A chilling realization threw Bai Zhou's mind into utter disarray.
Could it be... the "Deep Ruin Realm" he had always taken for granted wasn't so simple after all?
Whether it was the ruined civilization of Troy or the Skeletal Forest outside it...
Had the Gold Pass sent him somewhere other than the Deep Ruin Realm where the ends of worlds converged?
Could it be—
Could this be a living, breathing Rome?
Was that possible?
Had the Trojan civilization crushed by Rome simply led Bai Zhou, newly arrived in "Zhuluoji," to make a false assumption?
Then what on earth were these skeletons...?
A Bone Tribe? A clan?
—Could they not be "the deceased of finality" at all, but rather an Extraordinary race in their own right?
Just like vampires or werewolves?
The unknown enveloped Bai Zhou like a murky gray fog.
People always hated the unknown. It was like fumbling through the dark to an outhouse in the dead of night, dreading both stubbing a toe and plunging a foot straight into the pit. Everyone wished they had been handed life's instruction manual in advance, yet everyone stood in their present moment feeling thoroughly lost.
Or perhaps people didn't truly hate the unknown; they were just terrified that what they saw the moment the light flicked on would far exceed their imagination—like sitting on an invisible chair in brand-new pants, worried the seat might bear an undried stain.
That was why the Extraordinaries prized divination. Even their most desperate efforts were merely to catch an advance glimpse of their own destined tragedies.
Yet Bai Zhou immediately recalled what the crimson skeleton had said earlier:
*"Only those who act regardless of fortune or calamity have the right to question heaven's will!"*
Mulling over those words, Bai Zhou felt a glimmer of insight.
Then, laden with doubt and unease, the black cat Bai Zhou began his exploration and adventure within the city.
It was a city where civilizational splendor merged with mysticism. From the moment Bai Zhou crossed the gate, an atmosphere both glorious and enigmatic rushed out to meet him.
The colossal marble arch bore relief carvings of war. The shattered gemstones embedded at its crown proved it had once functioned as a defensive tower, though the undead army had pulverized it.
The flagstones paving the streets were not laid at random. Beneath the crimson moon, esoteric runes flickered faintly along their surfaces, vaguely tracing out some star chart. It seemed a city-wide ritual was sustained through these very symbols.
The stench of sulfur and blood hung thick in the air. Shattered bone piles and fallen, golden-armored divine warriors lay strewn everywhere.
Bai Zhou scavenged plenty of "junk" here.
There were fractured gems from the marble arches, unique coins looted from the corpses of the divine warriors, and even a few paving tiles he pried loose with his saber.
Before the undead could clean up the battlefield, the industrious and helpful Bai Zhou gladly did the sweeping for them.
Regardless of whether it was useful, his hands simply itched to take it. Even broken gems might prove to be rare enchanting materials back in Tinghai.
—*That's just how we Adventurers are!*
In those adventure tales, which protagonist didn't empty every villager's cupboard, loot every pot and jar in sight, and even pluck the roadside radishes and dandelions clean down to the roots?
As Bai Zhou ventured deeper into the city, he began encountering prominent structures: academies girded by colonnaded peristyles, and temples crowned with pediments.
Resplendent gold gleamed everywhere. The depth and sophistication of this civilization shone through every distinctive architectural flourish and every obscure, potent occult rune.
Furthermore...
They didn't look aged in the slightest. Some buildings even appeared brand-new.
Inside them, Bai Zhou even spotted unarmored civilian corpses with fresh, supple flesh!
—This made him nearly certain that where he stood was indeed no mere "ruin" reflecting the Ruin Realm.
Though the shattered Troy and the forest littered with skeletons had misled him,
those might simply have been Rome's defeated foes.
Beyond those "relics of failed civilizations"—
A living, breathing Roman civilization truly existed before Bai Zhou's very eyes!
Many years after crushing those enemies, the Roman Empire stood at its absolute zenith, shining with blinding brilliance.
This had to be an era where Extraordinaries emerged in endless waves, where esoteric systems flourished at their absolute peak.
In this age, the imperial eagle soared across mountains and rivers, staggering wealth piled high in granaries, and Extraordinaries walked openly alongside ordinary folk beneath the sun, with no need for secrecy.
—Had the Gold Pass hurled him several millennia into the "past"?!
The staggering deduction sent a shiver down Bai Zhou's spine.
He tried to gauge from his surroundings exactly which era of Rome he had landed in.
Perhaps he might even have a chance to meet a living "Empress Irene"?
Before this, Bai Zhou had believed that walking alone through the Deep Ruin Realm made him special.
Now, it was far beyond merely special...
Treading through the fissures of time was practically a forbidden domain whispered to belong only to the gods!
Unease gnawed at Bai Zhou.
He didn't know what this meant for him, nor whether his actions might alter the course of future history.
The only thing providing him a shred of comfort...
Was that his eyes clearly caught a clock tower standing at the city center, its hand pointing to 35:51.
Though Bai Zhou couldn't comprehend why a living past would operate on a thirty-six-hour day,
experience told him that once thirty-six struck, the Gold Pass would activate, allowing him to escape this perilously unknown hellhole and return to Tinghai...
Just as he was pondering this with heavy concern,
a deafening crash suddenly tore through his ears.
The surging undead army seemed to be waging their final assault before the grand temple in the city square.
"God-Chosen of 'Dread'... Remnants of an evil deity, your wicked hearts never die! No wonder you run so rampant!"
Within the trembling temple, an intricately robed priest stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a general clad in gold-and-crimson armor.
Without exception, both stood over three meters tall, nearing four.
Both wore grave expressions, facing the thunder-and-lightning-shrouded crimson skeleton as if confronting their greatest nemesis.
The general turned toward the priest, his voice low and grim:
"Go report this. I will hold it off!"
"...Understood!"
The general charged.
The general fell.
He had arrived with ferocious momentum, his sheer presence blasting an entire swathe of the undead army into dust.
Yet after a single cry of "Gods aid me!"
The general could only collapse in defeat, his indignant head severed and sent flying by the crimson skeleton.
*Roll, roll, roll...*
The head rolled a considerable distance.
From afar, Bai Zhou, who had crept closer, caught sight of it.
*?*
Once again, many thanks for nature's bounty.
This fellow God-Chosen skeleton "partner" was simply too reliable and generous!
Using the shattered buildings to break line of sight, Bai Zhou darted over like a streak of smoke.
"You were strong..."
Looking down at the general's headless corpse from the sky, the crimson skeleton gave a subtle signal, directing the skeletons to swiftly strip the general's glowing armor and greatsword to present before him.
Then, clutching its bony fist with smug satisfaction, its knuckles cracking as it let out a sinister chuckle:
"But venturing out to conquer takes more than raw might.
"It takes faction! It takes backing!"
With that, it prepared to lead its forces into the final temple.
The temple walls were covered in runes, casting a translucent barrier powered by the city-wide ritual. Its defense was virtually impregnable.
Yet as the undead battered the city, even this sanctuary began to shake.
However,
the pale-faced priest didn't stay holed up inside.
Instead, he stepped out of his own accord. Though unsteady on his feet, his face held an uncharacteristically relieved expression.
"What is the meaning of this...?"
Knowing the priest would never surrender, the crimson skeleton felt a sudden twinge of dread.
*Hum—*
A sudden shift occurred!
The barrier shielding the temple shattered with a snap, sending out ripples of force that drove back the encircling undead.
*Rumble—*
Without warning, a thunderous crash erupted from the horizon.
"What happened?"
Having just found the general's head and happily preparing to leave the city, Bai Zhou looked up in confusion.
Then he saw...
Above countless classical buildings, the sky—veiled in crimson moonlight—shattered violently!
The clouds were stirred as if by an invisible, gargantuan hand, twisting into a wildly spinning, iridescent vortex.
Immediately after, a cold, emotionless synthesized mechanical voice echoed down from the distant reaches of the heavens, blanketing the earth in an instant as though omnipresent:
[Warning! Warning!]
[Temple signal detects divine wave signatures belonging to the evil deity 'Dread'.]
[God-Chosen successfully marked. Race: Bone Tribe. Threat level: Pale Yellow...]
[Error! Revision! Threat level: Deep Azure!]
[Conditions met. In accordance with the *Purge Protocol*, issuing mission to surrounding perimeter.]
[—Mission accepted!]
[Executors: Sector 47 of the Xiluo Empire, Senate Itinerant Branch, and the Imperial Guard under Count Saxon!]
[Commencing precision deployment—]
"Now..."
Hearing the voice, the priest let out a long breath.
Trapped amid the chaos of the army, he turned to the crimson skeleton with a pitying smile:
"It seems my backing is rather larger."
Crimson skeleton: "?"
Bai Zhou: "?"
What on earth was the Xiluo Empire?
What did precision deployment mean?
What was a God-Chosen of "Dread"?
Where had that voice even come from?
For reasons he couldn't name, a sudden, suffocating panic seized Bai Zhou's heart.
The last time he had felt this sensation was back in Wancheng, the day he watched the sky shatter with his own eyes...
*Rumble, boom—!!!*
And then, the heavens truly "shattered."
The vortex widened, swallowing half the sky.
Bathed in iridescent light, an army poured forth from the vortex, descending from above.
The moment they came into view, the previously triumphant undead army froze as though petrified, their movements grinding to a halt against all reason.
The crimson skeleton also went rigid in midair.
The clamorous battlefield fell deathly still in an instant.
All that remained was the colossal roaring reverberation from above—the march of an approaching legion.
Yet...
*This is an army?!*
Hiding in the distance, Bai Zhou watched the spectacle unfold, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.
The uniform drone of machinery preceded any silhouettes, as if countless precision armor and weapon systems were finishing their final self-diagnostics.
Then, an invisible forcefield blew away the smoke shrouding the sky.
The first thing to break through the haze was a pitch-black, savage head.
Grim scales, a bipedal stance, a massive body towering four to five stories high rearing up to roar at the heavens. Pale-yellow vertical pupils burned with cold bloodlust, its metal-scaled hide completely obsidian.
*Roar—!!!*
This was...
*An Al—Allosaurus?!*
Bai Zhou wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him—or rather, he desperately hoped they were.
Yet he had undeniably seen this beast's illustration in *Eight Thousand Questions of Naughty Black Cat*.
Allosaurus. A massive carnivorous dinosaur, a prehistoric terror long since extinct.
This vicious predator, perched at the pinnacle of the food chain, typically thrived in...
—The primitive era over two million years ago, the Jurassic, when reptiles ruled the earth!
Yet compared to the beast in books, these Allosauruses seemed modified, far taller and fiercer, specially treated metal fused seamlessly with their scales. The lethal aesthetic made the coexistence of biology and technology appear unnervingly harmonious.
Moreover, astride each Allosaurus sat a "knight" standing four to five meters tall!
To call them knights was generous; every single one was clad in ash-white ceramite power armor.
The armor was flawlessly streamlined, joints venting flames, pauldrons bearing mechanical wings reminiscent of griffins, and the eagle emblem on the breastplate poised for flight.
Each knight wore an incongruously large red crest atop their helmet, their faces concealed behind cold visors fitted with eerie blue viewports—resembling the "snouted demons" Bai Zhou had once encountered.
Armed to the teeth from head to toe, these towering figures wrapped themselves in unfathomable mechanical advancements, turning themselves into the ultimate war machines.
In the fictional works of Tinghai City, people generally referred to such walking tin cans built purely for war as...
Mechs?! Gundams?!
Mythology and technology seemed to intersect at this very moment.
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Machinery roared.
The ceramite power armor knights riding gargantuan dinosaurs formed a vast formation, marching majestically out of the vortex.
Yet their parade was solemn; they did not rush to attack, instead lining up in silence on either side of the sky.
Almost as if...
Clearing a path for something else!
*There's more?!*
Not only was Bai Zhou dumbfounded, but even the crimson skeleton, who prided itself on having weathered every storm, stood completely flabbergasted.
*Rumble! Boom!*
Right after, a different cadence of thunder rolled from the sky.
Eighteen dinosaurs of varying species burst from the vortex, each massive beast harnessed with reins, as though they were mere beasts of burden pulling a chariot.
Dust billowed, air distorted, and the silhouette of a structure finally manifested from the depths of the celestial vortex.
A colossal building bearing countless pillars and endless corridors descended slowly from the sky.
Emblazoned at the apex of this structure were three ancient characters, divine and solemn.
Anyone who laid eyes on them could instantly comprehend their meaning, a strange reverence welling up inside until they felt compelled to prostrate themselves.
It read—
[The Senate]!
And it didn't stop there.
Next,
amid the priest's fervent worship, under the stunned gazes of the undead, and before Bai Zhou's wide-eyed peek—
Deafening sounds of metal rearranging and rolling boulders echoed through the air.
This vast, sacred "Senate" suddenly thrust out two legs and extended two arms, transforming into a titanic humanoid reaching from earth to sky.
Pillars of diverse styles became its ribcage; mythological reliefs formed its breastplate; and its head was the temple's pediment, radiating a majestic golden aura.
—It stood up!
The previously confident crimson skeleton now had the golden flames in its eye sockets flickering erratically like candle stubs in the wind, its jaw dropping so low it was on the verge of dislocating.
*What the hell is this?!*
*What does it mean, the Senate stood up?!*
Then, towering dozens of meters tall like an ancient titan of the heavens, the "Senate" peered down at the "puny" three-meter crimson skeleton.
Its eyes flared with brilliance, and it spoke:
[Confirmed remnant of Dread.]
[—The Senate authorizes purge!]
Like a divine decree falling, the vast voice filled heaven and earth, bearing a suffocating pressure that took one's breath away.
*Rumble—! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
The moment the Senate issued the command, the dinosaur-mounted legion in the sky set out.
A sky-obscuring tide of towering figures, as if striding out of myth, blotted out all light and plummeted downward.
—And crowded densely into Bai Zhou's disbelieving eyes in the distance.
"Remnants of Dread"... What was that?
Wasn't it the God of War and Protection?
Wasn't it your Empire that committed every atrocity under the sun?
Framing the other side, are we?
Right now, Bai Zhou felt the hidden mark on his wrist burning intensely.
He even had good reason to suspect that the sudden spike in threat level mentioned by the mechanical voice was because of him!
"Zhuluoji... Zhuluoji..."
Suddenly, Bai Zhou shivered, struck by an epiphany.
"That pass!"
Clutching the mysteriously scalding Gold Pass against his chest, Bai Zhou finally recalled its inscription.
It read:
["Old Days: Jurassic" Pass]
[—Across the spanning eons, even death may pass away; yet at the twilight boundary, what has perished may return, and what has sunken may arise.]
[Within the fissures of time, a lost civilization calls to you.
"Cross the eons,"
it said. "Witness this decaying era of dying embers."]
"..."
Crossing the eons!
Not the Ruin Realm! Nor Rome!
Rather, an even older, unknown era of civilization!
This answered Bai Zhou's earlier confusion.
Why would a mere few thousand years reduce a flourishing populace of Extraordinaries living alongside ordinary folk into the rare, shadowy figures hiding behind the scenes in Tinghai City?
How could an extraordinary civilization at its absolute zenith vanish without a trace overnight?
How could the rift in the Extraordinary system be so catastrophic?
Naturally, it was because far more than a few thousand years lay between them.
...Perhaps "Zhuluoji" really was the "Jurassic."
After all, the full name of the pass had always been the ["Old Days: Jurassic" Pass]...
"..."
With that, Bai Zhou's vision blurred.
Wind howled in his ears as the shadow of the blood moon was eclipsed by the colossal humanoid Senate.
*Whir! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Machinery roared as javelins hurled by the armored knights streaked toward the ground, trailing eerie blue exhaust smoke.
Those weren't javelins at all—they were missiles... detonating with pinpoint precision across the earth, shaking the very mountains!
The Senate titan, capable of plucking stars and moons, was orchestrating an utterly overwhelming, one-sided slaughter.
In the distance, Bai Zhou's eyes mirrored this spectacle that resembled both classical mythology and interstellar sci-fi.
Those horrifying, dense, god-and-demon-like figures baring fangs in the sky seemed to speak in unison to Bai Zhou.
They said:
"Welcome to..."
"—The Old Days: Zhuluoji!"
Chapter 109