The Inverted Pyramid

The Dream Realm

The God's Island on the sun looked no different today than it usually did.

In the Spirit Country, the sun shone brightly as slides spiraled and balloons rose into the air.

Spirit beings moved through the Spirit Library, copying books from the Dream Starry Sea and the Divine Cup and placing them within the library's ever-expanding interior.

This building, like a great tree reaching to the heavens, was covered with flowering vines.

Though it appeared unchanged from the outside, its interior space had become unimaginably vast, a world separate unto itself. The law of space enveloped it, creating layer upon layer of space to contain countless books.

Hidden here was all the knowledge that existed in the world.

At the entrance to the library, many playful little spirits gathered. This time, however, they were not there for games or to attend gatherings and celebrations.

Instead, they huddled together, exchanging gossip.

"Have you heard?" the little spirits asked, their faces joyful as if celebrating a festival.

"That one got hammered by a huge mallet from the Storage Spirit Realm! Such a big, big mallet!" one spirit explained excitedly.

"I saw it! I saw it! Whoosh! It flew right up from the Dream Continent below!" another spirit added, demonstrating with wild gestures.

"They say little thieves who dare to steal from the Storage Spirit Realm will all be punished." This news seemed to have come from Saint Raphael, though no one knew how she knew about it so precisely.

However, a certain someone was not in a celebratory mood.

Shelly, who usually walked confidently through the Pyramid Temple helping herself to food and treasures without hesitation, was not in the main hall of the temple today.

She was not in any of the other side halls, nor was she in the Divine Treasury located at the bottom level.

This time, she sat stubbornly at the temple entrance, refusing to step inside no matter what.

Even Dream Sovereign Hila could not coax her inside, despite offering all of Shelly's favorite foods, beautiful clothes, and other gifts.

She squatted beside the heavy door, keeping herself out of Yin Shen's direct sight.

But she made occasional angry noises, a clear reminder to Yin Shen that she was just outside the door and that she was very angry.

Hmph!

Hmph!

The Life Sovereign had never suffered such a great loss before, nor had she ever been the laughingstock of so many little spirits.

Yin Shen had "accidentally" let it slip that he had hidden a treasure in his compartment in the Storage Spirit Realm. In reality, it contained a large mallet, placed there specifically to strike thieves.

And Shelly clearly understood that she was the thief who had taken the bait.

She realized Yin Shen could not possibly have let something slip by accident, and that what was hidden was no treasure, but something specifically designed to hit thieves.

Although she knew her actions were wrong, Shelly still felt deeply hurt by how Yin Shen had treated her.

Hmph!

Hmph!

Each sound grew louder than the last, as if she wanted to bring down the Pyramid Temple itself.

When Yin Shen finally walked out of the temple, Shelly immediately turned her head away, though she still watched him carefully from the corner of her eye.

Yin Shen offered no comforting words or explanations.

He simply took something out and placed it around Shelly's neck.

"This is for you."

Shelly lowered her head and discovered something new on her body.

It was a beautiful knotted cord with a metal object threaded through it.

Yin Shen had given her a gift.

A whistle.

While the gift itself was ordinary, the giver was not, which gave it an extraordinary meaning.

Shelly immediately stood up.

She looked at Yin Shen with surprise, her mouth hanging open without saying a word.

She seemed to be asking, For me?

She touched the whistle hanging on the cord, then picked it up.

Yin Shen patted her head. "It's a whistle. I thought you liked things that can make sounds?"

Shelly immediately blew the whistle, running all around the long corridor outside the Pyramid Temple.

Tweet!

Tweet tweet!

Hearing the sound, Shelly immediately forgot all about her earlier sulking.

The whistle was sharp and noisy, but it was still far less overwhelming than the Mother Conch of All Things. That Root Divine Artifact produced a truly unbearable noise.

Shelly loved it immensely, holding her precious whistle and smiling non-stop at Yin Shen.

Hehe!

Like a little fool, she dashed forward, then quickly circled back to stand before Yin Shen.

"It's so loud!" Shelly exclaimed, her face alight with delight. "And so easy to blow! I love it so much!"

She finally spoke to Yin Shen again, her anger completely gone.

Before long, she decided to go and play below.

Shelly put the whistle in her mouth, charging down toward the bottom of the pyramid on her little legs.

She blew the whistle while running down the long stairway, darting into the Sun Cup Flower Sea and the Spirit Country.

She chased after the little spirits with boundless energy.

Tweet tweet tweet! The sound of the whistle rose and fell.

Whoosh! The sound was accompanied by the wind blowing through the flower waves.

"She's coming! She's coming again!" Disturbed by the noise, spirits rose from the Sun Cup Flower Sea, only to see that the great demon king, who had been quiet recently, had returned.

"She has the conch horn again!" one spirit cried, thinking the Life Sovereign was blowing the Mother Conch of All Things.

"It's not the conch horn," called a little spirit running from afar, "but it's just as noisy!"

"She has a new trick?" a small spirit mumbled, pulling the hood of its robe over its head.

"Should we get the wooden mallet from the Storage Spirit Realm?" one spirit suggested outrageously. "Maybe then we wouldn't be afraid of her!"

Amid the commotion, an ancient stone tablet, weathered and broken, emerged from the tall flower sea.

Upon it, the oldest stories were carved in wisdom script. These were stories of King of Wisdom Redlichia with his queen and sons, and of the King of Wisdom with God Yinsai.

This stele, erected by Ense, the eldest son of King of Wisdom Redlichia, recorded everything that happened in the old days.

At the foot of the stone tablet, a figure long turned to stone knelt on the ground. He faced the pyramid and the tablet, holding a stone mask in his hands.

He appeared utterly devout, his expression serene.

Shelly ran to the stone tablet and stopped when she saw this statue.

The former God-Given City of the Trilobite People was buried here in the Sun Cup Flower Sea.

The city contained many broken walls and ruins, with various statues, stone carvings, and inscriptions.

Normally, Shelly and the spirits would occasionally notice him but would pay him little attention.

However, at this moment, the stone statue started to glow softly. A cluster of fireflies seemed to gather around it, their light shimmering delicately and creating a mesmerizing sight.

Shelly put down her whistle.

She walked up to the stone statue, examining it with curiosity.

"Who is this?"

A large group of spirits also gathered around, circling the broken stone tablet and the ancient statue.

Some spirits recalled the origin of this statue.

"I remember now! It's the old man who came to the island with that poet," one spirit shouted. "He's the one who picked up a lot of junk!"

"That's right," the other spirits agreed. "The one who liked collecting stones and called himself a poet."

"That seems like such a long time ago," a few spirits mumbled, unable to remember clearly.

"It wasn't that long ago," said a spirit who had clearly guided Tito to the temple. "I remember being the one who received Tito. This old man fell asleep as soon as he arrived on the island and turned to stone right here."

He was the first king of the People of the Abyss, one of the first beings to escape the deep sea abyss.

Their ancestors were punished for patricide by having their dominant wisdom bloodline taken away. Later, Eli, the grandson of Yesael, granted them wisdom and called them out from the depths of the abyss.

After Eli died, they established their own initial civilization.

In his later years, he accompanied the first saint, Tito, to the God-Given Land. He was searching for his own salvation and the history of the People of the Abyss.

Shelly knew about the People of the Abyss. The scene of Saint Tito's audience with Yin Shen even appeared in her mind.

For a moment, it felt as though she had been there too.

"Oh! So he's the first king of the People of the Abyss."

"Why is his head glowing?"

The spirits did not know either and could only guess wildly.

"Is he angry?" one spirit guessed.

"Does your head glow when you get angry?" another spirit retorted.

"I think that's a pretty good way to show you're angry," a few spirits agreed.

"Is he coming back to life?" some spirits speculated.

"He definitely thinks we're being too noisy," a spirit declared, and the chatter immediately took a different direction.

Shelly and the spirits remained unaware, however, that the unusual signs were not limited to the first king of the People of the Abyss.

At this moment, the stars in the Dream Starry Sea were also moving unusually.

All the People of the Abyss from the previous era shone with a new radiance. Something seemed to be calling to them from the mortal world, a call bound to their very existence, intertwined with their lives and deaths, and closely linked to their bloodlines.

Pyramid Temple

Yin Shen, having just comforted Shelly, had not returned to the temple. He remained outside, as if gazing at something in the distance.

Hila returned with a box containing another gift. She entered the temple but did not see Shelly.

Even Yin Shen was nowhere to be seen.

She stepped outside the temple and finally saw Yin Shen.

Yin Shen looked toward the distant Dream Starry Sea, toward the place that buried all the People of the Abyss, the tomb of their civilization.

Yet, as Hila approached, he asked her a seemingly unrelated question.

"Do you think monsters are a race?"

The question made Hila pause, gift still in hand, but she responded reflexively.

"Of course!"

It was a question that hardly required thought. The monster race was, of course, a race.

She herself had presided over their race swearing an oath to the Crown of Wisdom.

Yin Shen turned his head, looking into Hila's eyes.

"Are they a race like animals or insects?"

"Or a wisdom species?"

Finally, Yin Shen asked another question.

"Would anyone consider them a wisdom species too?"

This question was far sharper than the last, leaving Hila speechless.

Without a doubt, the monster race was a wisdom species. They too carried the divine blood of the wisdom ability.

They had inherited the power of the King of Wisdom and were born in the First Era, just like the others.

Yet their existence seemed unimportant, marginal to everyone else.

Aside from their supernatural powers, they appeared to be no different from the Ancestral Fish or the Land Dragons.

No different from centipedes, dragonflies, and spiders.

It seemed no one had ever truly considered the monster race a wisdom species.

Perhaps, from the very moment Haru and Sandean created the monsters, they carried inherent flaws.

The Endless Desert

The Abyss Royal City, formerly Yesael City

Boom boom boom!

The world was filled with the relentless roar of the storm. Yet at its very center, within the eye of the storm, a figure pressed forward.

Transformed into her God's Form, the female knight walked toward the depths of the Royal City of the Abyss. She passed through city walls inscribed with ancient ritual formations. Gates that had been sealed for millions of years opened for her, revealing the world beyond.

The structure of the city was peculiar.

It was unlike the cities of the Trilobites with their sprawling commoner dwellings, distinct stone landmarks, or grand halls carved into mountains.

This city resembled a giant beehive, with all its buildings connected.

The city walls were less walls and more the common outer shells of these buildings.

The structure was incredibly intricate, the buildings tightly interconnected. While individual buildings lacked the complexity or elegance of Trilobite architecture, the city as a whole appeared far more imposing with its interconnected design.

As she walked inside, it felt like she was navigating an enormous maze.

The female knight crossed bridges that connected the buildings and walked along passages that were entirely suspended.

These passages and drawbridges connected the upper levels of one building to the next, with some spanning the third level and others reaching as high as the sixth or seventh.

She seemed to know where she was going, as if something ahead was drawing her forward.

All along the way, it felt as though countless eyes were watching the female knight as she entered the city and made her way to its very heart.

Under these gazes, the female knight's figure seemed ethereal and unreal.

She was nothing more than a stone.

Elena's Heart.

She had not yet become completely herself, had not truly returned.

This was a journey of return, and also a pilgrimage.

No one dared to disturb her.

This was the inherited will of a race, the echo of fate from ancient times.

Soft whispers seemed to rise from the city, resembling the faint sound of bubbles rising from the depths of the dark seafloor. The sound was barely audible, yet it carried an otherworldly and surreal quality.

"Elena!"

"Elena!"

"Elena!"

"Golden Helmet Knight of the Abyss Kingdom."

"Apostle of Yinsai."

"Second-generation student of the Temple of Truth."

"Descendant of Sal, Bloodline of the Deep Sea Abyss King, Tester of the Saint."

That was the female knight's name. It was her origin, her power, and her legacy.

Each one symbolized glory, sanctity, and greatness.

Finally, the female knight emerged from the cluster of buildings, standing at the edge of a wall over twenty meters high.

The center of the city was empty.

Before her was an inverted pyramid sinking into the earth. From the high vantage point, it looked more like a passage tapering layer by layer toward the deepest part of the desert.

Its purpose remained a mystery.

No one knew why it was constructed in such a form.

If the upright pyramid symbolized the God-Given Land, the original paradise of the Trilobite People and the ancestors of the People of the Abyss, what then did the inverted pyramid signify?

The female knight descended the stairs at the edge of the wall and walked toward a massive palace that served as the entrance to the inverted pyramid.

The female knight stepped into the palace.

The vast interior was shrouded in a darkness that made it impossible to see anything clearly.

Deep on the left side of the dark palace was a single open window.

Soft, dim light filtered through the window, casting a gentle glow on a stone platform where something appeared to rest.

It appeared to be a metal divine statue, though not one in the traditional sense.

Similar to the Trilobite People, the People of the Abyss also revered only one supreme deity. Even so, this statue on the stone platform carried immense significance for the people of this city.

The female knight continued walking.

She felt certain this was the place that had been calling to her.

This statue...

Calling her back, asserting that this was where she truly belonged.

The female knight walked up to the divine platform and looked up.

It was a statue of a woman in armor, her bearing tall and heroic, possessing God's Form.

She knelt on one knee, hands crossed to grip a Ruhe sword that was thrust into the ground. Her forehead rested against the sword's hilt, while outside the window, the inverted pyramid loomed.

The Ruhe sword was dim and rusted, but its ability to withstand the erosion of time marked it as a Divine Artifact.

A compass hung on her chest, and due to her posture, one could see its needle subtly trembling as if sensing something. It was clearly a Miracle Tool.

This metal statue was undeniably her.

The only difference was that the statue wore a golden face helmet.

The golden face helmet was broken in one spot, revealing a corner of the metal-carved face behind it in a fleeting glimpse.

Even so, one could see a terrible wound on her forehead.

This was the female knight's former body.

The moment she saw this "metal statue," the entire city trembled.

A powerful beam of light shot from the inverted pyramid behind the palace, straight into the sky.

They were reaching out to their ancestors, bridging the connection to the golden Sun Cup Flower Sea and the everlasting Pyramid Temple.

Their ancestors responded. The dreamy starry sea shone for them, answering their greeting.

Boom boom boom boom~

In the depths of the Endless Desert, the fierce Black Storm, after reaching its peak, finally began to slowly subside.

The ancient city descended deeper into the desert, vanishing into an unknown abyss.

Here, endless darkness enveloped everything. A thin membrane separated it from the outside world and the exit, while terrifying demon god servants moved within the shadows.

In the darkness, the female knight's form dissolved into light before returning to stone.

The stone traced the wound revealed by the golden face helmet and fused with the metal statue.

It became one with the true apostle's body.

Something unusual occurred. The statue started to shift as its metallic surface slowly transformed into flesh and blood. The wound on its forehead began to gradually mend.

The Ruhe sword emitted light.

The Miracle Tool compass began to turn.

If earlier she had been merely an apparition, a ghost returning from ancient times, now she was a tangible being who had crossed through time.

But even so, she still had not awakened.

Even though she had a lifelike body, the light of her consciousness had long been extinguished.

She had died long ago.

Died two hundred and fifty million years ago.

After merging with Elena's Heart and the mythical organ, what was restored was nothing more than a corpse. It was a corpse that only gave the appearance of being alive.

The light beam from the inverted pyramid now radiated outward in expanding rings of light, spreading across the entire Royal City of the Abyss Kingdom.

Under the turning of that light, strange changes occurred within this long-dead apostle's body.

A consciousness began to take shape, and from within the body, a new wisdom awakened.

Her blue hair cascaded down, framing the golden face helmet on both sides.

Thump.

The steady rhythm of a heartbeat became audible, accompanied by the gentle warmth of breath.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, the "corpse" stirred, an inexplicable and surreal sight. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

The female knight, who had been kneeling on one knee, slowly stood and pulled the Ruhe sword from the ground.

She reflexively swung the sword, its fierce aura and killing intent dominating the entire city.

But her eyes were filled with confusion. She remembered nothing, like a newborn child.

She only vaguely remembered one name.

She called out this name, "Elena."

Lights illuminated the city, and figures began to appear throughout the Royal City of the Abyss Kingdom.

They moved along iron chain bridges, crossed the outer walls, and stood atop the tall buildings.

They all directed their gazes toward the inverted pyramid.

Light filled the entire palace.

In the shadows, one figure after another began to emerge.

They had been sitting here all along, waiting for Elena's return, watching and waiting for this moment.

The newborn Elena raised her head toward the throne. There, under illuminated crystal lamps, sat two puppet figures wearing crowns and splendid attire.

A king sat on the throne alongside a queen.

On both sides of the palace stood dozens or hundreds of other metal puppets, all wearing ancient Trilobite-style clothing.

On closer inspection, they bore a striking resemblance to the former puppet Oran.

Among the crowd, there was not a single living person to be found. This was a kingdom made up entirely of puppets.

"Knight of the Abyss! You have finally returned!"

"I knew that when Yinsai returned, you would surely return to the Royal City as well."

The metal puppet king on the throne stood, walked down before Elena, and bowed.

"Everything from the old days," the puppet king said softly, "will all begin anew."

Elena looked confused, as if she couldn't even speak.

Somehow, she understood what the person before her was saying. The puppet king was not speaking aloud but using the mental communication of the wisdom ability.

The female knight did not seem to understand. She tried to speak, but only a creaking sound escaped her lips, no words.

Then, she suddenly understood something.

Following her instincts, she used mental communication to ask a question.

"Where is this?"

The puppet king answered, "This is the kingdom you built for us."

"The eternal Demon Spirit Kingdom."

"You have been gone for too long, and everything has been gone for too long."

"So long that..."

"We no longer even remember you."

"Fortunately, everything was preserved in wisdom script and images."

The king waved a hand toward the murals surrounding the palace, indicating that they recorded what had happened.

"Look, your story is carved on these walls."

"The paintings said you would surely return one day."

"We have been awake for over a thousand years, waiting for you for a very, very long time."

Their wait was calculated from the beginning of this era, from the moment Yinsai descended once more.

The female knight skillfully sheathed her sword, stepped forward, and looked up at these murals.

As she took this posture, her long blue ponytail fell, almost touching the ground.

The murals recorded everything about Elena. They told of her origin from the Sal family, the family that once tested apostles. They showed she was the inheritor of the Saint's will, the only Golden Helmet Knight of the Abyss Kingdom.

The murals displayed a combination of words and images.

"This is me?" the female knight asked, confused. "Why... why don't I remember any of this?"

"Without a doubt, you are Lady Elena," the king, queen, and all the puppet nobles in the palace said together. "The only Golden Helmet Knight of the Abyss, Lady Elena."

"Whether you remember it or not," the king said earnestly, "you are."

The female knight looked at the murals but still felt nothing, not even a flicker of familiarity. It was like hearing a story about someone else.

She tried to recall something, but nothing came to mind.

The female knight looked at the depiction of the People of the Abyss in the painting. A question suddenly formed in her mind, and she asked it eagerly.

"Are you... the People of the Abyss?"

The puppets looked at each other, no one speaking for a long time.

They too seemed confused.

Finally, the puppet king stepped forward.

"At least," the puppet king said after a pause, "we once were."

Elena asked the puppet king, "How do you know?"

The puppet king replied, "The paintings told us."

Deep within the Endless Desert

When the light beam from the Royal City of the Abyss Kingdom shot toward the sky, various strange phenomena appeared on Ruhe Beast Island.

Monsters across the island suddenly became agitated, all howling toward the direction of the Endless Desert.

Woo woo! Fire demons ascended into the sky, wreaking havoc among the clouds.

Boom boom boom boom! Stone demons thundered across the ground, their movements wild and chaotic.

Hiss! Wing demons took flight from the sea island in swarms, heading toward the source of the light.

The monsters appeared to have lost all sense, driven by an uncontrollable urge to reach the place radiating brilliance.

It was as if that place were the eternal fantasy land for monsters, a place of peace.

A place where fate could be changed and final transcendence achieved.