Chapter 158: God of Dawn (3)
From behind Dyo, the summoning array tottered. A massive creature lowered its head, struggling to squeeze its way out of the circle.
It was the Fallen Titan that Dyo had promised Lynn during their last meeting.
"Oh? A Fallen Titan, is it?" a voice spoke up from the side.
Spatial ripples pulsed nearby as a wizard stepped through a portal. He looked up at the Fallen Titan before him, his eyes filled with satisfaction.
Lynn frowned at the uninvited guest, feeling a twinge of displeasure.
The wizard turned to Lynn. Seeing no wizard aura on him, he figured the young man was just an ordinary wizard apprentice.
A flash of contempt crossed his eyes before he turned his attention to the Abyss Lord standing nearby.
"My Lord, do you require any assistance?" the wizard asked, speaking directly to Dyo and ignoring Lynn completely. "I believe I might be of service to you."
Dyo was as haughty as ever. She merely cast a cold glance at the wizard, completely unwilling to engage.
Snubbed, the wizard flashed a look of annoyance before turning back to Lynn. "You're not an official wizard yet, I assume. If you're willing to sell this Fallen Titan, I can offer you quite the reward."
"It's not for sale," Lynn rejected him flat out.
He hadn't missed the contempt in the man's eyes moments before.
Despite his polite tone now, the wizard only wanted to get his hands on the Titan.
Lynn saw no point in conversing with someone like that.
Seeing Lynn's refusal, the wizard decisively turned and left without pushing the matter.
He knew his earlier attitude had annoyed the apprentice, but so what? He was an official wizard, and this was just an apprentice.
After leaving, the wizard used his connections to look into Lynn. He soon uncovered the boy's background: the madman Harlin was the one who had originally sent him to the Wizard Academy?
The wizard fell deep into thought.
After mulling it over, he decided it wasn't worth clashing with Harlin just over a Titan with a legendary bloodline.
It wasn't that he feared Harlin; it just wasn't worth the trouble.
The only shame was that a crucial experiment he was running recently required Titan blood.
He needed a juvenile Titan. But the Titan race was inherently rare, and nearly all the ones available on the market were adults.
While the wizard network's trading channels did have juvenile Titans for sale, their prices were exorbitant. He simply didn't have enough merit points, leaving his experiment bottlenecked.
"His name is Bohr. I found him in a subterranean dungeon," Dyo told Lynn.
When she breached a large demon tribe, she found this juvenile Titan chained up in the first sublevel of their dungeon. The demons had been draining his blood and carving off his flesh day after day, raising him like a captive pig in the dark.
This long-term captivity made Bohr sensitive and hyper-vigilant, while severely dulling his sense of pain.
Moreover—perhaps due to his time in the dungeon—Bohr not only didn't mind pain, but he had actually formed a strange dependency on it.
On the battlefield, Bohr always charged ahead, throwing himself into the frontline. By the end of every fight, he looked as though he'd been fished out of a sea of blood, his entire body covered in dense wounds and hanging clots of gore.
"From now on, he is your master," Dyo said to Bohr.
Bohr tilted his head. The thirty-meter-tall Fallen Titan leaned down to look at Lynn on the ground.
It was as if he were trying to carve Lynn's appearance into his mind.
"I will head back now. I'll notify you when the High-Tier Demon bloodline essence you need is ready. It will probably take about a month," Dyo said flatly.
"Thank you for the trouble, Queen," Lynn said.
Dyo returned to the Abyss through the summoning array, leaving behind a pile of discarded weapons, scattered ores, and Bohr, who stood there studying Lynn with curiosity.
Lynn had read in books that an adult Fallen Titan possessed a minimum combat strength of Tier 7. That was the potential of a legendary bloodline.
If raised properly, a Fallen Titan with such bloodline had a high chance of reaching even greater heights. Of course, the resources required for that would be astronomical. Bloodline aside, any race needed massive resources to break past Tier 7.
Lynn made his way to the Temple of Dawn.
A white sphere sat atop the snow-white church before him, and neatly manicured lawns stretched out around the building.
Lynn entered the church. A divine statue stood right in the center of the hall.
Behind the altar stood an old priest in white robes.
The priest had his head bowed, softly reciting the scriptures in his hands.
The pews inside the church were almost entirely packed with followers of the Church of Dawn.
Lynn's late arrival didn't draw any attention; they seemed completely unfazed by someone walking in halfway through.
Every single person was deeply absorbed in their own prayers.
Lynn found an empty seat in the very last row and sat down.
Listening to the priest recite the doctrine, Lynn paid close attention at first, but soon found it unbearably monotonous and dull.
A wave of drowsiness washed over him, and he lowered his head to stifle a yawn.
But when Lynn wiped the tear from his eye and looked up again, the church was completely empty. The congregation had vanished without a trace, leaving only the echoed recitation of scriptures drifting through the vacant hall.
"Does my doctrine bore you?" a gentle voice asked from beside him.
Startled, Lynn turned his head, only to see the priest sitting right next to him.
The old priest was leaning slightly, a kind and serene smile resting on his wrinkled face.
Yet, despite that welcoming smile, a chill still gripped Lynn's heart.
The man's sudden appearance was ghostly. Lynn hadn't sensed him sit down at all.
And considering what he had just said—no, more accurately, the one sitting next to him was a deity.
"Greetings, Your Holiness, God of Dawn," Lynn said.
"Honestly, I find my doctrine quite boring too." The God of Dawn turned to look at the statue in the church.
"But it can't be helped. To coax the believers, you have to use this routine." The God of Dawn's casual words made Lynn's heart skip a beat.
The deity's tone held nothing but disdain for his own religious creed.
Still, Lynn felt that this version of the God of Dawn was much easier to deal with than a sanctimonious hypocrite.
"If the doctrine is too complex, no one likes it," the God of Dawn explained. "Most of my believers are uneducated farmers. They wouldn't understand profound mysteries even if I preached them."
"So, I only need to preach about health, blessings, and ascending to heaven after death." The God of Dawn smiled.
"I actually thought you wouldn't come," the God of Dawn noted.
Lynn stayed silent, unsure of where the deity was going with this.
When you couldn't read your opponent, silence was the best defense.
"I noticed you the moment you set foot in the Blue Sea Empire. After all, you are a wizard. My Blue Sea Empire sits in the very center of the radiant nations. Around here, only that black bug down south is somewhat interesting; the rest pose basically no threat."
The God of Dawn spoke effortlessly.
"Because of that, very few wizards ever visit my domain. Don't blame me for being sensitive. You wizards always love stirring up massive events. Whenever one enters my territory, I have to keep a close eye on them."
Lynn remained quiet. Though the God of Dawn didn't explicitly spell it out, his words implied that he had probably figured out Lynn's true identity the second time Lynn came here.
As expected, no one who ascended to godhood was simple.
Even Maesys—was he really as naive as he seemed? Lynn had merely grasped Maesys's weakness and targeted what he desperately needed.
"Relax. Don't be so tense. I can feel your heart racing," the God of Dawn smiled.
"I'm not here to cause you trouble. Technically speaking, I am a collaborator with the faction backing you."
Lynn's eyes flickered.
The faction backing him... Was the God of Dawn referring to the Abyss Wizard Academy, or the Dean of Students' specific faction?
Lynn suspected it was the latter.
"They are just the citizens of a few towns, anyway. Rest assured, I didn't kill them all. I only purged the agitators spreading rogue faiths. The rest are merely under watch," the God of Dawn said breezily.
"May I ask what you need from me, Your Holiness?"
"Aren't you the one who came looking for me?" the God of Dawn asked playfully, staring into Lynn's eyes.
Lynn paused for a moment before retrieving the token Nicholas had given him from his spatial ring.
"What are the results of your investigation?" the God of Dawn asked.
"An outer god accidentally made contact with this plane through a spatial rift and sowed some seeds within the Earldom of Mount Heidu," Lynn answered.
The God of Dawn didn't say whether he was satisfied with that answer. He simply looked up at the sky, deep in thought.
Then, he pulled a black finger bone from his robes. It was one chi and three cun long.
The black bone was covered in porous holes and radiated an aura of pure, frigid evil.
"This is your reward—a god's finger bone I stumbled upon in the past," the God of Dawn said.
A god's finger bone.
Lynn accepted it solemnly. He didn't touch it with his bare hands, but instead wrapped it in a layer of special cloth, placed it inside a box designed to isolate energy ripples, and finally stored it in his spatial ring.
"Could you do me another favor?" the God of Dawn asked.
"I hear you wizards can communicate with the Abyss. Could you take me there to have a look?" he asked kindly.
"Sure," Lynn agreed readily.
He didn't know what scheme the God of Dawn was plotting, but it didn't matter. This deity only possessed Weak Divine Power. And frankly, even if he wielded Intermediate Divine Power or Greater Divine Power, stepping into the Abyss would not end well for him.
That was the Abyss, after all!
If the God of Dawn harbored any illicit designs on the Abyss, he was sorely mistaken.
However, Lynn figured the deity couldn't be that foolish. Anyone with half a brain would have gauged the terrifying status of the Abyss.
"But there is a price," Lynn stated.
"Your Holiness, if you wish to spread your faith there, what can you offer in exchange?" Lynn asked.
"Of course," the God of Dawn replied.
"Will a wisp of divine power suffice?" He raised a finger, and a soft light coalesced at the tip.
It was as gentle as the first ray of the morning sun.
Lynn found the sight of that divine power extremely familiar.
Nicholas had given him a wisp of the God of Dawn's divine power during their previous transaction. Because of that, another wisp held far less value for him now.
"Could I exchange it for a different reward?" Lynn asked.
The God of Dawn looked puzzled. Weren't these wizards fondest of divine power? Every trade they made demanded it as payment. If he hadn't accumulated vast reserves of divine power by spreading his faith over the years, he wouldn't have been nearly so generous.
He pondered for a moment. "That finger bone was the only one I had. I happened upon it on a battlefield."
"But if you want something else, I do have a similar item."
The God of Dawn waved his hand, and a cluster of pure white clouds manifested in his palm.