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

Lin Mo walked down the stone steps.

The echo of the boot soles hitting the stone steps was swallowed up by some kind of low hum from the depths of the cave.

At the end of the stone steps is a naturally formed underground cave.

An iron cage stands in the very center of the cave.

The bars of the iron cage were completely black, as if the darkness of night had been crushed and coated onto the metal surface.

The surface of the railing was covered with densely packed sealing runes. These runes were not any known script on the continent. The strokes were twisted and ancient, and each line was slowly wriggling, like living creatures crawling on the metal surface.

The gaps between the railings were so narrow that you couldn't even stretch out an arm.

At that moment, a thin, naked woman was locked in the cage.

Her long, silver-gray hair fell messily down her sides, obscuring most of her face.

She was very tall, but was pierced by dozens of chains... The chains passed through her shoulders, limbs, and neck.

The other end of each chain was attached to the bars of the iron cage, suspending her in a cross shape in the center of the cage, rendering her completely immobile.

Lin Mo's gaze lingered on the chains for a moment.

He could sense that these chains were continuously drawing away her power of law, converting it into energy to sustain the floating island.

She is not a prisoner; she is the battery of this floating island.

A law battery that Gao Yang had stuffed into a cage and squeezed with chains for who knows how many years.

Sensing someone approaching, the woman in the iron cage slowly opened her eyes.

She stared at Lin Mo for a long time, her silver-gray eyes gleaming slightly in the darkness, and a faint phantom of a scale could be seen spinning in her pupils.

Every word she uttered seemed to be scraped out from the depths of her rusty throat.

"Without the laws of light... you are not a follower of Gaoyang, what are you here for?"

Lin Mo placed the black sword on the ground, his hands clasped together at the end of the hilt: "Give me your laws."

The woman scoffed.

She raised her head slightly, and her dry, long hair slid off her face, revealing a thin face with prominent cheekbones.

Even though he was extremely weak, Lin Mo could still see a trace of heroism on his face.

"So he's cut from the same cloth as Gao Yang."

She lowered her head again, her voice carrying the last vestige of pride.

"I am the God of Judgment. You want my laws? Fine... hand over Gao Yang's head, and I'll give it to you."

Lin Mo frowned at her sarcastic tone.

Samu stood two steps behind Lin Mo, rubbed his hands together, and whispered in Lin Mo's ear.

"Sir, our only job is to get these prisoners to surrender the laws. This guy is very stubborn. Why don't you find a way to torture him for a few days first, and then..."

Lin Mo snorted coldly, interrupting his suggestion.

Then he picked up the black sword and stepped forward to the iron cage.

He didn't beat around the bush, didn't negotiate, and didn't try to form an alliance.

Instead, he did what he did best, thrusting the black sword's blade through the gaps in the iron cage bars into the god's chest.

The woman's body trembled violently, and the chains rattled as they were pulled.

She glanced down at the black sword embedded in her chest, a fleeting look of astonishment crossing her eyes.

She then reverted to her cold indifference, which had become numb after being locked up for too long.

A weak, disdainful sneer tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"I am a god; such methods could never kill me..."

Lin Mo didn't wait for her to finish speaking.

He gripped the hilt and swiftly pulled the black sword from her chest.

puff--!

Golden divine blood gushed from the sword's mouth, splashing onto the iron cage bars with a hissing, burning sound.

The woman's eyes widened.

The reflection in his pupils showed the sword wound on his chest, from which golden blood was gushing.

Her lips twitched as if she wanted to say "impossible," but only a few muffled breaths escaped her throat, and blood and foam spilled from the corner of her mouth.

Then her head slowly lowered, her chin resting on the sword wound on her chest.

The emerald green pupils dimmed, and the last bit of their brilliance vanished.

The dark gold runes on the chains all went out at the same moment, the patterns on the base of the iron cage stopped flowing, and the entire cave fell into a brief, absolute silence.

She is dead.

This sword strike was not ignored because of her divine status.

The wound did not heal because of the deity's identity.

This wasn't because she was too weak; even if she were at her peak, this sword strike would still have killed her.

Because this is Lin Mo's divine perception ability.

His divine enlightenment is the essence of the law of killing, which is to give all existence the possibility of 'death'.

Everything in the world must die, whether it be a demigod, an angel, a pope, or a god.

Anyone locked onto by the Holy Awareness will die.

As the woman died, a vast yet gentle force of law emanated from her corpse.

It was a wisp of silvery-gray, translucent light mist that slowly drifted out from the sword wound on her chest.

The energy was captured by the black sword and absorbed directly into its blade.

That was the soul of the God of Judgment, and along with that soul, her laws of judgment were also absorbed.

Saint Awakening's second ability is to kill demigods and plunder the laws manifested in the killing space.

This divine awareness seems to have been created specifically to plunder the laws of others.

The texture of that power was completely different from all the powers Lin Mo had absorbed before... It was judgment, the law that judges the sins of all things.

Just like the Day of Cleansing, on this day, the law of judgment gives everyone the desire to judge others, but weakens their ability to examine themselves.

Lin Mo could feel his bones itch slightly, as the Law of Judgment was taking root deep in his marrow.

A few breaths later, the Law of Judgment completely stabilized within his body.

With a thought, Lin Mo caused the eerie light on the black sword to suddenly illuminate.

A silver-gray figure was summoned from the sword.

The moment she appeared, the eerie green light of all the ores in the cave dimmed for a moment.

It was a soul entity radiating pure white light, with a tall and upright figure and shoulders as straight as a sword's spine.

With long, silver-white hair, her facial features had regained their fullness and symmetry, and the heroic spirit in her eyes was undeniable.

But what truly captivated the eye were her eyes… Her clear, silver-gray pupils held a finite balance that no longer spun slowly but hovered steadily in the center.

Her expression held a hint of surprise and doubt, as if she hadn't yet realized what had happened.

She looked down at her hands; her fingers were slender and long, her skin was intact, and there were no marks from chains.

She glanced again at her own still-bleeding corpse in the iron cage. Her withered and emaciated body was still suspended in mid-air by chains, and golden blood slowly dripped from the sword wound on her chest. Each drop that landed on the base stirred up a faint golden ripple.

"I...I wasn't killed? How come...?"

She looked down at her translucent hands again, watching the emerald green soul light flowing between her fingers, and then seemed to understand something.

"My current form is not a physical body, but a soul. You killed my physical body, but my soul is now free."

Lin Mo nodded and slung the black sword back over his shoulder: "It works as expected, this makes things much simpler."

The method to obtain the law was much simpler than he had imagined.

If it were someone else, they would have to go to great lengths to please these imprisoned gods.

He fulfills their obsessions or conditions to prove that he is "worthy" of the power of the law, but he doesn't need to.

All he needed to do was kill them, use the law of slaughter to kill the gods' physical bodies, and use the soul of the black sword to absorb and harvest the gods' souls.

It's much faster and more straightforward than negotiating terms.

He's not good at negotiating, but he's good at killing.

This crack might require others to beg the gods for the power of laws.

But to him, it was a slaughterhouse.

"Now we can speedrun it."