The Era of Gods

Chapter 657: Chapter 657: The Treasure in Ancient City’s Hands

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The joy and favor he received could not increase his strength, nor could they grant him higher authority or status within the Hall of All Gods; they were merely an acknowledgment.

Just as the Lord of the Sun attacked human Descenders after promoting his Powerful Divine Power, every promotion to Powerful Divine Power requires a declaration of one’s presence.

It could be expected that if the Beastman’s Chief God could secure his footing, he would similarly choose to target a base to make a statement.

However, the Beastman’s Chief God wouldn’t have it so easy. The remaining Soul Race and Insect Race bases would receive support from their respective Outpost Bases. The Beastman’s Chief God would likely pay a hefty price to complete this declaration, and if luck were poor, the loss could be substantial.

But this had little to do with Lin Xiao. He had already completed his declaration. For the time coming, he would continue to focus on development, enhancing his own strength and that of the Gods in the Divine System, preparing for the next step of conquering this Crystal Wall System.

The Main World had already birthed five deities with Powerful Divine Power. The Chaos God ranked first, followed by the Justice God, with the Magic God third, the Beastman’s Chief God fourth, and the Lord of the Sun at the bottom.

In the time to come, it was no longer possible for a new deity with Powerful Divine Power to emerge. If other deities with Medium Divine Power wished to advance, they would have to kill one of them to take their place.

The Chaos God and Justice God were too strong, and anyone with a shred of sense wouldn’t choose to challenge these two.

The Magical God’s God Country and core faith area were both located in the Dark Territory, which was quite inhospitable to Surface Races. The Dark God System was also extremely strong, and the Magic God himself was very potent. After a century or so, once he mastered the Order of God, he would become one of the strongest in the Hall of All Gods. Only a madman would choose to challenge him.

Thus, the most likely targets for challenges were the Beastman’s Chief God and the Lord of the Sun.

Not only were they ranked low, but relative to the others, they were the easiest to hit, especially the Lord of the Sun.

After all, the Beastman’s Chief God was the main deity of the Beastmen. Once he united the Beastmen deities and established a complete Divine System, the difficulty of challenging him would soar.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on ƝᴑνǤο.сο

The Lord of the Sun, however, was different. He had only recently achieved divinity, and his accumulation could not compare to any of the others. A normal challenger could only choose Him.

An Incarnation, along with his followers and harvest, returned to the God Country, while another Incarnation of God remained in the Void, preparing to travel through the Void outside the Primary Material Plane and visit nearby planes or demi-planes, extending the reach of the Magic Net.

As the Magic God, the Magic Net was an extension of his power; wherever the Magic Net spread, so did his strength.

In theory, if he covered the entire Crystal Wall Universe with the Magic Net, his power would reach the limits of what this Crystal Wall Universe could accommodate…

He didn’t know the limits of this Crystal Wall System, but he was certain that he couldn’t advance to great divine power, not even as the Lord of the Crystal Wall System, which wouldn’t provide such vast authority.

But one thing was certain: he could definitely reach the God Level of 19, becoming the pinnacle just below great divine power.

Should that time come, he would undoubtedly have enough strength to defeat any Powerful Divine Power and become the King of Gods in the Hall of All Gods.

But all of this was predicated on completing this step. If he could think of this, so could his enemies, who would surely resist fiercely. So…

“Let’s see how far I can go first!”

Meals must be eaten one bite at a time, roads must be walked one step at a time; he would first spread the Magic Net until the gods took notice.

The ship will right itself when it comes to the bridge; he would know what to do when the time came.

Meanwhile, a few new Incarnations left the Dark God Kingdom, tearing through space and flying into the depths of the Void away from the Primary Material Plane.

By this point, he had in total ten Incarnations that had left the God Country, but having a total of twenty Incarnations, it did not affect the safety of his God Country for a deity with Powerful Divine Power.

These Incarnations either traversed the Void Plane, extended the Magic Net to other planes beyond the Primary Material Plane, or explored the four Elemental Planes and the various Chaos Planes in search of rare treasures, especially as the chaotic rule of the Chaos Planes harbored both danger and opportunity. Many True Gods would send their Incarnations to explore.

One of his Incarnations tore through space from the Primary Material Plane, teleporting continuously in a certain direction according to coordinates.

The Void was filled with surging Void Storms, and occasionally, Void Creatures could be seen wandering. As an Incarnation of a deity with Powerful Divine Power, Lin Xiao had considerable strength. As he flew through the Void, he occasionally received strange signals and calls which were traps left by some evil entities. If one were to respond to these calls, one would be marked, and the evil entities would follow the mark or summon the marked through arrays forcefully.

Using teleportation spells to jump forward continually, he quickly left the Primary Material Plane and entered the depths of the Void. Lin Xiao carefully sensed the information in the Void and soon found a particular piece of data. His Divine Thoughts captured the information, his Divinity rapidly analyzed and traced back to its source, quickly finding the direction it pointed to.

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With a gesture, he forcibly bound Void Energy into matter using Divine Power, and then transformed that Divine Power into Mana to restrain these materials and form a vast Array.

As one endowed with Ancient Material Godhood, Lin Xiao could use Divine Power to convert energy into matter and transform matter at will. Generally, he could vastly transform materials that did not contain powerful strength, such as most precious resources.

For example, he could transform a pile of dirt into metal, or drinkable water.

Although somewhat of a trivial ability, it was indeed quite magical.

Using this newly constructed Teleportation Array to connect with coordinates, Mana was channeled to activate the Array. With a loud ‘bang,’ the Array burst open, unleashing a formidable tide of energy. After a short wait for the energy tide to subside, the Void was left empty.

In the Phamore Dimension, within Bickgrove Kingdom, the Southern Edon Province Capital Erlington City.

The deafening battle cries that had echoed throughout the day gradually diminished as darkness fell, fading entirely after the Church of the God of Purification’s forces retreated from beneath the city walls.

Shortly after, baskets were lowered from atop the city walls, with groups of civilians descending to clear the corpses beneath the walls, while the attackers’ auxiliaries came to rescue their wounded but alive soldiers. By an unspoken truce, neither side launched attacks against the other.

The Incarnation of Courage transformed by the Ancient God Gu Cheng sat in Alington City as the elected official of the Church, commanding several legions of the kingdom stationed there to resist the onslaught of the Sam Kingdom under the rule of the God of Purification for six months. Both sides had continuously invested nearly two hundred thousand troops each, dispatching an Incarnation of God respectively, with countless Church powerhouses involved, yet the stalemate persisted with neither side able to best the other.

A detailed examination of the sand table revealed several flags representing the main forces of both Bickgrove and Sam Kingdoms.

The Alington battlefield was the largest, but not the only battlefield; fierce combat with substantial troop investment persisted at several other locations, with no victor yet determined.

This was not merely a battle between Churches but also a war among kingdoms, as well as a divine conflict between two entities wielding Weak Divine Power.

The Ancient City had descended to this dimension over two hundred years ago, and with the help of his Clan and companions, he had unified all the faiths within Bickgrove Kingdom, achieving Divine Enthronement as the God of Courage some eighty years earlier. His current God Level was Level 2, possessing Weak Divine Power.

His adversary, who ruled over the Sam Kingdom, was an Indigenous True God of the God of Purification, a veteran deity with over five hundred years of Divine Enthronement. His God Level was Level 4, a stone’s throw away from reaching Level 5, the threshold of Medium Divine Power.

This one step lay with the Bickgrove Kingdom he ruled; whoever defeated their rival and acquired their territory of worship would have ample faith to support their ascension to Medium Divine Power.

The conflict had been ongoing for over a decade, with the worldly powers of both sides evenly matched, leading to a prolonged deadlock that could continue indefinitely unless one side could no longer maintain the standoff.

This was a typical state of divine conflict between entities with Weak Divine Power. In the face of reluctance to attack each other’s True Body among True Gods, the outcome was predominantly determined through the victories and defeats between their respective Churches. Once the scales tipped, with one Church seizing more territory—thus expanding while the other shrunk—the weaker side would gradually diminish until its eventual fall.

As an entity whose Divine Enthronement was less than a century ago, the Ancient City paled in comparison to the five-centuries-enthroned God of Purification in terms of depth. However, he held an advantage as a Descender, backed by Clan support and the assistance of many yet-to-be-enthroned companions, which allowed him to dominate over the God of Purification with superior force among the legends, maintaining a fragile stalemate until now.

Yet this balance was exceedingly delicate, where any significant incident could disrupt it, such as a new external invasion or the death of a comrade in battle.

The God of Purification knew how to break this balance and was constantly seeking opportunities to hunt down a few of the Demigod Descenders assisting Gu Cheng. Eliminating even one or two would suffice to shatter the equilibrium.

“Or perhaps cede a portion of the benefits?”

“Or pay a sufficient price to hire powerful aids to Descend from the Outpost Base?”

He reviewed his collection of cards of sufficient value and found that those he valued were too dear to part with, and those he was willing to let go were not tempting enough to move the mighty.

Unlike Lin Xiao, who was at a level where most cards had become useless, the Ancient City, still being a High-Level Demigod and having incarnated in the Divine Realm for the first time, could utilize almost all high-tier six or seven-star cards.

If a card was highly valuable and suited him, they’d treasure it dearly, such as the two exceedingly valuable seven-star cards currently in Ancient City’s possession.

One was the seven-star Mythical Grade Card—the Abyssal Blood Pool; once integrated into the Divine Realm, it could create a blood pool containing diluted Stygian Water, capable of spawning demons.

Another was a seven-star ancient treasure-miracle card—the Gemini God Card; it was discovered deep within a meteorite that had once been a fallen deity during his venture into Starworld. With imposing efficacy, once integrated into the Divine Realm, it would grant a ten percent chance that each offspring produced by all Clan members would result in twins.

Although different in grade, both cards were remarkably supreme. The Ancient City kept them on hand without using them: the former out of fear, the latter out of reluctance.

The first was untouchable because the size of his Divine Realm was limited; introducing the Abyssal Blood Pool would surely and gradually influence his realm, and he had no interest in transforming it into an Abyss.