The eighth sword light formed a warm yellow Sword Body Cage, imprisoning The Forgotten within! The Forgotten attempted to destroy the Sword Body Barrier, but his offensives were all counteracted by the surging Sword Intent!

Intermediate Wonder · Sword Body Cage!

Hovering azure ink patterns spread out on the exterior, then instantly contracted, leaving The Forgotten no room to escape, forcing him to rely on the Defense Wonder to withstand. Yet each ink pattern was akin to crushing his demigod soul with Ash’s Divine Lord-level Soul Foundation. After seven rounds of attacks, The Forgotten’s soul completely collapsed, self-igniting and extinguishing within the cage.

Upper Wonder · Heart Hunting Throne!

"Sonia, this Wonder fortifies your greatest weakness," Death Mad said. "The ’Heart Hunting Throne’ constructed by Youmo for you is powerful and crude, but better suited for large-scale wars. In smaller battles, enemies easily evade. The Sword Body Cage effectively restricts enemy movement, allowing you to utilize the Heart Hunting Throne for long-distance, high-frequency attacks."

Ash glanced at her, nodded, and said, "The Sword Body Cage is indeed unexpectedly practical. To repay the Sword Maiden, I’ll go back and kiss her wildly."

Death Mad’s lips moved slightly, muttering, "Be mindful of the impact..."

Ash asked, "If I want to give her a surprise, what’s the appropriate timing?"

Death Mad answered promptly, "When she’s just finished training and is sweaty; she’ll feel fresh but slightly repulsed by herself. If you go embrace her then, outwardly she’ll feel embarrassed to blame you, but inwardly she’ll enjoy your affection. Also...

Looking at the endlessly talking Death Mad, Ash thought, she’s indeed as straightforward as the Sword Maiden. Love and hate are overly obvious; if you only discuss Sword Maiden topics with her, she’s quite easy to get along with.

He said, "That’s already the third Forgotten."

"The frequency of attacks will increase from now on," Death Mad said. "You’ve been noticed by the serpent’s stomach, and when a siege team of three Forgotten forms, you’ll have to abandon looting and avoid dragging out battles. However, your remaining stay is only 50 minutes, just enough to leave Hell before The Forgotten bolster their forces."

Until now, Ash hasn’t been able to freely leave Hell, needing to stay until traces are exhausted. Thus, Ash promptly enters Hell once healed, otherwise as traces accumulate, exploration time lengthens, increasing his risk.

Ash flew along the Golden River. Not long after, he saw a tower ahead, curiously wondering why the tower wasn’t built on either side of the river, but directly on top of the river itself.

Ash curiously asked, "Are all demigod strongholds in Black Descent Hell built over rivers? Is it for easy relocation? Or are there resources in the river?"

Death Mad casually said, "Fly down and take a look at the river water and you’ll understand."

Ash flew down, hovering above the Golden River, observing for a moment before hesitantly asking, "Flowing Gold River?"

Initially, he didn’t think it was the Flowing Gold River because he didn’t sense the time power capable of dissolving everything. But upon getting closer, in appearance, it was indeed the Flowing Gold River, just...

This Flowing Gold River doesn’t flow.

"Is a stagnant Flowing Gold River still considered the Flowing Gold River?" Death Mad chuckled and countered, "Is stagnant time still considered time?"

"Touching this river’s water won’t subject you to time erosion, but your consciousness will fall into stagnant time for centuries, depending on the amount of river water you contact."

"This isn’t the Flowing Gold River; we generally call it the Hidden Gold River. You can think of it as the reservoir of the Flowing Gold River."

Ash was taken aback, "Reservoir?"

"When the Flowing Gold River overflows externally, water is stored here. When it dries up externally, water is drawn from here," Death Mad said. "Though the overflow and depletion of the Flowing Gold River seem unbelievable, they were frequent phenomena during the Divine War. You use one Flowing Gold River, I use one, and soon they’re exhausted... On one timeline, we depleted all tributaries of the Void Realm’s Flowing Gold River to combat Uroboros, even exhausting the Hidden Gold River, leaving earth and the Void Realm entirely stagnant, with Hell and Heaven barely operational."

"Was it effective?"

"A world of stagnant time was like fried, breadcrumb-coated fatty meat to Uroboros—swallowed whole without spitting bones."

Ash glanced at the endless Hidden Gold River, "Are all the Black Descent Hell demigods proficient in the Time Faction since time resources are plentiful here—"

"Wrong, every resource but time is present here," Death Mad shook her head, "Stagnant time isn’t considered time; stagnant Hidden Gold River won’t spawn time resources."

"But due to storing vast time, the regeneration speed of resources here is incredibly fast, and the resource type depends on external magic trends. Regardless, this place is more diverse than the Deep Blue Hell, hence Black Descent Hell has the most demigods, and its Magic Faction is the most complex layer."

Ash entered the tower, and at first sight, saw a Central Hall, with an ethereal purple transparent sculpture wonder resembling a colorless human figure.

"Upper Wonder ’Exile,’" Death Mad glanced at it, paused for a while, then spoke slowly, "Exile the target into a pure soul form, unable to perform any physical contact, greatly increasing susceptibility to all soul impacts, positive or negative."

Upon hearing it was a Soul Wonder, Ash quickly put the transparent sculpture into the Heavenly Kingdom of Souls. Death Mad saw it and turned her nose up, snorting, "Useless trash wonder, hard to completely exile demigods into soul form, can only exile part of the body at best..."

"Oh, can the Sword Maiden use that wonder?" Ash feigned curiosity, pointing to another emerald-green sculpture wonder inside the tower.

Death Mad suspiciously stared at him, while Ash blinked earnestly.

"...That’s the Poison Skill Wonder ’Poisonous Guardian,’ unable to activate instantly, requires ten seconds to construct during casting. Death Mad reluctantly explained, "It’s not for personal use; it’s borrowed collectively during stronghold invasion, temporarily constructing a Poisonous Guardian defense line. Except for the Witch using her sisters’ clones for casting, others aren’t suitable for this wonder."

"Ask the Witch when you return."

Ash continued to scavenge the supplies in the Tower and found that only a small portion had been taken away. Evidently, the mages in the tower escaped very hastily, without even having time to pack their belongings. It seems they were attacked by The Forgotten.

As they flew along the Flowing Gold River, Death Mad suddenly said, "You’re really so..."

"Hmm?"

"Forget it, it’s nothing."

Ash glanced at her, thought for a moment, and said, "I know that you are not actually dissatisfied with Vishi over the allocation of resources. Last time when I found the Soul Wonder in Desolate Hell, you didn’t care that I gave the wonder to Vishi."

"The person you’re dissatisfied with is not Vishi, it’s me."

"So if you have complaints, direct them at me, at least I won’t mind."

Death Mad tapped out a cigarette from the box and put it in her mouth, saying, "Is this kind of person really worth your protection?"

Ash snapped his fingers, igniting a flame at his fingertips, and offered to light his sister’s cigarette.

"I know what kind of person she is," he said calmly, "but now she is my person."

At this moment, the next palace on the water appeared before them. Ash descended and asked, "You haven’t answered why all these Demigod bases are on the water — is it because it’s convenient to scavenge resources?"

Death Mad sat on the railing with her legs crossed, smoking with a slightly melancholic expression, after a while she said, "No, it’s to stop the great floods."

Ash: "The great floods?"

"Most of the time, the Flowing Gold River is still, but once it starts moving, it becomes an earth-shattering flood, enough to drown Black Descent Hell," Death Mad said. "No Prophet Mage can accurately predict when the great floods will erupt; they might be a century apart, or just three days apart. So long ago, the Black Descent Demigods started manually controlling the floods, releasing them approximately every five hundred years, during which all Demigods would evacuate to upper and lower levels; otherwise relying on Demigod bases to suppress the Flowing Gold River."

"Black Descent Hell is the least friendly place to lone wolves; all resources here are monopolized by Demigod factions, lone wolves are hunted down if they take a bite. This is because Black Descent Demigods must guard and fortify the Flowing Gold River nodes day and night to suppress the River; being careless would lead to disaster, wasting their time and energy, high risk, significant effort; without corresponding gains, no one would be willing to do it."

Ash nodded: "Indeed, to combat natural disasters everyone must sacrifice and unite, and unity leads to organization, organization leads to rules, lone wolves unwilling to obey rules will inevitably infringe on the rights of those who are willing to sacrifice... Given that the flood is released every five hundred years, there should be a decision-making body in Black Descent Hell?"

"Black Descent Council." Death Mad said, "A boring organization, a group of Demigods scheming in there... worth mentioning is that many people you know have served as chairpersons of the Black Descent Council."

"Many people I know?"

"Dazzling Star, All-Knowing, Wujian, Skydream, Blood Moon... Senluo never did it, because she was in the same period as All-Knowing and couldn’t beat the Prophetic Demigod All-Knowing." Death Mad sneered, "As the largest Demigod alliance in Hell, which ambitious person can resist getting involved?"

Ash suddenly found it quite interesting; he knew these Divine Lords served as presidents of the Black Descent Council thousands of years ago, with hundreds if not thousands of years between them, but thinking of them all having held the same position gave Ash a sense of "Dazzling Star and other notable alumni once served as student council presidents."

He suddenly realized something: "What about you?"

Death Mad exhaled a ring of smoke and said irritably, "Observer also served as chairman, but his term lasted only a few months because he took half of Black Descent’s resources and ran."

"Hey, that—"

"Don’t ask, I have no interest in discussing his great exploits with you!"

"No," Ash pointed behind her, "I meant, is today just such a five-hundred-year event day?"

Death Mad turned her head and saw the distant golden torrents sweeping in, filling the vast cave world completely. What’s more remarkable is that though the flood surged in the distance, the Flowing Gold River beside Ash and Death Mad remained mirror-like, without ripples!

An hour after arriving at Level Three of Hell, they witnessed a once-every-five-hundred-years Black Descent flood, quite worth the trip.

"Impossible!" Death Mad shook her head, muttering, "You are far from the flood’s timing, how could it be?"

"So it’s a sudden eruption?"

"Impossible, a sudden eruption would mean the whole river boiling, it simply wouldn’t be this way... I understand now!"

Death Mad rose into the air, but she did not look at the direction of the coming flood; instead, she was watching the other end of the Flowing Gold River: "The Black Descent Council is unlocking the nodes of the Flowing Gold River one by one, actively triggering the flood, for only one reason — they want to use the flood to annihilate The Forgotten army! No one can survive in the flood, not even The Forgotten!"

"Here is the front line of Uroboros and Level Six of Hell, Black Descent Demigods are battling ahead!"

"Level Three of Hell has not yet fallen!"