Void Beetle Evolution Guide

Leona remained motionless; she tugged at it but couldn't budge it. The armor wriggled, leaving a slap-like pain on Leona's buttocks. Perhaps it wasn't very painful, but the humiliation was unforgettable. She finally moved, somewhat reluctantly cooperating with the armor as she stepped into the portal.

A dizzying sensation of time and space shifting enveloped the two, and when they turned around, they found themselves beneath a magnificent, shimmering, boundless starry sky.

"This place...is so beautiful! Breathtakingly beautiful..."

Diana was stunned. This was the first time she had ever seen so many light sources besides the sun. The stars were multicolored, completely different from the faint white light emitted by the stars in the night sky. Moreover, the enormous moon occupied a large part of the sky, and she could even clearly see the shapes of the rocks on its surface with the naked eye.

"What blasphemy!" Leona's expression turned grim. In this place, she couldn't even locate the sun at a glance. Although the sun was still dazzling, it was no longer the shining, unique presence among the stars.

"This is the view beyond the world that the giants did not tell you. I have said that they will only let you see what they want you to see, so that your faith will become loyal and single-minded because you have no other choice."

"Golden light, never dimmed, bestowing warmth upon humanity, while enemies, engulfed in flames, their faces charred and their foreheads mangled, are reduced to holy ashes." Leona recited the prayer with unwavering resolve: "No matter what you say, it cannot change the fact that it is the sunlight that dispels darkness and allows all things to flourish."

"The way you treat prayers as truth is really stupid. I don't deny that the first half is correct, but the second half about priesthood seems to be something you imposed on me, right? I'm asking you, was Diana a vampire? Would she be killed by the sun?"

Chapter 620 The Sealed History

"Debating isn't my forte, I'm not going to argue with you anymore." Leona realized she couldn't win against the voice in her head.

She believed that heretics often developed eloquence by distorting justice, but she never considered that her own doctrines were full of errors and could not withstand scrutiny.

Leona knew that thinking this way was wrong, because it would be tantamount to labeling Diana as a cult member as well. But if she agreed with the Wild Hunt, her worldview would crack and eventually collapse.

In order to free herself from the pain, she chose to ignore it instead of dwelling on it.

"That's not up to you. The facts are right in front of you. Witness everything with my own eyes."

"Wait, you brought me here. Don't you want the moonstone anymore?" Diana looked around and noticed many broken white stone arches standing nearby. Fragments of stone that had broken off from the arches floated in mid-air, like meteorites drifting in space.

"No rush, you can get it later."

The conversation ended, and the two, guided by the Wild Hunt, headed towards the moon. The ground was covered with patterns, composed of complete or incomplete rings or arcs of varying sizes, resembling the trajectories of celestial bodies.

“This abandoned temple… is the Guihai Maru Temple.” Diana observed her surroundings until an ancient memory surfaced in her mind, and she realized that she had arrived at the holy site of the Crescent Moon Sect.

“Guihai…Maru Temple?” Leona murmured the tongue-twisting name. The existence of Guihai Maru Temple was something the Blazing Sun Sect tried its best to hide, so the two who grew up in the sect were unaware of its existence.

“We are currently very close to the moon, or rather, on the moon,” Diana told Leona, sharing the information she had gathered from her memories. The two of them finally had a clear understanding of their location.

They walked forward and soon arrived at the altar in the temple. Five huge animal-shaped statues stood around the sunken altar, and a staircase extended out from it, on which was placed a stone platform that was exactly the same as the divine mark on her forehead—a full moon supported by a crescent moon.

In the center of the altar was a young girl with her back to the two people. She knelt upright on the altar surrounded by a pool of water, and her neatly spread skirt made her look like a purple lotus leaf.

“I thought we would never see each other again in our lives, but I never expected it to be here... Bright Moon Star Spirit, we have finally met.”

Laluen had already straightened her dress and calmly welcomed the two. She had now been transformed into a familiar by the Wild Hunt, granting her the ability to act as a beacon to open portals.

Although she had given her body to the Wild Hunt, she still held faith in the Moon Goddess. The Wild Hunt didn't care anymore; the two weren't mutually exclusive, and the Moon Goddess wouldn't suddenly appear and make Lalune do anything detrimental to him.

"You know me?" Diana didn't recognize Larune, but she recognized the crescent moon and full moon mark on her forehead, knowing that she was a member of the Lunari.

“God could not bear to see her faith perish, so He sent you to save us.” Larun was wary of the Sun Spirits, so she wouldn’t reveal any useful information to Leona and instead became the riddle teller.

"I need someone to save me myself," Diana thought to herself, glancing around as she asked, "Where is he? The one who brought us here?"

Diana didn't believe the Wild Hunt was a member of the Lunari; otherwise, he wouldn't have treated her this way. With such powerful allies, the Lunari wouldn't need to hide.

Although this could very well become her support later, she doesn't consider the organization she first came into contact with as her own right now.

"You miss me that much?" Wild Hunt strolled leisurely from behind an archway into their field of vision, holding a stone slab in his hand and looking at it with great interest.

His leisurely pace infuriated Diana. "Whatever you're planning to do, hurry up! I must return to the surface before moonrise to continue my divine mandate." (The rest of the text appears to be gibberish and unrelated to the previous sentences.)

"Hmph." Wild Hunt chuckled. "I've heard that you Lakor people like to record history on stone tablets, is that true?"

"The history of the Rakol people is long and rich. Paper decays easily and cloth fades easily, but only sturdy stone slabs can bear the weight of our rich history," Leona said with great pride.

"Alright, then come and help me see what's written on this." Wild Hunt carried the stone slab to the pool. Diana was speechless for a moment, pretending to be engrossed in reading it even though she didn't understand it.

The Wild Hunt found the stone slab at the Guihai Maru Temple. The inscription on it was blurred because it was covered with a thick layer of dust, so the Wild Hunt took it to the pool and washed it.

"No! That's holy water!" Laluen tried to stop him, but Wild Hunt wouldn't listen. She could only stand by anxiously, gritting her teeth, watching him desecrate the holy water with his dirty stone slab.

The holy water nourishes the Nightblooming Flower and is the crucial medium through which she projects her Moonstone weapon into the lower realm; she couldn't afford to take responsibility if anything went wrong. Or perhaps stirring up the water and reducing the clarity of the live stream would be quite annoying.

She was completely overthinking it. Having a portal was far more convenient than going through all that trouble to the projection. The Moonstone weapon itself could be easily placed in Aphelios's hands. Besides, what's so difficult about filtering it with the skin armor? She could even take a bath inside without any problem.

After Wild Hunt finished washing the stone slab, the two of them walked to his side.

“Read it aloud as you look at it; this is only a part of it.” Wild Hunt handed over the stone slab and sat down on the steps beside the pool. Sun, Moon, and Star Spirits, too reserved and uneasy, chose to remain standing.

“Diana, your Ancient Shurima is better than mine, you speak it,” Leona said. Actually, both of them were top students in their language classes, but Diana, who loved history, stood out more.

As their gazes swept over the cuneiform script, a long-forgotten history began to unfold.

When a comet streaks across the sky, even primitive people in the Stone Age, who were not yet enlightened, would be extremely excited or filled with doubt, and would respectfully carve simple patterns on ordinary rocks.

Shrinking in fear, admiration, awe. These are all normal human reactions, nothing is exempt.

As civilization develops, this natural reverence only becomes more mythologized. Mortals praise the extraordinary comet, regarding it as divine approval of their achievements.

This is the origin of faith.

Then, the Titans in the universe followed this burgeoning power of faith and found a special existence near an ordinary star—a planet with multiple overlapping domains.

At that time, the Titans were not yet Titans; they were powerful spirits born from the stars, and it would be more accurate to call them Star Spirits.

On an ordinary land called "Jushen," these interstellar spirits exploit mortals' ignorant and foolish worship of the stars to build their own faith.

The Protoss are neither the sun nor the moon, nor even real celestial bodies, yet they falsely bear names such as blazing sun, bright moon, twilight, war, guardian, etc., in order to materialize those intangible forces of faith, and then classify and refine them into themselves.

They possess immense power; with a mere touch, they can win over mortals, making the harvesting of faith effortless. Vast systems of belief rapidly take shape under their guidance…

—And so, Mount Targon rose from the ground.

Chapter 621 The Origin of the Giant God

The interstellar spirits have established a stable belief system on Mount Targon, but Runeterra is a world where multiple realms overlap, and the shifting void is always stirring just a wall away.

The void represents the annihilating laws of the universe, and endless hunger is the manifestation of those laws. Their existence is like dark matter permeating the universe—it cannot be extinguished or erased; only when all signs of existence vanish will they completely subside.

The Protoss were also unable to eradicate the Void; its invasion was only a matter of time, and they had to prepare accordingly. Then, the Protoss stumbled upon Aurelion Sol, the Starforger, who resided there.

Aurelion Sol was passionate about creating stars and then admiring his creations; this sun was just an ordinary star that he had forged countless ages ago.

However, Runeterra was not his creation. He didn't even know who created this multiverse—the material plane, the spiritual realm, and the void—for what purpose. The three overlapped and were inseparable.

This was a golden opportunity, and the Protoss pleaded with the Starforger to come closer so that mortals could behold his supreme being and thus strengthen their worship of the stars.

Overjoyed, he transformed into a ferocious dragon from the stars and descended to the mortal realm, unaware that by lowering himself in status, he had become a fish on a chopping board.

As the Celestial Lord was showered with flattery from mortals, the Celestials commanded them to offer a corresponding tribute—an exquisite and magnificent crown.

When Aurelion Sol placed the crown on his brow, he realized it was not a tribute at all.

It was a shackle, binding him with unimaginable force, making it impossible for him to remove. And it would cast him back to the heavens, preventing him from approaching this world.

Using the power of the crown, the Protoss extensively researched the sun and its creation, proclaiming themselves "Colossi." The leader and the biggest beneficiary among them was the Solar Colossus.

He began to command mortals to build a giant golden disc. In this way, the giant god extracted the celestial power of the Dragon King to create immortal celestial warriors in preparation for the impending Void War.

However, the giants, led by Diana, felt that this method was too radical and would inevitably invite the Dragon King's revenge sooner or later, but ultimately failed to influence the majority's decision.

The Moon Titan persisted in resisting the Void with its own power. Although the effect was far less than that of the powerful Celestial Warriors, it still allowed its chosen Protoss to guard the seabed near Mount Targon with the Moonstone.

His view was quickly proven true: the celestial warriors who had reshaped their bodies with the power of the sun were powerful, but their minds were still as fragile as mortals, ultimately leading to even greater chaos.

The defeat of the Solari gave the Lunari a chance to regain control, but the former resented the latter, and the two, whose ideologies clashed, clashed. The Titans' power stemmed from faith, thus giving rise to a war for faith on Earth.

The inevitable outcome was that the Solari defeated the Lunari, and the existence of the latter was destroyed. These heretics were forced to retreat into the shadows, living in caves and temples far from the Sun's sight...

As pieces of history, long buried beneath the stone slabs, were revealed, Leona's expression grew increasingly grim. She ran her fingers through her chestnut-brown hair, looking as if she had a splitting headache.

The Sun Cult worships the sun itself, but now they're telling her the sun itself needs no faith. All the faith they offered was forcibly seized by a false god who usurped the throne through such despicable means.

This news was still too much for Leona to bear; it felt like the sky had fallen, and she felt incredibly deceived.

"This isn't true... This must be evidence of heretics distorting history... I don't believe it... This is a lie!"

"You're right, this is evidence of your Sunfire Cult's crimes in distorting history. These stone tablets are at least a thousand years old. Would you rather believe someone else's words than what you see with your own eyes?"

Larun stood before Leona, her hands clasped behind her back. She felt no smug satisfaction at the Sunfire Protoss's humiliation; on the contrary, she felt a deep peace, for it was only right to let those blinded believers, deceived by the sunlight, understand the truth.

"Factional conflicts are normal, don't be so harsh on Leona," Diana frowned. (The rest of the text appears to be gibberish and unrelated to the previous sentences.)

“It’s normal, but the methods of the Sunfire Cult are anything but normal. During the day, they deny the existence of anything other than the Sunfire. At night, they use fire to cleanse the heretics of the Moon.” Larun pointed angrily at the water at her feet, “Every night I see the Burners searching for our brothers and sisters everywhere. The faces of those executioners are hidden behind shameful masks, as inhuman as their judgments.”

Even a clay figure has a temper, and when talking about her experiences, Laluen couldn't help but get angry.

She was born on the night of the Double Moon Spectacular and was secretly raised by the cult from birth. For her safety, the priests hid her deep within their homes and subjected her to daily meditation training. Life was tough, but thankfully, her life was not in danger.

It wasn't until she arrived at the temple and saw the reflection in the pool that she truly understood the dire straits her followers lived in. They mingled among the crowd, their lives hanging by a thread, daring only to pray secretly in the darkness.

Noticing Leona glaring at her, the clever girl, fearing the power of the Protoss, quickly hid behind the Wild Hunt, showing no sign of unfamiliarity with him.

“Conflicts are inevitable, but such a domineering belief should not be fanatically followed, much less monopolize the belief and cause harm to others.” Diana pressed on Leona’s shoulder, trying to calm her down and tell her not to cause harm to others, otherwise how would she be any different from those who burn others?

"No one can ignore what is in the sky. Whether there are giants or not, the sun is there, as long as your worship of the sun remains steadfast."

Diana continued to counsel Leona, who had long since begun to question the beliefs of the Solari, so the impact on her values ​​was not as strong.

Although the moon goddess also used the name of the bright moon to harvest faith, the stone tablet did not record any things that the moon goddess did that she did not approve of, so Diana's impression of this goddess was still okay.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the carver of the stone slab was acting from the perspective of the Moon Cult and deliberately concealed some of the misdeeds of their own faith, but that is a matter for later discussion.

Leona shook her head: "But—how do you explain the power within us? The sun is just a giant fireball that shines, it has no consciousness and it doesn't bestow power... It was the giant god who, in the name of the sun, bestowed power upon me and made me believe in so-called destiny... In that case, wouldn't I be an accomplice?"

Chapter 622 A Shaking Faith

Leona's faith is being tested.

She could not separate the sun from the giant god, because whether one worshipped the sun itself or the blazing sun giant, these beliefs would ultimately flow into the latter's hands.

The two should not be confused. She believed in the dazzling light of the sun itself, but the one who responded was the domineering and tyrannical giant.

Her power is a gift from God, and their sect is blessed by God. Should she continue to believe in the sun itself, or in this giant sun god, or pretend she knows nothing?

Leona's faith is being tested, and Diana, standing nearby, realizes this is the perfect opportunity to change her mind.

She cupped Leona's face in her hands and whispered into her bewildered eyes, "Leona, don't worry about it. Whether you believe in the sun or the moon, it's all the same. These celestial bodies don't respond to us. The distinction in faith is just a manifestation of the giants' struggle for it. If you need this power, then believe; if you don't, then it doesn't matter what you do, because the celestial bodies won't respond to us, and naturally they won't restrict us with various rules and doctrines."

However, after a brief struggle in her eyes, Leona pushed her away.

“…Diana, are you trying to shake my faith? You can question the doctrines of the Solari, and I know that not all light comes from the sun, but you shouldn’t try to change my faith in Mother Sun. Whenever I am bathed in the sun’s light, I feel a sense of peace and warmth, which is almost the same feeling you’re talking about from the moon. You should know that very well.”

"I'm sorry." Diana lowered her head; getting Leona to change wasn't so easy.

The Sun Priest taught his followers that their faith must be unwavering, otherwise it would be a grave sin, bringing immense harm. Because Diana had never been steadfast, she never took it seriously. But for Leona, it was different; even a moment of doubt would feel like being scorched by the sun, let alone changing her faith. Where's Lin? Are you free? Is Lin here...?

"It seems there are some things you shouldn't have said." The sudden voice in her ear made Diana turn to look at Wild Hunt, but the latter was just playing with his fingers, seemingly indifferent.

Just when she thought she had misheard, Wild Hunt suddenly gave her a sly smile.

“If you ask me, you should trust yourself more than anyone else.” The Wild Hunt spoke with a strong voice, and under Diana’s gaze, he walked behind Leona, put his hands on her shoulders and whispered in her ear, “If you let those so-called doctrines and beliefs bind you, what’s the difference between that and living for others?”

“I will not listen to you, you demon!” Leona showed full resistance, stopping her thinking and removing his hands from her body.

Leona's armor suddenly contracted, and she had to use all her strength to resist, but Wild Hunt easily pulled her into his arms again and whispered incessantly.

"Why can't we listen to you? Am I wrong? If so, could you please point it out? The truth you believe in isn't necessarily right, and is darkness necessarily evil?"

Even if you believe it's the truth, something everyone knows and agrees with, you should still think about it deeply. Who agrees with it, when did it begin, and why? Why do people regard certain things as truth?

Leona was completely stumped by the barrage of questions... Who exactly said the so-called truth, and who spread it so widely?

She began to ponder: if the sun were merely a giant, burning fireball, then it would not be judged by anything in the world.

Nothing is absolute truth, or existence itself is truth. For example, the existence of the sun in the sky is truth; the sun shining is truth.

If someone tells her that the sun is justice, she might like to hear it, but is that right? Obviously not.

Leona felt her breath catch in her throat; her resistance to the doctrine was burning within her. At that moment, the Wild Hunt's voice easily pierced through the frayed walls of her heart.

"Have you figured it out? Actually, there's nothing in this world that can stop you two from being together. What's truly preventing you from running towards each other is the mental imprint in your mind. Saying that the sun and the moon can't appear under the same sky is just a shackle you've put on yourself."

"Don't worry about the connection between the sun and the giants; that history is far removed and beyond your control. Just focus on the present: will you continue to adhere to dogma and fight against Diana, or will you abandon this so-called truth and fly away with us?"

“I…don’t know,” Leona replied, panting.

"You don't know? Then let's go back to the beginning—let's use facts to show whether the sun and the moon are opposites?"

Wild Hunt beckoned to Diana, who also wanted to know how he would prove it. After a moment's hesitation, she approached.

He made the two stand face to face, then merged his body into his armor and said to them, "Fly high into the sky, fly straight into the universe, the answer we're looking for is there."

"What?" Both of them were startled. Although they admired the celestial bodies above them, they had never thought of going out into the sky to see the sun and moon.

In their world, the summit of Mount Targon is the highest place they can reach. Although they have dreamed of traveling among the stars, they have never thought about the situation in outer space, regarding the stars as mere embellishments on a black canvas.