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

Lin Mo stood in the center of the magic circle, his black sword held horizontally in front of him.

Without hesitation or delay, he pressed the sword against his own throat.

The eerie blue light shimmered faintly in the darkest night before dawn, reflecting his profile, which was calm to the point of being indifferent.

Then he wiped it hard.

The black sword sliced ​​through the skin, severed the blood vessels, and cut through the trachea, producing an extremely faint yet extremely clear tearing sound.

Blood gushed from the gash in his neck, splattering onto the array's patterns and slowly flowing along the dark gold grooves, turning the entire array crimson.

His body swayed, then he fell backward, crashing heavily into the center of the magic circle.

The black robe fell open, and the black sword slipped from his exhausted fingers, striking the stone bricks with a clang.

At the same time, a beam of holy light suddenly shot down from the sky.

A blinding golden beam of light pierced through the dome of the palace hall, enveloping the entire palace.

The holy light contained an extremely rich power of law, which was an automatic summons from the divine realm to all the souls of the deceased demigods.

Gao Yang's phantom appeared in the holy light, his white robes fluttering, and the Eye of the Stars looked down at the blood-stained magic circle and Lin Mo's corpse below.

Like a god.

The crowd of onlookers packed the street, looking up at the scene, some not even noticing that their lanterns had fallen to the ground and caught fire.

"What's going on? Isn't this the holy light that guides a demigod after death?"

"His Majesty...is dead? Impossible! His Majesty is invincible!"

"What exactly is going on?"

……

A cacophony of voices erupted from the crowd, and panic spread rapidly.

Amidst the voices of the crowd, Lin Mo's soul slowly rose from the palace.

A translucent, dark blue humanoid figure emerged from the corpse and hovered in the center of the holy light.

He glanced down at his own corpse still lying in the magic circle, then raised his head, opened his eyes, and met the gaze of the white-robed phantom in the holy light.

He smiled.

The corners of his mouth curled up slightly, very faintly, yet carrying a contempt that emanated from his very bones.

"I knew you would pick me up."

Lin Mo's voice echoed in the holy light, carrying the cool and detached quality unique to a soul.

Gao Yang's phantom hovered above the holy light, and a barely perceptible fluctuation finally appeared on his face, which had remained unchanged for millennia.

It's as if a hunter, after chasing his prey for a long time and thinking there's no way to escape, is suddenly confronted by the prey turning around and baring its teeth at him, revealing teeth even sharper than his own.

His brow furrowed very slightly, and his voice, still calm, came down from the holy light, but each word seemed to be deliberately slowed down by half a beat:

"I didn't expect you to choose this method to see me."

"Otherwise what? Use the formation you left behind to sacrifice your loved ones? Turn them into madmen like you?"

Lin Mo looked up at Gao Yang, the azure halo of his soul form appearing particularly cold in the golden holy light.

He paused, as if he had suddenly thought of something interesting.

He tilted his head and added another blow in a calm, factual tone.

"I'm wondering, if you were me, who would you sacrifice? Your sister?"

The holy light flickered suddenly.

Lin Mo's soul ascended at a slower pace. The fingers of the phantom in the holy light clenched almost imperceptibly, and a storm of laws surged within the Eye of the Star Sea.

Gao Yang spoke, his voice still calm, but every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth: "You always manage to make me angry."

"the same as you."

Lin Mo's smile did not fade.

Just then, the light from the magic array in the main hall suddenly exploded.

Yin Xue and Xilar simultaneously activated the formation, and hundreds of Beast King Essences erupted with a dazzling, dark blue light at the same moment.

The light flowed rapidly along the array patterns, converging from the edge of the array towards the center, transforming into a thick, dark golden pillar of light that shot into the sky.

The beam of light crashed into the holy light, and the two forces collided violently in the air, tearing the originally stable ascension passage into a violent distortion.

This is a formation deliberately interfering with the ascension, changing the landing point of the ascension.

They couldn't let Lin Mo land directly in front of the Twilight Stone Throne via the pre-planned passage Gao Yang had set up.

Gao Yang's illusory figure looked down at the frantically operating formation below, and his brows finally furrowed.

"There are even such methods."

He stretched out his right hand, and slowly clenched his five fingers into a fist in the air.

As he moved, the ascension passage, which had only been disturbed and distorted, began to vibrate even more violently out of control.

The laws of space and time clashed violently inside the passage, turning the previously barely discernible landing point into complete chaos.

Yin Xue sensed the change in the ascension passage below, his expression changed drastically, and for the first time, an extremely rare look of panic flashed in his scarlet eyes.

"He's interfering with the landing point too! He wants Lin Mo to land in a completely random location, anywhere in the entire God Realm!"

Yin Xue had considered that Gao Yang would intervene to stabilize the ascension channel, and that Gao Yang would directly take Lin Mo away using even tougher methods.

The only thing I didn't expect was that Gao Yang would directly intervene.

This sudden move caught Yin Xue completely off guard.

Then, holy light suddenly exploded, and a blinding shockwave spread outwards from the palace in all directions.

In that instant, the entire capital city, the entire wasteland, and the entire continent were illuminated as if it were daytime.

The people on the street were blinded by the bright light, some raised their hands to cover their faces, and some instinctively took two steps back. Lanterns and candlesticks fell to the ground.

When the intense light dissipated and they opened their eyes again, the holy light in the sky had disappeared, Gao Yang's phantom had vanished, and Lin Mo's soul was gone.

The magic array in the palace hall was still emitting faint wisps of smoke. Lin Mo's body lay quietly in the center of the array's core, his black robe soaked in blood.

People on the street snapped out of their brief moment of confusion and began to realize what had just happened.

"Your Majesty... went to the realm of gods to defeat Gao Yang?"

"That must be it. The figure in that holy light just now, that must be Gao Yang."

"His Majesty did all this for us! He went straight to fight Gao Yang to the death!"

"Yes, only by completely eliminating Gao Yang can those remaining heretics be completely wiped out, and only then can the empire truly be at peace."

……

These speculations may be unreliable, but people only believe what they want to believe.

People in the crowd gradually clenched their hands and bowed their heads to pray for Lin Mo.

"Your Majesty, you must come back."

At this moment, in the main hall of the palace, Yin Xue and Xilar had no time to look at the sky, nor to participate in the discussions on the street.

They squatted at the edge of the magic circle, their ten fingers drawing dense repair handprints in the void.

At least 30% of the nodes of the magic array shattered during the overload operation just now, and more than a dozen pieces of the Beast King's essence were broken, but repairing these damages is not the most difficult thing now.

The most difficult part was getting the black sword and the resurrection scroll into Lin Mo's hands before Gao Yang found him.

"Hold on, Lin Mo, we'll be there soon."