Chapter 464: Dawn Domain

"Let's go." Su Mu stepped forward and walked deeper into the ruins.

Chu Ying hurriedly followed. Looking at Su Mu's profile, she hesitated to speak.

"Lord Su, the people of the Dawn Domain are waiting just outside the Divine Ruins. The moment a spatial fluctuation occurs at the edge, they will immediately come over to investigate. You..."

Seeing Chu Ying's hesitant manner, Su Mu knew what she meant. She was just worried his identity as a cultist would be exposed.

"It's fine."

As soon as he spoke, a crystalline blue light flashed across Su Mu's body. His form shifted, transforming into the elderly appearance of Zhou Qiong.

Chu Ying jumped, clearly not expecting Su Mu to possess such a method.

"From now on, I am the captain of Dawn's Blade."

"Yes, Captain Zhou!"

An endless expanse of purple mist filled the edge of the Divine Ruins. This fog blocked both sight and perception, making it impossible for those outside to see what was happening within.

On a mountain peak not far away, over a dozen transcendents dressed in platinum robes embroidered with the Eye of Dawn stood waiting.

"Lord Yan, it's been a month, and Dawn's Blade still hasn't emerged from the Divine Ruins. Do you think they might..."

Yan Ming pondered for a moment. "Zhou Qiong of Dawn's Blade is an experienced God Hunter. As long as he doesn't venture into the core zone of the Divine Ruins, his strength should be enough to keep himself safe."

"Be that as it may, this is still a Divine Ruins. They vary in danger, and if they've stumbled into a powerful one, even a Saint Lord wouldn't be guaranteed an unscathed retreat..."

"Someone's coming out!" Yan Ming's gaze sharpened as he looked toward the western edge of the Divine Ruins. The boundless purple mist began to churn violently, as if something was about to break out from within.

Led by Yan Ming, the dozen-plus transcendents instantly rushed toward the churning mist.

Under their watchful eyes, a white-haired, elderly man slowly walked out of the fog. Behind him followed a woman covered in filth.

"It's Zhou Qiong!"

"Why did only the two of them come out? Is this Divine Ruins really that perilous?" someone exclaimed.

Seeing the heavy casualties Dawn's Blade had suffered, Yan Ming frowned. "Zhou Qiong, did you find anything?"

He did not seem to care about the losses of Dawn's Blade at all; he only cared about the situation inside the Divine Ruins.

Su Mu slightly raised his head and looked at Yan Ming. The man had a cold expression, carrying the haughty arrogance of someone long accustomed to a high position.

He had already learned Yan Ming's identity from Chu Ying: a trusted confidant of the Lord of Dawn and a Saint Grade powerhouse.

Su Mu shook his head, his expression composed. "It is not the Merciful Holy Mother of Myriad Blossoms."

Yan Ming's frown deepened. "Then which God is it?"

Su Mu did not answer directly. Instead, he said calmly, "Dawn's Blade suffered catastrophic losses exploring this Divine Ruins. Logically speaking, since this mission was undertaken for the Lord of Dawn, the Dawn Domain should naturally compensate us for those losses."

Yan Ming sneered. He had long heard that Zhou Qiong loved to appeal to 'reason'—it was just that his reason only ever favored himself. He hadn't expected the man to try reasoning with the Dawn Domain today.

This was clearly him deciding the original payout wasn't enough and extorting them for more.

Information regarding a Divine Ruins was indeed extremely valuable. All the major Saint Lords were willing to pay a hefty price for it. Even if the entity inside wasn't the Merciful Holy Mother of Myriad Blossoms that the Lord of Dawn sought, it could be a Divine Corpse desired by another Saint Lord.

Yan Ming wasn't surprised by Zhou Qiong extorting a higher price on the spot. The man had always been this sort of trash.

Zhou Qiong was betting that the Lord of Dawn wouldn't attack him. After all, the Lord of Dawn frequently collaborated with God Hunters. Striking him down would ruin his reputation and harm future partnerships.

"I will report your losses to the Lord of Dawn. However, you claim this isn't the Divine Ruins of the Merciful Holy Mother of Myriad Blossoms. Do you have proof? I won't just take your word for it."

Yan Ming said coldly.

Su Mu smiled faintly. With a flip of his palm, the divine taboo object, the Bronze Incense Burner, appeared in his hand. "This is a divine taboo object obtained from the Divine Ruins. It carries the aura of a different Divine Corpse. Will this suffice as proof?"

Seeing the divine taboo object, Yan Ming's expression softened slightly. "Since that's the case, follow me back to the Dawn Domain to meet the Saint Lord first."

"Let's go." Su Mu placed a hand on Chu Ying's shoulder.

Chu Ying's body stiffened slightly. She knew she was about to be used as a mode of transportation.

"Yes, Captain Zhou."

Hum!

Ripples distorted the space around them, and Chu Ying and Su Mu vanished within.

Yan Ming and the others took out a Compass-like spatial Artifact and disappeared as well.

This place was extremely far from the Dawn Domain. Even relying on spatial traversal to move, they couldn't reach it directly in one jump.

Moreover, the farther the spatial traversal, the more energy it consumed. The areas outside the Divine Ruins were not devoid of danger, so the group essentially traveled in stops and starts.

Along the way, Su Mu admired the scenery of Heaven.

He discovered that Heaven's environment wasn't inherently harsh; that was only true inside the Divine Ruins.

Of course, whether an environment was good or bad was only relative. Heaven wasn't quite as beautiful as one might imagine.

There were ancient trees towering into the clouds and mountain peaks rising in overlapping layers, but there were also desolate plains and barren deserts...

There were also the scars left behind by the war of Gods: bottomless abysses, shocking pitch-black rifts in the void, and massive ruined cities.

In some areas, even gravity had become anomalous. The broken walls and rubble of shattered cities broke free from the earth's hold and drifted in midair, as if suspended by invisible threads.

Between their spatial jumps, all sorts of miraculous sights caught Su Mu's eye, sparking his interest.

What interested him most were the divine abominations hidden in the wilderness. They varied in shape and strength, but all were once creatures of Heaven, only transforming into divine abominations after being infected by divine dead qi.

A day later, they finally arrived at the Dawn Domain.

At the end of the desolate wasteland, the Dawn Domain burst into view—a dazzling, resplendent pearl.

It consisted of magnificent, bustling city clusters that stretched as far as the eye could see. It looked like a dream kingdom established upon a barren wasteland, tightly encircled by a soft halo of light.

That halo deepened in color, transitioning from a pale gold on the outermost layer to a warm orange near the domain's edge. Like a morning sun that would never set, it emanated a vibrant vitality that stood in stark contrast to the surrounding dead silence.

Seeing this sight, Su Mu gained a general understanding of what a domain actually was.

It was a nation built by humanity upon a devastated land in the aftermath of the war of Gods.

Domains were protected by an invisible power that isolated them from the spatial turbulence, divine abominations, and divine dead qi of the outside world...

At the edge of the Dawn Domain, Yan Ming took out a Gold Token carved with the Eye of Dawn. The halo enveloping the domain instantly manifested a bridge of light, guiding the group inside.

Su Mu admired the scenery inside the Dawn Domain. His first impression was that it was spectacular. The cities here were exceedingly tall and grand, yet they were not as modernized as the Xuan Tian World.

Though there were high-rise buildings, the level of technology was at least twenty years behind that of the Xuan Tian World.

However, the number of transcendents here far exceeded that of the Xuan Tian World. Transcendents could be seen almost everywhere on the streets. At a rough estimate, the ratio of ordinary people to transcendents was about ten to one.

One transcendent for every ten ordinary people—that number was frankly terrifying.

The total number of transcendents in the Dawn Domain alone likely surpassed the combined total of the entire Xuan Tian World.

Was it because this place was closest to the Law?

Su Mu secretly pondered the reason.

As a dream, the Xuan Tian World had previously been unable to give birth to Chosen Ones independently. People had only been able to awaken as Chosen Ones by traveling to the Nightmare World.

And the Nightmare World was a world sealed by Gods. It also had a layer of separation from the Law, so even though there were Chosen Ones, their numbers weren't very high.

Heaven was the place closest to the Law, without the slightest barrier. Following that logic, it made sense that Heaven would have the highest number of transcendents.

The reason the Dawn Domain's technological level lagged behind the Xuan Tian World was precisely because transcendent power was so highly developed.

With transcendent power so highly developed, humanity naturally had no need to painstakingly develop technology.