Chapter 1188 Atlantis

• “Kunlun Ice Palace?” Jayce frowned, confused. “What’s really hidden in Durning Hill? And where is the Kunlun Ice Palace? Not long ago, people from the Vatican came to Durning Hill too. Are they looking for the Kunlun Ice Palace as well?” Jayce looked at Edwin. “They came too? Huh. Guess they’ve forgotten the lesson from back then. Chanaea isn’t a place they can just stroll into.” Edwin’s voice was cold. “The Kunlun Ice Palace sits in a massive ice rift valley thirteen kilometers beneath the North of the Durning Hill. I went there once, but didn’t go in. You need two pendants to enter.” Edwin’s eyes went a little distant as he murmured. “If I’m right, there must be someone else out there holding a pendant, already on their way back to Durning Hill.” “I want to know—what exactly are you talking about?” Jayce asked, burning with curiosity, but Edwin didn’t seem willing to reveal much. “When you get those two items from the temple in Thamari, the sky-walker will tell you.” Edwin said. “I hope you’re not lying to me.” Jayce sighed inside. Fine—if he won’t talk, he’ll just go to the temple in Thamari and find the sky-walker himself. “This is a calling—and it’s a duty our home can’t walk away from.” Edwin’s gaze was steady on Jayce, like he had a thousand things to say but didn’t know where to start. “I’m leaving. Take care of yourself.” Jayce said. “Wait—” Edwin stopped him. “Stay safe.” Jayce stiffened, nodded, and kept walking. In that moment, he finally felt his father’s care. Just two short words, but they carried so much warmth. Edwin wasn’t good with words, but one sentence was enough. Jayce could see the guilt eating at Edwin. He didn’t want to see it. The more he did, the more he’d get lost. His father and mother were still alive, but the joy he once had was gone. No attachments—maybe that was who Jayce used to be. But parents alive—that was a gift from the heavens. He didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t deny it. Edwin had never talked directly about father and son, yet every line he spoke held care and expectation. To him, Jayce was his legacy—his greatest comfort. Jayce left, but his heart could never be free of ties again. He didn’t want to see Edwin trapped under the earth, shut away from the sky for twenty years. But the burden on Edwin’s shoulders was something Jayce still didn’t fully know. He could feel it—the weight and duty Edwin meant to slip onto him. Hard to say, hard to explain, impossible to dodge. It pressed on his chest like a stone. Duty and fate showed up in Jayce’s mind for the first time. He knew Edwin’s identity was far from simple. And as for himself—maybe he was stepping onto a road with no way back. And he had no choice. After Jayce left, a faint smile of relief flickered in Edwin’s eyes. He’d thought he would have to wait ten more years. He hadn’t expected that his Maple had already grown this much. All his years of keeping watch hadn’t been for nothing. Still, maybe the sky over Chanaea really was about to change. Twenty years, one cycle—what must come, will come. This cage—was nothing but a sham to Edwin. Being trapped here wasn’t his will. In this world, there are almost no chains that can hold him. But he couldn’t leave. Western demonic blood, Eastern supreme evil—who could take that fight? Edwin was the Eastern supreme evil who, twenty years ago, made Lawrence tremble like he’d seen a tiger, a man who cut his way into the Vatican with a single sword. Edwin lightly brushed his fingers over a shimmering, multicolored conch. Complicated emotions churned inside him. He blew, soft and careful—but the mermaid from those years never came. Rubbing the gleaming shell, Edwin whispered, “It’s been twenty years. I’m sorry. In the end, I failed you.” ………… In the northern Pacific, there was a barren island less than two miles across—dry brush, dunes of sand, no sign of life. An island like that? No one would ever find it. Even drones would struggle. Satellites couldn’t pin it down. Planes flying over would never linger. It was too small, too far from any coast, and to the kind of folks who scout islands, it had zero value. Not even a scrap worth digging into. But under that forgettable speck of land hid something massive and terrifying, a giant no one knew. Even the most advanced scanning systems in Astarra would miss it—just sweep by and move on. In the center of that tiny island sat a circular shaft, about fifteen feet wide, ringed by scruffy weeds. You couldn’t spot anything unusual, even with a scope. That shaft led down to the passage—to the giant below. Who would ever guess that under an island barely two miles wide lay a colossal ancient palace, built entirely from gold, tucked amid a mountain of coral and endless reefs? The island looks small, sure, but the undersea palace was huge—stretching down thousands of meters to the ocean floor. The vast golden palace was awe-inspiring, nearly three miles across, yet nothing of it showed in the deep sea. Coral and reefs piled like a natural fortress, layer after layer, a barricade so tight even a submarine couldn’t get close. Down here, hidden from the world, was a paradise no one knew. Legend says the people living here were the children abandoned by the gods, descendants of a goddess. Inside this isolated undersea palace were tools and tech more advanced than what we have today. This was the place seekers hunted for centuries and never found—the one people call a myth—Atlantis. Atlantis is the fourth, wiped-out civilization from the Maya prophecies. But no one knows this—there are still a few people left, survivors from the last cataclysm of that world-shaking cycle. These are the children abandoned by the gods. They’ve lived generation after generation in this undersea palace no one knows, yet a handful of powerful, global forces on Earth are aware of them. To the Atlanteans, humanity is an invading newborn race. Humans took over the Earth that used to be theirs—a relic of the fourth civilization. So the survivors of Atlantis have guarded the ocean for ages, dreaming of taking back the Earth that belonged to them. Every moment, they crave the throne of this world. Humans feel the same—they see them as heretics. The Vatican especially treats Atlantis like a thorn in its eye, a blade in its flesh, itching to root it out once and for all. The struggle between humans and Atlantis has raged for a thousand years, with no end. The Vatican knows: if Atlantis takes Earth back, the fifth civilization will be enslaved. Their numbers are small, but their power is terrifying. If not for nature’s overwhelming force crushing the fourth civilization, there wouldn’t be a rise of the fifth.