Sterl felt a bit puzzled as he clearly saw his Authority Heart reflecting a long, winding path leading towards a distant mountain range.
After contemplating for a moment, he didn't hesitate much; opportunities related to the Starry Clan had presented themselves so clearly, there was no reason to pass them up.
With a few quick movements, Sterl swiftly dashed toward the area illuminated by the light. However, the guiding function seemed a bit foolish; it would only change direction after he reached a dead end, causing him to waste considerable effort.
Moreover, the guiding light fluctuated in intensity, appearing as if it might flicker out at any moment.
Despite feeling impatient, Sterl had no choice but to quicken his pace and follow the light.
He suspected that this time, he had been lucky enough to trigger the guiding light, and the next time he came, the unknown entity emitting the light might have completely vanished, making it impossible to find the way using his Authority Heart.
After about half an hour, he finally arrived at his destination.
At this moment, Sterl was far from the location of the temple.
Yet, based on his Holy Spirit Bloodline perception, the sound of the Crystal Barrier Galaxy shattering was amplifying at an extremely slow frequency.
At first, Sterl was concerned, fearing some unforeseen event might occur, such as another beam of golden light descending, leading to the emergence of several bizarre individuals.
But ultimately, nothing happened.
He gradually felt at ease.
At this point, the guidance from his Authority Heart reached its conclusion.
Finally, the light led him to the interior of an incredibly majestic mountain.
This giant mountain was even more spectacular than Mount Everest, the highest peak in Sterl's world before his transmigration.
Along the way, countless mountain ranges stretched for thousands of miles, and Sterl could see the lush greenery in the mid-section of the mountains and the snow-capped peaks above them.
The scenery was breathtaking.
Seeing this, Sterl wasted no time and activated the Mark of the Heavens.
A shower of meteors rained down upon the ground!
Before Sterl, it was a scene resembling the apocalypse, with countless stars crashing into the towering mountain.
This unknown peak was gradually weakened.
Its height rapidly diminished, and eventually, it was flattened into a basin.
A massive visual and auditory effect spread outward.
However, Sterl preferred to expend a bit more energy to conjure a spatial barrier, shielding the surrounding changes to prevent attracting unnecessary onlookers.
He wasn't worried about someone trying to snatch the opportunity from him.
The main concern was—
Sterl had already discerned that even with a radiant-level Authority Heart, the fluctuation caused by the Starry Clan's opportunity was significant, indicating that this race's true depth was likely profound!
If someone came to investigate due to Sterl's actions, he would have no choice but to eliminate them to keep them silent.
With a kind heart, Sterl chose to expend more mana.
After about an hour and a half, he had flattened the mountaintop, transforming it from a basin into a massive pit.
With the terrifying output efficiency, the collapsed and sunken interior of the mountain revealed a giant entrance to an underground palace.
"What is this?"
Sterl couldn't help but pause.
The scale of the underground palace was still vast; with the naked eye, he could see no boundaries.
The palace's exterior was crafted from gold and various jewels, and under the erosion of time, it presented a faint bluish-grey hue.
Then, the light vanished.
The bronze door shattered into numerous bronze ingots, which fell to the ground.
The location of the giant door happened to align perfectly with a pit, allowing the ingots to be swallowed one by one.
Before Sterl lay the vast interior of the palace, revealing itself to him.
He waited a few seconds and then quickly stepped forward.
Inside the palace, the space appeared empty.
No, it wouldn't be accurate to say it was empty;
Sterl could see from the patterns formed by countless energy shocks on the inner walls that this place had once experienced an extremely fierce battle.
He decided to test the waters, executing a perfectly standard combination of the Platinum Skill Shattered Void and Fission Law.
Brilliant light erupted.
Countless sword and blade shadows sliced through everything, creating a mushroom cloud effect.
Yet in the end, all he managed to do was leave a few dents in the ground of the underground palace.
Sterl's combo was already incredibly close to the output strength of a god-level attack, but the marks left behind were hardly distinguishable from the original scars within the palace.
This indicated that the combatants who had previously battled in the palace were at least divine-level entities.
However, this all took place countless years ago.
Everything had faded, leaving behind numerous skeletal remains, and the gear once worn by these bones was completely decayed, leaving nothing behind.
Sterl was taken aback and without hesitation began to gather all the bones into his small world. The remains left by deities could serve as valuable materials for crafting equipment.
Sterl hadn't yet gathered enough divine-level gear, and with so many divine bones, he could likely forge a mythic piece of equipment.
He completely scavenged the underground palace, spending considerable time in the process.
"Just some skeletal remains??"
"How long has this underground palace actually existed?"
Sterl complained, thinking that since these were divine-level entities, they must have had at least one or two pieces of divine-level equipment on them. Yet ultimately, all the gear had completely decayed, leaving only a handful of bones.
If everything was merely due to the passage of time...
Then that was indeed a bit absurd!
Because, according to the various materials Sterl had consulted, divine-level items were theoretically immortal!
They should not decay with the passage of time at all.
However, having mastered the Law of Time, he realized it wasn't that simple.
Sterl could vaguely sense that if he pushed the Law of Time to a higher realm, he could enact a plan to accelerate the passage of time, causing deities to fall in an instant and divine-level items to turn to ashes.
This operation essentially condensed countless thousands of years into a mere moment of destruction.
In other words, the Law of Time could achieve this merely through the gradual passage of time itself.
But...
The records of the lower realm couldn't be said to be wrong...
Because even if one calculated the time from the period before the separation of the lower realm and the upper realms to the present, the accumulated years were still insufficient to decay divine-level items.
"Does this mean that the suspected war between the Starry Clan and other races occurred in a very distant past??"
"Long before the history that the upper realms and lower realm can record??"
As Sterl reached this conclusion, his expression shifted, yet he felt no great surprise.