novelraw Chapter 192-3: The Last Believer Among the Half-Dragons (3)
Chapter 192-3: The Last Believer Among the Half-Dragons (3)
[While you were working, you suddenly felt a sharp pain in your back, a spear thrust into your spine.]
[You turned your head and saw Broken Horn Sharu wearing an expression full of guilt.]
[It released the spear, staggered back a few steps, and covered its face, weeping…]
[In a choked voice, it confessed that it had already found the secret rite. But to use the ore to enhance the bloodline required a huge quantity, what was in the storage was only enough for one to ascend as a Hybrid Half-Dragon.]
[It knew that in the face of profit, camaraderie meant nothing. For the sake of advancing its bloodline, either you would die or it would, and so it could only…]
[Of course, that was only one of the reasons it had to kill you… You must be very curious, weren’t you? How could it, a mere mining slave, know so many secrets…]
[Perhaps it was Broken Horn Sharu’s guilt that made its strike weak, or perhaps your strength was now far beyond what it used to be, but in any case, you did not die at once.]
[You felt your life force draining away, darkness encroaching on your vision, your limbs going numb…]
[You Possessed the Shell of the Corrupted Earth Giant!]
[You picked up a Sharpened Wooden Spear beside you. In Broken Horn Sharu’s astonished gaze, you drove the spear straight through its chest, returning the betrayal in kind.][Broken Horn Sharu stared blankly at the extra eye upon your brow, as if it had forgotten the agony in its chest. In a daze, it murmured that you were not the playmate it once knew, nor a follower of the Starborn evil gods, nor a defector who hated the Omniscient True Knowledge.]
[You were a true god’s follower, just like it. If only it had known earlier… if only…]
[You have defeated the Knowledge-Seeking Mixed-Blood Half-Dragon. Experience slightly increased.]
[You obtained: Small Omniscient Divine Statuette (Junk)]
[You obtained: Secret Rite Scroll of Hermit Bloodline Tempering (Item)]
[You looked down at the corpse at your feet…]
[Knowledge-Seeking Mixed-Blood Half-Dragon: A low-bloodline half-dragon. As a low-ranking mining slave, it spent its days laboring in the mines. Strangely, unlike its kin, it appeared to be a follower of the Omniscient True Knowledge. It died to a fatal strike through the heart. Compatibility: 87% (+45%)]
[Would you like to Possess this Shell?]
“So the special event really did conceal key information.”
Lin Xun sighed.
It seemed that precisely because he was a follower of the Omniscient True Knowledge, he had been able to trigger this special event. If he had belonged to the Starborn faction instead, he likely would have missed it altogether.
Just like when he had previously experienced the Star Spirit Palace.
Normally, only by joining the Oath of the Radiant Stars could one pass through the Star-Chasing Corridor and obtain the rewards.
If Lin Xun hadn’t discovered a loophole, he would never have gotten through the Star-Chasing Corridor and would have returned empty-handed.
He pressed the ‘Possession’ option. Perhaps the Shell’s memories contained follow-up content to the special event.
[You have Possessed the Shell of the Knowledge-Seeking Mixed-Blood Half-Dragon!]
[The memories within the Shell were fragmented, and you could barely piece together the deeds of this body in life…]
[Under my father’s teachings, I had believed in the Radiant Stars since childhood. Every day before mining and before sleep, I would hold up the divine image of the stars and offer devout prayers.]
[If that incident had never happened, if I had never learned the history of my ancestor, I might have remained a despicable Oathbreaker my entire life.]
[It was a day just like any other. The repetitive, mechanical mining was the whole of existence that the Radiant Stars bestowed upon me.]
[Perhaps it was fate. In a branching tunnel of the lode, I saw something I was never meant to see.]
[The sudden cave-in made me think I would surely perish there in the mine, but it was not so. Someone had to uncover the truth of history…]
[…]
[At the bottom of the collapse stood an enormous stone stele, its surface carved with images and the script of my kind.]
[From the signs of erosion, I judged this stele to be much older than my grandfather’s grandfather.]
[The carved image upon it depicted the great ancestor, but different from what I remembered. The Hermit Ancestor did not have merely two eyes, but countless densely packed ones.]
[This was…the mark of a heretical Seeker!]
[How could the Hermit Ancestor, the most faithful supporter of the Radiant Stars, look like this?]
[Suppressing my shock, I began reading the words etched upon the stone…]
[In an age unimaginably distant, the great Hermit Ancestor was once a devoted adherent of the Omniscient True Knowledge.]
[It never fought in the God Wars, yet it unceasingly bore offspring, offspring who made pacts with the envoys of the Omniscient True Knowledge, thereby contributing to the God Wars in another way.]
[Those offspring perished in the wars one after another, and each time the Ancestor birthed new children, its strength diminished.]
[Whenever a child died, the envoy of the Omniscient True Knowledge would return the body to the canyon.]
[So as not to waste that precious bloodline strength, the Ancestor would devour the bodies, reclaiming a portion of the power and continuing to contribute to the war.]
[Yet this cannibalism could never restore the Ancestor’s strength completely, only slow its decline…]
[The most terrifying part was not this. It was the endless cycle of birthing offspring and consuming them again and again, which birthed a monstrous ‘Disorder.’]
[…]
[The God Wars ended in victory, but too much ‘Disorder’ had been unleashed. Not only did the Ancestor go mad, even the Omniscient True Knowledge went mad!]
[The endless Veil of Knowledge was the source of that ‘Disorder’, a terrifying blight born of the Omniscient True Knowledge itself.]
[The surviving offspring joined together to imprison their deranged progenitor. To escape the ‘Disorder,’ they even gouged out their surplus eyes and forsook the faith of the True God, crawling instead to the dwindling Star Gods.]
[The ‘Disorder’ in the canyon was driven away by the power of the stars, but that cleansing was not eternal. Only by continually laboring for the Radiant Stars could this frail order be maintained.]
[Those offspring were all Oathbreakers, traitors to their ancestor, craven cowards clinging to life, wretches nailed to the pillar of shame…]
[The remaining text was buried too deep in the earth. I gave all I had, but I could not glimpse a single further truth.]
[Because of my digging, the collapsed pit began to shudder. Rocks rained down around me. I knew the place was about to cave in completely.]
[In the end, I escaped with my life just before the collapse…]
[All the nobles of the Dragon Nest are descendants of those offspring. The entire canyon lies within their grip. I wanted to reveal the truth to the world… But no one would believe the stele I had seen. No one would believe the truth of history.]
[I had to gain greater power, purify my bloodline further.]
[Only when I stood atop the Dragon Nest would I make everyone believe what I wished them to believe!]
[The fragmented memory of the Shell ended there.]
[You have gained knowledge. Your Knowledge stat increased by 9,999,999! Current Knowledge: …/28,500]
[Your understanding has surpassed the threshold. You have touched the extraordinary. Once again, you glimpse…]
[In this place, you cannot behold the Omniscient True Knowledge…]
[Chaotic, disordered knowledge pours into your soul without end. You are gradually lost in the ocean of knowledge.]
[Sanity slips from you. Madness claims your mind.]
[Your skull detonates in a thunderous blast…]
[You are dead!]