By the grace of God, I'm saved!
The Child of Light immediately beat his wings and, with a nimbleness rarely seen from him, slipped past the massive floating vessel by a hair's breadth.
Nitocris! Cleopatra VII! This is Ramesses II's Solar Barque of the Night!
Is Egypt siding with Persia?
No. There are people in the cabin. Ordinary people!
Samael's Cross-Star Eyes flashed as his thoughts raced. Sensing something wrong, he instinctively curled his fingers, forcibly dispersed most of the light arrow's power, and twisted its trajectory aside with sheer divine will.
Boom!
The light arrow skimmed past the ship's side and shot into the sky. The Ether condensed within it to the limit then erupted with a thunderous blast amid the chaotic sea fog.
Damn it!
On the deck, the two female pharaohs, caught in this undeserved disaster, hurriedly waved their staffs and raised a Magecraft barrier to protect the Solar Barque of the Night.
But the Ether storm stirred up by the light arrow smashed through the Solar Barque's side frame and shattered the Mana shield before them as easily as rotten wood.
Seeing the red-black torrent about to swallow them whole, the two female pharaohs turned pale, despair filling their eyes.
Buzz!
At the critical moment, a figure arrived in a graceful blur. His hands swept forward, fingers curved, crossing through the air and tearing apart the terrifying Ether storm by force, sparing the nearly shattered Solar Barque of the Night from destruction.
Samael hovered in front of the Solar Barque of the Night. When he caught sight of the frightened eyes peering out from the cracks in the cabin, confusion stirred in his heart.
Then the Ancient Serpent frowned and glanced toward the direction Michael had fled. His vertical pupils looked down at the two shaken female pharaohs on the deck. After a brief hesitation, his metallic wings spread again, and he prepared to continue pursuing the god Mithra.
"Don't go! The monster! That monster is catching up!"
The two female pharaohs snapped back to themselves. Nitocris immediately warned him, her gaze turning behind them with fear in her eyes.
"What?!"
Just as Samael instinctively asked, the sea fog ahead churned violently, and the scattered starlight was swallowed by thick darkness.
In the next instant, a screech like thunder, like a beast's roar, like a collapsing mountain, like a tsunami, came from within the chaos. Amid the ominous black mist, a hideous maw covered in sharp ring-shaped teeth like a lamprey's mouth plunged toward Samael and the damaged Solar Barque behind him.
My fortress rises from the sea and shall never fall!
Samael swiftly retreated, raising his hand to draw upon divine power. His Authority pulsed, and the sea surged up into a hundred-zhang wave, forming a sapphire barrier between the monster and the Solar Barque.
Buzz!
But the water shook violently. Tens of thousands of tons of seawater were dragged into that savage maw by a reverse-spinning vortex of black Ether. The wall of water lasted only three breaths before collapsing completely.
"Light is born from darkness, destruction is rebirth, and gods arise from demons! My might stands above, your power lies below. Mandate of Heaven: Suppression!"
Yet the instant that massive thing hidden in the black fog broke through the water curtain, Samael's Cross-Star Eyes snapped open. Golden divine radiance burst outward. The Book of Destiny floated out from his arms, hovering before him as its pages rapidly turned. With the divine words he chanted, the Authority of Fate formed an unfathomable decree.
Boom!
The Ancient Serpent thrust his fingers forward and clenched his right hand. The surrounding sea level plunged a hundred meters. The ocean collapsed as if crushed beneath hundreds of millions of times normal gravity, forming a terrifying whirlpool.
As that power suppressed it, the black fog above was forcibly sucked away by the whirlpool on the sea's surface. The monster hidden beneath the chaos was smashed into the deep sea, revealing its horrifying form.
Its scales were like pitch-black flint, its eyes glowed red and overflowed with savagery, and its long, narrow body stretched for tens of thousands of miles. The seawater it had swallowed earlier was not even one-thousandth of its size. The violent divine power boiling within it proved beyond doubt how powerful and terrifying it was.
The World-Destroying Serpent of Darkness, Apophis!
Samael's pupils shrank sharply as he realized the monster's true origin.
"Hiss!"
Under the suppression of the Mandate of Heaven's Word Spirit, Apophis raised its neck and shrieked, thrashing violently. Wisps of black fog seeped from beneath its spreading scales, and its lamprey-like maw sucked frantically, trying to break down the strange force field.
"Flame is the point, fate is the line, and from them an endless plane is formed. None may cross beyond my palm, none may escape my gaze. Dust to dust, earth to earth. The end of fate has come. Burn here, be destroyed here. Flame of Destiny!"
The Book of Destiny floating in the air flipped faster and faster. Samael's divine blood surged like the tide, and the remnants of his Authority over fate pulsed by instinct. The soaring divine words flowed unconsciously from his mouth.
In an instant, golden flames appeared in midair. Like a net catching its prey, they gathered and clung to Apophis's almost mist-like body, burning through its scales, searing its flesh, and melting its bones.
As the monster struggled violently, its body stretching for ten thousand zhang was burned away inch by inch by the Flame of Destiny, decomposing bit by bit into pure Ether.
As expected, Persia's Book of Destiny is a reconstruction of the [Tablet of Destinies]!
Samael sensed the resonance between his bloodline and Divinity, and realization dawned in his heart.
Because this thing had originally belonged to Mother Goddess Tiamat, and because he, as her divine son, had once devoured and fused with one-third of the Tablet of Destinies, now that it was in his hands, he could quickly resonate with it and instinctively command its Authority.
In that case, you can test the power of the [Book of Destiny] in its complete state!
"I am the beginning, and I am also the end. I am the serpent that encircles the world, the infinite ring. In accordance with this Mandate of Heaven, bow before the Source…"
The patterns of the Ancient Serpent's Cross-Star Eyes interwove. He opened his mind and, guided by an unseen omen, fully activated the Authority of the Book of Destiny.
"…Divinity Return!"
Within the red-black halo staining the heavens, the phantom of a primordial serpent biting its own tail coiled above the World-Destroying Serpent of Darkness, Apophis, forming the mysterious symbol of infinity as it cycled endlessly.
At the same time, the parts of Apophis's body scorched by the Flame of Destiny disintegrated inch by inch, turning into pure Ether that flowed back upward into the infinite serpent above.
"Burp…"
Under the stunned gazes of the two female pharaohs, the figure suspended in midair pressed a hand to his chest and burped. Meanwhile, the infamous World-Destroying Serpent of Darkness, Apophis, was swallowed bit by bit by the circling light above, until it was completely absorbed.
"How did you end up here?"
Before Nitocris and Cleopatra could react, the towering Divine Spirit folded his wings and descended, asking with a stern gaze.
As far as he knew, Apophis came from Egypt and shared the same origin as the Egyptian world.
Legend had it that Ra, chief of Egypt's Nine Gods, drove the Solar Barque every day to carry the sun across the sky from east to west, ensuring the life and order of all things. After sunset, he carried the sun through the underworld from west to east.
In the endless darkness beneath the earth, countless monsters would try to block the Solar Barque's passage, seeking to plunge the Egyptian world into eternal darkness and rule over it. Every night, Ra fought those monsters of darkness, maintaining Egypt's cycle of life and death.
Each time the sun rose as usual, it signified Ra's victory once more.
Among them, the sun god Ra's strongest foe was Apophis, the World-Destroying Serpent of Darkness.
It was formed from the umbilical cord that had birthed Ra. It was one with light, ruled darkness, and was immortal, so it could only be sealed, never destroyed.
Once that monster broke free of its seal and surged onto the surface, it could easily drain the Nile dry, devour light, break all matter down into Ether, and digest it, returning all things to chaos.
Thus, its descent signaled Egypt's apocalypse.
"My lord, all of the Nine Gods have fallen. Apophis drained the Nile and devoured all the land. Our kingdom has been destroyed…"
Nitocris was the first to recover. She clenched her falcon-headed staff, grief filling her eyes.
"Where is Ramesses II?"
"Flee. Take the surviving people and join the Greek army. That was His Majesty's final order to us…"
Nitocris had no attention to spare for the disrespect shown toward the pharaoh. Her eyes, and the eyes of those inside the cabin below, were empty and full of despair.
The Egyptians had not joined the Battle of Thermopylae because their own kingdom had already been annihilated.
"Who? Who destroyed Egypt?!"
An ominous feeling rose in Samael's heart. The man felt a chill as the thought formed, his vertical pupils contracting sharply as he pressed her for an answer.
"The Great King of Persia, Cyrus!"
Nitocris answered hoarsely, her eyes reddening and filled with hatred.
"He deceived His Majesty, deceived us, and deceived this world!"
Cyrus wasn't in Tanbei Gorge. He was in… Egypt!
Samael sucked in a cold breath. His thoughts raced as he stared in horror toward that region.
Buzz!
At the same time, heaven and earth resonated. Three blue-white pillars of light pierced through the chaotic mist and struck the sky like heavy hammers, breaking open the fragile world wall above Egypt, weakened by the chaotic storm, and spreading cracks across it like a shattered mirror.
In the next instant, a bright comet-star fell suddenly from the dark void. Within the blazing white light of its tail, thousands of tear-like star crystals scattered in every direction, lighting the dawn soon to arrive upon the dim world.
On the tenth day, humanity's apocalypse and the Ragnarok of the gods descended, just as the prophecy had foretold.