The Era of Gods-Chapter 578: Battle of the Gods
Chapter 578 -578: Battle of the Gods
The most important thing was the rapid growth in the mastery of his own Godhood, with the level of Divinity continuously rising during this period. Soon, he crossed the threshold where the majority of the True Gods in this Crystal Wall Universe possessed Weak Divine Power, and he stepped into the realm of level five and above, the stage of Weak God Level Divine Power.
Moreover, the understanding of his Godhood and the corresponding rules continued to grow…
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But the level of Divinity did not continue to rise because his current Divine Power income was not enough to support further advancement.
This was only temporary, however, and it wouldn’t take long before it started to grow again.
Lin Xiao estimated that after Refining The Lord of Darkness’s Divinity, his own level of Divinity could grow to the highest of level nine, similar to Medium Divine Power’s level ten. It would be somewhat difficult, since he had only inherited two Godhoods from The Lord of Darkness’s Divinity. Not having taken the most substantial one, the Godhood of the Zorel Elves, naturally he could not sustain his promotion to Medium Divine Power.
However, he was not in a hurry. The potential of the Godhood he now held for the Abyssal Race had already caught up with that of the Zorel Elves. After focusing on development for a few decades and once the Abyssal Race reached a certain stage, he would naturally be able to cross that threshold without any bottlenecks.
This is the advantage of Racial Godhood.
Although Racial Godhood does not increase any combat power or provide any bonuses, as long as the race it governs is sufficiently strong, one could be promoted without facing any bottlenecks, even easily crossing into the realm of Powerful Divine Power.
The prerequisite is that the race can support a Powerful Divine Power.
The current Abyssal Race might not be strong enough, but it was estimated that once the fifth generation of the Abyssal Race emerged, it probably would be.
Upon promotion to Weak God Level Divine Power, one could create Incarnations of God related to the number of Godhoods. Lin Xiao, besides the Ancient God’s Divinity of Matter and the Godhood of the Ground Dwellers, had three other Godhoods, which meant he could create three Incarnations of God.
Racial Godhood and Territorial Godhood, along with some special ones like Supreme, could not create Incarnations of God.
In addition, he gained several common Transcendent abilities of Divinity, namely Divine Shield and Instantaneous Movement.
Along with exclusive Transcendent Divinity abilities related to the new Godhoods were Shadow Magic Control and Group Divine Power Shield.
The Divine Shield is different from the natural shield formed by Divine Power, which merely uses Divine Power to mitigate damage. The Divine Shield is an absolute defense that, although it can only withstand damage once, can resist powerful attacks far beyond one’s own strength.
Instantaneous Movement, as the name suggests, means one can appear anywhere within sight in a blink of an eye, passing through any barrier or enchantment.
Shadow Magic Control comes from the Shadow Demon Web, which covers the entire Dark Territory, shadow planes, and other areas that the Magic Net of Magic God cannot reach. It is inferior to the regular Magic Net controlled by the Magic God but is still quite powerful.
With the Shadow Demon Web, his Ground Dweller followers and priests could gain spellcasting capabilities. Within the range of the Dark Territory, they could perform various shadow spells, enhancing their strength even further.
At this moment, Lin Xiao was eager to test his strength against an opponent, but the gods of the Dark Territory were currently battling for the followers of the Zorel Elves, causing turmoil throughout the realm. The Zorel were too busy with their civil war to pay any attention to the Ground Dwellers, and with the rise of the Ground Dwellers, the millennia-long raids had vanished.
After years of conflict, many Thorium City states had already been divided among the deities.
Especially since Lin Xiao had relinquished the Elven God’s Profession of the Zorel Elves, the gods of the Dark Territory began to consolidate the Racial Godhood of the Zorel Elves after gaining a large number of Zorel Elf followers. Now, the fastest-growing racial gods had already solidified the Elven God’s Profession of the Zorel Elves.
Conflicts over Godhood have always been the major cause of disputes among gods, and they were no exception. After most Zorel Elves had been divided up, several deities who solidified the Elven God’s Profession of the Zorel Elves officially declared a Sacred War to seize the Godhood exclusively.
In the second year of the Sacred War, the God of Grey Dwarfs’ unsuccessful assassination attempt on the Incarnation of the God of Ogres.
In the fifth year of the Sacred War, the Heart-stealing Demon God took advantage of the God of Ogres’ coalition with the God of Grey Dwarfs to attack the Minotaur and the Assassin God, launching a surprise attack on the God of Grey Dwarfs’ true hideout.
After a chaotic battle that even Lin Xiao could sense from the second layer of the Dark Territory, the God of Grey Dwarfs fell and was eliminated from the game.
The God of Ogres and the Minotaur immediately ceased their war. However, on the way back, the Incarnation of the God of Ogres was ambushed by several Incarnations of Surface True Gods and collapsed. Although the true body of the God of Ogres was well-hidden and not found, its foundational power of faith, located somewhere in the first layer of the Dark Territory, the underground kingdom of Ogres, was attacked by the Zorel and Grey Dwarf Allied Forces and was steadily driven back.
In the sixth year of the Sacred War, the fourth generation of Cave-dwellers completely replaced the third generation. The area of faith expanded to the far depths of the Dark Territory, and Lin Xiao’s followers among the Ground Dwellers exceeded one billion.
In the seventh year of the Sacred War, the God of Ogres and the Minotaur joined forces with the Earth Spirit God and the Gods of Wilderness and Slime Monsters to combat the now Weak God Level Divine Power of the Heart-stealing Demon God. The Military Governor of the Ogre Kingdom, the King of Minotaurs, and the Goblin Great Craftsman led the Thorium Alliance Army under the three gods on an expedition to the fourth layer of the Dark Territory’s Kingdom of Heart-devouring Demons.
In the decisive battle, the Minotaur God and the Slime Monster God suddenly betrayed their side. The Incarnation of the God of Ogres fled, the Incarnations of the Earth Spirit God and the God of Wilderness collapsed, and shortly after, the true body of the Earth Spirit God was found. The true body of the Heart-stealing Demon God ventured out of hiding, at the cost of two Incarnations collapsing, and slew the Earth Spirit God.
After slaying two True Gods and with the defection of the Minotaur God and the Slime Monster God, the power of the Heart-stealing Demon God grew once again.
Even the True Gods such as the Dark Shadow God and the Spider God, who were engaged in combat on another battlefield within the Dark Territory, had ceased their war. They were filled with vigilance towards the Heart-stealing Demon God.
At this moment, Lin Xiao’s Divinity Level had slowly increased to the ninth tier, just one step away from Medium Divine Power. His daily harvest of the Power of Faith was barely enough to support the Divinity and sustain a God Country with Medium Divine Power.
Ten billion fourth-generation Cave-dwellers, each providing about twenty points of the Power of Faith daily, amounted to two hundred billion points of the Power of Faith. Converted into Divine Power, it equaled twenty thousand, which was just about the maintenance cost for a Divinity and God Country at God Level ten of Medium Divine Power.
The reasons he did not immediately promote himself included insufficient mastery of his Godhood roles to advance to Medium Divine Power and the fact that his existing Divine Power was too barely sufficient.
Once he promoted himself, there would be no spare Divine Power remaining; even the slightest fluctuation would put him in a rather passive position.
To know, upon ascending to Medium Divine Power, he would at once become one of the most powerful True Gods in the Crystal Wall Universe, aside from the three with Powerful Divine Power. He would certainly fall under the scrutiny of those three and attract the enmity of other Medium Divine Powers.
The Crystal Wall Universe could only sustain a limited number of Powerful Divine Powers; three were already born, leaving only two slots available. With over forty beings at Medium Divine Power, the competition was exceedingly fierce.
Fortunately, Lin Xiao possessed the Ancient God’s Divinity, which could help him conceal his true strength. Other True Gods could not see through his reality unless they personally witnessed his True Body.
At the Outpost Base, Lin Xiao’s gaze swept over a dozen or so light spheres constantly changing shapes before him.
They were a collection of over a dozen powerful species’ bloodlines, including the tremendously powerful Transcendent Dragons, uniquely potent Hydras, and other beings like Heavenly Angels and the fearsome Abyssal Demons.
But after much hesitation, he chose one of the species – not the strongest but not the weakest either – the Giant of the Earth from the Giant race.
This kind of Giant, in terms of both size and strength, could only be considered average among their kind but was especially compatible with the Cave-dwellers.
However, Lin Xiao did not directly fuse the bloodlines of these two races. Instead, he extracted the Giant of the Earth’s genes and embedded them in the Cave-dwellers’ bloodline, allowing the Giants’ bloodline to lie hidden within the Cave-dwellers’.
The reason for this was that the fifth generation Cave-dwellers, based on the fourth generation and having fully unleashed the Heart-devouring Demons’ mental talents, had already reached their limit. Further enhancement would significantly impact the Cave-dwellers’ reproductive capabilities.
If the Giant of the Earth bloodline were to be merged, the Cave-dwellers would directly become a super-strong race akin to the Giants of the Earth. This would negate the effort he had put into slow, generational adjustments. If that were his intent, he might as well have started by fusing the Giant of the Earth bloodline or even the stronger bloodline of the Storm Giants.
At the same time, he resolved an issue that had plagued him, the matter of the strength system for the Cave-dwellers.
Why could races like the Minotaurs, Grey Dwarfs, and Zoel Elves easily give rise to True Gods despite having a combined population not even close to that of the Cave-dwellers?
It was because these races had a multitude of powerful Professionals. As is well known, within the same species, stronger beings contribute much more to the Power of Faith than ordinary individuals, by hundreds, thousands, or even ten thousand times more.
Could the Power of Faith provided by a pious ordinary human be compared to that of a devout legendary champion, among the same Humans?
That’s why these races, despite having far fewer numbers than the Cave-dwellers, could birth True Gods.
Now, Lin Xiao needed to address this issue and provide a strength system for the Cave-dwellers.
Embedding the bloodline of the Giant of the Earth within the fifth generation Cave-dwellers would not be noticeable under normal circumstances and thus, would not interfere with their reproduction rate. But fulfilling specific conditions could activate the bloodline, transforming into a new being… a Cave Giant. Yes, he named the Cave-dwellers’ awakened Giants as Cave Giants.
This way, the reproduction speed of the Cave-dwellers isn’t affected while ensuring the species acquires high-end power, thereby being able to vie with other species for living space.
Only then could he promote himself to Medium Divine Power with peace of mind, and this also formed the capital for his eventual promotion to Powerful Divine Power.
All was ready except for the opportunity.
Yet this chance came much slower than he had anticipated.
After the Heart-stealing Demon God had slain the gods of the Grey Dwarfs and Goblins, it acquired the Bull-headed Man God and the Slime Monster God as subordinate gods. Its strength expanded rapidly. A few years later, it subdued four subordinate gods, including the Dark Shadow God and the Subterranean God, consistently having the upper hand in battles against the New Alliance led by Ogres, forcing them into continuous retreat. The territories of the Zoel City they occupied in the third layer of the Dark Territory were being seized, weakening them significantly.
In such circumstances, Lin Xiao, who had remained neutral and ostracized, was finally remembered by the gods. Just before he was about to promote himself to Medium Divine Power, an Incarnation of the Wilderness God came to visit him.
PS: A patch – regarding the maintenance cost of Divinity and the Divine Power expenditure for consolidating Incarnations, I’ve made some revisions in the earlier text, around chapter 557, I believe…
