Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 677: This is the starting point and the end point

"This is the starting point and the end point." Xingluo murmured in a low voice.

Pandora walked over to him, her brow furrowed. Her breathing was a little rapid, as if she was under some invisible pressure. "Are you sure? Are you really here?"

Xingluo nodded, his eyes still calm, yet revealing an unconcealable heaviness: "All the retrospections, all the attempts, ultimately return to this place. Luoshen Village is the sealed place, and it is also the final prison of the God of Light."

"This is the 1342nd time." The shadow of the out-of-control magic god approached from the other side. Time passed, and his voice became low: "You know what this means. And who am I?"

"1341 failures." Xingluo's eyes fell on the wellhead, as if he wanted to see through the stone well to the existence suppressed underground. "Each time, human civilization was destroyed and turned to ashes. Each time, time and space were pulled back here. And Kronos... has dissipated his power and lost himself in countless reincarnations. And you are Kronos."

The eyes of Kronos, the God of Time and Space, finally regained some clarity.

He seemed to be back to the day of defeat.

The bell of Doomsday rang out on that day.

In the center of the continent, the once prosperous Seven Cities Alliance was now reduced to ashes. The city walls vanished in the holy light, the ground burned into deep trenches, and even the rivers dried up, turning into pale salt crusts.

The human army had been completely routed. Countless demigod wizards' staffs shattered, demigod warriors' swords melted, and the skeletons of giant dragons lay scattered across the scorched earth. Holy light poured down like rain, unstoppable.

In the center of the ruins, an old man in a gray-white robe slowly raised his head. His eyes shone with the afterimages of countless stars. Those were not ordinary pupils, but the "Eyes of Time and Space."

He is the God of Time and Space - Kronos.

"Failed." His voice was low, with unconcealable fatigue.

Around him, the few remaining demigod-level allies were all covered in wounds. Blood and dust mixed together, and their breath was like dying flames.

"Kronos..." A warrior with burnt black hair raised his eyes with difficulty, his throat parched. "We...were defeated. No one can stop Him...The God of Light is simply invincible."

Another surviving demigod laughed sadly, "Yes, we once thought the power of the Seven Cities was enough to last a hundred years, but under His divine light, we only managed one day."

Kronos didn't respond, his gaze fixed on the distance—there, the figure of the God of Light slowly stepped across the earth. He had no expression, nor did he need one; his very existence was judgment.

"Mortals, the time for resistance is over. Your magic, your fighting spirit, your bloodline, are nothing but burnt firewood." The voice of the God of Light was cold and ruthless, but like the truth, it could not be refuted.

The holy light continued to advance, and the last living creatures disappeared amidst desperate screams.

Kronos slowly closed his eyes.

"I see... This is how the first attempt ends."

The world was silent, as if the entire continent had fallen into deathly silence.

Kronos's body was crumbling, but the Eye of Time shone with unprecedented brilliance. Countless fragments of time appeared before his eyes, like broken mirrors, reflecting countless possibilities of the past and future.

"If this is the end, then the flame of humanity will be completely extinguished."

His voice echoed in the silent world. He knew that as the controller of time and space, he could do one thing - go back.

But what does backtracking mean?

This meant that he would have to sacrifice his own magical powers to tear apart the long river of time and pull the world back from its end point to a certain starting point. The price he paid was that his own existence would gradually erode until it completely dissipated.

"Are you going to do this?" A voice whispered in his ear. It was the will of the origin of time and space.

Kronos smiled slightly, but there was a hint of loneliness in the corners of his eyes: "I have seen thousands of futures, but only one can keep the flame going."

"What kind?"

"Let the world start anew."

He raised his hands, and the rune pen in his palm had already turned into a beam of light.

"Time Travel - First Attempt."

As soon as the words fell, the earth trembled.

Countless shattered fragments of time suddenly merged, transforming into a surging stream of light that rolled back from the future. The very moment the Holy Light advanced, it was torn apart by that stream, solidified, and retreated.

Cities rose again, rivers flowed again, the dragon's bones pieced together bit by bit, transforming into a complete dragon body. The dead opened their eyes again, blood flowed back into their veins, and their hearts beat again.

The figure of the God of Light was forcibly suppressed by the backward force and was gradually dragged into the depths of the earth.

"Mortal, are you trying to reverse my judgment?" His voice was thunderous and filled with indescribable anger.

Kronos' voice was calm and heavy: "This is not a reversal, this is... an attempt."

He suddenly pressed down with both palms, and countless runes condensed into a chain, locking the power of the God of Light tightly and pressing it into the earth.

"Luoshen Village." He whispered the name, "You will be sealed here."

Amidst the violent roar, the holy light gradually faded until it vanished completely. Peace returned to the earth, and the sky once again shone with stars.

The moment the flashback was complete, Kronos stumbled back, his aura suddenly weakening. It wasn't a wound from the battle, but rather a wear and tear from his very foundation.

A newly resurrected ally looked at him in astonishment: "Kronos...you...what did you do?"

"I'll pull time back... to before this destruction," Kronos whispered, his voice filled with unprecedented fatigue. "We can't win, so we can only... start over."

"But the price of doing so is—"

"The price is my own." Kronos raised his eyes, still twinkling with stars. "All I can do is continue the flame until I find true hope."

Another mage's voice trembled: "What about the God of Light...?

"I've temporarily sealed Him at the bottom of the well in Luoshen Village." Kronos's hand trembled slightly. "But the seal isn't permanent. At most, it'll last for a few hundred or a few thousand attempts."

"...For the gods, it's just a brief blink of an eye."

"But for mortals," Kronos exhaled deeply, "it's enough to give birth to new possibilities."

He closed his eyes and murmured softly, "I hope all this is not just in vain."

Night fell again, and the earth seemed to have returned to peace. But Kronos knew more clearly than ever that this was only a postponed disaster.

He sat on the stone steps that sealed the wellhead, his fingers constantly moving through the air, calculating countless possibilities.

His voice became lower and lower, as if he was talking to himself.

“Humanity itself has exhausted hundreds of possibilities in the cycle.”

"Dragons, dwarves, elves... I've tried them all, but their fate is still destruction."

The night was like a depressing curtain, covering the sky above the continent.

Human civilization in this world has reached a crossroads that is completely different from the past.

After the 340th attempt failed, the ruins of the magic tower still billowed with gray smoke, the bones of a giant dragon lay scattered across the mountain ridges, and the shouts of the mercenaries had long been blown away by the wind. Everyone knew that humans could not defeat the gods with fighting spirit and magic alone.

"We need to take another route."

These were the last words of the last great sage of mankind before his death.

Thus, the spark of technology was quietly ignited in the ruins.

In a dilapidated town by the sea, several young craftsmen were busy around a black iron can. A crude pipe connected to the can mouth and the other end was inserted into the sea water.

"Tighten it a little more!"

"The pressure is reaching its limit!"

boom--!

With an earth-shaking roar, the iron can suddenly exploded, and hot steam spurted out, driving the iron wheel at the other end of the pipe to spin wildly.

The iron wheel drives the gears, the gears drive the transmission shaft, and the entire workshop hums with violent vibrations.

The young people stared with wide eyes at the machine that seemed to come alive in that instant.

“It moved…it really moved!”

At that moment, the flame was no longer a magical rune, but the force that drove the machine.

This was the first roar of human technological civilization.

At first, the attempts of these artisans were ridiculed by the magicians.

"Foolish fellow, magic is the foundation of heaven and earth. What power can your iron cans and gears have?"

But when the first steam warship roared into life in the harbor, the scornful laughter ceased. Its hull was forged of steel, devoid of any runes, yet it could cut through the wind and waves, its speed surpassing even that of alchemical items imbued with wind magic.