"Lord, You are the endless source of light in this world, the ruler of the Primordial Fire, and all living beings bask in the glory of the Sun..."

The devout and solemn prayer quietly echoed at the mountaintop.

Centered around the Pope, the thousands of believers of the Sun Church respectfully knelt on the ground, eyes closed, following and chanting praises in concentric circles around the Pope.

This was the Sun Church's final ritual.

The moment the ritual started, it was destined to be uninterrupted.

Even the Pope and the believers were unable to stop it by themselves. Should anyone attempt to disrupt the ritual or slay the believers, they would only hasten the arrival of the Sun Lord's True Body.

This was true for the final rituals of all Churches.

It was as if the Divine Entities were eagerly initiating the descent of their True Bodies.

In fact, only the Pope, who presided over the final ritual, knew the truth—that as the leader of the ritual, he would receive blessings and awards from the Divine, with enhancements to both spiritual power and lifespan.

This was why one who had been an Archbishop, upon becoming Pope, seemed ever more transcendent.

After a full twenty minutes passed, perhaps the Pope felt it was about time, and finally—

"...Great Sun Lord, Your devout believers have paved a heavenly staircase with endless Gold for You, cleansed the path with their hot, sincere blood, and we pray for Your Descent here, only wishing for You to personally burn away the darkness and evil of this world to nothingness!"

The Pope's voice echoed atop the summit, as if he was declaring, or likewise sentencing.

In that instant, the mound of Gold on the summit completely disappeared.

Within a thousand miles of Yihai City, the Essence of heaven and earth became chaotic at this moment, rushing over like a tidal wave, as if the heavens and earth trembled, and boundless Essence surged over, converging to a single point, madly coalescing.

Finally—

"Boom!!"

The sky and earth seemed to tremble, and the endless, blazing flames instantly shrank into a point.

Then, a figure emerged from the flames.

He was a man clad in dazzling Gold armor, as brilliant as the sun, with golden short hair, a face so perfect it didn't seem human, and eyes like the blazing sun, too intense to look directly at. The endless pressure he emitted made heaven and earth submit.

"Ah... the great Sun Lord has descended!"

"Great Lord!"

"The True God... has descended!"

At that moment, the believers atop the mountain prostrated themselves excitedly and fervently, not daring to look directly at the Divine's True Face, only pressing their foreheads tightly to the ground.

The Pope also finally knelt down, facing the Sun Lord, lowering his head, and said in a trembling voice, "Great Lord!"

In the distant peaks, powerful Contractors from various factions also noticed this extraordinary upheaval. Even at distances of tens to hundreds of miles, unable to see the Divine's true face, they could feel the terrifying pressure as though the world was collapsing.

The Butcher Sect, Holy Blood Sect, Gu God Sect, Witch God Sect... even Contractors from the homeland of True Emptiness had arrived early for this day.

Some came to investigate, some to gauge the Sun Church's power, others following the will of the Divine Entities behind them... In any case, at this moment, countless Contractors had already reached the vicinity and witnessed this scene.

"The Churches of the West Continent are indeed exceptional, able to summon the True Divine to descend!"

"True God... Is this a True God?"

"This is the first time in my life witnessing the complete Divine Descent of a True God."

"Too terrifying... Even if my Church exhausts everything to summon just a fragment of the True Body, it would likely be of little consequence in the face of the Divine's True Body..."

"With the Sun Lord's True Body descending, Lin Yue is surely doomed."

"Lin Yue hasn't begun the Divine Summoning yet; it's too late now, he's a dead man."

"Alas, what's the use of summoning a part of the Divine True Body?"

"After all, it's a god without a name, a sect of one individual... bound not to make a splash..."

"He's doomed."

The Contractors from all sides were well aware of the terror that came with the descent of a Divine's True Body. The descents recorded in history marked battles among Divines, yet now one had come just to deal with a Mortal who was unable to summon the True Divine?

That Mortal was certainly doomed.

"Finally..."

The Sun Lord stood aloft, glancing over the believers indifferently, not uttering a word, and then, with a single step, he instantly appeared in the sky above a courtyard in Yihai City.

In the courtyard, a young man sat on a recliner, drinking tea.

The vast pressure, like the sun itself, spread all around, enough to make all living beings instinctively fear and fall to their knees.

"Ignorant Mortal."

The Sun Lord looked at the other party expressionlessly, not in a hurry to turn him to ash, just indifferently asking, "You seem a bit special. Why does the scent of the god you worship feel so similar to you?"

Contractors or believers are merely Mortals with physical eyes after all, sensing life's aura by instinct. But he, as a transcendent being, naturally saw it at first glance.

If it were just about killing, he would have noticed this Mortal hadn't initiated the Divine Descent ritual the moment he descended, and could have incinerated him with just a thought. Why descend in person?

However, this dull and ignorant Mortal, not even realizing that the final ritual had been triggered, did not deserve to be taken by surprise.

As a Divine Entity, he naturally needed to descend with divine authority, to make the believers even more devout.

He was ready—

After his question was asked, he would give this ignorant Mortal a chance to summon the Divine Descent, then uprightly obliterate both the summoned part of the Divine True Body and him together!