Traveler of the River of Time and Space

Chapter 633 7: Whispers of the Old Gods

Bottomless Abyss, the 422nd layer.

"Pfft!"

As a mouthful of blood spurted out, Su Ziyu's complexion became extremely pale, then a faint golden hue appeared. Thin black threads, invisible to the naked eye, floated around like smoke, trying to inch into his spirit through the Sands of Time, like worms.

— "Sword of Time!"

Just as Su Ziyu prepared to summon the power of Divinity to fight the black threads, which were like a bone-attached plague, Lord Stephen, the Space-Time Guardian beside him, reached out and manipulated the Sands of Time around him, forming a longsword made of golden sand. With a gentle swing, he severed those black threads.

At this moment, Lord Stephen's expression was slightly serious. He looked at Su Ziyu and said softly, "Encountered an Ancient Evil God?"

"Yes." Su Ziyu's spirit was slightly dispirited now, and he nodded, "Very powerful."

Lord Stephen reached out and grabbed the black threads, and his eyes shone with silver-white Rune Eyes. He then said, "A True God."

"It seems it's not the true body descending, otherwise you might be more seriously injured."

He clenched his palm tightly, and the black threads dissipated like smoke. Vaguely, the smoke transformed into a twisted shadow with tentacles, and then into a vague outline of a black goat.

"His Divine Favored was killed by a nuclear bomb."

Su Ziyu closed his eyes to heal his injuries, and said slowly, "The enemy descended as a Spirit Body to the Material Plane, and I faced His Spirit precariously."

"His current state shouldn't be good either."

Earth in the Wasteland Plane imposes limitations on any True God level existence, like a net of Plane barriers protecting it. Su Ziyu couldn't penetrate that net, and the enemy was equally restricted, so both descended through incantation forms.

Su Ziyu used his daughter as a medium for the Divine Descent ritual, while the other angrily used his soul as a medium after his Divine Favored was killed by a nuclear bomb.

His target was Su Ying.

The enemy discovered the 'Causal Power' of the Plane's Child on Su Ying. If Su Ziyu hadn't urgently descended at that moment, Su Ying might have been implanted with a [Thought Steel Seal] upon seeing the enemy's true form.

It is an extremely domineering Mental Control Ability.

Without altering the other's world perception, it forcibly turns them into a zealous follower.

This Spiritual battle, although brief, severely injured Su Ziyu, temporarily causing him to enter a 'Soul Weakness' state. Fortunately, before returning, he reinforced Su Ying with a 'Mind Barrier'; she should be shielded under his protection from other influences.

"Tell me what happened." With an Ancient Evil God involved, Lord Stephen's expression also became much more serious.

Su Ziyu pondered for a moment, then began recounting matters of the Wasteland Plane.

Of course, the mortal part didn't need detailed explanation to Lord Stephen; he mainly spoke about the Divine Spirits' part.

In fact, at the moment of Incantation Descent, Su Ziyu, who had even stronger Spiritual Energy, saw far more than Su Ying because everything in the world leaves a Spiritual Energy trace. The moment he descended, he resonated with the Plane's consciousness, so he saw the distant history.

Including the great catastrophe in the Wasteland Plane.

The Wasteland Plane is a parallel dimension of Earth. Although it had supernatural entities in its past, they were strictly confined by Plane limitations. Hence, its pre-Cold War history wasn't much different from Earth's in Su Ziyu's perception.

The real catastrophe occurred during the Cold War.

On August 20 and September 5, 1977, the United States launched the "Voyager 1" and "Voyager 2" spacecraft.

This was the beginning of all disasters.

Each spacecraft carried a plaque called the "Voice of Earth," a copper-gold-plated laser record, documenting most human languages on Earth, as well as various sounds. Frankly, from Su Ziyu's perspective now, a civilization that hadn't yet entered the interstellar era, recklessly sending its message into the cosmos, was undoubtedly quite foolish.

The 'Voice of Earth' Golden Disc, almost exposing all human vulnerabilities to the outside world.

For an advanced alien civilization or a powerful Ancient Evil Entity, if any caught those two spacecraft and acquired the 'Voice of Earth' disc, it would be like placing humanity on a chopping block.

Kill if desired, dominate if wished—everything's at their mercy—and the only protection left for humanity is the generic consciousness of Earth.

Unfortunately.

The original Voyageurs, during their prolonged space travel, underwent some unknowable changes and fell into the hands of an Old God drifting in cosmic space. His title is unknown to Su Ziyu for now, but while battling the descended incarnation of that Old God, Su Ziyu saw the twisted bizarre silhouette of a 'Black Goat.'

The existence of 'Voice of Earth' granted those Old Gods the ability to traverse space and meddle in the Material World.

Thus, their first step to invade Earth was through sound.

This was what Su Ziyu initially heard upon entering the Wasteland Plane, those 'Profane Whispers,' whether it was the Corpse Ghosts initially irradiated by nuclear fallout, the subsequent mutant creatures, or the madmen emerging in recent years, their appearances were all accompanied by some eerie whispers.

When Su Ziyu initially went to the isolated island to rescue Pasha, he encountered the severely eerie whispers there, which drove even many mentally strong Brotherhood members insane.

Some specific details of the invasion were not revealed to Su Ziyu through intuition.

But he can roughly guess the entire process of the Wasteland Plane being invaded by the Old Gods.

The first step of the invasion occurred during the Cold War. At that time, both the United States and the Soviet Union were researching Superpowers, mainly focused on Spiritual Energy research. Spiritual Energy is the manifestation of idealism, their research gave the Old Gods an opportunity, and the initial tentacles of the Old Gods likely took advantage of this research to interfere with the material world.

The second step of the invasion was destruction, when human civilization was in a cold war, a period sitting on a nuclear powder keg.

The first thing the Old Gods did after being able to interfere with reality was to destroy human civilization through nuclear war. At that time, the conditions to destroy human civilization were completely in place, and this process could kill most humans and collect a massive, unbelievable number of souls. These souls could serve as nourishment for the Old Gods, allowing them to interfere further with the real world.

Su Ziyu had a bold guess that the Old Gods might have been in a sealed state, and the sacrifice they used to break free was probably the souls of humans who died after the nuclear war.

Due to the Cold War background, as long as the Old Gods could control some key figures, they could directly trigger nuclear war.

Thus, a great catastrophe occurred, directly interrupting the development progress of human civilization.

After the disaster struck.

The interference of the Old Gods with the material world was further strengthened, and they even descended their incarnations and flesh progeny to the material plane.

This then led to everything Su Ziyu initially witnessed, which was the birth of Corpse Ghosts.

The Old Gods' flesh extracts are the core material of the antiradiation potion. As for whether this was a creation the Old Gods controlled humans to make, or humans created it after capturing the Old Gods' progeny, Su Ziyu has not been able to determine for now.

Because after the great disaster, Earth's collective consciousness awakened.

At that time, some extremely powerful beings appeared among humans, such as the one called 'Yuri Sis' from the Soviet Union and the one Su Ziyu previously tracked, codenamed 'Solomon'.

The invasion by the Old Gods also opened the protective barrier of the Wasteland Plane.

According to the Space-Time Monitor System, the energy level of the Wasteland Plane rose, and the limits of Supernatural Abilities were lifted.

The original invention of the antiradiation potion was likely an effort by some people or forces to save everything. It may even be that before the great disaster, someone or some forces discovered the invasion of the Old Gods. Otherwise, it's hard to explain why so many shelters were built worldwide, and someone realized the nuclear war was coming.

The third phase was the emergence of the Gospel Book.

Early humans needed prerequisites to hear those eerie whispers, such as entering a high-radiation pollution area, having a high degree of pollution themselves, or having high innate intuition.

The first person Su Ziyu encountered who turned into a Corpse Ghost would whisper 'meat.' Ordinary people were completely unaffected.

However, it was apparent later that the prerequisites for hearing the eerie whispers became lower, which indicated the Old Gods' invasion had reached a new height, and the bizarre insanity outbreak in the Wasteland World occurred suddenly worldwide.

Indeed.

The madness disease spread through sound. After plotting for so long, the Old Gods finally started closing the net.

The initial 'Voice of Earth' Golden Disc was injected by the Old Gods with divine power, directly transformed into a Divine Artifact level 'Gospel Book,' and then returned to Earth in some unknown manner.

The original Mechanical Atomist Pantheon and Esoteric Cultist organizations were likely birthed from contact with these mysterious objects.

The Old Gods have completely grasped human sound.

Through the Voice of Earth Golden Disc, during their slow invasion of the Wasteland Plane over the years, they have thoroughly examined the human sound system.

These Old Gods can even produce sounds that human ears cannot perceive, yet influence ordinary people with these sounds, gradually stripping away their sanity, lowering their SAN value, slowly driving them mad, and ultimately becoming puppets dominated by the Old Gods.

"Sound is the antidote."

After hearing everything Su Ziyu said, Lord Stephen frowned and said, "That world must either enter [Mechanical Ascension] or search for an antidote through sound."

"But the hope of obtaining the antidote is very slim."

"The Old Gods' modified Profane Whisper, unless you can find a powerful entity holding the Divine Office of [Music] to help, it's hard to obtain the antidote."

Over the years.

It's evident the Old Gods' grasp of human sound is a gradual process, and now it's likely the entire Wasteland Plane is enveloped in the negative state of 'Old Gods' Whisper'.

The difficulty for Su Ziyu to obtain the antidote is quite great.

.........