"After that, I chose to leave the tribe and integrate myself into human civilization, secretly guiding humans forward and providing help when necessary." Neos paused and said.

1750 BC, Mesopotamia

At that time, Neostha, under the pseudonym Hammurabi, stood on the high platform of the palace in Babylon, overlooking this magnificent city built of asphalt and bricks.

Craftsmen are carving the famous black basalt stele on which the 282 laws are inscribed.

"Your Majesty," the high priest respectfully presented the clay tablet, "this is the latest case."

He took the clay tablet and gently stroked the cuneiform characters with his fingertips.

After three thousand years, mankind's legal system has remained so primitive.

But it doesn't matter, he will guide them slowly.

That night, he summoned twelve scholars to a secret room in the palace and taught them astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.

This knowledge will gradually spread over the next three hundred years and become the cornerstone of human civilization.

At dawn, he quietly left Babylon, taking no wealth with him, but leaving behind knowledge, laws, and order.

........................

399 BC, Greece

He sat on the damp stones of an Athenian prison, and across from him a young man was crying.

"Teacher Socrates, we can help you escape!"

He shook his head, picked up the cup of hemlock juice, and said calmly: "The law must be obeyed, even if it sentences me to death."

The burning sensation of the poison entering his throat was nothing to him, and his body could not be poisoned at all.

But what is important is that he used his own "death" to prove to the Greeks that the authority of the law is above personal life and death.

A month later, a young scholar named Aristotle "accidentally" met a traveler on the streets of Athens.

They talked for three days and three nights about logic, ethics and politics.

When leaving, the traveler left a final message: "Humanity needs the guidance of reason, not oracles."

In France in 1804, Switzerland in 1905, Neos left his footprints in almost every place in the world, but the one that impressed Neos the most was that time...

That incident happened in Libya, and later generations called Neos Saint George.

At that time, the desert wind carried fine sand and hit the stone walls of Emperor Diocletian's palace.

Inside the palace, the flickering candlelight illuminated the emperor's exhausted face as his fingers gently stroked the three golden rings on the table - each representing a daughter who had been sacrificed.

"Your Majesty," the general knelt on one knee, his voice hoarse, "this year..."

"I know." Diocletian interrupted him, looking out at the dark night sky. "She is my last daughter."

Outside the palace, a storm was gathering. It was not natural sandstorms, but something older and hungrier that was awakening.

"Is there no warrior willing to take on this task?" asked the emperor.

The general was silent for a moment, then whispered, "Everyone says... it's not a dragon, but something... that doesn't belong to this world."

At this moment, the palace gate was pushed open. A tall warrior wearing golden scale armor stepped in. His face was hidden by a helmet, revealing only a pair of eyes burning with golden flames.

"I'll do it." His voice was as low as thunder, but it also carried a certain inhuman echo. "Leave the princess to me."

Diocletian stood up suddenly and asked, "Who are you?"

The warrior removed his helmet, revealing a sharp-edged face—hair as black as night, eyes like molten gold, and an ancient scar on his jaw.

“Saint George,” he said, giving his name. “Roman Third Legion, Cavalry Vanguard.”

The emperor stared at him for a long time, and finally nodded: "If you can kill that monster..."

"I need no reward, my lord," Neos replied.

"Then you need..."

"I don't need anything..."

At dawn, Neos led his warhorse and brought Princess Selena to the edge of the desert. The girl was pale but her eyes were firm.

"Aren't you afraid?" Neos asked.

Selina clutched the small silver cross hanging around her neck. “Father said…it was the devil.”

Neos looked at the black storm swirling over the sand dunes in the distance: "No, it's worse than that."

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble, and the sand flowed like mercury, forming a huge vortex.

The clouds in the sky twisted and torn, revealing an unnatural purple void behind them.

"Run." Neos pushed Selina away, "Don't look back!"

The next second, the sea of ​​sand exploded.

A gigantic creature broke out of the ground—it was not the legendary lizard-shaped dragon, but a terrifying creature made of liquid metal.

Its body constantly changes shape, sometimes like a giant snake, sometimes like a scorpion, and sometimes like a mechanical monster made up of countless gears.

The most terrifying thing is its "head" - there are no facial features, only a constantly rotating vortex made up of black geometric shapes.

Selina's skirt was lifted by the hot wind, and the sand hit her pale calves like countless tiny needles. She should have been afraid and cried - just like when her three sisters were sacrificed. But at this moment, she just tightly grasped the silver cross on her chest and stared at the silver-armored knight without blinking.

He stood on a sand dune, his back to the rising sun, his whole body coated with a bloody halo. The monster - the thing his father called a "dragon" - was wriggling in front of him.

That's not a dragon.

The princess dug her nails into her palm. The thing was like a pool of mercury reflected in a broken mirror, sometimes stretching into a snake, sometimes curling into a ball, with a sickly rainbow-colored luster flowing on its surface.

When it moved, the surrounding sand was not pushed away but disappeared directly, as if something had wiped out its existence.

The Knight of Saint George, as he called himself, slowly drew out his lance.

The tip of the gun drew a silver arc in the morning light, as if to split the dawn in half.

The metal monster suddenly jumped up.

Its body instantly stretched out and turned into a liquid spike that shot towards the knight.

The princess' scream was stuck in her throat, but the horse leaped away in advance as if it had foreseen the danger, and the sand splashed by its hooves froze in the air for a moment.

Neos's counterattack was faster than normal. The moment the spear pierced into Mercury's body, an inhuman scream echoed throughout the desert.

Selina covered her ears and saw that the part of the monster that was stabbed suddenly "rusted".

The flowing metal turned dark red and fell down like withered leaves.

But the next second, more silver tentacles burst out from the sand!

One pierced the horse's belly, and two entangled the knight's left leg.

The warhorse fell down with a wail, but Neos twisted his body the instant he landed, and swept his spear across to cut off the tentacles.

The severed liquid metal twisted in mid-air and turned into countless tiny needles that shot towards him like a rainstorm.