The Era of Gods

Chapter 605: Chapter 605: The Price

“How daring!”

Lei Xuanji was furious, suddenly turning his head towards the other incarnations of deities who were equally taken aback and astonished. A halo exploded from beneath his feet and rapidly expanded to hundreds of kilometers, instantly freezing everyone in the void. He then took out a palace-shaped divine artifact and sucked everyone into it.

After doing this, and still seething with anger, he turned his attention to the distance. In his perception, the incarnation of a True God from an unknown source had just sacrificed this deity’s incarnation. The burst of powerful divine power in that instant had caught him off guard as well, allowing the attack to succeed and directly transporting Lin Xiao into that ruined world.

Watching the terrifying entity getting closer, and the ripple that rose in the collapsing chaos before quickly fading away, General Lei Xuanji tightened his grip on the palace artifact, took a deep breath, turned, and left.

The recent events felt like a harsh slap in his face, and Lei Xuanji had made a resolution: Whoever it was would have to pay the price.

And in his heart, he already had a suspect in mind. @@novelbin@@

As General Lei Xuanji left, the other children of divine realms from various civilizations who had been observing the scene also retreated. Despite the Chaos Creature being very far away and unlikely to catch up, it wasn’t entirely impossible. If it decided to shift its attention their way, they would be doomed, and nobody could guarantee their safety.

The vast expanse of the Chaotic Void did not become peaceful with their departure; on the contrary, as the worlds collapsed, the aftermath began to slowly spread.

Inside the tumultuous chaos, a huge light ball was hit by a surging chaotic tide, flung into the chaos. A jade-like bony hand flew out from it, reaching into the chaos, and quickly pulled out something and took it back inside the divine realm.

Lin Xiao only felt the space in front of him change rapidly, and soon, he was transferred from the chaos he was in into a divine realm. An extremely terrifying aura of rules pressed down, and even the deity’s incarnation was momentarily unable to move.

A tremendously powerful will appeared before him, a platinum sun shining with a light that could freeze a mortal’s soul. The extraordinary pressure of divinity immediately informed him of the platinum sun’s identity—a deity fused with the remaining origin of a collapsed world.

There was no need to recognize it—just by feeling the terrifying divine might emanating from it, Lin Xiao knew that this ancient god, even before fusing with the remaining will of the world’s origin, was one of the strongest. After the fusion, its strength had increased even further—probably comparable to Commander Xie’s super divine power.

However, this ancient deity greatly disliked its current power. Ever since it was fused with the remaining Crystal Wall Origin Will, it had been confined to this world, unable to leave, and forced to share life and death with the world.

If it had been recognized by the world’s origin in the past, it would have been delighted. Now it felt only fear and unwillingness, plus… excitement after finding Lin Xiao as a scapegoat.

It did not know why other ancients had not left or died, nor did it want to think about it; all it knew was that now there was a scapegoat available.

Without explanation, an invisible force took the unresisting Lin Xiao and threw him into the platinum sun, followed by an endless stream of power and knowledge of rules rudely pouring into Lin Xiao’s divine body and Divine Fire.

Under normal circumstances, such a boon would have elated him, but at that moment, he felt only helplessness and curses, involuntarily accepting the forceful infusion.

The strength from this powerful ancient god, the remaining knowledge of the rules of the Crystal Wall System, and the control over this mighty divine realm, yes—for the sake of freedom, the ancient god had even stripped away its own god realm, handing it over wholesale, just hoping to escape the attention of the terrible Chaos Creature.

In less than an hour, what was an immeasurable amount of divine power for Lin Xiao, an endless stream of remaining knowledge and rules, along with this mighty god realm, and more—a brutally crude package had been forced upon him, regardless of whether he had merged it or not.

At this moment, Lin Xiao had taken the place of that platinum light orb. His vast body within the sphere of divine power was like a fish in an enormous sea, surrounded by boundless waters seeping into his body. If he could fully merge with everything, this incarnation would undoubtedly be able to ascend to powerful divine strength, and it would be among the most formidable of that strength.

But he did not have the time, for by the time he merged with this divine power, the world would have already perished.

As for the original master of the god realm that had captured him, he had already fled, leaving the vast god realm eerily empty with only Lin Xiao as the sole living being. The god guards and the like were long dead.

“What a damn mess!”

At this point, Lin Xiao was not yet panicked. He forcefully calmed himself and began to consider how to face the current situation and how to derive any benefit from it.

The divine realm was out of reach, and as the world collapsed, the power of the main world retreated with it. This place was no longer within the reach of the main world’s power, so naturally, it was impossible to communicate with the divine realm.

But that did not mean his true body was safe; in fact, it was in even greater danger. Once the Chaos Creature tracked him down, it could directly trace the connection between the incarnation and the true body to find his real self. Moreover, because the power of the main world had left this part of the Chaotic Void, there would be no proactive response to this change. When the Chaos Creature absorbed his true self, the response would also be delayed.

If previously, being the Son of Gaia might have resulted in a slim possibility of being saved by Gaia Will, now the chance of being rescued by Gaia Will had become negligible.

The only chance for self-rescue was…

In Yan Huang’s Super War Fortress Number Five, Lin Xiao’s true body contacted Xie Yufei, telling her in detail about the danger he faced.

A minute later, a mighty will descended and rapidly formed into Commander Xie Tianyan’s incarnation. He looked gravely at him and said,

“You should be glad you’re in the fortress,” the voice said, “otherwise not even my true body could help you now. You only have one choice—I will fully activate the war fortress to save you, but starting it up will come at a great cost. After this, the generals of the fortress will no longer owe you any favors. Are you willing?”

Lin Xiao let out a sigh of relief, nodded without hesitation, and sent the message to his avatar who was in dire straits through the Creation Rubik’s Cube.

Upon receiving the message from his true body, the struggling avatar of Lin Xiao in the distant Chaotic Void Sea also sighed in relief, just as he had expected.

This was the main reason he wasn’t panicking; to others it was a dead end, but for him, it wasn’t quite so—though the cost would be substantial.

It meant expending all his favors, including the one owed by Commander Xie Tianyan, to activate the Yan Huang No. 5 Super War Fortress and borrow its power to fend off that terrifying chaos creature. With Commander Xie Tianyan’s strength at the helm, it would be enough to withstand a direct assault of great divine power.

To fully engage a war fortress against a great divine power goes beyond the imagination of an ordinary True God. Although the primary function of this fortress was to oppose great entities, now it was being used to save him as an individual, which would absolutely come at a high cost.

It was only because he had numerous favors from the fortress’s high-ranking officers that he could afford such a price—a feat likely impossible for most junior officers.

At this moment, Lin Xiao couldn’t help but feel how nice it was to enjoy the shade under a big tree; without this big tree, he would have surely fallen this time.

His prospective father-in-law could save him too, but by the time his message got there and back, it would have been too late.

He didn’t have the standing to meet his prospective father-in-law directly. After all, he hadn’t married his girlfriend yet, and wasn’t really a son-in-law. Besides, a normal future son-in-law can’t just run to his father-in-law’s house on a whim, right?

With the crisis of the true body resolved, the avatar of Lin Xiao inside the God Country settled down and started to indulge in the endless divinity and knowledge of the rules.

Even residual origin from the Crystal Wall System was origin nevertheless, and although its essence was inferior to the Crystal Wall System’s Core he had merged with, and this world was nowhere near as powerful as the Crystal Wall Universe where the Core originated from, his merged core was now just an empty shell, while the origin, with a considerable amount of knowledge and rules, still remained here.

If he could integrate it all…

Lin Xiao suddenly chuckled bitterly, as he sensed that terrifying will sweeping over the God Country; the chaos creature had seen the God Country.

“Is it going to cheat now?”

“What a pity.”

“I can’t accept this!”

If he could take all these gains back with him, his true body would meet all conditions necessary for promoting powerful divine power; it was truly regrettable.

He sighed deeply, looking down at his increasingly massive body, feeling his growing strength, and the vast ocean of rules and knowledge around him. There was a desire to use the Creation Rubik’s Cube to devour this remnant of the Crystal Wall System’s origin.

However, the leftover origin consciousness resisted, preventing him from devouring.

Another attempt to use the Creation Rubik’s Cube to devour was fruitless, and Lin Xiao, lost for words, simply opened his mouth wide, and a point of darkness emerged in his throat.

In the torrential chaotic void, a body too colossal to describe slowly emerged from the Chaotic Sea, opened a mouth that could swallow worlds, and a terrible suction force pulled in everything within hundreds of thousands of kilometers.

The God Country Light Ball floating in the Chaotic Sea moved with the chaotic waves, swiftly flowing into the Devouring Sky Giant Mouth and disappearing…

Suddenly, the devouring paused, and then, as if time were reversing, the chaos energy that had flowed into the giant mouth started to rapidly flow backward. Soon, the God Country Light Ball also emerged, held in place by a tentacle as thick as a pillar amidst the torrent, and a gigantic pupil slowly surfaced, fixing its gaze on the light ball with a perplexed look.

“Puzzle… mass…!”

No one responded, but the brilliant God Country Light Ball was rapidly changing.

The blinding divine light gradually dimmed and soon turned dark. The radiant glow of the light ball swiftly contracted and quickly imploded inward, shattered, and vanished, revealing a mass of darkness with an overwhelming attraction. The surrounding chaotic energy was drawn in by the darkness and rapidly converged towards the black hole, creating a vast vortex.

The pupil’s sight focused on the black hole, and seconds later, an invisible wave bloomed, flattening billions of miles of the void with an unseen force. The surging Chaotic Sea instantly became tranquil, resembling a calm sea without a breath of wind.

Waves of special frequency vibrations oscillated back and forth over the Chaotic Sea, and the black hole remained unresponsive.

Inside the black hole, Lin Xiao had entered a peculiar state, akin to an epiphany in Eastern legends, his consciousness ascending.

He couldn’t feel his own existence. At the moment when his avatar collapsed into the nature of black holes, this avatar had disintegrated into a black hole, or rather, the black hole was his body.