“Vaporize?” Hao Ren and Lily were stunned. “What do you mean vaporize?”

“We don’t know what’s going on! The monster’s been quiet, but it suddenly screamed and—”

Hao Ren interrupted, “Take it into the city immediately! We will meet you outside.”

It did not take long before they brought the Shadow of Nightmares to the cathedral. Coming together were Lily’s beast guards. With prior understanding reached in the city, the abhumans no longer had to hide outside the city. Their appearance still shocked several clergies in the cathedral. But it was only a minor problem compared to the Shadow of Nightmares.

The monster was indeed vaporizing.

Smoke rose with a hiss as its body gradually turned into gas, and its size shrank slowly at an imperceptible pace. The change was extremely slow, but since it had been going on for a while, Hao Ren could see that the monster was even weaker as it had shrunk by a third compared to before.

Since Shadow of Nightmares displayed a temporary state of sensibility in Fort Raven, it had been in a half-dead state. The sacredness of Sanctum was making it even quieter than ever. But the weakness was not fatal until the vaporization phenomenon happened.

“It has been going on for 30 minutes, and it’s getting worse,” said a monk who was from outside the city earlier. “Before the vaporization began, the thing had shouted some words, but there was no logic in them, and it was not communicable.”

Hao Ren looked up. “What did it shout?”

The monk thought for a moment before saying, “The name of Rockmarton, the Forgotten Abyss, and it repeatedly mentioned the ‘door’ and the ‘seal.’ And also the Infinite Battle, a long battle on the plains. But no history in Collow has ever mentioned about this battle.”

“That’s it?”

The monk spread out his hand. “That’s it. Oh yeah, it spoke not only commonly-used languages but also a few ancient languages, which have almost gone extinct. We could barely understand some of them.”

“The Infinite Battle, the ‘door,’ and Rockmarton…” Hao Ren bent down and examined the smoked meat. “The door and Rockmarton are understandably about the prison, but I can’t wrap my brain around what the Infinite Battle means.”

While saying, Hao Ren carefully reached out into the smoke and touched the monster, which felt soft and disgusting in texture.

A spot on Hao Ren’s right hand, once burned by the blood of the goddess, began to feel hot as some dark-red marks appeared on his hand. The smoke around the monster seemed to be avoiding these ‘sacred marks.’

Hao Ren had noticed this phenomenon. A thought came to mind, and he reached his hand even further than before.

While it felt cold to touch, a series of illusions began to flash across his eyes like a slide show.

He saw that a magnificently bright temple was rising, and twenty-one giant guardians stood in front of a mountain of light and made a vow. These guardians, cast in sacred rocks and steel, were unshakable.

He saw these guardians protecting an ancient prisoner under an order. In the spiritual world, he knew that the prisoner was old beyond imagination, more ancient than the First Borns and the guardian giants.

He saw the guardians cultivating life on the earth, using the order of life to suppress and influence the Chaos.

He saw the fall of the goddess, and all the prior efforts went in vain. Evil struck back, and the Order started to decline.

Images flashed, and fragments of memories fleeted. It seemed that some power was forcibly erasing and weakening these memories, of which Hao Ren could only see the ending parts.

In a barren world shrouded in the dusk, the earth was dry and cracked. The sky was burning in intense heat. A vast shadow was floating behind the clouds with many tentacles and weird limbs dangling and sweeping past. The evil power of ancient times was squirming in its cage, brewing the fire of anger that could engulf the entire world.

On the ground under the shadows, monsters went on a rampage, striking a giant pillar that supported the heavens and the earth. This giant pillar was clean and bright as if it were made of a sterling silver mirror. But the image reflected in the mirror was not the dry earth and burning sky in their surroundings but of another world, which was filled with vibrant lives.

At the foot of the giant column, blood and broken limbs of various monsters piled up into mountains. Vargrotesqueesque and deformed creatures were killing each other in confusion as if they were caught in a perpetual rage. These monsters seemed to be splitting into two factions fighting for the control of the giant pillar. But a killing instinct could be controlling them. Under the will of Rockmarton, they killed all creatures around them.

And then, the illusions disappeared.

It was as if a long time had passed. Hao Ren looked around him and found that everyone was still the same, in their original spots and postures. He then knew that the illusion had only happened for a split second.

Lily came up to Hao Ren at once. The husky maiden knew Hao Ren’s ability well, so she immediately realized what it was all about when Hao Ren zoned out. “Mr. Landlord! What have you seen?”

Hao Ren motioned Lily to stay put. He then bent down to stare at the piece of meat shrouded in smoke, asking in a slow and clear tone of voice, “I know you can hear me. Who are you?”

Earlier, during the mental connection, Hao Ren had established a short and mysterious linkage with the monster. With this subtle association, the monster finally came to its senses again. Its speed of vaporization slowed down slightly, and a hoarse voice came from the piece of meat.

“I used to be Warrenhill. Warrenhill St. Turner Benedict. I am—”

The vaporization suddenly sped up, and the meat shrilled. Before the monster dissipated completely, it shouted hysterically, “Prison! The entrance of the prison is at the top of Asurmen! At the top of Asurmen—”

And then all the sounds stopped. The monster had disappeared from the cage. The only thing left was a plume of smoke that was quickly carried away by the wind.

“Who knows this name?” Hao Ren asked after a moment of silence.

“Warrenhill St. Turner Benedict,” Calaxus mumbled. “Benedict III, the scripture bearer, the wise and the just, one of the first popes.”

Everyone was stunned, and most of the reactions were like “are you freaking kidding me?” The beasts turned out to be the calmest of all because they could not understand a single word of what Calaxus had uttered and only thought that the humans were talking nonsese.

“It says it is the pope?” Lily’s ears flickered as if a person with a brain hole as large as hers had lost the plot. “Is Pope Benedict III dead?”

“He was the pope of two thousand years ago,” said Calaxus. “As one of the greatest popes of all time, his sacred body was placed in the underground mausoleum of Basilica Icon along with all ancient sages under the eternal glory of the goddess.”

“So he was the emperor.” Lily felt like she had found her peer. “I’m also an emperor!”

“Ignore her. She has strange logic.” Hao Ren shoved the husky aside and then looked at Calaxus. “Do you think what the monster has said is credible?”

“From a personal perspective, I don’t believe it a bit. But—”

“But it becomes suspicious when it’s too bizarre, am I right?” Hao Ren nodded. “And most importantly, a monster doesn’t have to lie to us. I have never heard any monsters of Chaos having this bad habit.”

Calaxus remained silent. Suddenly, screams came from the window as a few junior priests looked through the window in horror. “There is something in the sky!”

Hao Ren’s heart rate spiked as he lunged toward a window. He pushed open the glass window, which looked particularly unsightly because it was narrow and had complex lines.

He looked up at the sky.

Behind the dark clouds in the dusk-like sky, something large was lurking.

The thing hung down its large tentacles and grotesque limbs as if tornadoes from the clouds. These limbs were moving and curling as if they were devouring the earth. They looked as malicious as it could get.

Even the most devout and determined church warriors began to flinch. Colors had drained from the junior priests’ faces. Other priests were doing better as they chanted in prayers to boost their courage. The weaker ones already started to feel signs of fainting as if those tentacles and shadows were causing them to lose their minds.

The abhumans also shivered under the coercive power. The demonic wolves growled with fear and anger. The ogres covered their heads and retreated, and the bear monsters seemed to develop signs of madness. It all stopped when Lily howled at them.

Sanding at the window like a statue, Hao Ren neither flinched nor moved. He was resisting the malicious air and spiritual erosion by facing the shadows in the clouds directly with his demi-godliness.

He knew what that thing was.

Rockmarton.