The hill where the Frost Continent people had originally stood was now buried beneath a thick layer of dust, the entire ridge a murky expanse of gray.
Fine powder drifted through the air, with tiny glimmers occasionally flickering amid it.
At this moment, heaven and earth held only two colors—gray and white—making everything seem especially monotonous. All around was deathly still.
After a long while, something stirred in the gray dust. Then one crystal-jade giant after another rose from within, dust sifting down from their bodies.
The High Protector unleashed his Heartlight Seal, sweeping away all the dust around him. He strode forward until he reached the cliff's edge and stopped.
Looking into the distance, he saw that the rolling mountains that had once resembled crashing waves, the Iga Gods and tens of thousands of cave dwellers battling within them, even the thunder, water, and fire that had violently collided—all of it had vanished. Before him remained only a pale land that had been completely leveled.
Gazing upon this scene of all things fallen silent, he said, "The times have changed!"
With so many foreign gods and so many powerful cave dwellers, if they had relied purely on lives to wear them down, who knew how many men it would have taken? Even if he had twice as many soldiers under his command, victory might not have been assured.
Yet now, a single mystic weapon had resolved everything with ease.
In the past, mystic weapons could only act upon the material level. But over these sixty years, as the art of forging mystic weapons improved, they had also gained the ability to attack spirituality.
Those divine kingdoms hidden beyond the real world had once been beyond the reach of mystic weapons. Now, once a mystic weapon fell, it could easily