That "sun" invading the world slowly descended—it couldn't compare to the real sun, yet it was still as massive as a small mountain, and it radiated terrifying power.

It hovered extremely close to the ground, appearing almost completely "landed" on the surface. The flames erupting from its edges licked the earth, and under its illumination, the sand and stones gradually melted, transforming into flowing lava. The air distorted in the scorching heat, creating waves above the gradually flowing rivers of magma. Large and small rocks seemed to be disturbed by an invisible power, floating around the "Sun's Spawn" like burning satellites orbiting it.

This massive "fallen sun disc" gazed with its countless cold eyes at the mortal before it, a being almost the size of dust, and repeated that concise command:

"Kneel."

That was a pressure completely different from ordinary transcendent beings or heretical individuals, a power emanating from the ancient gods—this deformed fireball was a true scion of the Black Sun, and its words alone were worth ten thousand spells and secret arts.

Vanna felt her body almost burning up, as if scorching fire was flowing through her veins, and even the air she breathed out had become part of the flames.

But she merely lowered her head and glanced at the small, brilliantly glowing sphere in her hand.

After a moment, she carefully placed it close to her body, then silently turned and walked towards the massive staff deeply embedded in the sand dune—she reached out her left hand to it, and gradually pulled it out with force, then carried it on her shoulder.

The giant's staff was too large for a mortal. Even Vanna, when carrying this staff, didn't look like she was carrying a weapon, but rather a large tree.

But she didn't care. This heavy "weapon" was just right for her.

She turned around, her right hand tightly gripping the giant sword forged from ice, her left hand firmly holding the staff on her shoulder, and calmly stared at the "sun" that had fallen to the earth.

"You refuse," the Sun's Spawn emitted a series of noise-like hisses and tremors, its thoughts directly piercing Vanna's mind. "But you must hand over that star."

The wind in the desert grew stronger, and endless gusts raged as if to engulf the entire desert, in this last gap between two worlds. In the distance, sand and dust rose in the gale, resembling towering walls of earthen yellow, slowly moving towards here.

Vanna raised her head in the gale, glanced at the other world in the sky that had stopped falling, and calmly asked, "Are you interfering with this… 'collision'?"

"You are trying to summon distant power—but no one can help you," the "sun" fallen to the earth again emitted hissing and trembling noises. "I have severed the connection between the two worlds. Now you are trapped in this desert, and no one can hear your voice. The Flame-Seizer cannot, the Leviathan Queen cannot. Resistance is futile… Hand it over, and I will let you leave."

But Vanna did not respond to the scion of the ancient god. She merely narrowed her eyes slightly in the increasingly fierce gale.

Indeed, she could no longer contact the outside, she couldn't reach the captain, nor the Storm Goddess—although the gentle sound of waves still echoed in her ears, and the mark left by the spirit fire still burned within her, she could no longer hear their "source."

The power of the two worlds colliding had been channeled into a barrier of obstruction, turning this desert into a closed cage, and the one driving all of this was clearly this… abomination.

The gale began to gather. The wall of yellow sand rising from the distance was being rolled closer and closer by the gale. It was an astonishing storm. In the accumulating power, countless grains of sand were churning and surging within that wall of yellow sand, like giant waves.

Vanna took a light breath, and ash-like matter dissipated into the air with her exhalation.

She gazed at the Sun's Spawn on the distant earth, her eyes reflecting the phantoms of storm and fire.

She lowered the giant staff from her shoulder, then strode forward, her gaze calmly fixed on that blasphemous sun—the staff and giant sword dragged long furrows across the earth, vaguely resembling a line of symbols carved into this land.

If the giant were here, he might truly carve such a sentence:

After the apocalypse, the traveler launched a charge against the invading sun.

But the giant was no longer there, and the history of this world had ended—the gale erased the long furrows left behind Vanna, and the soaring sand and dust closed in behind her like a giant curtain.

Her pace grew faster and faster, gradually turning into an unstoppable charge.

Would the Sun's Spawn be surprised? Perhaps in its entire understanding, there had never been an option like "a mortal launches a charge against a scion of the ancient gods"—but would a creature like it have human emotions?

Vanna was curious about this, but she had no way of knowing the answer. She only knew that the proud "sun" had finally reacted.

Layers of heat waves intertwined on the surface of the sun, forming a honeycomb-like light-forged plating. Flames brewed and rose in the air, and deadly sunlight burned her body, attempting to kill her on the road of her charge.

However, the sandstorm coming from the end of the earth had gradually closed around her, forming a barrier sufficient to temporarily resist that sunlight.

Vanna ran forward with all her might, and in the running, she slowly raised the giant sword and staff in her hands. She breathed in the fiery heat waves, and with each breath, ash dissipated into the air.

She felt like she was sailing through the waves.

A voice seemed to echo in her heart. She could no longer tell if it was her own voice, or the voice of the Storm Goddess or the captain. She only knew that this voice was telling her—

The sand sea is also the sea.

She was going to stir up a storm in the sea.

Because she was the saint of the storm.

In the gale, the wall of yellow sand closed in. Vanna's figure disappeared into that magnificent sandstorm, as if swallowed by the yellow sand in the blink of an eye, or as if she had merged with the gale.

Between the two colliding lands, there remained only a desert storm nearly a thousand meters high, almost connecting the two worlds, surging forward with an earth-shattering roar.

In the enormous sandstorm, a sharp arrow was raised high, and after a moment's pause, it crashed down on the invading "Sun's Spawn" like a blanket covering the sky.

Today, she would try to extinguish a sun.

The impact, seemingly capable of tearing apart the entire earth, erupted instantly.

The vast storm spanning the desert contracted into a sharp arrow, directly impacting the surface of the "sun," which constructed a magnificent corona a moment before the impact—the corona exploded in the collision, followed by a destructive scattering of matter.

The entire desert seemed to be ignited in this explosion. The terrifying fire waves instantly leveled all the nearby sand dunes and boulders, and caused those jagged rocks to melt and flow, filling the ravines and pits in the earth.

And in the great explosion of the "corona," the storm was also torn apart and dispelled. The gale suddenly turned into an unordered airflow, flowing and scattering between heaven and earth. The yellow sand that had gathered into a wall and transformed into a sharp arrow shattered in the heat waves. Part of it fell to the earth, while another part seemed to have lost gravity, being ejected between the two worlds, gathering around the upside-down Silantis like clouds.

After an unknown amount of time, the unordered wind scattered the yellow sand around the point of impact.

A gleam of light first appeared in that gradually dissipating sand and dust.

The Sun's Spawn still existed—its light had dimmed. The hastily constructed "false corona" had resisted the impact of the storm in the explosion, but it had also torn apart part of its main body. Now, its tentacles curled up and trembled abnormally within the fiery shell. A golden-red substance, like flowing flames and also like blood, seeped out from between that burning shell, floating on the surrounding lava lake, burning as it flowed.

Countless inhuman eyes turned back and forth among those convulsing tentacles, searching for the enemy's figure after the sand and dust had dissipated.

That figure appeared in front of a fan-shaped impact crater not far away.

Vanna stood there quietly, the air around her distorted in the heat waves, and the last wisp of breeze was dissipating from the tip of her long sword.

She raised her head and glanced at the distant Sun's Spawn.

The next second, her body dissipated in the wind, turning into countless fluttering ashes, lightly sprinkling the earth in the sunlight.

A small sphere emitting brilliant light fell from the air, landing on those still-hot ashes.

"...In the end, merely mortal, but worthy of respect."

The Sun's Spawn emitted a vague tremor, then slowly floated upward a little, driving an invisible force, preparing to take the "ancient star" that had fallen into the pile of ashes.

The star remained motionless.

"...Hm?"

For the first time, this scion of the ancient gods felt a slight confusion.

And the next second, a sudden gust of wind swept across the yellow sand, stirring up the ashes scattered on the earth!

Pale green fire slowly emerged in those ashes, then burned fiercely almost in the blink of an eye. Some chaotic, nameless light and shadow swept across the ashes, transforming into a illusory form as if reconstructing a soul, and then all the ashes floated into the air under the traction of that pale green fire, and quickly condensed, reshaped, and regained color and texture—almost within a few seconds, they had once again solidified into Vanna's appearance.

Even the damaged armor was restored as the pale green flames burned over it—as if time had flowed backwards.

Vanna bent down, casually picked up her long sword and that staff, then raised her head and stared at that false sun that was still burning fiercely.

She saw its convulsing tentacles, and the golden-red substance flowing out of the fiery shell.

A smile appeared on the corner of her mouth.

"So you can bleed too—"

She stepped forward.

The gale swept across the heaven and earth once again, and the yellow sand rose again in the storm.

"Then the next question—can you feel fear?"

(End of Chapter)