Chapter 224. Middle East Journey (6) 《The Book of the Dead》 and the Ennead

     Ye Mo and the others had already speculated about the black halo. Given that so many black monsters could enter and exit through it, there was a 90% chance it was the legendary Gate of the Underworld from ancient Egyptian mythology.  

     Could the solution to the reality dungeon be sealing this gate?  

     Ye Mo drew a pure light-attribute arrow, nocked it, and aimed at the black halo.  

     Whoosh!

     The arrow shot out.  

     Upon hitting the center of the black halo, there was no collision—instead, it was completely devoured.  

     Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

     No matter what type of attribute-enhanced arrows Ye Mo used, no matter where she aimed at the Gate of the Underworld, or what spells or even forbidden curses she cast, she couldn’t seal this hellish gate. At most, she could only slightly slow its expansion.  

     The desert grew colder and colder. If not for the golden sand everywhere, you might think they had reached the North or South Pole.  

     “Damn it!”  

     Wang Xue, her hair frosted over, had already lost her defensive armor. Her body temperature was plummeting rapidly, and she felt an unimaginable cold, as if she were about to turn into an ice block.  

     “I can’t hold on any longer, I’m retreating first!”  

     With that, Wang Xue exchanged a glance with Ji Li, then crushed her spatial key. In the blink of an eye, she vanished from the desert.

     Wang Xue’s designated return point was in Cairo. The moment she appeared, she found the city bustling with activity. Locals who hadn’t fled were emerging from their hiding spots, gathering to pray and offer blessings.  

     Unsurprisingly, she as the black-haired, black-eyed woman wearing a golden mask received the warmest welcome. Many people called out to her in English or Arabic, men and women, young and old alike.  

     In the face of life and death, many women in the Middle East, influenced by the teachings of the Indian women’s alliance, had come to understand the true meaning of equality. It had to be said that the number of people signing up for the Survivor app had reached an unprecedented peak.  

     Egypt was abundant in fruits, but Wang Xue never expected to experience something like “having fruits thrown at her until her carriage was full.” Bananas, peaches, apples, pears, and watermelons were one thing, but seriously—who the hell was throwing durians? Was that on purpose?  

     She could handle tough battles, but this kind of overwhelming warmth left her utterly flustered.  

     Fortunately, Yin Hong and other members of the Supernatural Investigation Bureau came to her rescue. Together, they made their way to the minaret, the same place where the initial meeting had been held. Now crowded with survivors.  

     All members of the Chinese Supernatural Investigation Bureau were gathered here.

     The remaining survivors numbered about one-twentieth of the original group. Most of them had stayed because they had faith in the Chief Survivor. After all, if Ye Mo failed, Egypt would become the prime target for the monsters.  

     Of course, they couldn’t completely shake off their worries and doubts. Some still hesitated before ultimately choosing to leave.  

     When Wang Xue walked in, countless pairs of eyes filled with hope or questions turned toward her. Her steps remained as relaxed as ever as she found an empty spot to sit down, pulling out an apple and munching on it with loud crunches.  

     Her attitude was clear: Ye Mo was her faith. She believed, without a doubt, that her Sister Jing would prevail!  

     …

     Back in the desert.  

     After Wang Xue left, nearly ten of the top 20 survivors also departed one after another. Bella let out a sigh before finally leaving with her camera.  

     In the end, the only ones who stubbornly stayed to witness the battle were Arthur, wielding the Sword of Kings, Lani Shannon with the Spear of Lugh, and Ji Li who had now fully entered a zombie-like state.  

     Yes, a zombie state.

     Ji Li’s current zombie state is completely different from that of a low-level zombie. He no longer suddenly turns purple or black, and the corpse spots, stench, and bloody smell can all be suppressed. Aside from his abyssal black eyes and body that feels like an artificial air conditioner, he’s almost indistinguishable from a human.

     Even if he walked down the street in this state, ordinary people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference at all.  

     Although Ji Li in his zombie state cannot use necromancy, his physical attributes like speed, strength, and physique are three times that of his human state. While the other two bystanders relied on metal-element energy to counter the darkness, he was frantically absorbing the elements overflowing from the black halo.

     The black halo continued to expand. When it was about human height, Arthur, who had reached his limit, finally left. His mind and body were both affected by the dark spiritual elements.

     His psychological state was worse than his physical one, with negative memories fueling negative emotions. He needed a period of quiet rest to recover.

     Lani Shannon and Ji Li were making their final stand. The former plunged her spear deep into the desert, and earth walls enveloped her entirely, while the latter, having devoured too much dark energy, was now oozing blood that shifted from crimson to violet, then violet to black.

     If Ji Li was there for advancement, Lani Shannon’s reason for persisting was similar to why the Supernatural Investigation Bureau came to Egypt: she needed, at the very least, to lay eyes on the God of Death.

     If China was in a frenzy over the undead, India was already in chaos. The Indian Women’s League was no charity, they had killed more people than anyone else. It wasn’t just China’s Supernatural Investigation Bureau that wanted to establish a new underworld or netherworld.

     Unlike them, Ye Mo, who was directly facing the dark aura, seemed completely unaffected. Like a steadfast anchor, standing there quietly, she exuded a powerful presence.

     The black halo finally transformed into a door.

     When the towering figure of a wolf-headed man appeared at the doorway, Lani Shannon and Ji Li finally retreated, and Lani Shannon took Ji Li’s space key and teleported together.

     Another moment slower, and Lani Shannon might not have escaped.

     As the ancient Egyptian mythological data flashed through Ye Mo’s mind, the answer was obvious: Anubis, one of the Ennead—was depicted as a jackal-headed male deity, and it was indeed Anubis who guarded the gates of the underworld

     Anubis’s entire figure gradually materialized. Unlike the memories from the priests’ ceremonies, Anubis’s jackal body was pitch-black, devoid of any other color

     It was clear that the ancient Egyptian god had fallen, his fierce gaze indicated no possibility of negotiation.

     Ye Mo extended her hand, and the Sword of Light finally appeared. The moment Anubis’s entire body emerged from the underworld gate, the sword unleashed a beam of white light, aimed directly at him.

     Boom!

     Upon impact, the surrounding area for a thousand miles was utterly destroyed, leaving behind numerous uneven craters in the ground.

     The video captured by the satellite only shows a lot of explosions. If there are other survivors here, death is the only thing waiting for them.

     “ROAR!”

     Anubis, struck by the sword, was enraged. As he leaped out of the underworld gate, he brandished a jet-black long whip, lashing it in Ye Mo’s direction.

     Given that he was a fallen god, Ye Mo understood that Anubis’s mental power was considerable, allowing him to locate her amidst the flying dust. She swiftly dodged the whip and deployed her mental domain illusion.

     She also roughly gauged Anubis’s mental upper limit; it was indeed higher than many survivors, at least C-level, yet he was not a fallen god with psychic abilities.

     Ye Mo used her domain Illusion to evade attacks, repeatedly disorienting Anubis before striking with the Sword of Light.

     “ROAR!“

     Above all else, the fallen god Anubis’s biggest flaw wasn’t what he wasn’t good at, but rather that, having corrupted by dark energy, he had lost all basic rationality.  

     All it took was a little provocation, a little temptation, a little anger, and he would inevitably fall for the trap.  

     In a battle between masters, the one thing you can’t afford to lose is reason.

     Ye Mo remained calm and composed throughout the battle. Even when wounded by Anubis’s dark whip, she could heal herself while delivering a fierce counterattack.  

     One strike!

     Two strikes!

     Five strikes!

     True to being a fallen god, it took a full five strikes before Ye Mo finally plunged her sword into Anubis’s heart.

     In an instant, Anubis ultimately turned to ash, though perhaps this pile of ash was slightly larger than that of other black monsters.

     On the ground, besides the ash, only Anubis’s weapon remained: the black dark whip.

     The moment Ye Mo picked it up, thousands of death memory fragments flooded her mind. These fragments depicted the processes by which intelligent beings met their demise, all linked to the underworld.

     This included Anubis himself.

     These death processes were often extremely unpleasant, filled with anger, unwillingness, fear, curses, and sorrow, nearly causing her to lose her breath.

      It was the Sword of Light that provided powerful support, its warm energy continuously flowing into Ye Mo’s body from the blade, soothing her mind.

     Of course, this was merely external comfort, similar to a therapist, and the only one who can truly overcome it is yourself.

     Ye Mo’s memory was exceptionally sharp; anything that entered her mind was impossible to forget. She roughly understood why Anubis had fallen, and itIt might not have been solely due to resource competition, but she would never share his fate.

     Rather than becoming a sacrifice to dark forces, she aimed to conquer them.

     Swoosh!

     Ye Mo unleashed the whip, and with rumbling sounds, others who couldn’t see the scene could only imagine the fierce battle through satellite footage. Some imagined more, some less.

     It’s worth noting that among Anubis’s many memories, the underworld was created by the ancient Egyptian Ennead gods: Ra, Geb, and Nut using the power of chaos. Initially, it had nothing to do with sacrifice.

     But then Osiris, the first god of death, rose to power. As spiritual energy resources dwindled, he swayed other powerful beings to his side, sparking a prolonged era of chaos.  

     The victors, of course, needed no explanation.  

     There were only two ways to seal the gate of the underworld.

     One was to fight darkness with darkness and become the new ancient Egyptian god of the underworld. This wasn’t suitable for Ye Mo. She could conquer dark power, but that didn’t mean she wanted to specialize in it, and no one else was fit to claim the title.  The other way was to slay all the fallen gods of the underworld, the source of its power, thereby permanently closing this ancient Egyptian gate to the underworld.

     Ye Mo chose the latter. Ancient Egypt and modern Egypt weren’t the same thing; Egypt could build its own underworld if it needed one. Besides, with spiritual energy so scarce for so many years, the power of the fallen gods within the underworld gate was far weaker than in their prime.

     Their strength, especially that of fallen gods without dark elemental talents, had dwindled significantly over time, making them the perfect whetstone for her.

     Ye Mo stashed Anubis’s dark whip into her spatial storage, downed three bottles of Light Restoration Potion, and cast both a light-attribute healing spell and a wood-attribute recovery spell on herself. 

     No one in the Middle East could have predicted that North Africa’s Egypt where water was scarce outside the Nile would one day be deluged by torrential rain, even in the arid Western Desert and its surrounding cities.  

     For the already vegetation-starved desert, this was nothing short of a catastrophe. Floodwaters surged uncontrollably, waves churned violently, and many Egyptian cities had no choice but to activate emergency flood prevention measures ahead of time.  

     Fortunately, countries with experience in flood control provided a series of effective countermeasures, preventing total chaos. The immediate priority was draining the water

     Ye Mo was glad she had chosen the desert as her breakthrough point. Tefnut’s water magic was terrifying. Ye Mo could use her mental abilities, but Tefnut could discern truth from illusion based on water molecules, making illusions useless against her.

     If the battle had taken place at sea or in a water-rich area, it would have been much harder.

     Ye Mo ultimately activated the pre-laid light formation, delivering the fatal blow at the cost of severe injuries.

     The moment the Rain God, Tefnut, who was also a cat-bodied deity, was destroyed, Ye Mo seemed to see a look of relief and gratitude in her eyes. Her own water-elemental energy immediately surged, and her water ability in the system panel jumped up three levels.

     Was this a blessing from the Rain God?

     Drenched in blood, Ye Mo had no time to dwell on it. She rapidly healed herself, rearranged her formations, and switched into high-tier defensive armor and gear—all in frantic succession.  .

     Unexpectedly, the third fallen god appeared: Ra, the former Sun God, who once held an undeniable position in ancient Egypt. Legends claimed he could create humans, but that was a misconception; his true power lay in nurturing and blessing new life

     Ye Mo remained vigilant throughout. To be honest, Ra was much easier to deal with than Tefnut, and he wasn’t even as strong as Anubis.

     The reason was simple.

     Ra was a fallen god of light. After being eroded by dark elements, his divine power had significantly diminished. Furthermore, after all these years, his worshippers had long perished, leaving his faith reserves depleted. That he had endured this long was a miracle in itself.  

     In fact, Ye Mo suspected Ra was the only “black monster” who had retained his sanity. He didn’t die by her hand, he chose to end himself. Perhaps it was because, at his core, he had once been a god of light.  

     Blessing of the Sun God: √  

     His artifact was a circular shield, a damaged semi-divine weapon, the first of its kind Ye Mo had ever obtained.  

     Perfect experimental material: √

     …

     A week passed. If every second felt like a year, then it was as if they had endured millennia. Floods raged, earthquakes struck, solar eclipses darkened the skies…  

     People across the Middle East—no, the entire world, had no idea how long this battle would last. At this rate, would Ye Mo be forced into the next main dungeon mid-fight?  

     Surely not! 

     The first fallen deity Ye Mo encountered was Anubis, the gatekeeper of the underworld, and the last was Osiris, the God of the Dead, also the first fallen god in ancient Egypt.  

     He possessed the “Book of the Dead”, the true original of the text placed in pharaohs’ coffins, and the core scripture behind Egypt’s sacrificial rites.  

     The battle against Osiris was undoubtedly grueling. If Ra had struggled to resist darkness with light, Osiris had willingly embraced the abyss.  

     His dark spiritual energy surpassed all others, and his curses left even Ye Mo shaken.  

     Back and forth, Ye Mo barely held her ground. Fortunately, she had countless potions as backup, along with her own light and wood-attribute healing spells and perhaps even blessings from fallen gods like Ra, who had once shared Osiris’s origins.  

     What did this God of Death fear most? 

     Death itself. 

     What did he pride himself on?

     Controlling life and death, watching others sacrifice to him.

     Finally, Ye Mo shifted her focus from Osiris to the “Book of the Dead.” Her relentless assault—sword strikes, arrows, formations rained down upon the book, shattering Osiris’s composure and driving him to madness.

     The black monsters once bound to the book had already been destroyed. No longer the invincible artifact it once was, it had been weakened, sacrifice would ultimately consume the sacrificer. 

     Even a semi-divine weapon could meet its end.  

     The moment the “Book of the Dead” turned to ashes, Osiris followed, disintegrating into nothingness.  

     “Victory!”  

     Ye Mo collapsed into the filthy, blood-soaked mud, gazing up at the sun as she exhaled deeply. Being alive felt so damn good. It had been far too long since she’d been this battered.