Time had reverted to not long before.
The collision on the earth had just begun, Mother Earth had not yet arrived, and the Mount of the Gods remained unscathed, while the sky and the earth had not yet started to quake.
But in the Underworld, Laine's avatar, carrying the items prepared in advance, stepped out of the Spirit Realm along with the essence left by Cronus.
In fact, half a day earlier, when the flames of "The Death of the Divine King" had burned away what belonged to 'divine authority' from Cronus, the transition between epochs had already begun. As for the later burning of the remaining parts of the former Divine King, it had little to do with the epoch transition; it was merely a personal affair of Cronus, the god of time and space.
To use the past to combat the present, to use a Divine King to combat another, that was where the value of "The Death of the Divine King" lay, not just as a mere scroll of a Divine Artifact.
If Laine simply wanted a few artifact-level paintings, he could have easily created several, but only this masterpiece, born at the turn of an era and imbued with special content, possessed the same special 'symbolism'.
With its help, the power of the Divine King was stripped away and transferred to Laine's true self. However, even though he had deceived the Law as much as possible, this power was still difficult to retain in his external body for long.
Of course, Laine did not need it to last too long, the time he had was already enough to finish what he wanted to do.
Probing the rules of the modern world, increasing the restrictions on the powers of the gods of the next era, and granting the Spirit Realm 'legitimate', world-facing rights—these tasks, difficult to achieve as Lord of the Spirit Realm, could easily be accomplished under the auspices of the Divine King.
By comparison, things like endorsing the Magic Net's establishment in the modern world were minor details. After all, even without the authority of the Divine King, it was highly probable that the modern world's rules would not reject the Magic Net.
Organizing energy, clarifying chaos, these were the very activities favored by the modern world. If it weren't for the source of the Magic Net originating from the Spirit Realm, and that over the past thousands of years, it had gradually blended with the power of the Spirit Realm, it's likely that Hecate could have received the same commendation from the Law as Themis once did.
Of course, she probably wouldn't have that chance now.
Besides, aside from the serious matters, Laine also wanted to take this opportunity to experience the pleasure of suppressing the gods with force. Otherwise, he could have completed all this secretly, rather than confront the gods with his power alone, as he was doing now.
In truth, every intellectually active person has, deep down, entertained the notion of solving all problems with force.
In the midst of a whirlwind of thoughts, Laine did not linger any longer. The true self had its tasks, and the avatar had its own mission. In an instant, he and Cronus appeared in a familiar place.
The boundary between the Underworld and the Abyss, the portal between the modern world and the realm beyond. The chaotic rules were evident here, with up and down inverted, left and right switched, everything seemed incomprehensible.
This was the most terrifying interface among the realms beyond the world, a collection left over from the creation of the world, the source of all chaos, the Bottomless Abyss, Tartarus.
Laine had only recently witnessed Zeus and his two brothers entering and exiting this place, and Cronus also had some understanding of it. After all, as an eternal prison, even if it had not been used until now, the Divine King inevitably wanted to learn about it.
Especially the curse from the Heavenly Father before his death, which had hinted that this was supposed to be his destined end.
"Your future new home, it doesn't look too bad, does it?"
He cracked a joke casually, Laine actually didn't mind the chaos of this place that much.
Unlike the deities of the modern world, the Spirit Realm was inherently a place where chaos and order coexisted. Even though Laine himself preferred the latter, he accepted the former as well.
Thus, the Spirit Realm became increasingly chaotic from the outside going in, but the core, Mount Sinai, was the anchor that supported everything.
"If it were before, I definitely couldn't have accepted it, after all, my divine body and Godhood were incompatible with this place."
"But now, with only my innate essence of immortality left, I actually don't feel any aversion to this place."
Comparing his past and present feelings, Cronus had to admit that the modern world had an unceasing influence on the gods. Even though they themselves were unaware, Godhood was subtly changing their thoughts.
However, once stripped of everything bestowed by the modern world, this influence was also isolated. If Chaos can be considered a whole, then the modern world was only its most significant part, not the entire entity. Therefore, standing here, the former Divine King felt no excessive sense of rejection.
Since the dawn of the world, the will of Chaos had been expressed in only three places. The first was the warning that resonated through the world when the Spirit Realm was created, the second was the birth of the immortal essence of the gods, and the last was speculated to have occurred at the very beginning of creation, before the Primordial Gods were born.
Beyond that, divine phenomena like the creation of the Divine King's authority, and even the deity's Godhood and divine bodies, were products below the order of the modern world.
Outside the modern world, like Laine's Spirit Realm—though the symbol of authority, the Multifaceted Crystal, is also called Godhood—in strict terms, it's not a structure, so sometimes, its own creator refers to it as Deity.
"Let's go, don't waste time. The epoch transition is just a moment."
Laughing, Laine took the lead into the boundary between the Abyss and the Underworld.
"If you're concerned about the lack of time, couldn't you have fought a bit longer above?"