"The palace in the depths reflected the state of mind of the [Ocean] Demigod at this very moment: drunk on the past, slowed by time."
"There, you would also witness with your own eyes the true beginning of that epic of salvation, concealed beneath countless legends..."
"That ugly history, repeatedly washed over by the currents of time in an attempt to conceal it—the Apotheosis Stairway Caesar forged with the lives and Golden Blood of five hundred Chrysos Heirs, under the name of conquest but through the reality of blood sacrifice."
Yan Huan looked in the direction Laigushi indicated. It was a wall adorned with exquisite reliefs, with a small fountain set into its center.
He walked straight over without drawing a weapon. With nothing but a bare fist, he blasted a hole through the fountain and the wall behind it, revealing a deep passage sloping downward.
As he ventured farther in, the underwater palace was clearly descending deeper and deeper, as though it led to the heart of the earth.
Laigushi's voice rang out beside him like that of a tour guide:
"This ancient palace, built to worship the Ocean Titan, is closely connected to the vortex at the heart of the world."
"It is both a sacred sanctuary and the brutal battlefield of the First Journey of the Spark..."
"Hysilens's power-infused drunken song nearly brought time here to a standstill. It was meant both to imprison my body and to protect her own soul from the erosion of time."
"Everything was simply waiting for your return."
"Yet this chaotic, out-of-control power, while offering protection, also reflected the confusion buried deep within her heart..."
"—and cleverly concealed Caesar's... original crime."
Yan Huan glanced at the flickering, wildly unstable passage ahead and slowly moved forward.
Time and space continuously overlapped and