Once Anna falls in the storm, the creation of the Underworld sequence will be restricted, and by then it will be nearly impossible for Lu Yan to find a system as compatible and promising as before.

All his previous investment, all his effort, would come to nothing.

At the thought of this, the desire to escape quickly cooled, replaced by a heavy sense of responsibility and an indescribable unwillingness.

While Lu Yan's gaze flickered uncertainly and his heart was in fierce turmoil, a figure with a faint fragrance quietly approached.

Elizabeth wore only a thin silk gauze dress, her steps tracing a lazy and enticing curve.

Yet her expression was somewhat solemn as she slowly walked to Lu Yan's side, standing with him as they gazed at the starry night sky, filled with strange phenomena.

"Tonight's starry sky... is unprecedentedly bright."

She spoke softly, breaking the silence on the terrace, her voice carrying a trace of imperceptible confusion and awe, "And I always feel as if there's... something hidden behind those stars."

Hearing Elizabeth's sharp yet slightly bewildered whisper, Lu Yan forcibly steadied his tumultuous heart and withdrew his gaze from the distant stars.

Logically, as a Transcendent of the fifth sequence, Elizabeth should be far from capable of touching the Path of Heaven and Earth and understanding the essence of the stars' return.

Yet, relying on her keen queenly intuition, she discerned some traces, which made Lu Yan have a flash of thought, and he asked in a deep voice:

"Elizabeth, have you ever heard of the legend of the stars' repositioning?"

Elizabeth's delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly, her beautiful face full of confusion, and she carefully recalled, but in the end, lightly shook her head:

"I have never heard of it, and the royal library seems to have no explicit records of such astronomical phenomena regarding the stars' repositioning."

Lu Yan's heart involuntarily sank a bit more.

Elizabeth, now Queen Victoria, despite a controversial ascension to the throne, surely had access to hidden royal secrets and ancient texts far beyond ordinary people.

If even she knew nothing about the stars' repositioning, then the roots of this notion must indeed only exist among those in the high echelons of the Church who hold core secrets, or even at a higher level of existence.

He changed his question, his tone more solemn: "How much do you know about the slumber of the gods?"

"The gods?" This time, Elizabeth's expression visibly changed.

She was no longer entirely perplexed but fell into deep contemplation, seemingly searching through the vast halls of memory for any related clues.

After a moment, she slowly began to speak:

"In the old books of the royal family, records about the gods themselves are indeed very sparse, vague, and even filled with contradictions and taboos.

Even in the openly available scriptures and documents of the Seven Great Churches, descriptions of the gods are scarce, as if they were deliberately forgotten."

Her voice lowered, carrying a cautiousness unique to recounting forbidden knowledge:

"Legend has it that any attempt to directly record or probe the affairs of the gods through text or language might attract Their gaze across time and space, or even bring about a form of corruption from the conceptual level, leading to a loss of control over the Extraordinary Path and a distortion of the soul.

Therefore, only those Transcendents on the path of truth who pursue knowledge itself without fear of madness or death would deliberately seek those hidden matters related to the gods."

Elizabeth lifted her gaze to Lu Yan, a complex glint flashing in her eyes:

"During the period when I was completely out of the running for the throne, I once fell into despair and attempted to switch to a true path in the quest to find another mode of existence within the river of knowledge.

For this, I perused a large number of sealed, even forbidden, ancient texts."

"It was from the fragments of these sparse records that I seem to have glimpsed a slightly chilling truth."

Saying this, Elizabeth's expression became more solemn and serious than ever before.

Her platinum crown, symbolizing royal authority, silently emitted a layer of glowing light, spreading like a substance to form an invisible barrier, ensuring the upcoming words would not leak in the slightest.

"In some historical records spanning thousands or even more extensive time scales, I have discovered a strange phenomenon.

The strength of the Church seems to follow a cyclical pattern of prosperity and decline."

Involuntarily lowering her voice, "It seems that every once in a time so long as to be difficult to precisely calculate, the power and influence of the Seven Great Churches inexplicably wane, greatly reducing their control over the secular world.

In contrast, it is then that the power of secular royal authority grows, allowing the kingdom to breathe, develop, and even undertake some limited reforms."

"But such periods of royal strength are always short-lived, and once the mysterious period of decline is passed, the power of the Church regains its strength, once again overwhelmingly dominating, suppressing the power of the royal family back to its original position, as if nothing ever changed."

"Furthermore, the implication from those fragmentary records suggests that during each cyclical change in the Church's power, there are often revisions to its doctrines and subtle shifts in the faith of its followers."

Elizabeth's voice started to tremble slightly, as if she had thought of something extremely terrifying, "It is precisely this information that makes me think of the era we are currently in, the so-called slumber of the gods."

"Church's decline, royal family's growth, doctrinal changes, faith shifts.