People in this world hold a strange sense of reverence toward certain areas like the Northern Frontier Forbidden Zone, the Forbidden Forest of the West, and the Sea of Recklessness in the South. It's similar to how they feel about divine veins. Deep in their minds, they believe these places are forbidden lands set by the gods, and anyone who enters will die without leaving a complete body behind.
That is why even the powerful matriarchal nations of the East, including the top-tier Freesia Kingdom, never venture deep into the sea. Despite having the strongest naval forces in the world, strong enough to make the other top nations avoid maritime conflict, they still steer clear of the deep seas.
Several months ago, Elara personally sent a warship deep into the southern seas to explore.
Since entering the southern sea, the warship hadn't encountered any other civilized nations. All along the route, they only found countless islands rich in rare treasures. Sometimes these islands were inhabited by primitive tribes.
But the warship was loaded with advanced weapons, and every crew member had been handpicked by Elara as top elites. So those tribes posed no threat to them.
The ship's recorder documented each of the treasure-filled islands before they continued sailing further south.
That same night, after receiving all the messages from the two ships, Elara stayed up late working. She used the rough world map from the System to sketch a detailed map of a vast region deep within the South Sea.
As she studied the map, she suddenly felt it looked strangely familiar.
Elara stared at the map she had just drawn, eyes narrowed in deep thought. Then she closed her eyes and let her consciousness sink inward toward the translucent Divine Tree inside her.
Compared to before, the Divine Tree had grown a lot larger. This was mainly because Elara had used the Divine Mirror to take control of the man in a wheelchair from the Dark Sky Palace, killed the man with the mechanical arm, and looted many high-level divine treasures from them.
Using the "One Key One Lock" totem, she unlocked a batch of high-level stone tablets and divine charms, which gave her a lot of mysterious energy.
One item in particular stood out, the golden Divine Tower held by the wheelchair man. It could grow or shrink at will and gave her more energy than even the seven top-tier divine items she had once obtained from the Divine Ruins.
The System's evaluation of the Divine Tower was also extremely high.
[Eternal Tower (Ancient Form)]
[Grade: Top-tier divine artifact]
[Description: This is a defense artifact that can change size. Its six-sided defensive power exceeds your imagination. With over 95 percent of its original function intact, only some small areas are slightly damaged. This might weaken corner defense at odd angles, but as long as it receives enough energy, it will never disappoint on any battlefield. Especially in this ancient world, unless someone finds a weapon that targets its specific weak spots, you can safely rest inside and rule from the tower. Nothing will break through its defense walls.]
[Special Feature]:
[Absolute Divine Shield] – With enough energy, it can form any size of absolute defense space. Everything inside remains in perfect safety.
[Energy]: Currently at 30 percent. The larger the defense space, the faster the energy drains. This is likely its biggest and only flaw.
Besides the [Eternal Tower], the mechanical arm from the other man was also an extremely powerful offensive artifact.
[Meteor Cannon (Ancient Form)]
[Grade: High-tier divine artifact]
[Description: This seems to be a part detached from something larger. It's slightly damaged, with only half its function remaining. But even so, it remains a dominant weapon in this ancient era. It can fire an endless barrage of intense laser blasts like a meteor shower. Unless the target has top-level lightness skills and divine artifacts for deflection, speed, or defense, anyone it locks onto will likely die.]
[Special Feature]:
The Death Meteor Shower weapon could release highly powerful laser blasts in a rapid and continuous rain-like pattern, using only a small amount of energy. Because its energy system was only slightly damaged, it could still absorb and convert energy on its own very effectively. Even in more advanced civilizations, it remained a fierce weapon with strong firepower.
Energy status: self-regenerating and transforming well, with 60 percent remaining.
These two items stripped from the Dark Sky Palace members were both extremely powerful artifacts.
Besides them, the man in the wheelchair and the man with the mechanical arm also carried other medium to high-level artifacts, and Elara planned to absorb all of them too.
The divine rune energy in these artifacts caused the translucent "Divine Tree" inside her to grow several more large fruit.
From the fruits, map fragments spilled out and were gradually pieced together by her. Combined with the pieces she had already collected, a rough terrain outline had begun to appear.
But since there were still too few pieces, Elara hadn't found the corresponding location, even after comparing with the System's basic world map, so she had always left it aside.
Until today, as she looked at the sketch her people had drawn of the South Sea area, Elara suddenly thought it looked somewhat similar to the fragmented map.
She stared at the vague and broken map in her mind, then used her consciousness to recreate the sea map just drawn, and roughly compared the two.
Surprisingly, the basic lines in both maps actually seemed to match.
Could it be that the final destination of the map fragments was somewhere at sea?
If that were the case, it would explain why she couldn't find a similar location no matter how hard she searched inland before.
Now that she had a general idea of the map fragment's possible location, Elara couldn't verify anything yet. She would have to wait for the exploration warship in the South Sea to return before taking further action.
Besides the map fragments and the Tower of Eternity, the man in the wheelchair from the Dark Sky Palace was still under the control of her Divine Mirror.
Back when she searched him, she had actually found a medium to high-level artifact on him that could bounce back all forms of harm and control.
However, under the "attack" of the Divine Mirror, that artifact became completely useless.
Elara had asked the System about this. The System guessed that the Divine Mirror's control strength likely far exceeded that of medium to high-level artifacts, otherwise that defense item would not have been so easily pierced through.
But the cost of using the Divine Mirror was enormous. One use required sacrificing twenty years of life.
Ordinary people, even high nobles of first-class nations, couldn't afford to use it. Only Elara, who possessed tens of thousands of points in national fate energy that could be converted into life, could afford to use it without worry.
So while the Divine Mirror was powerful, to most others, it still only counted as a medium to high-level artifact.
Elara found the System's explanation very reasonable. Thinking of how useful this prize she had taken from Salvia Kingdom turned out to be, she pulled out the Divine Mirror again for further study.
Aside from all this, Elara had also questioned the man in the wheelchair about everything he knew during their journey back.
Unfortunately, the internal secrecy within the Dark Sky Palace was very strict. Even though he took part in this operation, he had no idea what the final purpose behind it was.
After bringing Sindri into the carriage, Elara asked why he had sneaked into her backyard before. Sindri said it was because the leader of the Lianhuang Sect, the woman Elara had seen at the Nanshui Flower House that day, believed something connected to a deep divine secret was buried in the southwest of the continent, in Plumera Kingdom's territory.
That was why she sent him to investigate.
Sadly, Sindri hadn't brought back any useful information. In fact, he had even turned on her in a way.
Elara remembered how she had first activated the divine rune on her first stone plate, the one she had taken from the divine temple in Plumera Kingdom, thanks to a totem marking Sindri had left behind.
That marking's path matched about a third of the totem symbol she now had, the one labeled "one key, one lock."
She asked Sindri where he had learned the marking. He said the woman, the Lianhuang Sect leader, had given it to him.
He wasn't too interested in digging further at the time, so he hadn't explored its deeper origins, only that it might be linked to both the Dark Sky Palace and the Divine Attendant Palace.
From him, Elara got some additional clues. But the Dark Sky Palace and Divine Attendant Palace were both top-level powers in the world.
Even though the Divine Attendant Palace had publicly wiped out the Dark Sky Palace, recent events still showed the latter's influence.
It even seemed like the massive force known as the Yellow Spring Hall was only one branch under it. This meant the Dark Sky Palace still lurked in the shadows and hadn't truly been destroyed.
Just as Elara was reflecting on the relationships between the Lianhuang Sect, the Divine Attendant Palace, the Dark Sky Palace, and the Yellow Spring Hall, a palace servant came to report.
The master of Lianyi Pavilion, Sylvan, had an urgent matter and invited her into the building for a talk.