A man among dragons, building a mysterious ancient church.

Chapter 307 Promotion Sequence 2: Trojan Horse
While various factions were busy suppressing public opinion, throwing all sorts of sonar into the sea, and searching the world for the Black King's whereabouts, Tachibana Masamune was different. He persistently urged his subordinates to speed up their search for the 'god's' hiding place.

The old church continued its missionary expansion around the world as if nothing had happened, except for the Tokyo diocese, which was somewhat unstable and required the cooperation of Makoto Aso and Chisei Gen to wipe out one secret stronghold after another of the Oni Clan.

Belllo Island, once the focus of attention for hybrids worldwide, lies deep beneath the sea. Samson was taken away by the Fire King brothers, along with seven other third-generation hybrids.

Belllo Island grew increasingly desolate, but fortunately, the alchemy left behind by Old Tang before he left isolated it from the seawater and withstood the immense water pressure, so it did not affect Xu Lie inside.

Xu Lie sat on the Blood Throne—no, it should now be called the White Throne. Ever since Constantine emerged from his cocoon, all the blood threads had turned into grayish-white silk threads.

Moreover, it lost its previous wet and elastic texture, becoming exceptionally solid, thus preserving this white throne.

Xu Lie stroked the white armrest, finding it intriguing. The White Throne, perhaps?
He saw this as a good omen.

After sitting there for a few minutes, my spirit began to give me intense reminders, as if something had already succeeded.

"The time has come." Xu Lie calmly rose from the white throne, took a step, and the world changed color, appearing from the golden underground palace above the high seas.

After serving six months in prison and being released for the second time, Xu Lie could still enjoy a simple sea view for a while.

"I wonder if this counts as the Pacific Ocean?" Xu Lie looked at the boundless blue sea with great interest, and looking northwest, he could vaguely see Pier 4 of Tokyo Port.

The ritual to deceive the mentor and advance to the Destiny Trojan Horse has been completed. Now all that is needed is to kill the embryo and obtain the dragon blood material to concoct the magic potion.

With the idea of ​​collecting materials in mind, Xu Lie began to dive. His diving method was different from that of ordinary submarines and was quite strange.

Like a ghost in the sea, it made no swimming motions, simply standing still while its body continued to shimmer downwards.

Five hundred meters, one thousand meters, two thousand meters.

The pressure of the deep sea was deceiving him, the distance between the shallow and deep seas was stolen, and the depths that even the most advanced diving instruments would take hours to reach, Xu Lie could do in less than a few seconds.

As the figure flickered, the depth continued to increase, three thousand meters, four thousand meters, until it reached the seabed at eight thousand meters.

At such a depth, where even sunlight cannot reach, it should be pitch black, without a trace of light, but beneath Xu Lie lies a long trench.

The Eurasian Plate on the left and the Pacific Plate on the right collided here, forming an extremely deep underwater canyon.

The earth's crust fractured here, and red, high-temperature magma erupted intermittently, creating a spectacular scene where seawater and magma blended together.

The light here makes the deep sea, eight thousand meters below the surface, appear crimson, like being bathed in the sunset, with thousands of fish swimming in the glowing water.

Moreover, the ecological environment here is extremely different from that of ordinary deep seas.

There are giant sea turtles as big as mountains, ancient dragon whales that are hundreds of meters long, and a giant squid with tentacles that are over sixty meters long. Every move it makes can stir up the seawater and create whirlpools that are over twenty meters long.

Magnificent, splendid, dreamlike, and beautiful, even Xu Lie felt a pang of regret for not bringing a camera to capture this memorable scene.

Just as Xu Lie was engrossed in watching, bubbles, incredibly dense bubbles, accompanied by chaotic water flow, obscured everything.

Schools of fish, sea turtles, whales, and even giant squid were fleeing rapidly, their enormous bodies creating millions of bubbles as they swam.

Because a group of silvery-white viperfish—the Gorgon viper—swam out from the bottom of the trench.

Xu Lie had a deep impression of this dragon blood subspecies. Back then, the White King betrayed the Black King and was suppressed by the Black King. The White King was tied to a bronze pillar, locked up and sunk in the sea. Then, the Ghost Tooth Dragon Viper ate the dragon and the pillar together.

This was as punishment for the White King's rebellion.

Just think how tough the scales of dragons are. The scales of the White King are even comparable to those of the Black King, yet they still can't stop these little cuties from devouring you in no time. The terror of this creature is self-evident.

It's no wonder that when the Ghosttooth Dragon Viper appears, all the animals in this sea area panic and flee for their lives. This thing even dares to eat the White King, let alone marine animals that only have dragon blood in their bodies.
Xu Lie didn't waste any time on these Ghosttooth Dragon Vipers. He continued to teleport downwards and soon saw Takamagahara, which was buried in the trench.

It was an ancient city lost on a coastal ridge. Half of the city had slid down into endless lava and been swallowed up. The other half was overgrown with buildings, like a black iron forest.

The majestic palace had long since crumbled, yet it did not possess the lifeless desolation of human ruins. Glowing deep-sea plants entwined the massive pillars, like nature's mourning wreaths offered to the dragons.

In addition to the enormous houses that could accommodate dragons, the grand ancient city also features a series of towering structures that stretch into the distance, allowing one to imagine how gracefully and majestically dragons once roamed between them.

Deep within this ancient city, teeming with dragon civilization, lies a shipwreck designed in the style of modern humans: the Lenin.

The entire ship was occupied by an endless number of dragon-blood snails. Only in a few places that were not invaded by the dragon-blood snails could one vaguely see the blood streaks unique to ancient dragon embryos.

"Found it." Xu Lie, like a ghost manipulating space, pierced through the defenses formed by dragon-blood snails, through the ship's hull that was no longer distinguishable between blood threads and steel, and reached the Lenin's engine room. The entire engine room was completely covered by blood threads, with not a trace of metal visible, comparable to a Zerg hive covered in creep in some games.

In the center of the power chamber stood an embryo about the same height as Constantine's egg, swelling and contracting—it was none other than the embryo of the king of the ocean and water!
When advancing from Sequence 3 to Sequence 2, Dragon King-level materials are required. Xu Lie himself needs the Dragon King's Heart as the main ingredient for the potion. Xu Lie simply steals the entire ancient dragon embryo.

At that time, the Old Church can cultivate whatever materials it needs without having to seek out other Dragon Kings.

The moment the embryo was lost, all the surrounding blood vessels detached and turned white. Countless dragon-blood snails on the outer periphery went berserk, and countless scarlet, short tentacles with sharp teeth began to wreak havoc on the Lenin.

Throughout the lost Takamagahara, countless dormant corpses—humanoid, serpentine, and even dragon-shaped—have come to life!

No matter how chaotic these things were, they could not find the thief who stole the Dragon King's embryo. At this moment, Xu Lie had been teleported back to the underground palace on Bello Island.

With practiced skill, Xu Lie stole the partially formed heart of the Water King through the embryo; it was as big as two adult men's hands.

The embryo did not die.

Because of its Dragon King-level bloodline, it will only foolishly rebuild a new heart in the embryo and blindly grow, thus becoming the old church's dragon blood material bank.

How tragic that the once high and mighty king is ultimately nothing more than a leek in front of an even more powerful king, a bloody raw material that can be harvested once and then quickly grow back.

Oh? I'm the stronger one? That's alright then.

Xu Lie tossed the embryo back to the spot where Constantine had previously incubated it, then ignored it completely. He released hundreds of clones to help protect the embryo and began concocting the magic potion.

The hundreds of clones wandered around, some trying to appease the embryo of the Water King, some trying to collect the gold bricks left by Old Tang, and some rekindling the bronze candlesticks.

Soon the potion of the Trojan Horse of Destiny was prepared. Although a blood-red heart was thrown in, it was strangely mixed to produce a mercury-silver color, with star-like, interconnected worm-shaped symbols floating inside.

Xu Lie did not hesitate. Wasn't the reason he spent half a year in prison for this? Even if he was promoted to the level of an angel, he would inevitably be influenced by divinity, and his humanity would become increasingly diluted.

But He has many old churches all over the world, and they are preaching fervently, with every believer having to pray while looking at His symbols.

The old church has been developing for so long, let alone billions of anchors (that's too exaggerated), but it certainly has hundreds of millions of believers.

So Xu Lie downed the potion in one gulp. Sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, salty? The countless mysterious insect-shaped symbols connected end to end in the mercury-silver potion seemed to have been soaked in fate, filled with all sorts of strange flavors.

Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty are just the most basic flavors. Beyond these, you can also taste happiness, joy, jealousy, anger, stinginess, and other emotions and desires.

As the taste deepens, one can even taste Bao Lie's longing for a vacation, and the greed of his parasitic Angers clone when indulging in smoking and drinking. In the end, it seems that Xu Lie's main body is drowned by the river of fate.

The feeling of his main body sinking into the river of fate allowed him to experience everything his clones went through in an instant.

"who I am?"

Angers?

"Huang Tiekou?"

"Nidhogg the Black King?" This final murmur seemed to reveal a key word, causing an invisible ripple to spread across fate.

This ripple is rapidly expanding throughout the world. On a matter of destiny, Odin and Lu Mingze collide with the ripple, triggering an even greater double ripple.

Then there are the hybrids from various forces, every single one of them comes into contact with the ripples, triggering numerous tiny yet dense multiple ripples.

A single ripple is barely perceptible, but such a massive ripple of destiny is far too obvious for Xu Lie to bear, as if he could reach out and touch it.

The moment you touch the ripples of fate, the feeling of drowning in the depths of the river of destiny gradually fades away.

It was as if Odin, Lu Mingze, and various forces of many mixed-race individuals had worked together to pull Xu Lie out of the river.

Having escaped fate, all the fates and experiences of the clones that Xu Lie had previously witnessed transformed into translucent twelve-ringed worms, which formed straight yet curved pointers.

A time-space dial, its reality and illusion indistinct, floats beneath these pointers.

The illusory clock face appeared for only a moment, but it stunned hundreds of clones in the underground palace. By the time they came to their senses, the clock face had disappeared, and the hands had turned into worms that coalesced and recombined, transforming back into Xu Lie's human form.

At this point, it has successfully advanced to Sequence 2, the Trojan Horse of Destiny.

(End of this chapter)