Lilith, while suspicious, tried to send him a private message, saying,
< Didn't you hear the voice just now? >
But the message didn't reach him.
It was exactly like when she tried to send messages to the librarian fairy.
She thought to herself,
'So there is something in the area around him that stops the secret message?'
To be sure,
she tried a couple more times,
and even said some bad words to see his reaction and if he was pretending.
But still no. nothing could be sent to him directly.
After being sure, she thought of something and said,
"Mortal, how about this?
I put some good words for you so the underworld law accepts you as 'guardian'.
Meanwhile, you can engage in activities that benefit me and the underworld.
This way, the underworld law sees your effort and hard work, and believes my words easier!"
Hearing her words of encouragement,
Little Mortal jumped up and down excitedly!
"Yes, yes!
After I'm done with the hunters,
We can do as you say, so I can become the guardian of the underworld!"
Lilith nodded.
She felt that there was only a benefit for her in all of this.
She didn't know what this guardian was, but the underworld already accepted it.
So she pretended that no such thing happened to use this 'guardian' from above as a tool to deal with the problems she and the underworld itself had.
After that, she opened a passage to a certain hexagon, and the two walked in.
Little Mortal looked around curiously.
This place was the same as their own hexagon, nothing different.
But in Lilith's eyes, it was different.
She had less control over it, and her activities here would be easily known to the manager of the connected mainland above.
She looked at Little Mortal and said,
"Alright, be ready.
This place is connected to a level 10 mainland.
The moment I open the gate, the manager will know."
Little Mortal nodded and started doing some random hand seals.
After a while, he said,
"100% stealth mode, activate!"
And he disappeared in front of Lilith's eyes...
She tried to find him, but she couldn't.
To be sure he is still here, while bringing out a token, she said,
"Take this.
If you break it, the gate will open on the other side, allowing you to return.
Just leave it in the lava sea at the other side; no one will be able to find it.
The lava sea is like underworld territory.
The mainland or its manager can't track down the space fluctuations coming from my underworld gate there.
However, be cautious, as the gate itself always announces its opening to the mainland and its manager.
That's the rule between the two sides to prevent any misunderstanding or unwanted conflict."
While she was explaining the necessary knowledge that he needed to know,
The token in her hand had already disappeared.
Lilith raised an eyebrow in amazement.
This 100% stealth mode was actually 100% for real!
Even she, in her own realm, couldn't detect him...
Then she summoned the gate, and while the gate was rising from the ground, she remembered the first sentence this little boy said to the old man and asked curiously,
"By the way.
What interesting fact about me were you going to tell my 'butler'?"
And then she heard Little Mortal's voice beside her,
"You actually have something in common with someone I know, it's just the opposite.
He is a chunk of ice.
So when he smiles,
he can only smile 'coldly'.
When he speaks,
he can only speak 'coldly'.
And he always looks at you 'coldly'."
Lilith, who didn't understand what he meant, asked,
"Where is the 'in common' part?"
And while the door was opening, Little Mortal's voice sounded, while chuckling,
"When you smile,
you can only smile 'warmly'.
When you speak,
you can only speak 'warmly'.
And you always look 'warm' and 'hot'."
As he spoke, the source of the voice disappeared inside the gate.
Lilith stood there at a loss for words...
Was he complimenting her or mocking her fire law and the other guy's ice law?
But a voice that seemed to be a 'bird' voice sounded from the other side that interrupted her thoughts,
"Queen Lilith, what can I help you with?
I thought we already cut all ties with your side."
Hearing the voice, Lilith looked at the other side with annoyance.
But didn't say anything.
She waved her hand and slammed the door shut without answering.
Lilith couldn't wait to see what this little anomaly was going to do at the so-called 'enemy camp'!
From the looks of it, he easily entered the other side without the zone or mainland detecting him.
....
The other side of the gate.
The lava sea on the 'Hunters mainland'.
At this moment, Little Mortal was looking curiously at a Vulture-like creature that suddenly showed up when he walked to this side.
It seems the underworld gate announcing its arrival was working just fine.
However, the delay in the vulture's arrival proved that the lava sea's ability to cover any space fluctuations was, as Queen Lilith said,.
Little Mortal, while nodding as if he was approving of something, walked around the vulture.
The otherworldly-looking vulture, with black-silver feathers as void, shimmering faintly with a sinister, iridescent hue, long and jagged talons like rusted blades, and eyes burning with an eerie, golden light that pierced through the darkness, was now staring at the gate, which was sinking into the ground.
On the vulture's head, a crown of bones and shattered metal was placed.
After a while looking at this cool and sinister vulture,
Little Mortal shrugged his shoulders, placed the token Lilith gave him at the bottom of the lava sea, and left.
The quest for gathering information behind the enemy line has begun!
After swimming for an hour, he reached the shore.
The ground of this mainland was made of gray rocks, and there was no greenery in sight.
Looking farther away, Little Mortal gasped.
Row after row of castles were placed side by side.
While on the mainland, each castle had a territory.
Here, their placement was like a military camp.
Little Mortal jumped up and tried to count the numbers.
He counted more than 300 in 300 rows of castles.
From what he saw, it seemed that Hunters mainland was keeping the higher beings from the defeated mainland alive.
Or perhaps killing them first, and then after resurrection, they were already in the enemy's hands because their mainland had been destroyed, and they could only join the enemy.
After advancing to level 8, mainlands didn't need to devour universes anymore, and to continue leveling up, they needed to devour other mainlands instead, so they could keep the higher beings as a fighting force.
Little Mortal looked at the sky and only saw around 800 bubbles up there, and like their own mainland, all of them were on one side of the sky, which meant this mainland was moving in one direction too.
But it wasn't anything surprising because it was chasing after their mainland from what he knew, so it was only natural.
However, why were there so few bubbles up there when there were close to 90,000 castles down here?
Where are the missing universes?
In what he read in the Queen's library, all the information about the level 9 and 10 mainlands was from the normal version.
The evil mainlands would stop sending 'sinners' to the underworld after level 8 for some reason.
That's why Little Mortal didn't know what was going on with this place.
While puzzled, he circled the castle's camp and went to the other side.
When he jumped, he saw a pillar on the other side, so he ran to that side to take a look at it.
When he arrived in front of it, he saw a list of names.
Similar to the ranking list from the mainland, but you could see every single name.
The top 10 names were actually all familiar.
They were the same outsiders on their side.
But he didn't see any 'Lord' in the ranking.
He kept looking until he saw another familiar name at rank 811.
Apollo, god of prophecy.
He rubbed his chin for a while and then left.
This time, he went towards the castles.
Running between them, he didn't see a single living creature.
While puzzled, he started running towards the other side of the mainland.
How fast was he running?
No one could tell.
But he reached the other side of the Hunters mainland in 3 hours.
On his way, he did not see a single living creature.
The only scenery was the boring gray color and rocky ground as far as the eye could see.
But when he reached the other side,
Small bubbles started coming into his view in the sky far away.
And as he continued, more and more bubbles appeared, and he even saw living creatures.
Little mortal slowed down when he saw them.
The ground was still a rocky surface,
But the same blue layer of fire, like the dark side of their normal mainland, covered the ground here, showing the effect of the mainland's high speed.
He walked closer to the living creatures and saw that all of them were merged with the ground.
Hands made of the same rocky material as the ground were stretched out and tightened the creatures to the ground.
Everyone's face was pale, and they seemed to be under pressure.
He then looked at the bubbles in the sky, which were close to a hundred thousand of them up there, and, as if he figured out something, nodded to himself.
Then he started walking between these creatures.
After an hour strolling among thousands of creatures with half of their bodies on the ground, he saw a group of 20 that were not merged with the ground through those rocky hands and instead were floating in the air.
He did not mind them and was going to continue, but he suddenly stopped.
He saw a man with a black beard and an eye patch over his left eye, who was among the creatures merged with the ground.
Little mortal went to the guy, looked at him in surprise, walked around him once, and then nodded, as though he confirmed something.
He was going to get back to his 'patrol', but then again, he stopped, and looked in a certain direction.
And he was not the only one,
The group of 20 creatures in the sky looked in the same direction as well.
At this moment, a small crack suddenly appeared in the sky.
If it were a passage or portal, then it was man-made, so they needed to be vigilant about a possible invasion.
Something like what those chips tried to open on Planet Lubo.
But if it was a crack in space, it means something random, like the wormhole that sent part of the solar system of the Assassin God away, and LittleMortal started his journey as a guardian from there.
It could just come and go for no particular reason.
While curious, the crowd got closer.
And Little Mortal, while frowning, just watched with interest.
But the next moment, his eyes suddenly widened in shock!
And the moment after that, something came out of the crack and *RUMBLE*.
The sound of thunder echoed through the mainland!
A black lightning shot out of the crack and went through half of the group of 20.
In just a blink of an eye, 10 of them turned to ashes and went back to the 'lobby', or to be exact, back to their universes to resurrect!
As the dumbfounded crowd started sweating profusely, a middle-aged man appeared out of nowhere and asked the survivors in shock,
"What was that just now?"
And while trembling in fear, they answered,
"L-Lord, that was world law's punishment lightning!"
The hair of everyone who heard the name stood on end, this so-called Lord included.
At this moment,
A passage that no one saw,
opened above the middle-aged man's shoulder, who they called 'Lord',
And a smaller version of the same vulture from before came out and landed on his shoulder.
No one reacted to its arrival as if they hadn't seen it.
But a certain little boy was now looking at the familiar vulture curiously when he saw that its size was smaller and its claws sank into the Lord's shoulder aggressively.
Little mortal suddenly turned his head towards the crack again.
It was closing slowly just a moment ago, but it opened again!
With a short delay, the vulture looked towards it too.
And again, *RUMBLE*.
Another black lightning shot out!
This time, the target was obvious.
In the eyes of the onlookers, it was the Lord.
But in the eyes of Little Mortal and the vulture,
It was the vulture!
The vulture, which did not have time to dodge,
Actually opened its beak, and bit at the lightning!
A special kind of aura appeared around its beak,
And it caught the lightning, not allowing it to pass through its body!
But when the lightning stuck between its beak,
It did not even stop for a moment and took away the vulture, which was holding onto the Lord's shoulder, and the Lord with it in a random direction.
Black sparkles covered the bodies of both of them.
The Lord was now screaming even though he was not directly targeted, and the vulture was trying its best to resist the attack!
In the blink of an eye,
Under the shocked gaze of Little Mortal and the rest of the crowd,
The Lord and the vulture on his shoulder were 'kidnapped' by the black lightning!
Little mortal who saw them disappear on the horizon,
Turned around and started running back towards the lava sea.
However, this time, his speed was not the same as before.
Because he was in a hurry, he changed his style.
While running,
Like when you are standing on a ball,
And then you start running, and the ball begins rotating in the opposite direction of your movement,
The mainland, too, which was not rotating at all,
Suddenly started rotating in the opposite direction of where Little Mortal's destination was under his feet!
Unbeknownst to Little Mortal, his action caused all the creatures merged with the ground to separate from it, and then they were sent flying away!
And the weird thing was that they all were being thrown in the same direction.
All these creatures were actually carrying the mainland with their universes,
And that is why they were merged to the ground.
With invisible lines, they were connected to their universes above and pulling the Mainland.
To not fall behind too much from the 'speedy mainland' they were chasing, they were forced to use this strategy.
But now, with the planet's sudden rotation,
All of these connections between the universes in front and the higher beings merged with the mainland broke!
While they were dumbfounded and in chaos,
On the other side of the mainland,
Little mortal arrived at the same place he started his journey.
This time it only took him less than a minute to get back here.
Then he picked up the token, broke it, and the underworld gate appeared.
.....
The Underworld.
Lilith was patiently waiting at the same hexagon.
It did not even take half a day, and the gate was summoned again from the other side.
Then the door kicked open, and she heard a roar of anger coming from the other side,
"Lilith!
What have you done!"
And then *BAM*, the door was closed again.
Little mortal appeared in front of her and shouted while jumping up and down,
"Partner, I'm in a hurry, send me back, send me back!"
Lilith did not even know what to think!
She hurriedly opened another passage and summoned a gate on the other side, leading to the speedy mainland.
Little mortal ran inside and slammed the door shut.
Lilith stood there dumbfounded.
Many things did not make sense.
First was that vulture.
Why was its voice coming from so far away?
It was clearly from somewhere outside of the lava sea and even the mainland's atmosphere.
Was it not standing guard where the gate opened?
Why would it leave so soon?
And what did this kid do that made it think it was her doing?
While puzzled, she chuckled and sent a message to her minions on Planet Lubo, telling them to watch if anything happens on their side.
The little troublemaker was in a hurry, so naturally, something related to his side was happening.
....
Planet Lubo.
On the silver platform,
The judge hammer vibrated.
The birth treasures became vigilant.
The underworld gate came out of the ground again,
The door kicked open,
And Little Mortal jumped out while shouting,
"Who knows what the real name of the space pirate is?
The boss of those guys who invaded the cultivation planet, and I kicked him away the other day!"
The Crystal vibrated.
< Galaxar! >
Little mortal shouted,
"World law, I'm in a hurry!
Challenge Galaxar for me without any nonsense!"
The next moment, Little Mortal's figure disappeared, the sky turned dark, and the battlefield for challengers appeared.
One side was a man with a black beard and an eye patch.
He was the 'pirate god', or Galaxar, the man who would go outside of the 'zone' to collect the lost parts of the universes that were separated from them.
He would take the order from the one who won the part in the auction, and then do the 'collecting' for a certain price using space passages provided by the space goddess.
But after he went out to 'collect' the part from the Assassin God's universe, which was thrown out of the 'zone', he did not come back anymore, and it seems he ended up in Hunters Mainland somehow.
Now, in the barren battlefield, before he could figure out what was happening, his head was hit from behind with a spin kick, if you could call it that.
Because after the first spin kick, it was a second and a third, and to be sure, it was a fourth kick.
The pirate god, who was already downgraded to level 1 while getting hit in the head, felt his vision turn dark.
He did not even have time to hear what was the challenge world law talking about, and he was already knocked out.
And before his body drops to the ground, Little Mortal tapped the prison cage on his waist,
That even the prison cage itself did not know when he took it away, and the body disappeared.
But the next moment, Little Mortal tapped the cage again, and it sent the Pirate God out again in confusion.
When the body appeared, Little Mortal kicked it away as far as he could, and then the figure of both of them disappeared.
The challenge ended.
On the silver platform,
Little mortal appeared again.
But there was no pirate god with him.
In this challenge, because the opponent did not turn into a puppet, he was free to return to his original location.
That is why the goddess of foresight could go back to her hideout when she admitted defeat,
But those who Little Mortal turned into puppets came back with him.
At this moment, a small passage opened, and the guardian token came out of it.
From its background, it was apparent that the token was coming back from the new area with the underworld's minion.
Seeing it coming,
Little mortal asked,
"I asked about the guardian position in the underworld.
Did you receive any message in those minions' territory?"
When he threw the token away before being dragged by Lilith to the gate,
He tapped the guardian token and ordered it to go to the land connected to the underworld and wait.
The token's mechanical voice sounded,
[ Affirmative.
Underworld law sent a 'private message'.
From this day onwards,
The guardian of each mainland will be the guardian of its underworld territory too.]
Hearing the answer, Little Mortal shook his head, and after making some *tsk tsk* noises, said,
"That lady is indeed from the underworld.
She actually pretended not to hear anything, and said she is going to tell the underworld law I am a good boy if I work for her obediently ..."
Then he looked at his birthday gifts that were completely oblivious to what just happened and said,
"Can you believe it?
She tried to scam a 3-year-old!
Not only that,
She even forced me to sign a contract to give her my birth treasure, Lubo, when my deal is done with it!
And for what?
Just for one-time use of her gate to Hunters Mainland..."
Lubo was going to ask how he could be fooled so easily, but remembered that the deal was actually getting more and more lengthy.
The other side of the contract was going to wait for close to eternity, probably to get her hands on it...
Lubo wondered who scammed whom in reality.
It was a victim of this kid's scam too...
Not understanding what Little Mortal was saying,
The backpack trembled.
Little Mortal looked over and said,
"By Hunters Mainland, I mean our enemy mainland.
The one that outsiders are originating from."
The birth treasures were at a loss,
How did you already find a way to go there?>
Little Mortal scratched his head,
"My Passive Fate skill triggered?>
The birth treasures,
<-_->
...
Back in Hunters Mainland.
A while ago, when the 'Underworld Gate' appeared in the depths of the lava sea,
In no time, the vulture who received the news arrived in front of the open gate.
The same 'cool-looking' vulture with the crown of bones and special effects that Little Mortal ignored.
This vulture was Krevaris, the Fractured Watcher, and the hidden manager of this mainland.
In normal circumstances, the managers would rarely show themselves to the creatures of their lands.
It was only in the face of higher-level entities like themselves that they were forced to come out.
Opposite of a certain planet whose little guardian would see its managers as real managers,
In reality, they all preferred to act as if they were 'gods' or 'Heaven's Will'.
And now one of them, a newly promoted Level 10 manager, was floating in the lava sea, looking at the Underworld Gate while vigilant.
The other side of this gate was the home of a feared and dreadful entity.
The Queen of Hell, Lilith the Infernal.
In reality, no one had any interaction with this scary Queen.
She was down there in the underworld, and they were up here in the world above.
There was a representative of judgment law on their side,
And there was a gate to receive the sinners on the other side.
This close yet distant relationship was fine for normal mainlands.
But for evil mainlands, which weren't evil at the start, but if they devoured universes and mainlands,
Then they would be one; this relationship was different after they advanced to Level 9.
At that point, the mainland's existence itself would be counted as a 'sinner' judged by world law, because for its advancement, it could only bring destruction to other mainlands.
World law, even though not sentient, had its own rules.
At the core of these rules was actually a simple concept.
If your existence is beneficial to the world's development, then you can stay.
But if your existence isn't beneficial, and even harmful, some privileges that you already have will be taken away from you, and you might even face different difficulties and restrictions.
And when it comes to higher beings,
If you are a sinner, your place is in the underworld,
Simple as that.
And if you have too many sinners in your Mainland, then the underworld can come up to you and clean up the sinners.
That's why every evil mainland, which knew they would be in the 'sinners' category' after they advanced to Level 9, would cut off every connection they had with the underworld at Level 8.
The representative of judgment law was the first that needed to be 'erased', and after that the law of judgment itself.
The only thing that they couldn't get rid of easily was the 'lava sea' and the original gate from the underworld in there.
But because they had already cut ties with the other side, no one could come up from there to make trouble for them.
And if they came, the world law of their 'zone', which was on their side no matter what, would react immediately.
So the gate was basically useless.
Until today, the vulture, Krevaris, had suddenly seen it open and was so scared that it came here personally.
It thought the Queen of hell is going to come up somehow and 'clean up' the sinners personally.
World law in each zone wasn't a force that could stop the invasion of a Level 10 creature if they ignored the backlash.
The only good thing that gave it confidence was the 'reason' that the other party needed to come here.
They already cut ties for so long, and with no connection, there shouldn't be any 'reason' either.
So it just waited there to see why she suddenly opened a gate here after billions of years?
But nothing happened, and even the gate closed again after it asked what the other party wanted.
However, to be sure, it stayed there on guard.
At this moment, its Mainland was after an important prey, which was known by two other Level 10 mainlands too.
But in this contest, Hunters mainland was a lot closer to the target and even had some insiders there.
So it needed to keep this distance and be the first to catch up with it.
It knew whoever takes the speedy mainland,
Will be the one with the upper hand in the future.
After reaching Level 10, the mainlands could actually feel each other's existence.
What was the reason?
Maybe because world law didn't want to let them target the weaker mainlands, and be vigilant of each other to slow them down in their path of growth.
Either way, with gaining 'speed', this problem would be gone for them.
They could catch any prey if they were stronger and flee if they weren't.
After a couple of hours waiting,
The vulture suddenly felt something and looked at the ground.
Or to be exact, it was looking at the other side of the mainland.
At this moment, a black lightning actually came out of a space crack and hit a group of Level 7 commanders under its command!
In here, all Level 6 creatures were soldiers,
Level 7 creatures were commanders,
And the Level 8 Lord was the spokesman of the 'God'.
And this so-called God was the vulture itself.
Seeing 10 of its commanders turn to ashes in a moment,
The vulture flapped its wings and reached the other side in no time.
The Lord arrived a moment before it.
But as soon as the vulture sat down on the Lord's shoulder, another black lightning shot out of the crack!
This time, the vulture itself was the target.
Seeing the assault, the vulture knew that Lilith had fooled it.
She first baited it to the Gate, killed its commanders, and now that it took the second bait, the real attack arrived!
So the vulture used every support it could get from the mainland and tried to resist the attack that was already in front of its face.
To keep its head intact, the vulture focused everything on its beak and caught the lightning.
But the force behind it was unstoppable and took the vulture away alongside the Lord while the lightning's high temperature started 'cooking' them both.
It didn't even take one minute, and the vulture was already in outer space, looking at its mainland, which was being carried by the universes in front.
If that were all, it would still be fine.
But no.
It suddenly saw the mainland, which was moving in one direction like a burning meteorite, start spinning!
How could the mainland start spinning while being pulled away with close to a hundred thousand universes?
That was basically impossible!
Others couldn't see.
But the vulture, as the mainland's manager,
Could see all the 'invisible lines' which were connected from each universe to the higher being of that universe on the mainland's ground.
It was like thousands of ropes pulling a carriage.
What would happen if the carriage started spinning all of a sudden?
Either the ropes would break, or they would wrap around the 'carriage'.
And in their case,
All the ropes actually broke, and after losing the last line of resistance, which were the ropes,
The mainland that was forced to suddenly rotate for some reason started spinning even faster!
At this point, a certain little troublemaker was already gone and didn't see his handiwork.
The spinning force of the mainland actually became so fast after he was gone that its gravitational force couldn't keep the things on its surface anymore, and all those thousands of castles, all the creatures on the surface, and whatever else that wasn't part of the Hunters Mainland launched into space!
It was like when you come home from a rainy day and spin your umbrella to have fun watching the water droplets shoot everywhere!
Seeing this scene of total mess, the vulture wished that it was over.
But no.
Now that the universes pulling the mainland lost their connection with it, all of the already tired higher beings were being pulled away by their universes to random directions depending on when they were separated from the mainland...
If a certain little guardian were here,
He might point at the current mainland and say,
"Look, it's bald now!"
Either way,
The manager could only helplessly watch while being carried away by the lightning that it couldn't let go of, or its head would be the price.
In its anger,
It could only shout,
"Lilith!
What have you done!"
In the middle of this mess,
The vulture didn't know that a certain eye-patched bearded soldier called Galaxar, whose universe wasn't even part of the Hunters mainland, disappeared for a couple of seconds, and reappeared again.