Miss Hebe is Killing Her Way Out of the Lostbelt!

That was the greatest reward she had obtained in the Rose War, a feat that could only be unleashed by becoming Daylight once more.

"Since the Fourth Era, all achievements have been suppressed and erased by the present world. But there are still exceptions, and they are not unique. Until you reach [Daylight], this achievement will remain sealed."

"Current identity [Imhotep] has reached Daylight, achievement liberated."

Hebe extended her hand, and the azure flames had vanished at some unknown time.

The flesh and blood of her arm fell like sand, leaving only pure white bones.

"No, no, no... How can you have two achievements—who exactly are you?" Ozymandias cried hoarsely. "I would rather die! I would rather die than become a stepping stone for a dead man... Never!"

Ozymandias could feel his spiritual body, which had been on the verge of dissipating, miraculously reassembling, and even his damaged body was gradually repairing itself.

But the more this happened, the more terrified Ozymandias became.

The king who had vowed to rival the gods had lost all his majesty, leaving only endless despair for an outcome worse than death.

Hebe staggered forward a few steps, leaning weakly against the entrance of the Grand Temple of Composite Radiance. She slid down the outer wall of the temple.

"I am Ozymandias, whose great deeds dared to make the heavens bow," Hebe's voice was very soft, but she knew Ozymandias could hear her.

As she spoke, she began to laugh. Yellow sand flowed from the girl's ossified chest, scattering without a trace in the sea of clouds.

The sun rose from the edge of the horizon, the dawn broke, and the light was brilliant.

So beautiful.

"The time is right," Hebe said. "Please 'ascend,' Your Majesty."

44 Only the same tears of blood are flowing

Ascending, deifying, the path to the wasteland has opened.

That skeletal hand, from the inside out, gently tore open the outer wall of the Grand Temple of Composite Radiance, as if it were no more difficult than tearing a piece of paper.

The entire world was gradually becoming silent and pale white. Countless frost-white skeletons rose from the ruins of the city, gazing up at the fine snow falling from the sky.

The giant skeleton that Hebe had seen countless times before descended once more from the clouds. It was wrapped in ribbons like white clouds, and it surveyed all of Upper and Lower Egypt with calm, hollow eyes.

The entire world had turned pale white. Both swarms of insects and herds of beasts cowered on the ground, retracting their limbs and dying silently. Silent snowflakes fell from the clouds, dyeing the desert a pure white.

All calamities were dying silently.

All things were losing their color in silence.

All memories were becoming deeper in silence.

A sigh echoed.

With this sigh, the Nine Calamities that had been raging throughout Egypt ended without any warning, leaving only the devastated land as proof of their existence.

This was the achievement the Red King had longed for—the Tenth Calamity that ended the Nine Calamities.

This irreversible, unchangeable moment had finally arrived.

Even though Hebe was now almost completely reduced to bone, the chilling sensation still penetrated her soul.

She heard clear, cold echoes from all directions.

[My great deeds are evident in all directions. My path is to commemorate the memories of the departed and remember all that the world has lost.

All that exists will eventually cease to exist; all things in this world are truly so.

To forget is to kill, to abandon is to betray. The rise and fall, the continuation and extinction, is truly the great wish of the world's memorizer.

Nefertiti is my distant past, Nefertari is my fleeting present, and Nephthys is my eternal future.

I am the Duke of Sighs, the ruler who remembers all things, inscribes memories, and knows promises.

—The Twelfth Month, The Silent, Frosty, Eternal Winter World.]

This was the Golden Truth, the Golden Truth declared to the world, and the world was responding.

A new ruler was born.

Its name was [Duke of Sighs], its honored title was the God who Remembers All Things, the God who Inscribes Memories, the God who Knows Promises, presiding over the last month of the year, the silent, frosty, intoxicating Twelfth Month.

The Duke of Sighs ascended into the clouds. Its eyes were hollow and compassionate as it gazed at the small, no longer warm skeleton.

This would be the first name the Duke of Sighs would remember: Imhotep.

Under the gaze of the Duke of Sighs, the skeleton sank into the great pyramid.

Thus, this magnificent wonder began to fulfill its original duty.

[Current Lostbelt Progress: 100%].

[Golden Truth's Dream · Lost Sand Sea Kingdom] ended, [The Knower] logged out.

Nitocris raised her head, gazing at the skeleton that had ascended into the clouds and disappeared.

The female pharaoh stood in the cold desert, white snow falling thickly on the yellow sand.

What made her feel distant was not distance, but irrecoverability.

Nitocris suddenly felt difficulty breathing. Although breathing was no longer a necessary condition for survival for Twilight, she still felt dizzy and wanted to faint.

A layer of gray smoke veiled her eyes, blurring even the distant sun, and everything before her seemed to have lost its history and name. Death was like snow disappearing into snow.

Nitocris finally began to miss the nights of the past, those nights that were lonely and deep black, pools where she could hide.

She was very clear-headed, and for that reason, she now hated this clarity somewhat.

Nitocris had long known that it was impossible to achieve anything without sacrifice; she deeply understood that this day would eventually come.

Twilight, after all, was not purely divine; their bodies would still bleed and weep. This was the fragile nature of mortals.

Nitocris forced herself to hate Hebe, racking her brain and trying to find evidence of betrayal in her memories.

If that were the case, she would have a reason to hate, to remember with bone-deep intensity.

For hate is the other side of love, and the passage of time dulls hatred, making it closer to love in the end.

But no, she couldn't find any trace.

Nitocris cried out, running through the wilderness, screaming, like a wild beast. She lied to herself: Hebe was a demon skilled in manipulating hearts and schemes, feigning weakness to trick her into forming an alliance, and then, and then...

And then what?

She was dead.

Nitocris felt sad, but she couldn't quite articulate why. It wasn't because Hebe had deceived her, but because she could no longer respond to Hebe's deception.

To Nitocris, it felt like swallowing something more bitter than exile or death. She wished she too were a rebel, a selfish, despicable person, so she could tell herself with a clear conscience, "Oh well, at least I survived, didn't I?"

But what of it? You know that's false, Nitocris. She told herself.

She tried to reminisce, but searching through her memories yielded no recollections so profound as to be called mementos. They were just trivial matters, just night after night spent in anxiety.

Nitocris remembered those nights when the maiden would pore over her desk by lamplight, her back appearing long and slender in the inner chambers of the temple.

In the cold wind of having nothing and hoping for nothing, she heard rustling sounds from afar. They were scarabs, their backs marked with patterns of the sun and fire.

A massive vortex appeared in the desert. Nitocris watched it quietly, seeing the scarabs throw themselves fearlessly into the vortex.

After all the scarabs had plunged in, a giant, metallic crocodile head emerged from the sand. Its head was crowned with red spines, its horns jutting out like a royal diadem.

Nitocris suddenly remembered Hebe mentioning to her that the King of Sheep had personally extracted a colleague's soul, using his physical body as a war machine and sealing his soul within scarabs.

No one had expected that the reason for the King of Sheep's extreme measures would be the King of Crocodiles Sobek, who was also one of the Three Kings.

Sobek looked around, gazing at the mangled remains of the King of Sheep, then at the sky, laughing three times and crying three times.

"Khnum! Your son is truly an unadulterated hero!"

The King of Crocodiles Sobek turned his head and said to Nitocris, "Pharaoh, you must have many questions, and so do I. Come with me. We will go to Heliopolis, where all questions will be answered."

Nitocris silently stepped onto the King of Crocodiles' broad back, the red dorsal spines parting towards the sky like a sail crossing the sea of sand.

She suddenly remembered Hebe's solemn vows in the dead of night. The maiden with the beautiful green eyes had said she would eventually raise her sails and cross this iron-like sea of sand.

Now, Nitocris truly saw all the scenes Hebe had described.

They arrived at Heliopolis, where the date palm trees cast lush shadows. Tutankhamun was waiting at the city gate.

"Allow me to ask my questions first," the King of Crocodiles asked. "Hesharif, for how long did he play the King of Sheep, and who helped him?"

Tutankhamun replied, "The King of Sheep realized the Red King's plan. Like Anubis, he loved everyone in Egypt. After that, he went to the Temple of Geb and prayed to Skyflint."

"Just as Ozymandias allied with Cruel Wolf, Skyflint used the King of Sheep as a chess piece to counter him. And realizing he could not hold on any longer, he asked Skyflint to recast him."

—Skyflint agreed.

"After that, the King of Sheep met the Red King. He did not last long. After his death, Skyflint acted, forging him into a vessel to contain Hesharif. It is for this reason that Hesharif was able to endure for hundreds of years."

The King of Crocodiles continued Tutankhamun's words, "—After that, Hesharif found me. He said that rather than be a sacrifice for the Red King and harm the people of Egypt, it was better to feign rebellion, have him extract my spiritual body and seal it within scarabs, so that my body and soul could be preserved separately. I agreed with his words and offered no resistance."

Tutankhamun continued, "—After that, the successor to the King of Ibis appeared. Hesharif determined that she was the one who could truly turn the tide."

"He brought you here because... if he could not resist Ozymandias's final counterattack, then King of Crocodiles, it would be your turn to fulfill the promise of protection," Tutankhamun sighed.

"The new... King of Ibis, Thoth?" Sobek was a bit confused. "Did she also have an agreement with Hesharif?"

"No, on this matter, there was no agreement," Tutankhamun smiled sadly. "This is perhaps the unspoken understanding between 'heroes.' The halo of a savior is made of countless sorrows, but only the blood and tears of heroes flow in the same way."

45 I Want to Live Until the End (Seeking Collections, Seeking Follow-ups)

Tutankhamun's gaze shifted to Nitocris, his eyes filled with even deeper sorrow.

"Let's talk about Imhotep. I have a lot to say as well," the young pharaoh sighed endlessly. "What she fought against was not just the Red King; the enemy she had to face was history itself."

"From this perspective, Imhotep actually saved history and the future of Egyptian civilization."

"I don't understand..." Nitocris said.

"Let me give you an example, and you'll understand," Tutankhamun replied. "Do you remember the name of Ozymandias's queen?"

What difficulty could this pose for Nitocris? She spoke the name immediately: "Nefertiti."

"Incorrect." A faint look of shame appeared on Tutankhamun's face. "Nefertiti is my mother."

It was as if a grand lie had been exposed, and buried memories surfaced.

Nefertiti was Tutankhamun's mother, the queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty; the queen of the Nineteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Ramesses II, was named Nefertari; as for the Duke of Sighs, his name was Nephthys.

For ease of distinction, Tutankhamun collectively referred to them as "Neph" and differentiated them by First, Second, and Third.

Nitocris suddenly understood, she hadn't realized how much she had forgotten.

The shame on his face quickly vanished as Tutankhamun continued to reveal the truth.

"You and Anubis, along with Pepe and Bestet, are all sides of the same coin. My mother was the same. When Neph the First's physical body died, she 'awakened' in her blood relatives through memory. This is the truth of so-called 'resurrection'."

"Physically, they are two people; in terms of memory, they are the same person."

"My mother used this method to obscure her own death, and also to deceive history... Of course, I don't know the specific methods my mother used to alter history, nor do I know who told her this method."

Tutankhamun's expression of shame reappeared as he spoke.

"In this way, my mother became 'Twilight' of the Priest path in her second life. Ozymandias knew of this, but he was happy to see it happen," Tutankhamun said softly. "Because for him, no matter how hard Neph the Second tried, she was merely a stepping stone to his ascension."

"Later, Neph the Second threw herself into the Nile."

"I don't believe my mother would die like that, but I only found a segment of her finger bone, nothing else... No one knows where my mother went, meaning she is both dead and alive."

It was like Schrödinger's cat; until the box was opened and confirmed, no one knew if the cat inside was dead or alive.

That segment of finger bone was the "anchor point" left by Neph the Second, waiting for someone in later generations to open it.

This was how to clarify the secret history and determine the truth.

In other words, it was the process of conquering a Lostbelt and integrating it into the grand tapestry of history.

Neph the Second waited with hope, and eventually, she found the person who could open the box.

—Imhotep, or rather, Hebe Stanton.

Hebe was unwilling to accept a future where Ozymandias became the ruler, so she began to pursue another possibility—having someone replace the Red King as the ruler during the ascension ceremony.

To do this, she needed to understand the lives of Neph's first two incarnations in detail, and finally imagine her third.