"We here."

  Kang spoke up as they arrived at a slow-flowing river, with an old city's ruins stretching upwards on both banks. The town was surprisingly free of overgrown vegetation, and the stone buildings were still standing. Some of them were indeed reduced to rubble by now, but those that the gorils frequented were in surprisingly good shape. Over the river, two stone bridges still stood in stable condition, making it easy to cross over the wide river.

  On the opposite side of the group, after stepping into their home, stood a massive cathedral, still standing firmly, defying the countless years, and it may have helped its survival that the gorils kept their neighborhood clean and proper. Ren could see the south portal of the cathedral, how its rose-tinted windows were long gone, broken in who knew when, and how only the structure's frame remained. The decoration on its walls and arches showed the erosion of time more than anywhere else, as most of the small carvings were already unrecognizable. Its two giant, almost 20-meter-tall spires at the west portal still stood, but their tops were missing many pieces and were close to colpse.

  "It's a pretty serene pce," Isha spoke up, surprised as many gorils approached them, looking at them curiously but keeping their guard up, yet still more friendly than the chimpanzees were.

  Seeing that Kang brought them here made the tribe, which numbered around eighty apes, more accepting than it would have been if they had arrived separately.

  "Yeah," Zern nodded, "it's calm and feels peaceful, especially with the sound of the gently rushing river."

  “Only their eyes… carry too much pain…” Anya sighed, completely sympathizing with the female gorils, seeing their expressions that showed just as much emotion as a human's.

  "Hey… you okay?" Leinor whispered, who stood beside Ren, holding her by the shoulders. "Ren?"

  Soon, the others noticed something was wrong with her... As soon as she stepped near the vilge, her steps became wobbly, then she froze, her breathing speeding up as she was drenched in her own sweat.

  "What's wrong?" Anya rushed up to her, checking her forehead, fearing the curse was real and that it would affect her daughter; it would be disastrous.

  "Nothing… Don't any of you feel it?" Ren gulped, trying to regain her footing. Seeing no one react and only looking at each other, clueless, even Kang and Shaman became curious about what was happening. "You were right!" Ren sighed as she straightened herself, revolving her energies to combat against the feeling she tched onto. Seeing her do that, Leinor unconditionally pumped his own energy inside her, stroking her back gently as Ren looked at Shaman. "This pce is cursed."

  "See? I told you." He smiled triumphantly.

  "Ren…" Anya asked with concern, but she just shook her head.

  "It's not like what you think. If you move out, you will be fine." Ren turned towards Kang, who immediately tried to say it did not work before, but Ren only continued, "You need to recuperate for a decade or so, though. But you will be fine! Your souls are the ones that are being damaged, but not too much... Yet. It will heal on its own if you keep out of here. But... Give it another few hundred years, and you, too, will get to a point where you start to show the symptoms the young ones did and then... die. It would be too te to move by then." She added seriously, looking into Kang's eye.

  "Why… youngs… die?" Kang asked, mulling over her words.

  "They have weak souls, not strong enough yet." Ren expined softly, "It is the same with the babies; before their souls can settle in their bodies, they get destroyed… and all of your females' souls are damaged; it's like trying to hold water in a conder. It won't work."

  "What about you? And the others? We should leave!" Anya urged even more, listening to her.

  "How you know, little human?" Kang asked with a serious expression.

  "She always had special sensing abilities," Leinor added, standing between her and the goril.

  "Yeah, Master came up with a new cultivation system by herself. Questioning her wouldn't-" Poli answered with an annoying voice, but Ren raised her hand.

  "A few days or weeks won't affect us." Ren expined to her mother before turning towards Kang, "It takes years to take effect. The worst part is… the souls here won't just be destroyed. They are broken down then… consumed."

  "Consumed?" Shaman asked with surprise. "By who? Or what?"

  "I felt a presence under us." She added, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as her small mouth moved around, like when someone tasted a fine wine. In the end, she smacked her lips, then gulped a little and continued speaking, "There is a dead god under us."

  Her words were quiet and calm, especially after she reopened her eyes, revealing a collected, indifferent expression. Still, deep within, question marks bubbled up continuously, as this was something she never thought would happen or that she would encounter. How... can this be real? How can there be a dead god buried here? There... there was one whom he knew not about?! How... how can that be?!

  "A god?" Feynor whispered, furrowing his brows as others mulled over her word.

  At first, most of them wanted to dismiss it as mere imagination, especially since they felt nothing amiss. Only Leinor was standing behind her, holding her shoulders, supporting her with a small smile, reassuring her that he believed everything she said.

  "What do you mean by a dead god?" Feynor asked, "This is not the first time you mention gods, as you did the same when we discovered the first demonic crystal."

  "I studied… a lot of legendaries." Ren expined after thinking a little, "Old ones, from the dawn of mankind, back from the old, old times. Even from the ancient days where little to no accurate records remain, up to ten thousand years ago…" She said, choosing her words carefully as she wouldn't want to try to expin that this was her second life, especially not before her mother.

  "We have a whole library at home." Anya shrugged, "Ren always asked us to bring books; she ate them like candies. Xendar even bought those written in a nguage nobody could read, and many were brought over by Leinor."

  "I remember my father mentioned that even General Xendar borrowed copies of the oldest reliquias. Then I took over and borrowed anything she wanted." Leinor giggled, musing that nobody saw Ren as a bookworm; only he knew that, most of the time, they rexed, lying next to each other, and that Ren always held a book in her hands, fully immersed in it.

  "Hehe, you even stole some for me~!" She leaned back against him, "Anyway… let me expin." She turned serious again as she collected her thoughts. "Note that most of this is just… my conjecture." She began, looking around herself, but she knew this was the truth, as this was how, in her previous life, she, or he, had climbed to godhood. "Back in the old days, there were cultivators, too, but not as many as now. If one in ten people has an affinity to cultivate today, it was one in ten million back then. Or worse... The air cked the energy, the same thing that is now permeating throughout our world. Back then, only those born special could cultivate, and even then, it was... not like today. That's why there are legends and legendary heroes. Those truly existed, yes... and were cultivators of the past. You can see the simirities if you check their feats and compare them to those of nowadays."

  "Then how did they cultivate?" Feynor asked, wholly engrossed in her story, excitedly following her train of thought, already seeing the connections himself.

  "As I said, only those born special had any chance. Like…” Ren thought back to her previous life's hazy, very distant memories, but the others only thought she was thinking up a genuine example: "Like having a body that could consume heat and convert it to energy. Then every heat source would supply it with energy, be it fire, va, or the burning sun. Still, it wouldn't be easy, as the amount needed to cultivate is enormous yet small. I mean… take in too much, and you die. Take in too little; it's ineffective. Figuring out the ever-changing amount needed is hard work, and even those special ones may fail to thrive in the long run. Maybe he would need to consume such a quantity that he would turn the pce around him into a frozen death nd, or just freeze his enemies into icicles as he absorbs their bodies' heat, killing them. You get the gist of it." She smiled at the others. "Still, as this process repeats, the user's ability and body form a crystal from the energy flowing into their bodies. Simir to what demon folk have in their brains."

  "This is why you found it? You know what you are looking for!" Feynor said, surprised, snapping his fingers."

  "It was a guess." She nodded, "I had my theories, and they proved to be right. Still, it has differences! Especially in power levels. Or why would we call them gods, and why wouldn't the demons trample us all with ease?" She giggled while Shaman rolled his eyes, yet he was listening intently, crouching down, scribbling away on a rough skin with a kind of charcoal pencil.

  "You little say, human god dead, under our feet? Eat us?" Kang murmured, cracking his knuckles.

  "Let me finish!" Ren excimed, "When those… 'heroes' back then formed their cores, it came from their special bodies. They formed it depending on their abilities, carrying a different attribute every time… if you check the old stories about the so-called deities, they vary and are prevalent for a few centuries before being repced by other so-called gods."

  "I see…" Feynor spoke, "You say those stories tell the life of a cultivator until their death?"

  "Yes." Ren nodded. "How long can a Harmony realm expert live? We don't know yet, since they're new, no? Nobody knows if they can live for a few thousand years or eternally. But I wouldn't put my money on the tter. The same goes for the old heroes. They weren't gods; they were powerful cultivators who lived for centuries. Their energy core supplemented them with power and gave them a long life. Probably, they had even different… csses of cores. Some may have called themselves gods or demigods back then and paraded around mortals, enjoying the power they held over them."

  "But what about the gods mentioned in the diary? Or the one who is worshiped back in our Empire by the mortals?" Zern asked after a long silence. "If I remember correctly, they were popur even before the Camity that changed everything."

  "That is what I would call true gods. The others I mentioned were only strong cultivators in their times." Ren smiled, looking around, "But they are not gods because they are omnipotent, but because their crystal reached a level, through cultivating and through sheer luck, where it reached equilibrium. That's what I call God Crystal."

  "You mentioned that name before. Can you expin it?" Feynor looked at her with evident amusement in his eyes.

  "Take it as a perfect core." She nodded, "One that not just consumes or converts energy but also produces it. It can keep the host alive... forever. It sustains their body, heals it, and powers them when they need it. A being that is not just strong but does not age? Does it not change? Now that I can call a God. He will be there, even when all the strong cultivators die of old age. Of course, this is nothing but only my theory, only that, I have a strong feeling I am right~!" Ren giggled innocently, putting on a smile, making them realize what she was talking about, but she had not had any concrete proof until now.

  The only ones who still looked at her with profoundly shocked and thinking expressions were Shaman, Feynor, and Anya, while Leinor's eyes were utterly peaceful. The others may just consider it an extraordinary, legendary tale worth thinking about; for Leinor, it was all facts, because it came from her mouth.

  "This does not say why young die. Expin human." Kang came before her, crouching closer to Ren's tiny face.

  "How do you kill a god? " If my theory is correct," Ren started again, gathering her thoughts first, "you must destroy the God Core. Any other option… would only be…a fake death."

  "Fake?" Kang blinked his red eyes, trying to understand her words.

  "Yup. Its core can gather energy and rebuild as long as it is intact. Even if the whole body is destroyed, it can regrow itself. The other option is to destroy the soul of a God. But wouldn't it be linked with the core? What if he hides inside his core? Even a damaged soul can regenerate given enough time... And with a God Core, time is of no importance."

  "Wait…" Shaman murmured, realizing what she was implying. "You say a dead god's soul is down below us, consuming theirs to rebuild its own?"

  "Something like that." She nodded, "But it's just my theory, based on the feeling my soul got after I walked over the threshold of this town... We need to find it to see if I'm right or just spewing bullshit." She grinned cheekily, winking at them.

  As a response, Kang watched her with an intense expression before pcing his giant hand on her head.

  "You smart. You right, I protect. You cure tribe, I serve. Help us. Please."

  "Ahaha, that is why we came, no? Let's go, let us check that cathedral! I felt an overwhelming presence from there when I arrived at its proximity." Ren ughed, looking at the old church, while the others suddenly felt as if the whole city was not nearly as peaceful as before. While they neared the cathedral, Ren's thoughts were already swirling in her head.

  "What's going on… There were no more true gods back then… and I never felt this presence. But... I can't be mistaken… I felt it clearly… but I never met a sixth… There was no sixth! But this resonance is the same feeling we felt when we were near each other… damn it. Who are you...?!"