns were about to pierce his heart, Ian's tempered will surged. The light of his mind blossomed, devouring every trace of negative emotion.
"They can't influence me."
He had only been affected for the briefest instant. He opened his eyes. His tone was calm yet suffocatingly confident. As Anubis had said, only a sufficiently powerful wizard could wield such a divine artifact.
"Thank you."
Ian suddenly became exceedingly polite, even performing a standard wizard's salute. After all, one does not strike someone who offers courtesy.
"Your trial was enlightening."
Naturally, that was diplomatic phrasing.
Anubis studied the contradictory young man who had been arrogant moments ago and was now being polite like a model House student.
The god of death's lips twitched almost imperceptibly.
He tapped his staff against the ground.
"Do not enter the Underworld lightly again." His voice lowered, its divine resonance engraving the warning directly into Ian's soul.
"The true God of Death wanders. He has gone mad." Ian's eyes sharpened slightly.
The God of Death?
Mad?
His fingers around the oar stiffened. He recalled what he had once witnessed in the echoes of the Twilight Zone's past, combined now with Anubis's abnormal warning.
So it was true.
The God of Death, the embodiment of rule, had gone mad not only toward him but toward all life. Even the ancient Egyptian gods feared Him.
Perhaps that earlier gaze had been connected to the Death God who embodied the rule.
"The fuse of the Twilight of the Gods..."
Ian had an intuition that the downfall of the Egyptian pantheon might have been triggered by the god of death.
He nodded thoughtfully.
"Thank you for your generosity."
Another expression of gratitude. The sky of the Underworld began to fade, a sign of dismissal. Ian gave the silent god of death one last look. Then, he reached into his pouch, took out a golden apple, a farewell gift from Greece, and gently placed it on the obsidian ground.
"A return gift."
When Ian's figure had completely vanished, Anubis bent down and picked up the golden apple.
Carved into the peel were tiny runes:
[To a worthy and respected opponent]
The ancient Egyptian god of death traced the inscription with his fingers. Then, in the empty underworld, he let out a quiet chuckle.
"He actually gave me a Golden Apple to eat."
For some reason, that amused him.
At that very moment, with Ian's return, his figure vanished beyond the borders of the Underworld. The dim sky sealed itself once more, and the surging waters of the River Styx calmed.
The Colosseum began to collapse. The obsidian ground receded like a tide, transforming back into an endless desert. The densely packed undead spectators dissolved into faint ghostly lights with a tap of Anubis's staff.
They scattered into the void.
The Underworld returned to its usual deathly silence.
Anubis remained where he stood, his golden pupils fixed on the direction in which Ian had departed. He stood silently and contemplatively. He lightly traced the scarab engravings on his staff with his fingers, as though pondering something.
At that moment, a deep voice emerged from the darkness.
"That bird... what exactly is it?"
The owner of the voice did not appear. Only a mass of indistinct black mist slowly gathered beside Anubis. Within it, a pair of faint green eyes flickered.
Anubis did not turn around.
"You don't know? I know even less."
The presence within the mist fell silent for a moment, then let out a low, ambiguous chuckle.
"Interesting... The authority within him is quite special."
Anubis shifted his gaze slightly. A profound glimmer flashed in his golden eyes.
"Special enough to make the Guardian of Time lose his pocket watch?"
The black mist churned as if disturbed by the remark.
"No... not merely plunder," the voice said slowly. "He misunderstands his own power. It is not a mere seizure, but the aggregation and return of extraordinary substance."
Anubis frowned faintly. The scarab gemstone on his staff flickered.
"You mean..."
"Those authorities originally belonged to him," the voice continued, low and distant. "They were scattered across time and space. Now, he is reclaiming them, one by one." Plunder is merely the surface. Return is the essence."
Anubis fell silent.
The light in his golden pupils flickered uncertainly.
"If that is true," he murmured, "then his existence may be older than we imagined."
The black mist offered no reply. It slowly dissipated as if it had never been there. Anubis stood in place, his gaze distant.
The Underworld wind blew once more, lifting fine grains of sand and brushing past the hem of his black robe. His fingers lightly tapped the staff, producing a crisp sound.
"An aggregator of extraordinary substance..."
He whispered to himself.
Then, he turned and gradually merged into the darkness of the Underworld.
At the distant end of the River Styx, a pair of eyes that did not belong to any known god slowly opened.
They quietly closed again.
...
Ian did not linger in the Underworld.
After all, unlike the Twilight Zone, it was not a territory he particularly liked. The moment he obtained the oar, he returned to the Human Realm.
Because of that, he never learned of the conversation deep within the Underworld.
He had already been sent away before it occurred, his figure fading into golden light as if carried out by some mysterious force.
Sunlight poured down like molten gold in the Human Realm.
Ian blinked, adjusting to the sudden brightness.
He stood in the inner hall of the Temple of Anubis. Before him stood the priest who had once stopped him. The old man's widened eyes reflected Ian's unharmed figure. The scarab amulet in his hand clattered to the floor.
"Y-You... truly..."
The priest's voice trembled. His wrinkled hands gripped the edge of the altar tightly. Several younger priests had already fallen prostrate behind him, their foreheads pressed to the ground.
"You...you actually returned?"
His voice shook with disbelief. Ian looked at him and smiled faintly.
"I said I would return. Of course I would."
Ian had never considered entering the Underworld to be particularly dangerous. After all, he could always transform into a raven and leave at any time.
That was something no one else knew.
The priest stared at him, his eyes filled with awe and shock. After all, he was the first wizard in history to return from the Underworld. It was impossible to imagine what he had experienced there.
Suddenly...
The priest stiffened.
It was as though he had received a message.
His expression became even more incredulous.
"You...you challenged the God of Death?"
Clearly, this was information delivered by a higher authority. Yet, even after hearing it from his own god, the priest could hardly believe that a wizard had defeated his deity.
Even if only in some aspect. Even if by cunning. Even if through unconventional means.
To face a god and have that god acknowledge defeat?
It was unimaginable.
Looking at the old priest's uncertain face...
Ian nodded calmly.
"Yes, I won."
He said it as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
The priest fell silent. After a long moment, he bowed deeply, his tone filled with unprecedented respect.
"Great Wizard, please allow me to escort you out."
He no longer questioned Ian's identity nor attempted any moral admonitions. He knew the man before him had transcended mortal judgment.
"Let's go. I still have something to retrieve."
Stepping out of the temple, Ian looked up at the night sky. Moonlight fell upon his face, casting a faint silver glow.
He still had unfinished business. He casually straightened his collar, ruffled by the cold winds of the Underworld.
"How do I get to the Temple of the Sun God Ra?" He asked the priest.
The old man swallowed. He dared not refuse. Nor did he dare ask what Ian intended to do.
"Along the eastern bank of the Nile, thirty li north..."
He abruptly stopped speaking.
The young man before him had already transformed into a pitch-black raven, its talons hooked around the oar that rightfully belonged to the god of death.
"Wait!" the priest called out bravely. "Ra's temple has nine layers of curses!"
The raven did not show the slightest alarm.
It spun elegantly in midair. Its right eye, red as blood, blinked once.
Then it spoke in a human voice.
"Perfect. I'm short on curse samples. Thanks for the warning."
As black wings melted into the blue sky, the old priest's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
Soon, Ian disappeared beyond the horizon.
His goal was clear.
The raven that was Ian swept across the desert. Its dark wings gleamed with a metallic luster beneath the blazing sun. He flew over towering temple spires and through the drifting spice smoke above marketplaces.
The Nile shimmered below him. Merchant ships moved like shuttles across its surface. Farmers bent over fields along the riverbanks.
Everything basked in the glory of ancient Egypt at its peak.
This was one of Egypt's most mysterious cities.
A city blessed by the gods.
It shone like a jewel beside the Nile. Towering obelisks pierced the sky. The golden domes of palaces and temples glittered in the sunlight. The streets teemed with life, vendors shouting, priests chanting, and children laughing.
A raven circled once and landed on the roof of a tavern, scanning the streets below with its sharp gaze.
The temple was not far away.
The Fragment of Ra's Eye was waiting for him to "borrow" it.
(End of Chapter)