The Era of Gods

He didn’t believe the Heart-devouring Demons would refuse his proposal. Satisfying a True God with just twenty Heart-devouring Demons and twenty Spirit Absorbing Monsters seemed like an obvious choice for anyone with a smidgen of intelligence.

After all, rejecting such a request and angering a True God would be disastrous. The brain pool located in a remote part of the Kingdom of Heart-devouring Demons wouldn’t be able to withstand a True God’s wrath, and they would lose not only some of their tribe but the entire brain pool.

The Heart-devouring Demon Mastermind only pondered momentarily before agreeing to Lin Xiao’s proposition. Shortly afterward, a crack opened in the pillar, and twenty Heart-devouring Demons along with twenty Spirit Absorbing Monsters emerged.

These Heart-devouring Demons were weaker than those Lin Xiao had encountered before. Although there was no reference for the Spirit Absorbing Monsters, it was likely they were among the weakest of their kind. Lin Xiao looked on with interest at these experimental subjects. In front of the brain pool, he grabbed a Heart-devouring Demon and forcefully invaded its will with his own, intent on scouring the demon’s memories without hesitation.

“Eh?”

As soon as his will entered the memory of the Heart-devouring Demon, he was startled to find that the demon was in the midst of worshiping some being. Its mind held many prayers and memories related to faith. Hesitating slightly and full of curiosity, he attempted to make contact with this unknown entity. The next second, his expression shifted and, with a wave of his hand, he gathered the remaining Heart-devouring Demons and Spirit Absorbing Monsters before turning to leave.

No sooner had he turned around than a mysterious aura rose from behind him in the brain pool. Dozens of large, transparent tentacles stretched out from the giant pillar, each tipped with a massive eyeball that shot out beams of light in various colors, blasting into the void.

“I remember you now.”

Feeling the presence of a True God from behind, along with the wild roar and the resistance of the captured Heart-devouring Demons and Spirit Absorbing Monsters, Lin Xiao’s expression turned unpleasant.

He had never imagined that a True God would exist within the Kingdom of Heart-devouring Demons, let alone that this True God was a Son of God Realm from a Different Domain who had already achieved Divine Enthronement in this world.

“Truly freaking unbelievable!”

Without any hesitation, he sent this information to his True Body via the Creation Rubik’s Cube.

At the Outpost Base outside of the world, Lin Xiao summoned his two True God-level subordinates, Lin Hong and Lin Bao, and told them:

“My Incarnation is running into some trouble. Prepare your own avatars and head to the Dark Territory. I will provide you with coordinates; follow them and obey my commands once you’re there.”

The two nodded without hesitation, and then Lin Hong asked:

“Do we need to prepare anything?”

Lin Xiao paused before responding:

“It is the Son of God Realm of an Insect Tribe who has taken control of a Kingdom of Heart-devouring Demons. If possible, bring a batch of Golems for the descent.”

After another pause, he continued:

“In a moment, I will grant you authorization. Each of you will descend with two Giant God Soldiers, twenty Diamond Golems, and ten Black Lustrous Stone Golems.”

“`

Finding a hidden offspring of the insectoid divine realm within the Kingdom of Heart-devouring Demons caught Lin Xiao off guard, but he wasn’t too shocked.

After all, this world had already been targeted by no fewer than five divine realm civilizations, worn and riddled through with their invasions; the Hall of All Gods in this world was probably home to thousands of true gods from various divine realm civilizations.

It was also due to the competition among the numerous divine realm civilizations, constantly vying and sabotaging each other, always hindering their enemies that as soon as the offspring of a different domain divine realm was identified, the nearby sons of different domain divine realms would tacitly drag them into the chaos of battle.

In the Dark Territory, it wasn’t too bad; there weren’t many conditions available for divine enthronement. But in the surface world, it was brutal.

Most of the offspring from different domain divine realms were scrambling for territory with the Wise Species and conspiring for divine enthronement, their chaotic battles too horrendous to describe, nearly blasting their brains out.

The fact that he could detect that insect race son of god realm intending to ascend through the Kingdom of Heart-devouring Demons meant that the other party could detect him too; they had automatically entered a state of hostility, and it could be anticipated that as soon as one party was ready, they would immediately launch an attack and kill each other.

Even though separated by the third layer of the Dark Territory, protected by Zoel, but…

Well, now this offspring of the insect race’s divine realm doesn’t seem to know where Lin Xiao’s Faith Area is. He had previously appeared in human form, which made it impossible to infer his followers from his appearance, and this was indeed good news.

Um, temporary good news, of no great consequence.

The only thing to do now was to quickly strengthen the Ground Dwellers.

Hurrying back to the Subterranean Tribe, Lin Xiao plunged into the laboratory to research the Heart-devouring Demons and the Spirit Absorbing Monsters.

This time, he didn’t waste time on slow research and directly threw the Heart-devouring Demons and Spirit Absorbing Monsters into the Creation Rubik’s Cube for analysis.

With the power of the Creation Rubik’s Cube, coupled with the Creation Law he now controlled, it was easy to analyze these two races, but this is where a problem arose—the spirits and souls of the Heart-devouring Demons were too powerful, and the spirits of the Ground Dwellers were too weak. If merged, the stronger would automatically override the weaker, resulting in a new soul that was Heart-devouring Demon rather than Ground Dweller.

This was a problem that the Creation Rubik’s Cube temporarily couldn’t solve.

The solution was simple, but his current strength was insufficient, and he had not yet achieved divine enthronement in this world, preventing him from carrying out certain actions.

That would involve forcibly changing the fundamental underlying rules of the Crystal Wall Universe, and any non-world True God who attempted this would immediately be detected and expelled by the world’s will. Even if one became a True God, their recently acquired strength would be insufficient to support such a change to the world’s foundational rules.

In other words, there indeed was a way to change things, but he couldn’t use it.

“Divine enthronement, divine enthronement, I must ascend as soon as possible!”

Fortunately, although direct alteration was not possible, minor enhancement was still feasible.

Using the miraculous power of Creation Energy to protect the fragile souls of the Ground Dwellers, and then merging a thread of essence from the soul of a Heart-devouring Demon, the soul of the Ground Dweller could be strengthened several fold… But compared to the previous Ground Dwellers, they were still very weak.

However, this was enough. The soul’s strength could support a stronger body. And so, the third generation Cave-dwelling Tribe was born.

This would also be the last adjustment at the current stage; the next would be after his Divine Enthronement.

At that time, the Ground Dwellers would obtain a significant portion of the powerful souls and mental strength of the Heart-devouring Demons. Lin Xiao himself was very much looking forward to what new species he could create.

As a result of the third adjustment, the average height of the new Cave-dwellers was around one meter thirty-four, with occasionally some exceptional individuals reaching over one meter fifty. Although their souls and minds were still extremely weak, they were much stronger than before. Each Ground Dweller provided about one-quarter of the Power of Faith compared to a human, which was a monumental improvement. Coupled with the enormous numbers of the Ground Dwellers, this Power of Faith was considerably substantial.

What followed was the expansion of power. The third-generation Cave-dwellers, with their improved average individual strength, easily conquered the surrounding cave-dwelling tribes.

To be precise, it wasn’t called conquering. When they arrived at other native Cave-dwelling Tribes, demonstrating the strength they possessed and indicating that by worshiping the great Ground Dwellers and the Guardian God, one could gain the power of self-preservation, other Cave-dwellers joined his congregation with cheers.

The extreme weakness of the Cave-dwellers and their unprecedented desire for strength and protection spread the roads of proselytization faster than even the deadliest plague, and soon, like wildfire spreading rapidly in all directions.

In order to quickly transform the ordinary Ground Dwellers in the wild into the latest third-generation Ground Dwellers, each missionary team was accompanied by a group of robust Ground Dwellers. At each tribe, they would stay for a period and mate with the female Ground Dwellers to produce superior offspring.

Don’t bother with what’s ethical or not. To the Ground Dwellers, who are constantly at risk of annihilation, who cares?

Time passed in this rapid expansion. Although every half-year there would be Zoel raiding parties coming to the second layer of the Dark Territory to plunder, and in the beginning, the Subterranean Tribe suffered the same burnings and killings as before.

But as time went on, with the birth of new generations of Ground Dwellers and the continuous genetic improvement, the strength of individuals kept increasing. Especially when the various dispatched missionary teams assembled, whenever they reached a place, they gathered many small tribes to form larger tribes, and began to build cities. Gradually, these larger tribes started to put up a fight against the Zoels.

A tribe of several thousand or tens of thousands of third-generation Ground Dwellers, with the help of crude stone walls and stone tools, could already resist a small Zoel raiding party of about a hundred people. Some could even kill some careless Zoels.

This situation, with the Ground Dweller tribes growing stronger, continued to arise until…