Looking at the information on the system interface, Theodore's face revealed a hint of astonishment.
"Gone mad from fright?"
His gaze returned to the Harp of the Underworld.
He discovered that this once exquisite and elegant harp seemed to be trembling.
At its base, magical power had secretly condensed into invisible feet, as if it were looking for a chance to flee.
Theodore could not help laughing softly.
"You are, after all, a product of the age of myth. Surely you aren't that fragile. You wouldn't go mad from fear so easily, would you?"
"You've already come before me. Don't you intend to say something?"
The Harp of the Underworld shuddered.
When Theodore's gaze fell upon it, it felt as if it had been noticed by some higher-level existence, as if it might be shoved into a mouth and chewed to pieces at any moment.
Terrifying.
Too terrifying!
The age of myth had ended so long ago. Wizards had weakened to an absurd extent. This was the weakest era before the ancient return.
So why had such a monster been born?!
But now, it knew it could no longer hide.
Clearly, everything about it had already been seen through.
Even its arrival before Theodore had happened only because Theodore allowed it.
This filled the Harp of the Underworld with terror—and anger.
"What exactly do you take a product of the age of myth for?!"
"That was the era when wizards were closest to the Old Ones. Do not underestimate me, a divine artifact!"
Hearing the Harp of the Underworld finally speak, Theodore's eyes filled with interest.
"Oh?"
"The age of myth—the era closest to the Old Ones?"
"According to some history I have learned, the source of wizards' control over magic was the earliest ancestors of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, who stole the bloodline of the Old Ones."
"After that, the ancestors of the Sacred Twenty-Eight somehow sacrificed themselves to force the Old Ones into slumber, leaving hope to their descendants."
"The generations of wizards who came after them had the densest bloodline concentration. Their magic and lifespans should have far surpassed ordinary mortals. They were the so-called gods of today's legends, and their era is what people now call the age of myth."
"The age of myth lasted for so long. Wizarding civilization reached an unimaginable peak. So why did myth come to an end?"
"What exactly happened back then?"
The Harp of the Underworld froze at Theodore's question.
It had never expected a young wizard born in this era to know so much about the ancient history of the magical world.
After a moment, the Harp of the Underworld said coldly,
"You want to know what happened back then?"
"That is a truly terrifying matter. Others must not hear it."
"How about this? Come closer. I'll tell you, and only you will hear it."
A playful smile appeared in Theodore's eyes.
Then, just as the harp requested, he leaned closer to listen.
The Harp of the Underworld instantly released a murderous, ringing twang.
An unprecedentedly solemn, grand, majestic melody of death was plucked from its strings and poured into Theodore's ears.
Alongside it came the harp's furious voice.
"Mortal, you truly do not take me seriously at all."
"I will let you know the true power of the Prelude of the Dead. The Prelude of the Dead played by me personally is nothing like that sealed within the crystal ball!"
Theodore's expression immediately shifted. His pupils contracted sharply, revealing utter shock.
"This melody!"
"So this is the melody personally played by the Harp of the Underworld from the age of myth?!"
The harp sneered.
"What?"
"Shocked?"
Theodore looked pained. He gritted his teeth, struggled, and shook his head hard.
"Too terrifying. So this is the Prelude of the Dead. I was careless. I didn't dodge."
"It's over. I'm finished now."
"I have to escape. Otherwise, if you play even a little harder, I won't even have the ability to run."
Then Theodore staggered like a drunkard, looking as though he were trying to flee.
The Harp of the Underworld mercilessly played another melody.
"The Song of the Styx Ferryman…"
"Anyone who hears this melody will have their soul drowned in the River Styx of the underworld, drifting forever in its waters, suffering eternal torment."
"You won't escape."
Theodore clutched his head in even greater pain.
"What?"
"Besides the Prelude of the Dead, you even have the Song of the Styx Ferryman?"
"This is truly…"
"Truly terrifying! A creation from the age of myth, a divine artifact once wielded by a god. It is terrifying indeed, completely beyond the alchemical items of the modern magical world."
"Damn it. If this continues, if you increase the power or play a few more terrifying melodies, I really will die!"
The Harp of the Underworld froze for a moment, suspicion rising in its heart.
Wait.
After hearing both the Prelude of the Dead and the Song of the Styx Ferryman, shouldn't his body already be dead, and his soul suffering in the underworld?
Why did Theodore still sound so full of energy while screaming?
As expected of someone watched by the Old Ones.
He was truly hard to kill.
Fortunately, I, the Harp of the Underworld, am still superior!
Come then.
Even if I must expend all the remaining magic within me and the trace of divine power left behind by Hades, I will complete the mission and kill this young wizard!
The strings of the Harp of the Underworld began to tremble endlessly, as if controlled by a supreme musician.
One terrifying melody after another, each once capable of making gods change expression in the age of myth, poured forth.
Theodore cooperated beautifully.
With every melody, Theodore cried out repeatedly and sighed in admiration.
"Too strong!"
"Too terrifying!"
"I'm almost unable to hold on!"
"Just a little more! If you push harder, I really won't make it!"
The Harp of the Underworld gritted its metaphorical teeth and forced itself to continue. It felt as though this was the hardest opponent it had ever tried to kill.
At the same time, it felt a kind of exhilaration.
How many years had it been?
This was the first time it had played with such satisfaction.
Even back in the age of myth, there had been very few listeners for its music.
Even those powerful wizards revered as gods rarely managed to hear a full passage of its performance.
Let alone listening in such a thrilling, wholehearted manner.
Moreover, this young wizard named Theodore Ashbourne could accurately identify the wonders of each melody even while crying out in pain. He seemed to possess a deep understanding of musical theory.
What a pity.
If not for the orders it had received, perhaps Theodore Ashbourne could have become its finest listener.
A faint melancholy appeared in the Harp of the Underworld's heart, but its playing did not stop.
Only after a long time did its voice gradually weaken.
It was gone.
Truly gone.
The Harp of the Underworld had exhausted everything it could play. Even its strings were sparking, as though they were about to burn out completely.
Theodore had also collapsed to the ground, showing no signs of life.
The Harp of the Underworld's voice became fragmented.
"Theodore Ashbourne…"
"If you had been born thousands of years earlier, in that age of myth…"
"Perhaps we could have become friends and discussed music together. Unfortunately, there is no if…"
"I wanted to play one final piece to send you off, but I truly have exhausted all my magic. I have also played every melody I know."
"Surely you can die without regret."
"Then I should also…"
But in the next instant, Theodore, who had already lost all signs of life and become a corpse, suddenly leapt up.
With astonishment and regret, he shook his head repeatedly.
"Friend, are you really out?"
"Not even one more piece?"
"Ah, what a pity. Truly a pity."
Just now, under the Harp of the Underworld's continuous performance, countless strange, magically infused melodies from the age of myth had risen one after another. Theodore had thoroughly enjoyed listening to them.
His comprehension of Fuxi's Heavenly Sound had soared along the way.
The final line that had once kept him from entry was almost instantly broken through, and his understanding continued rising afterward.
By the time the Harp of the Underworld stopped, Theodore's comprehension of Fuxi's Heavenly Sound had already approached minor completion.
If he played Fuxi's Heavenly Sound now, even Theodore himself found it difficult to predict its power.
Unfortunately, the Harp of the Underworld had truly been emptied.
If it could still produce stronger melodies, Theodore might have had a small chance of pushing Fuxi's Heavenly Sound directly to minor completion.
Theodore's regret was genuine.
But to the Harp of the Underworld, it sounded like slap after slap striking its face—if it had a face.
Looking at Theodore, who was perfectly unharmed and even appeared refreshed, the Harp of the Underworld let out an angry low note.
"You were pretending just now?"
"Those melodies never hurt you at all. You were playing with me the entire time?!"
"Little wizard, you could have killed me directly!"
Theodore sighed and said sincerely,
"Don't put it like that. Saying I was playing with you sounds too hurtful."
"Although my methods may have contained a little bit of acting, my desire to hear your music was completely sincere."
"I was simply afraid you would stop halfway, so I improvised a little. All I wanted was to hear a few more pieces."
"Friend, you let me hear so many melodies I had never heard before. I truly want to thank you."
The Harp of the Underworld paused.
For some reason, much of the humiliation and anger in its heart faded.
If Theodore had done all this because he genuinely wanted to hear its music, then this young wizard did have excellent taste.
In that case, perhaps it could forgive him.
Besides…
Even after giving everything it had, it had not been able to harm Theodore in the slightest.
Even if it refused to forgive him, what could it do?
The Harp of the Underworld released a low sigh, once again lamenting that Theodore had been born in the wrong era.
"If only you had been born in the age of myth."
"Even among the children of the chief gods, I never saw anyone with talent and ability as terrifying as yours."
"In that era, your talent could have been used to its fullest. With you there, perhaps the ending of the age of myth might have been rewritten."
At this moment, Theodore asked the same question again.
"You still haven't told me how the age of myth ended."
This time, the Harp of the Underworld fell silent for a long time before finally speaking.
"The age of myth was an era as brilliant and dazzling as gold."
"We once believed that era would be eternal, that the glory of wizards would be engraved into the history of this world."
"The ancestors stole the bloodline of the Old Ones. One after another, the Old Ones fell into slumber. Those indescribable horrors gradually withdrew from the world. In their place, wizards began to control the world."
"Wizards who possessed the bloodline of the Old Ones could achieve almost any miracle. In that era, wizards were worshipped as gods."
"Of course, in the beginning, wizards remained very cautious. After all, the power and terror of the Old Ones had not completely faded from the world. How to forever defeat the Old Ones using stolen bloodline was a seemingly impossible problem."
"But what no one expected was that this problem, which had originally been expected to take hundreds or thousands of years to explore, saw a breakthrough in a very short time."
"Wizards discovered the power of faith."
"The faith of ordinary people actually possessed a strange power. Once integrated into oneself, it could continuously increase magical power."
"At that time, the wizards fell into a frenzied pursuit of faith. They all believed this was a gift from the heavens, an opportunity to surpass the Old Ones and completely seize their authority."
Hearing this, Theodore's pupils contracted slightly.
Faith?
In other words, incense and wish-power?
The wizards of the age of myth had actually discovered this secret and were able to use wish-power?
This suddenly made many things clear to him.
In the Primordial World after the Investiture of the Gods, it was also commonly known that incense and wish-power could rapidly increase one's strength.
No wonder the wizards of the age of myth were absurdly powerful.
So it was because of faith.
At the same time, Theodore could not help sighing.
Incense and wish-power were useful, but if one did not have the proper method and simply pursued quantity, then too much tonic could become poison.
Even in the Primordial World, cultivators who walked the path of incense divinity had to use various methods to resolve the drawbacks of incense. Increasing faith was a matter requiring caution.
Clearly, however, the ancient wizards who had tasted the sweetness of incense had not yet learned this.
The Harp of the Underworld's following words confirmed Theodore's guess.
"That was an era when wizard power expanded at terrifying speed. Thunder, lightning, wind, clouds, earth, oceans, even time and space—all were touched by wizard power."
"The wizards worshipped as gods believed they had grasped every truth in the world."
"But as faith continued to increase, ominous things began to happen."
"The strongest wizards across the lands began to suffer hallucinations. Chaotic voices appeared in their minds…"
"And then, one after another, the once-great gods fell into madness. The Old One bloodlines within their bodies began irreversible mutation."
"The towering divine mountains created by magic became strange and ominous places covered in slime and flesh."
"The wizards who sought to replace the Old Ones had not even faced the Old Ones directly before more than half of them had already fallen."
"The last survivors gathered together and found the domain of an Old One. They attempted to slay it and seize its authority before their own mutation overtook them."
"But the moment they faced the Old One, they transformed into monsters one after another and instead became dependents attached to the Old One."
"And that was how the age of myth ended—in madness."
As it recounted this history, the Harp of the Underworld's voice trembled.
Clearly, the terrifying events of that time had left this self-proclaimed divine artifact with bone-deep fear.
It no longer had the courage to resist the Old Ones.
After all, according to its account, even its master had changed from the god named Hades into an Old One dependent named Pluto.
The wizard Zeus, who commanded lightning and was revered as king of the gods, had mutated in madness into an evil entity called Jupiter.
It was only a small harp.
What could it do?
"So when the will of the Old Ones descended upon me and ordered me to awaken early to kill you, I had no choice."
"The will of the Old Ones cannot be defied."
"If you had been born in the age of myth, perhaps you would have become a wizard even stronger than god-kings like Zeus and Odin. Perhaps you truly could have slain an Old One and seized its authority."
"But it is too late. You were born several thousand years too late. There is no one left who can stand beside you. The ending of this era has already been decided."
Theodore quietly listened to the Harp of the Underworld's account.
But to the harp's surprise, Theodore did not show panic.
It was as though the end of the age of myth could not shake his heart.
In response to the harp's final regretful words, Theodore even shook his head and laughed softly.
"Born in the wrong era? This era is not enough to support my battle against the Old Ones? That may not be true."
"Only the weak obey their era."
"The truly strong create an era that belongs to them."
"Yes, the age of myth has ended. The gods are dead, and the demons are gone. But so what?"
"I do not need to stand shoulder to shoulder with the gods. I will surpass them myself, undying and imperishable."
The Harp of the Underworld froze.
Did this young wizard understand what he was saying?
If this had been before, the harp would have sneered at Theodore's arrogance.
But now, thinking of Theodore's performance and the vision it had seen—whether illusion or future—it suddenly had a thought.
"Perhaps he really can?"
Then it sighed.
"Perhaps. But I will not be able to see that day."
"Little wizard, I have already done my utmost to fulfill the commands of the Old Ones. I have exhausted my magic. This cannot be blamed on me."
"Next, I will fall asleep again. Before the ancient return, the dark age of myth will return first, and at that time, I will awaken completely."
"I hope I can still see you then."
The magical fluctuations emitted by the Harp of the Underworld gradually weakened.
But suddenly, Theodore sensed an extremely powerful aura of madness surging from within the harp.
At the same time, chaotic text appeared madly on the system interface.
[The Dao of Slaughter contained within Rahu's treasure has been reduced to fragments. Upon encountering your Dao of Slaughter Sword, it cannot harm you. Instead, it faintly resonates with you.]
[But the Saints calculate without flaw. How could they not know that Rahu's treasure cannot do anything to you?]
[The true killing move was never Rahu's treasure.]
At that moment, the Harp of the Underworld also released cries of agony, producing chaotic and disordered sounds.
A terrifying mutation began to occur upon it.
Its strings turned into sticky tentacles.
Foul-smelling slime oozed from its exquisite body.
Broken murmurs came from its mouth.
"So from the very beginning, the Old Ones never expected my music to work."
"From start to finish, what they needed was me—a divine artifact, something capable of carrying a trace of an Old One's power."
"Even if it is only the faintest trace, it is not something wizards can resist."
"Theodore Ashbourne, run. Run quickly. I can't hold on…"
In the next instant, an unprecedentedly chaotic melody erupted, filled with disorder and madness.
Within it, Theodore seemed to see the fall of myth, the madness and mutation of gods, and the twilight of the gods.
If this melody had to be given a name, it would be—
The Melody of Ragnarök.
Theodore took a deep breath and looked at the Harp of the Underworld, which had nearly completed its mutation.
He said softly,
"You once said we might have become friends. Very well. Since you regard me as a friend, then after listening to so many of your melodies, at your final moment, I should let you hear mine."
Amid the Melody of Ragnarök, Theodore's comprehension of Fuxi's Heavenly Sound rose once again.
This supreme divine ability had astonishingly been cultivated by him to the rare level of minor completion, even by the standards of the Primordial World.
Then Theodore reached out and placed his hand upon the final string of the Harp of the Underworld that had not yet mutated.
He closed his eyes.
His finger moved.
The string sounded.
"This piece is called—"
"Fuxi's Heavenly Sound!"
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