CHAPTER 242: GAOH

As Charlotte opened the vessel, the water inside began to flow out. She sensed it with magic and found it was merely ordinary water, even carrying a sense of lifelessness. Compared to normal water, it possessed no nutritional value of.

"It must have dissolved over time."

Charlotte concluded.

Originally, this water was likely not lifeless, and might even have been worthy of being called sacred water.

But time waits for no one. Under the flow of years, everything changes.

She took out the box inside and tapped it slightly, finding its texture surprisingly soft. When she opened the box, nothing unusual occurred, it seemed like an utterly ordinary container.

Charlotte immediately headed toward one side of the chamber.

This underground workshop naturally wasn’t lacking in traces of divine remnants. Charlotte had already found several during her brief survey.

Now, as she reached a certain area, an indistinct sound began echoing around her.

"Failed again...? What should I do? How exactly?"

The words kept repeating in the space, echoing endlessly, irritating the mind and causing splitting headaches.

Charlotte took out the box, opened it, and immediately, a ripple emerged around her. The air itself trembled, forming visible waves that spread outward.

Within the tremors, the echoes of the god grow increasingly intense, eventually forming a strange distortion. The distortion stretched forward, then was drawn into the box.

Inside, Charlotte saw a twisted, shadowy figure, somewhat humanoid, yet not quite. She couldn’t tell what it was.

A sensation akin to instinct emanated from the box, showing her clearly how it should be used.

With a simple flick of her finger, she can launch the shadow from the box, lock onto a target, and unleash an attack born from divine remnants.

As for what form this attack would take, Charlotte couldn’t say for sure. She’d need to test it on a target to know.

For now, she decided to collect more divine remnants.

Charlotte sensed these things weren’t simple. After all, they were connected to gods. Even after being diluted by endless time, they couldn’t possibly be weak.

She immediately began moving throughout the underground workshop, gathering one divine remnant after another.

At the same time, she recorded the content written on tables and papers. Although she didn’t yet know what use the formulas might serve, remembering them couldn’t hurt.

"I’ll memorize these."

Amelia, seeing Charlotte busy, volunteered to help. "I don’t recognize these characters, but I can perfectly engrave every stroke into my memory without issue."

Charlotte nodded. "Then I’ll leave it to you."

Having help was naturally more efficient.

The underground workshop was vast. Charlotte spent considerable time before nearly finishing the collection of divine remnants.

Then she cast an attachment spell, causing the stone floor to crack and rise, forming a massive stone golem. She ordered it to follow Amelia, while she herself took the box and left the workshop to collect divine remnants elsewhere.

This golem was created through her magic. She could instantly sense anything happening to it and even use spells to swap positions, so there was no need to worry about accidents.

Then Charlotte left the underground workshop. Selina wanted to follow her closely, but became distracted by something within the workshop. By the time she looked up again, Charlotte was already gone.

Walking once more along the castle corridors outside, Charlotte held the box and continued gathering divine remnants.

"Do places where gods once lived all contain divine remnants?"

Charlotte murmured to herself, doubting it was that simple.

She and the High Priestess had previously visited the top floors of different Tower of Babel. There, they had detected no traces of divine remnants at all. The High Priestess had claimed those upper floors were the dwellings of gods, yet none of those places held remnants. Why, then, did this location?

Could these divine remnants truly be left unconsciously? Or did the gods intentionally use some method to preserve them across the ages?

But if the gods did so intentionally, what was their purpose? And could they even be certain these remnants would fulfill their intended role?

There were still many things Charlotte didn’t know. Many things were beyond speculation. All she could do was proceed step by step.

After collecting a while, she spotted Sheena. The girl was walking carefully, afraid of doing anything disrespectful towards the gods.

Even though Sheena already knew the voices she heard were merely divine remnants, the familiar tones still made her instinctively show revival.

When Charlotte saw Sheena, Sheena also saw her, and just in time to witness Charlotte sealing a divine remnant into the box.

"What are you doing?"

Sheena asked, somewhat startled.

"Collecting divine remnants. That’s not disrespectful to the gods, is it?"

Charlotte smiled.

"Where did you get that box?"

Sheena’s eyes locked onto the box in Charlotte’s hand, her expression shifting slightly, as if recognizing it.

Charlotte didn’t hide anything. She explained she’d found an underground workshop, discovered the box there, and accidentally learned it could collect divine remnants, so she started gathering them.

"This might be... Divine artifact."

Sheena whispered.

"You know where this box comes from?"

Charlotte became interested.

Sheena nodded and began to speak.

This box had great origins, it was once a container used by a god to hold fruit.

Sheena’s words froze Charlotte’s expression instantly.

A fruit box belonging to a god?

"Don’t underestimate it just because it’s a fruit container. Consider who used it, anything touched by a god is naturally extraordinary. The fact it has survived across countless ages is proof enough of its uniqueness."

Sheena said seriously.

And its ability to collect divine echoes further proves the box’s exceptional nature.

Charlotte thought that the Divine artifact box’s survival to this day must have been due to something the god did, rather than the box possessing such ability originally, after all, it was truly just a fruit box.

She’d visited god dwellings before. Even the items everyday used by gods eventually decayed with time.

’Perhaps this box was simply lucky, chosen by the god to become a treasure preserved for future generations.’

Charlotte silently mused.

Charlotte didn’t dwell on the matter. Instead, she wondered, this place clearly bore arrangements left by gods. But would such arrangements exist only here?

Across the world, in thousands of locations, there might be more gods who had left behind more traces?

The world was vast. She felt the urge to travel more.

"What use are these divine remnants when collected inside the Divine Treasure Box?"

Sheena asked curiously.

Charlotte shook her head. "I don’t know. But these divine remnants can be used as a form of attack. Want to try it?"

Sheena quickly waved her hands. "No thanks."

An attack involving gods, she didn’t even want to feel it. That would definitely be life-threatening.

"Fine then. I wonder when I’ll find a target to test it on."

Charlotte sounded a little disappointed.

Since others didn’t want to try, she couldn’t force it. If the divine remnant attack turns out too intense and actually killed someone, that’d be bad. Even if the target were just an impression entity, she couldn’t recklessly harm innocents.

Thus, Charlotte continued wandering through the castle, collecting divine remnants from one location after another.

No accidents occurred throughout the process, until she had gathered every last remnant.

At that moment, Amelia finished remembering all the valuable information inside the underground workshop, and walked out together with Selina.

Sheena also emerged from the underground workshop. After learning from Charlotte about its existence, she had gone to investigate and stayed there for quite some time.

As the group exited, Charlotte asked Sheena, "Are the writings on those tables, those papers, medicine formulas? What use do they have?"

"I don’t know. I can’t understand them at all."

Sheena gave a bitter smile.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t read the words. She recognized each character, but she couldn’t grasp their meaning.

This was divine-level alchemy. The standards were simply too high for her. Even though she had studied alchemy before, she still felt utterly overwhelmed.

At the end, the group left the Divine Castle.

There was no danger, no turmoil, everything was peaceful and quiet.

When they reached the shattered main gate, Amelia paused and asked, "Want to know who kicked down this gate? I can search the gate’s memories and make it reveal the answer."

Charlotte exclaimed in surprise, "Can memory magic do that?"

Amelia nodded with a smile. "I only realized this recently. I’d never heard before of a memory mage being able to probe the memories of external objects. But now, I can access not-so-distant memories of stones, trees, and other things."

Memory magic seemed to have contained some mutations in her hands.

Or perhaps it was Amelia herself who had changed, causing her abilities to become somewhat extraordinary.

Charlotte relayed this to Sheena, whose expression instantly turned serious. "We must check it. Whoever disrespected the god like this, I won’t let them off, no matter who they are."

Seeing this, Charlotte allows Amelia to give it a try.

Amelia’s silver hair fluttered as she stood before the numerous shattered pieces of the gate. With a wave of her hand, mysterious ripples spread out, what she called "memory factors," a special force that permeated the broken gate, probing its memories.

Then, an image appeared before everyone’s eyes.

At that time, the gate had still been intact, standing quietly in place. Then, someone stormed out from within the castle.

"Nothing at all. What a boring place."

The person who emerged was arrogant, his eyes brimming with wildness. He raised his foot and kicked open the gate before him, then strode away into the distance.

Charlotte didn’t recognize this person.

But when Sheena saw him, her face suddenly changed. "Gaoh!"

Gaoh, the World’s Number One, that was the man just shown in the vision.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. "So this guy is the Gaoh you mentioned? He’s this reckless?"

Sheena took a deep breath and nodded. "He’s always been this arrogant. That’s why, when he was young, his family stripped him of his surname, believing he was unworthy to be part of the family. But he didn’t care. Later, he gained great fame and became the top figure across all worlds."

Sheena’s heart grew heavy.

She hadn’t expected the one who destroyed the gate to be Gaoh. So this man had left the temple before them after all.

Just as arrogant as ever. Even regarding things related to gods, he dared act this way.

Sheena remembered that Gaoh had always been wild, but he’d still shown respect towards gods in the past. He was wild, not foolish. But perhaps now Gaoh knows the gods had already perished, so he no longer hid his arrogance, even daring to disrespect them.

"I said it before, no matter who it is, once confirmed to have disrespected the god, I won’t let them off. Not even Gaoh."

Sheena said seriously, turning to Charlotte. "Right now, regardless of who’s stronger between you and Gaoh, I recognize you as our leader. Someone who disrespects god doesn’t deserve to lead us."

Charlotte smiled slightly and said, "Let’s head back first."

Seeing Charlotte didn’t appear concerned at all, Sheena realized Charlotte wasn’t taking Gaoh seriously. She felt compelled to remind her of Gaoh’s strength.

This was no ordinary opponent.

"I know. I’ll be careful."

Charlotte replied.

"You really need to be careful."

Sheena reiterated.

She believed in Charlotte’s strength, peerless among her peers. But currently, Charlotte was only an early tier Weaver.

And from the vision just now, Sheena could tell Gaoh was already a peak tier Weaver.

Actually, she and Brady and others had originally been peak tier Weaver too, but due to the passage of time, their ranks had declined, becoming middle tier Weaver.

She didn’t know Gaoh’s situation, whether he’d managed to maintain his rank and avoid falling to mid-tier, or whether he’d fallen and then recovered.

But regardless of the reason, Gaoh, two ranks above Charlotte, was someone Sheena believed Charlotte truly needed to take seriously.

"Don’t worry. Don’t forget I have the Divine Treasure Box. Want him to experience a god-related attack?"

Charlotte smiled, gesturing toward the box in her hand.

Sheena was instantly speechless.

The group left the castle at the city center and began heading back toward the temple.

The farther they moved from the city center, the thinner the surrounding fog became, and visibility steadily improved.

But suddenly, Charlotte seemed to notice something and paused.

She leaned toward a narrow alley, hesitated briefly, then said, "Something seems to be over there. Let’s go take a look."