Wait, I haven't made my wish yet!

Ethan was still in a frozen state, only his sight and consciousness had started to flow again. He could only see "Lindong" moving up close, making strange gestures and muttering bizarre words he couldn't comprehend.

"No, you've already made your wish."

"Lindong," as though reading his mind, decisively said, "Your wish was for a gentle, elegant, and beautiful wife with white hair and red eyes. That wish has already been fulfilled."

It was granted from the very beginning.

Besides the matter of making wishes, as a summoned deity, she naturally had other official duties to attend to. "As the victor of this duel, the winner can strip the loser of everything."

Her gaze moved past Ethan to the halted flow of liquid gold, where the King of Gold was. Once his powers and blessings were taken away, he returned to a mortal state, and the moment he fell into the Golden Pool as a regular person, his fate was sealed.

"His powers and everything he ruled over will become your spoils."

"Lindong" unilaterally declared the outcome of the duel. The body of the King of Gold continued to melt, time frozen at the brink of his death, with his consciousness liberated to endlessly reexperience the melting of both flesh and soul.

He had once made countless beings experience such a fate.

The Divine Artifacts of the Golden Kingdom, and those spoils from various dimensions—now, it was the King of Gold's turn.

It seemed the King of Gold still had much he wanted to say.

His fragmented consciousness struggled in the Golden Pool, perhaps wanting to question the Goddess on the reasons for her actions, believing everything he did was to maintain dimensional stability, to prevent anyone from inheriting Merlin's legacy and repeating past mistakes. In his eyes, there was no more loyal Believer than himself, yet the Goddess treated him this way.

Even with his vision lost, those empty eye sockets remained fixed on the altar above, hoping for an explanation, even as his soul was about to be extinguished.

"To maintain the dimensions' trajectory is to await someone's arrival in the future."

Somewhere in the void, the King of Gold seemed to hear such a whisper, "My wish has come true."

After that, only total darkness and solitude followed.

He raised his right hand to grasp something, but before his arm could extend out of the Golden Pool, nothing was left. The soul born from a desire for wealth ultimately became part of the gold.

Ethan stood at the edge of the steps, the searing heat gone, the bubbling calm, within the pool filled with gold there was nothing left.

He knew Song Xian had already disappeared.

This temple, built by the King of Gold, had been constantly traversing the chaotic flow of time to welcome the arrival of the Goddess. He had succeeded in awakening the Goddess, letting Her "gaze" descend briefly in that fleeting moment.

As a conspirator, the King of Gold had realized his plan, only encountering a fate like this due to a misjudgment in his understanding of the Goddess.

But on the other hand, Ethan also felt firsthand the unbridgeable chasm between the Goddess and the King of Gold.

It wasn't a battle. The Goddess simply and effortlessly took back a portion of the King of Gold's powers, causing the omnipresent liquid gold to instantly become his adversary.

If there was anything more to say, at most he could utter something like, "I probably will never forget you," as a victory declaration.

But Ethan's doubts hadn't been resolved. The moment time began to flow once more, the Goddess vanished without a trace before his eyes, as if everything that happened during the frozen time had been nothing but an illusion.

Except... there was a certain dampness on his lips, leaving traces of being kissed.

She couldn't stay here long.

Otherwise, it would trigger unpredictable changes. But they would meet again one day, when he remembered this world and everything else. She waited for a long time, and a little more waiting wouldn't matter.

Though it seemed like riddles, Ethan knew once time began to flow again that Her words were true.

The space around the altar twisted together, as if several unrelated dimensions were stacked upon each other. If She lingered in this world any longer, everything around would collapse from Her energy. In fact, Old An and Old Ba had both mentioned this.

They could not reveal themselves in their true form, or it would drive those who face them insane. They couldn't descend into this world, or it would cause unpredictable destruction.

Thus, among humans, the first group of divine elects appeared, entering what was called the "Era of Stage Plays" orchestrated by the Old Gods.

And now, Ethan came to a different understanding.

Perhaps this world, at its inception, placed restrictions on the concept of "gods," or maybe it was still an unfinished work, with the existence of the Old Gods filling the incomplete void.

The King of Gold was named Song Xian, a tomb raider, originally a member of the pioneering team.

This was the information he gleaned from those fractured memories.

He was employed by the big boss behind a casino, sent here.

Ethan smelled the scent of intrigue because "big boss behind the casino" wasn't a common identity in the real world. After all, where he lived, running a casino was a serious crime on its own. From Song Xian's memories, at least, it proved he was also guilty of "usury," "organized crime," and other offenses.