# Chapter 120: The Old World
Sea God Palace, Rear Corridor.
The innermost part of the corridor was a dead end. Fate Priestess Sophia tapped several points on the wall ahead, and interconnected star patterns emerged above, causing the wall to become ethereal.
"Keep walking forward. After going down the stairs, you'll reach Vault No. 2."
Sophia's demeanor was seductive, her figure full and alluring. Judging by this posture, it seemed Su Xiao was experiencing unprecedented romantic luck. In reality, this wasn't the case. Sophia had her eyes on the treasure Su Xiao was about to obtain. Reality was just that realistic.
Su Xiao passed through the ethereal wall, revealing a downward passage and steps ahead. Descending to the end of the stairs, a metal door covered in dense patterns blocked the way. Using the key against the door, the nearly one-meter-thick door panel slowly rose.
A slightly stale smell greeted him. Vaults were like this—they stored old things. Bad smell didn't matter as long as the items were valuable.
Su Xiao entered the vault and saw a figure sitting inside, causing his heart to skip a beat. Encountering someone in a vault was not a good omen.
This person sat on a wide stone chair, dressed in tattered clothes, gaunt and emaciated. The golden crown on his head was dull and lusterless, its brilliance covered by a layer of grime, becoming subdued.
"Has the Sea God changed again? The curse of the royal descendants is truly vicious, though I'm not qualified to say that."
Hearing this hoarse voice, Su Xiao immediately recalled that this was the Trace King from Room No. 5.
"Greetings, traveler from the outer world. I am Trace King Lushuman, the only Trace King in history who escaped."
Trace King Lushuman opened his eyes. His pupils were pitch black. This blackness was special, as if it could devour light and annihilate everything.
Trace King Lushuman sat on the wide stone chair, covered by a faded blanket beneath him. This scene looked peculiar, as if he was meant to sit on that seat forever.
"I haven't touched anything in the vault. We've known each other for a while, but I still don't know your name."
"White Night."
"I am Lushuman. As you can see, a Trace King."
Trace King Lushuman gave a dry laugh, making it hard to guess his intentions.
"The main city beneath the sea is more beautiful. Not like the royal city painted in the fourth scroll—that place is ruined beyond recognition, almost turned to dust. After all, a thousand years have passed. No matter how glorious the past was, it's just a pile of dust now."
Trace King Lushuman raised his hand and said:
"I've peered into the past. The knight's iron ring is on you. Give it to me. As thanks, I'll tell you what happened to this world, along with a piece of advice that can save your life. Don't expect to get anything substantial from me. I'm very poor. After becoming a Trace King, one is destined to have nothing."
Hearing this, Su Xiao took a ring from his storage space—the [Iron Ring] he had traded from the old knight. After pondering for a moment, he flicked it with his thumb.
Ding~
The iron ring struck Trace King Lushuman's crown, bounced back, and was caught in Su Xiao's hand.
"..."
"..."
Both sides fell silent. Bubu Wang and Baha simultaneously turned their heads. Such a serious conversation—they absolutely must not laugh.
"No need to test me. Trace Kings aren't powerful beings. We're weaker than ordinary people. If you've met other Trace Kings, you'll notice they often sit. That's because of weakness. I truly miss the past. In my era, even the Sun Bird was no match for me. But back then, it wasn't as strong as it is now—it was about the same level as Os Guinn, that guy who turned into a donkey."
Trace King Lushuman extended his hand forward. Seeing this, Su Xiao flicked the iron ring again, and it landed precisely in Trace King Lushuman's palm.
He looked at the iron ring in his palm, his gaze carrying nostalgia, faintly tinged with regret. Yes, he regretted becoming a Trace King. Back then, he should have strangled those Seekers who persuaded him to become a Trace King, one by one. Unfortunately, there was no regret medicine in this world.
Trace King Lushuman slowly revealed the truth of this world. What he spoke of first wasn't the World of Paintings, but the earlier Old World.
The Old World was the same as normal Primordial Worlds—a world with complete rule systems. That world had numerous deities. How many? At its peak, that era's calendar was called the Age of Ten Thousand Gods. One could imagine how many deities existed in the Old World.
These deities varied in strength. They shared one common trait: to advance further, they needed the faith of intelligent beings to accumulate faith power.
The problem was that the intelligent beings of the Old World all believed in the Five Great Divine Cults: Sun, Earth Vein, Ocean, Sky, and Mind.
These five deities were the strongest among the ten thousand gods. Yes, the two representing Sun and Ocean later reincarnated as the Sun Bird Tahakaka and the Sea God.
Deities weren't so easy to create. Without a source, only the Alchemists of the Second Era had managed to create gods from nothing.
The Sun Source and Ocean Source both manifested in the current era. The deities representing Earth Vein and Sky had completely fallen, while the deity representing Mind was the source of disaster.
The Five Great Divine Cults held the faith rights of the Old World. The five deities divided territories and bound their followers, forbidding them from casually antagonizing other cults. The Old World was once a ninth-rank mid-tier Primordial World.
The Old World's prosperity came from the existence of deities, and its destruction also came from them. The existence of the Five Great Divine Cults left other deities with no hope of turning the tables. So they broke their oaths, enduring the pain of oath erosion, and united the ten thousand gods to wage war against the five deities. Since they had no chance anyway, rather than being slowly devoured by the Five Great Divine Cults, they might as well take a gamble.
The result was that no one won. Before the divine war could conclude, that world was about to collapse. Just as the ten thousand gods prepared to drag all living beings to destruction together, a World Child appeared. His name was Os Tobias.
Os Tobias didn't fight alone. The first thing he did was unite those humans who still had reason and hadn't gone mad from faith, using his own family members as the backbone to form an alliance. Among his relatives, the one he trusted most was his younger brother, Os Guinn, who was the Blaze Lord.
Os Tobias's resistance began. Apart from those humans who had been brainwashed by faith and had completely lost reason, other humans, and even non-human intelligent races like the Sea Race and the Polar Race, joined the alliance.
Os Tobias had only one goal: kill. Kill every single deity in the Old World without exception. He knew this world was finished and that a new world must be created for people to live in.
After years of war, Divine King Os Tobias emerged as the final victor. He slaughtered the ten thousand gods, including the five deities of Sun, Earth Vein, Ocean, Sky, and Mind.
Not only did he slaughter all the deities, but he also gathered the source blood of the ten thousand gods. Before the Old World collapsed, Divine King Os Tobias took the shattered World Core and went to meet another World Child, Rosa Niye.
Rosa Niye was a very special World Child. She couldn't fight; she only knew how to paint. Until one day, Divine King Os Tobias brought a canvas and a tube of ink to Rosa Niye, asking her to paint a world.
Rosa Niye found it strange, but she discovered the special nature of the canvas and ink. With nothing better to do, she painted according to Divine King Os Tobias's request.
The result was that Rosa Niye really did paint a world, becoming the first painter of the World of Paintings.
Why could she paint a world? Because the canvas was made from the shattered Old World's World Core, and the ink was the blood of ten thousand gods.
The Old World was a ninth-rank mid-tier world, so the World of Paintings naturally couldn't reach ninth rank—it was an eighth-rank world.
Before the Great Migration began, a dynasty was established. Divine King Os Tobias unsurprisingly became the first monarch. But he didn't participate in the migration to the painted world. Not only did he not leave, but his loyal followers also stayed behind.
Divine King Os Tobias didn't want to leave. He knew very well that he was too powerful. Although the World of Paintings had appeared, it was a lower-tier world. If he went there, it would cause all kinds of problems.
The painted world had no place for him. He was the World Child of the Old World, born because of the world's crisis, and destined to die with the world's collapse. He had done everything he could—slaughtered the ten thousand gods, trampled all divine cults, and ultimately allowed his race to continue.
Although Divine King Os Tobias didn't leave, he made his brother leave. The method was somewhat cruel. He cut off his brother's lower body, then severed the head and neck of his brother's warhorse, fusing the two existences together. Back then, Brother Donkey was too strong, but after being dealt with by his brother, his strength permanently dropped to the upper limit that allowed entry into the World of Paintings.
After that, with the collapse of the Old World, Divine King Os Tobias's legend came to an end. The dynasty he left behind, along with his family, naturally dominated the World of Paintings.
At first, no one noticed anything wrong with the World of Paintings—the current main painted world. It wasn't until many years later that the first Beast-Transformed person appeared, and the Beast Disaster erupted.
The main cause of the Beast Disaster was a problem with the ink used to paint the World of Paintings. This ink was formed from the source blood of ten thousand gods. Among the ten thousand gods, the five deities were the strongest. The Earth Vein and Sky deities had completely cooled, the Sun and Ocean were about to cool, and the only one still breathing was the deity representing Mind.
The deity representing Mind didn't resurrect. Before its demise, it concentrated the source blood of ten thousand gods—the power of the painting's ink—causing the ink to spread madness, continuously eroding the painting.
The ink and the painting were inseparable. The madness seeping from the ink was incurable and couldn't be notified. So to this day, the Beast Disaster still rages—this is the revenge from the Age of Gods.
After that, Su Xiao knew the rest. The dynasty resisted Beast-Transformation Syndrome through various methods. After the dynasty fell, the Sun God Cult stood up.
From this, it could be seen that even within the painted world, due to the historical legacy of the Old World, divine cults were still unwelcome. Before the dynasty fell, it had always restrained the Sun God Cult.
Trace King Lushuman also revealed a crucial piece of intelligence. When Beast-Transformation Syndrome became increasingly severe, the dynasty became hysterical and directly tampered with the painting itself. They tore parts of the painting into pieces, and the corresponding locations in the main painted world naturally collapsed, becoming shrouded in purple-black semi-fluid.
The torn pieces of the painting were Scroll Fragments. Where did the ink on them go? The answer was inside the Trace Kings. Those who carried the ink capable of painting worlds were the Trace Kings. Several Trace Kings appeared in different eras, and without exception, they were all the supreme powerhouses of their respective times.
In reality, both the Sand World and the Seafloor World were once parts of the main painted world. When the Beast Disaster was most severe, they were torn from the main painting as small worlds for refuge.
The painting was torn too severely, leaving only the Ancient Castle in the main painted world. If the last piece were torn, causing the Ancient Castle to collapse, the World of Paintings would face its end. Although the Ancient Castle wasn't large, it was the center of the World of Paintings. Having it and not having it were two completely different concepts.
Simply put, the Sand World, Seafloor World, Royal City, and Ancient Castle were all on the same interface, just separated by purple-black semi-fluid. The Ancient Castle was both the main painting and the transfer station for the other three inner painted worlds.
As for the first inner painted world, the Nightmare World, that was a counterfeit—a stitched-together world created by the Nightmare King.
There was only one main painted world: the Ancient Castle.
There were three inner painted worlds torn from the main painting: the Sand World, the Seafloor World, and the Royal City.
Actually, there were seven inner painted worlds in total. The remaining four were: the Ancient Land, Gurabash, the Sleeping Cemetery, and the Ancient City.
These remaining four inner painted worlds were difficult to find entrances to, at least not from within the Ancient Castle. Or rather, there was no value in entering them. The Ancient City once had inhabitants, but now it was a dead land. The other three places had been desolate for many years.
After saying all this, Trace King Lushuman spoke with emotion:
"I was born in a world sustained by the blood of ancient gods, grew up with its company, and will ultimately be destroyed by it. How ironic."
Trace King Lushuman smiled, then stood up from his seat and walked toward a wall.
"Old man, don't hit the wall."
Baha spoke. Hearing this, Trace King Lushuman smiled and said, "What flows in my body isn't blood, but the ink of this world. In the World of Paintings, there's no place I can't go."
As he spoke, Trace King Lushuman's body was already half-submerged into the wall, as if the vault's barriers and such didn't exist.
"Old man, where are you going?"
Baha spoke as it landed on Su Xiao's shoulder. Trace King Lushuman hesitated for a moment, then said, "To meet my fate."