Chapter 525: The Sphinx’s Doubts

Many true gods enjoy crossingbreeding various creatures to create new, powerful races. Especially the existing creators have all produced many bizarrely shaped lifeforms, some of which have developed their own populations and can survive and reproduce like most natural purifiers.

Realizing this, Donald came back to his senses. Facing this sphinx-like statue, he instinctively sensed something different. He used the Book of Truth to observe and analyze it from a distance, and the conclusion he reached surprised him.

“There’s something wrong with this statue—it might be even stronger than the previous ones. We need to revise our battle plan!”

Through the Book of Truth’s detection, he discovered that although this sphinx-shaped divine puppet was in a dormant state, the fluctuations of its soul power were far stronger than those of the previous puppets when they were active. This gave Donald the illusion that what was motionless before wasn’t a puppet but a sleeping primordial beast!

This made him wary.

Donald’s words made everyone take it seriously. Through various experiences over time, even the two demi-god totem gods realized that by following this true god from another continent, whatever they did usually worked out fine as long as they heeded his advice!

This surprised and impressed the God of the Red River and the God of Warhammers, so Donald’s words carried great weight in their eyes.

As for those who had long been familiar with Donald’s rarely flawed analytical abilities, they were already used to taking his words at face value—whatever he said, they would do. After all, he never let them suffer losses. So this time, the King of the North and Donald, two true gods in incarnated form, took the lead, with the others providing support in their respective areas.

When the King of the North’s Winter Incarnation appeared before the sphinx statue, a fierce cold light and crystalline hexagonal snowflakes spread rapidly around it. The cold air descended, and snowflakes fell, instantly enveloping an area of three thousand meters in a realm of winter.

“Roar!”

A lion’s roar echoed. Sensing the intruders, the sphinx puppet stood up with even faster reactions than the previous puppets.

The sphinx statue, already a hundred feet tall when lying down, now stood over two hundred feet tall with all four limbs upright, resembling a mountain-sized monster.

The frozen realm seemed to have no effect on this puppet at all. Then, it spoke in a monotone voice, “Intruders, this is the sacred resting place of the supreme Enlil. Only those who pass the trials may proceed along this path and gain the chance to meet the Earthly King!”
“Those who fail the trials will be punished by my mighty Sphinx!”
The Sphinx’s voice was a majestic male baritone. Although it spoke in an ancient language they couldn’t understand, everyone present grasped the meaning of its words. This ability to convey messages through telepathic connection was something even ordinary beings could do, let alone this Sphinx, which clearly possessed the power of a demi-god!
To Donald’s surprise, the actions of this Sphinx puppet were very similar to those of a legendary Sphinx monster from his past life—even its name was the same: Sphinx, a creature said to represent divine punishment, sitting on a cliff near a city, blocking passersby and testing them with riddles given by the gods. Those who couldn’t answer would be devoured.
Donald was eager to know if the riddle this creature would pose would be the classic one from his past life.
So he secretly instructed everyone to stay still for now and stepped forward to face the Sphinx first.
Sure enough, the Sphinx ignored the powerful warriors surrounding it and immediately posed a riddle.
“What animal walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs at night? The moment it has the most legs, it walks the slowest and is weakest.”
Hearing the familiar riddle, Donald felt emotional and immediately replied, “My answer is all human-like intelligent beings!”
In his past life, the answer had been humans, but in this world, there were many creatures similar to humans—elves, dwarves, halflings, and various human subspecies. So this answer was debatable!
Upon hearing Donald’s reply, the Sphinx was clearly surprised. Its eyes glowed red before it said, “Stranger, you’re right! The supreme Earthly King is waiting to summon you!”
With that, it moved its massive body to clear a path for Donald toward the temple at the top of the mountain.
Donald smiled as he walked toward the stone steps at the entrance. As he passed by the Sphinx, it suddenly emitted a strong divine light, trapping the Sphinx, which was about to strike with its paw.
Clearly, this creature had no good intentions and had no intention of letting anyone pass.

Although it was only a brief pause, Donald seized the opportunity to loudly recite, “Laws? Deterrence!” Immediately afterward, the Sphinx’s massive body seemed to freeze. The great law magic cast in its demi-god form couldn’t deter its demi-god opponent for long, but Donald took advantage of those few seconds when the Sphinx lost control of itself, using divine light to trap and suppress it within the space projected by the Book of Truth. Just those few seconds of using divine light to achieve his goal consumed thousands of drops of his divine power, using up one-tenth of the divine power reserves brought by this incarnation! This showed just how powerful this Sphinx puppet really was. Of course, this was also due to the creature’s enormous size and the fact that the Book of Truth at this moment was not its true form. In the battles in the main world, even the demi-god elect of the Lord of Dawn were pulled into the divine realm in less than a second. Axie, endowed with great power by a higher god, was definitely stronger than this Sphinx. After being deterred, the Sphinx immediately sensed something was wrong. With only a fleeting thought in its mind, it vanished from its original location and was pulled into a strange space. “This is the aura of a higher immortal…” “No! How is that possible? There are no more than a hundred higher artifacts existing in the multiverse, most of which are in the hands of powerful higher gods. The rest are either hidden in the endless void or destroyed over the course of history. How could such a weak true god gain the recognition of a higher artifact?” The trapped Sphinx couldn’t believe it for a moment. It had followed its master through long years until its master’s death and was drawn into this divine tomb. Thanks to its unique form of life, it retained some sanity and did not fall into endless resentment and madness like other guardians of the divine realm or sacred spirits. At that moment, a clear voice rang out in the space. The voice’s owner said indifferently, “You seem to know quite a lot, don’t you?”