The winds of the Grand Canyon had lost their previous fury.
The thick smell of rust and scorched earth had completely vanished from the air.
A desolate chill, piercing through to the very marrow, mingled with the dry scent of shattered crystals, raged across the empty valley floor.
The latter half of the canyon, once blanketed in insect corpses, had been plowed by the golden storm into a single, flat expanse of shimmering glazed glass.
Purple crystal powder swirled in the wind, drawing out fine ribbons stretching for several kilometers.
This was the epitaph left by hundreds of thousands of Zerg after their collective vaporization.
Lin Qingyue stepped upon this colossal mirrored surface, forged by death.
The soles of her shoes striking the glass produced a crisp sound, amplified several times over by the empty valley.
Her current mood was probably as ragged as her trembling legs.
The Dungeon Rule [Survival Instinct] acted like a twenty-four-hour relentlessly strict overseer, finding every possible way to torture her nerves.
The hunger after physical exhaustion struck with the force of a crushing wave, as if her stomach had shriveled into a tight ball.
Even the cold wind brushing against the back of her neck provoked a stinging sensation, like needles, born from extreme weakness.
If the [Dragon Scale of the Azure Dragon's Blessing] hadn't increased her vitality, and if the [Moonlight's Embrace] earrings hadn't continuously restored her stamina, she estimated she would have chosen to lie flat right behind the defensive line, putting on a performance as a salted fish.
She reached into her Storage Space and pulled out a White Rabbit Creamy Candy, her fingers trembling slightly from exhaustion.
The cloying sweetness of milk exploded on her tongue, barely suppressing the surging wave of weakness.
She glanced at her personal panel and saw that her level was stuck at 39, 100%. As soon as she left the Dungeon, she would be able to advance to Intermediate.
Lin Xiyue stayed close to her sister's side and back.
The [Blackstone's Protection] shield in her hand was not put away, and her cold gaze was locked on the string of followers behind them.
Over a dozen meters behind.
Hao Chi led his "Heavenly Craft" Squad, keeping a professional but absolutely safe distance, following step by step.
Their faces bore a mixture of bewilderment and rigor, as if their worldviews had been formatted.
Hao Chi stared at the pink hair ahead, his retina still retaining the scorched afterimage of the Sam Mecha's "one-click format."
That was a level of violence that treated the laws of physics as rough drafts to be deleted at will, completely shattering his understanding.
He wanted to step forward for some technical exchange, but he was afraid his questions would make him look like a primitive person in front of the other party.
This strange silence made the air feel a few degrees heavier.
She gently nudged her sister with her elbow and lowered her voice: "Sis, the ones behind seem to be competing to see who catches their breath first, the atmosphere is a bit stiff."
Lin Qingyue chewed the candy, feeling a faint stream of energy flow into her parched limbs.
She stopped and glanced back at Hao Chi's face, which was written all over with "System reinstalling, do not disturb."
"I say, do you plan to be human background boards there for the rest of your lives?"
"Or do you plan to just silently stealth like this all the way to the mountain top?"
Her cool voice echoed in the dead-silent valley, creating a series of hollow reverberations.
Hao Chi shuddered as if suddenly struck by electricity, his foot slipping on the smooth mirror-like surface. He only avoided a pratfall on the spot thanks to his solid footwork.
He rubbed his hands together, a complex expression between professionalism and bewilderment squeezing onto his face.
"No, no, no, Captain Lin, we are just... re-evaluating our combat manual. It seems we'll have to rewrite it from the first page."
"Combat manual?" Lin Qingyue sneered.
"You call pressing the Delete key to clear the map a tactic?"
"..."
Hao Chi's mouth opened and closed, but not a single word came out.
It was true.
Three Epic-grade Broodmothers were stripped into batteries, the final BOSS became a sacrifice, and an army of hundreds of thousands turned to ash.
Someone like him, who was still researching how to improve the fire rate of ballistae and repair city walls, truly couldn't comprehend the logic of this kind of "dimensional strike."
Seeing Hao Chi's brain about to crash, Lin Qingyue exhaled a breath of turbid air, deciding to give him a heads-up in advance.
It was mainly to prevent these guys from having their collective attributes drop when they entered the Temple later, as the Dungeon Rules might judge their "mental state as too poor" due to extreme shock.
As she walked, she spoke in a casual, conversational tone, saying nonchalantly:
"Since this Dungeon is called 'Shadow of the Ancient God,' have you ever wondered what a true Ancient God is?"
Hao Chi immediately caught up, saying in a deep voice: "We guessed that the core setting of the Dungeon was not simple. There are some scattered records in the Allied Forces' database, but they are too vague. We were blocked at the fortress by the Insect Tide as soon as we came in. If our defensive fortifications hadn't held for a few days, I'm afraid..."
He didn't finish, but his meaning was obvious: they were not useless sacks of rice and wine, and they had shed blood and sweat to hold the line.
Lin Qingyue looked up at the snow-capped peak sealed by white clouds.
"A long time ago, this world did not have these so-called Four Celestial Gods. The master here was a thing called the 'Ancient God.'"
She spoke as she walked, her tone as casual as if she were critiquing the braised pork in the cafeteria.
"This guy had some rather peculiar tastes, liking to devour everything. To him, the world was just an all-you-can-eat cafeteria."
"Later, an even more unreasonable powerhouse passed by, the God of Machinery and Creation."
A mocking curve touched the corners of her lips.
"That great god found the Ancient God's eating habits too unsightly, so he casually smashed it to pieces, dismantled it into parts, and pressed them separately beneath the earth's crust."
"The Dungeon we're in right now is the site of the Ancient God's massive sealing."
The entire Heavenly Craft Squad instantly froze in a near-suffocating rigidity.
Hao Chi and his teammates stared fixedly at that slender figure, the sound of their hearts beating like muffled thunder.
This kind of fundamental world-building lore, the kind that the intelligence departments of major organizations would fight tooth and nail for, was just being dropped by a college freshman in the tone of someone gossiping?
"Then... then what about the Four Celestial Gods?"
Hao Chi asked, his voice trembling.
"Them?"
Lin Qingyue unwrapped another piece of milk candy, her movements fluid and graceful.
"You can think of them as four high-level firewall programs left behind by that God of Creation, serving as wardens."
"Their duty is to watch this Ancient God and stop it from causing trouble."
"But over time, programs always grow obsolete. How could an ancient operating system that hasn't been updated for ten million years not have bugs? The Ancient God's negative emotions seeped out like a virus, infecting these four firewalls as well."
She looked up toward the Temple, her gaze amused.
"The Azure Dragon corresponds to 'Pride,' but is actually socially anxious and withdrawn. The Vermilion Bird corresponds to 'Wrath,' but is actually utterly despondent. The Black Tortoise corresponds to 'Sloth,' though we haven't seen it yet. As for this Big Cat we're about to meet..."
She pointed toward the distant Temple.
"...the emotion He corresponds to is 'Envy.' As for what's wrong with Him, that's still to be confirmed."
Dead silence.
An oppressive feeling, enough to drain a person's sanity, spread through the air.
Hao Chi felt like his brain was about to blue-screen from the sheer volume of information.
They had been working themselves to death these past few days, struggling in a meat grinder, thinking they were participating in a holy war that would decide the fate of the world.
And yet?
In her eyes, this was just a prerequisite for the main quest, and one that had already been casually bulldozed through.
They were still on the first floor, fighting for their lives against spawned mobs.
This person had already flown into outer space, considering whether to file a complaint against these gods for dereliction of duty.
"The Four Celestial Gods are actually just corporate drones, the kind who can't even quit."
Lin Qingyue dropped another bombshell.
"Otherwise, why do you think He just yawned and left? That was Him clocking out."
"The trouble is solved, the KPI is met. Staying a second longer counts as unpaid overtime, and there's no overtime pay."
Hao Chi completely gave up on thinking.
He couldn't reconcile the image of that terrifying, sky-blotting dharma form with a corporate slave rushing to clock out.
But looking at Lin Qingyue's salted fish expression of disgust toward "overtime," everything seemed to make perfect sense.
This was probably the cognitive gap between a normal person and someone who existed outside the norm.
He silently glanced at the energy detector on his waist, which had long since been burned out, with only one thought in his mind:
When I get back, I have to figure out how to make a new one, one... that can measure the unit of "God."