My mom is waiting for treatment, and you're summoning me to be a hero?

Holy light appeared without warning on the streets of the human empire's capital.

The air became thick and scalding hot in that instant, and all the people who remained on the street felt a chill rise from the depths of their souls.

"What kind of light is this? It doesn't look like the Holy Light of the Vatican."

"Even stronger than the Pope's authority—it's a god! A god has descended in person!"

"Why are you coming here?! Didn't the Allied Forces already destroy the Papacy? Where is His Majesty?! Where is His Majesty?!"

……

Deep within the palace, in Lin Mo's room.

Gao Yang stepped out of the void, his white robe trailing behind him. No golden lotus of light appeared beneath his feet, but every speck of dust in the air stopped moving the moment he appeared, as if time itself had been paused in this room.

Lin Mo, who was originally observing her mother through the light screen, saw Gao Yang suddenly appear and drew her black sword without hesitation.

The door was pushed open, and Yin Xue, Mianmian, Lie Fu, Liu Yishou, and others rushed in, looking warily at Gao Yang, the only god on the continent.

However, Gao Yang didn't care about this. His gaze passed over Lin Mo and landed on the still-operating light screen in the center of the room.

In the light screen, Zhou Xiaomei was still sitting on the sofa, muttering about trivial matters, when she seemed to suddenly remember something.

"Oh, right, Xiao Mo, I knitted you a sweater these past few days because I had nothing to do. Let me show it to you..."

She walked into the room, babbling on and on.

Gao Yang snorted coldly.

"It seems I haven't given you permission to observe the Earth."

Lin Mo's pupils suddenly contracted.

He suddenly raised his hand, his five fingers spread as if trying to grab something—not Gao Yang, but the light curtain that was about to disappear.

"wait……"

Before he could finish speaking, the light screen went out.

It didn't slowly dissipate or gradually fade; rather, it extinguished abruptly, as if crushed by an invisible hand.

The light screen exploded into countless tiny specks of light, which twirled in the air for a moment before disappearing completely.

The image of Zhou Xiaomei holding up the sweater, the unfinished sentence she was saying, the living room with its warm yellow light... all vanished into nothingness.

Lin Mo's hand froze in mid-air.

He slowly turned around to face Gao Yang.

The calm on his face finally shattered, and his expression turned completely dark.

Lin Mo's voice was frighteningly steady at this moment, each word sounding as if it were being ground out from between his teeth.

"What do you need?"

Gao Yang looked at him and a faint smile appeared on his lips.

very satisfied.

"You're too slow."

His voice remained calm, as if he were stating an objective fact.

"He doesn't seem to be in a hurry to go home at all."

Lin Mo stared at him coldly for a while before letting out a cold laugh through his nose.

"My parents are doing well over there, why should I be in a hurry?"

He paused, placed his hand on the hilt of the black sword, and his tone became more undisguisedly sarcastic.

"Besides, even if I don't go to that rift, I'm still the strongest on this continent. No one can beat me, and no one can force me to do anything... including you. I won't even be refined by you after I die, so why not?"

Gao Yang frowned slightly.

This was the first time since his arrival that he had shown an expression other than "calm" on his face.

"In that case, you'll never be able to go home."

"That's right."

Lin Mo met his gaze and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"the same as you."

Gao Yang fell silent.

The room was so quiet that you could hear the gasps of people coming from the street in the distance.

The shouts of "The gods have descended!" echoed through the palace walls.

An indescribable irony was superimposed on Gao Yang's silent figure.

Yin Xue suddenly laughed at this moment.

The laughter wasn't loud, but it was particularly jarring in the deathly silent room; it was her signature, eerie laugh, the kind that came after she'd figured something out.

"yes!"

She clung to Lin Mo's shoulder, poked her head out, and spoke with a tone full of schadenfreude.

"Your followers are gone! The Holy Kingdom of the Tower has been destroyed, the Pope is dead, not a single archbishop remains, the Holy Light Array is completely shattered, and the whole continent knows that the Vatican is experimenting on infants... No one will summon heroes for you anymore! Without heroes, there's no point in the Demon King appearing again. You've personally ruined the rules of this world."

She stretched out a finger and pointed it unceremoniously in Gao Yang's direction.

"You clearly have no way out now, hahaha!"

Gao Yang's expression finally changed.

The fingers clenched and unclenched slightly in the air, as if trying to grasp something but unable to hold onto anything.

"I can wait."

His voice returned to its previous calmness, but beneath that calmness lay a tension that hadn't been there before.

"I can wait another three thousand years. The things you destroyed—a holy country, a few churches, a group of popes and archbishops who can be replaced at any time—I don't care at all."

Lin Mo looked at him, a faint, cold smile appearing on her lips.

"Really? Then why did you come to find me?"

Gao Yang did not answer.

"We just couldn't wait any longer."

Yin Xue floated in mid-air with his legs crossed, arms folded over his chest, chin slightly raised, and nostrils pointing directly at the deity, his tone extremely arrogant.

And finally, he didn't forget to add a "tsk".

Gao Yang looked at the two of them, Lin Mo's icy gaze and Yin Xue's mocking scrutiny, and remained silent for a long while.

Then he took a deep breath, as if suppressing some surging emotion back into the depths of those two starry eyes.

Lin Mo didn't give him a chance to speak, and continued, "You want me to go into the rift? Fine. Beg me, and I'll go."

These words almost made Gao Yang, who had just calmed down, cough up.

Gao Yang's lips twitched suddenly.

He had lived for countless years, imprisoned countless gods, and refined countless demigods, but no one had ever said to his face, "You beg me."

He looked at Lin Mo's calm yet almost arrogant face, remained silent for a moment, and then spoke.

"Actually, I have another option."

He held up one finger.

The movement was so casual, it was as if he had just touched the air.

But Lin Mo's body was frozen in that instant... It wasn't the feeling of being bound by ropes, nor the heaviness of being suppressed by laws, but rather that his entire being, from muscles to bones to blood to the depths of his soul, lost the ability to move at the same moment.

Gao Yang froze the moment Lin Mo was in into a piece of amber.

Then he casually waved his hand, as if brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve.

Lin Mo's body was like a boulder thrown by a catapult, crashing through the walls of the room and the outer walls of the palace.

It drew a straight black line above the capital of the human empire, heading straight for the multicolored law rift in the sky.

"Lin Mo—!"

Yin Xue flapped its wings and was about to give chase, but Lin Mo's voice came from afar, steady and resolute.

"Don't come! You stay here and help Master Liu Yishou keep an eye on my mother's condition!"

Yin Xue's wings froze in mid-air, his red hair disheveled by the lingering effects of the holy light.

I am the only one who can cast a light screen to see the Earth.

The newly delivered water of life is very effective, but it needs to be transported in batches and the absorption needs to be observed, so I have to keep some for myself.

Yin Xue looked at Gao Yang with these thoughts in mind.

"Just you wait. When Lin Mo comes back, you're dead."

Hearing Yin Xue's curse, Gao Yang ignored it, withdrew his finger, and glanced back at everyone in the room.

Yin Xue still had that spoiled and arrogant look.

Shi Qin, Liu Yishou, Aotemu and others rushed in from outside the door, holding weapons but not daring to step forward.

Mianmian lay on the soft cushion, her eight dark eyes staring intently at him, her mouth parted to reveal two rows of fine, sharp teeth, and a low whimper escaped her throat.

He glanced at it casually, then took a step and disappeared.