The Era of Gods

Chapter 638: Chapter 638 Preparations Before the Battle of Gods

The first aspect is the Divine Artifact’s original functionality; the second is its repaired functions, which have been enhanced. It can now directly intervene in any part of the Primary Material Plane, including altering the climate—quite magical indeed.

But the most powerful feature is the third one. Through this artifact, he spread the Shadow Demon Web across the Primary Material Plane, directly overlapping with the Magic Net, controlled by the Magic God. The Primary Material Plane can also utilize the Shadow Demon Web, which is absolutely intolerable to the Magic God. It is foreseeable that in a few years, the Magic God will initiate a divine war against the Dark God System.

It’s worth mentioning that only the Magic God, who rules over the Magic Net, and three deities with Powerful Divine Power can detect this feature; True Gods are unable to sense it.

These three points are merely the temporary functions of the Divine Artifact. As his strength grows, so will the might of the Artifact.

Nevertheless, no matter what, this Main Divine Artifact is only an auxiliary type and cannot directly increase his Combat power, so in the future, it will be necessary for him to forge another combat-oriented Divine Artifact.

He reached out towards the Magic Net Planet with a grasping motion, and the golden Artifact rapidly flew towards him. It flashed in the palm of his right hand and disappeared, then a tiny pattern of the Magic Net Planet appeared on the back of his hand. If one didn’t look carefully, it wouldn’t even be noticed.

Extending his palm again, a beam of golden light flew out from the back of his hand, forming a pure golden light sphere that hovered and slowly spun in front of him. With a single point, densely packed runes flew out from the surface of the light sphere, rapidly transforming into a vast virtual Primary Material Plane topographical map.

At the center was the massive Primary Continent, surrounded by the Endless Ocean, speckled with innumerable islands, both large and small. The largest covered several million square kilometers.

The virtual map revealed a subcontinent only a fifth the size of the Primary Continent, located far east across the vast ocean of the Primary Continent.

That land was filled with poisonous insects and toxic fog, making it inhospitable for many of the Primary Plane’s intelligent beings. Only around the fringes of the islands lived some barbaric Races with certain resistance to poison, with no True Gods interested in cultivating faith there.

Lin Xiao’s gaze swiftly returned to the Primary Continent, even larger than the entire surface area of earth. He pointed with a golden finger towards a spot on the Primary Continent, and the map in front of him quickly zoomed in to present that area before his eyes.

This scene reminded Lin Xiao of high-precision satellite surveillance systems, capable of pinpointing any location on a planet with an error margin of less than a centimeter.

His Divine Artifact had this capability, allowing for precise location identification across the Primary Material Plane. The key was that this locating function was achieved through the Shadow Demon Web that covered the Primary Material Plane, theoretically enabling observation of any location it covered.

This meant that as long as the ‘camera’ zoomed in close enough, he could see inside even a thick castle through this Divine Artifact—extremely impressive.

His gaze moved swiftly with the camera as it swept across the Primary Material Plane; numerous camera shots flashed by quickly.

Mountains, rivers, forests, castles, farmland….

A group of Knights clad in thick Armor on horses, wielding blades, charged toward a group of peasants dressed in sackcloth, grasping pitchforks—a brutal slaughter unfolded before his eyes.

Just as these peasants were about to be wiped out, chaotic shouts came from the distance, and more peasants, armed with pitchforks and sticks, surged forward.

“A peasant uprising?”

The camera had already moved on, but that scene lingered in Lin Xiao’s mind.

Compared to the peace within the regions where he cultivated faith, even the Ground Dwellers lived without concern for food and clothing. Humans on the surface, however, still lived in the dark ages of the middle ages, with Aristocrats and the Church as rulers, peasants and slaves as the oppressed.

Wild Other Races and Warcraft lay in wait with baleful intentions, ambitious power-seekers triggering wars, Descenders from Different Domains fighting for faith—the whole world was in chaos.

“Hmm?”

The swiftly gliding camera stopped and quickly reversed to hover over a city. Lin Xiao’s gaze fell upon a massive Church in the center of the city, the familiar symbol from the Magic God. This area was governed by the Magic God’s Divine System.

Though not a core faith district of the Magic God, it was still a secondary region.

Owing to the special nature of his Godhood, the Magic God’s main believers were Mages and Magicians—few in number but of high quality, with followers spread across the entire Primary Material Plane.

Due to control over the Magic Net and the unique nature of his Godhood, his followers hardly conflicted with other True Gods. Most of the Magic God’s churches were in the faith areas of other Deities, including an Empire, five Kingdoms, and several dukedoms, which the followers of the Dark God System had to confront.

The Dicavian Kingdom was recently constructing a vast underground Fortress and several Level 2 fortresses, as well as a large logistics area in the first layer of the Dark Territory, not far from the main faith district of the Magic God System. There were already five million Cave-dwellers and over a million soldiers from underworld tribes gathered there.

There were countless powerful individuals; just from the legendary warriors, there were over twenty. This also included eleven Black Dragons and six Red Dragons, all found from various places in the Dark Territory over the past two hundred years and bound by dragon clan pacts with great promises.

Among all the forces that Lin Xiao valued the most were an army exceeding five hundred thousand Cave Giants and more than three hundred thousand shadow mage team members.

To accumulate more strength, Lin Xiao had relaxed the communication requirements for the Shadow Demon Web, allowing Ground Dwellers with certain qualifications to meditate and communicate with the Shadow Demon Web to gain the ability to cast various shadow spells.

Even though the Ground Dwellers of the fifth generation had incorporated some characteristics of the Heart-devouring Demon, possessing innate spiritual power and mental strength greater than that of normal Humans, it did not mean they could become mages.

In any place, being a mage is a synonym for wisdom, the key is to be smart. Having excellent mental strength but a low IQ would also make it impossible to become a mage.

Moreover, when Lin Xiao originally modified the fifth generation of Ground Dwellers, he never intended to make them excessively abnormal; he did not significantly enhance their intelligence.

Although their brains grew larger and their IQs consistently rose with each round of gene manipulation, he had not specifically targeted this aspect, so the increase was limited; definitely not enough to make all Ground Dwellers highly intelligent. They were slightly less intelligent on average than Humans but smarter than Beastmen.

Under these circumstances, becoming a wise mage was quite difficult. In the entire Dicavian Empire with a staggering population of thirteen billion, there were less than a million shadow mages, even under relaxed conditions. If they were to be trained as true mages, it was likely they couldn’t even muster ten thousand.

Even with relaxed standards, these shadow mages were still no match for orthodox mages in terms of average combat power.

But this was no problem for Lin Xiao; he didn’t need orthodox mages at the moment. What he needed was a mage team of enormous size, as long as they could combine effort and form large-scale spell bombardment to suppress the enemies.

Most of the time, the war of the gods begins with a conflict between the believers on the ground, with the deities rarely attacking each other’s God Country directly from the start.

It’s not that beheading tactics are flawed; the main reason is that gods hidden within their own Divine Realm are extremely difficult to kill. The main purpose of the war among mortal believers is to defeat the enemy ground forces of the True God, then destroy the enemy deity’s faith, rendering the enemy god weak due to the loss of sources of faith.

Keep in mind, maintaining a God Country and a Divine Incarnation both require Divine Power, and most True Gods tend to store Divine Power, but definitely not in very large amounts.

In a war of gods, cutting off an opponent’s source of Divine Power means they can only rely on previously accumulated Divine Power to sustain. Over time, as Divine Power becomes insufficient, the might of the God Country will decline until the supply of Divine Power is completely severed. Then the God Country will gradually deteriorate and collapse, their Divinity weaken, and their God Level decline.

Theoretically, by continuing the siege, a being of Powerful Divine Power can be reduced to a Demigod.

The Dark God System and the god of magic deity sequence are both extremely powerful major divine systems, each possessing massive God Countrys and vast Faith Areas sufficient to maintain their God Country. Under normal circumstances, it is impossible to breach the God Country of the other party, even if Lin Xiao truly ascended to Powerful Divine Power.

The bonuses a God Country provides to a True God are extremely significant—even a Powerful Divine Power incarnate entering the God Country of a Weak Divine Power could potentially meet disaster, not to mention a God Country with a Main God of Medium Divine Power.

Let alone the Magic God, who is a formidable Medium Divine Power.

Therefore, this great mortal battle must be fought, and must be won.

It is foreseeable that this will be a large-scale war that may last for decades, a century, or even longer, so preparation must be sufficient.

More than a hundred years ago, the Dicavian Kingdom had already been preparing by stockpiling massive amounts of food and elite troops. Now, with a population of thirteen billion three hundred million, the regular standing army corps of the Dicavian Kingdom numbers nearly fifty million, with tens of millions in local troops. Each year, a large number of militia receive training or retire, and if needed, they can easily muster hundreds of millions of troops.

Additionally, adding the combined forces of various underworld tribes capable of summoning several million troops, their combined strength is certainly more powerful than the god of magic deity sequence.

However, the upcoming battle for Godhood will certainly not just involve these two divine systems; it will inevitably affect many other True Gods who will join the fray.

The Magic God is a well-experienced True God who has lived for over ten thousand years, with widespread connections. Among the gods, there are definitely many who will join in the godly war. By that time, Lin Xiao might find himself facing more than just the adversaries from the god of magic deity sequence.

Clearly, this would be highly unfavorable for the Dark God System, and Lin Xiao needed to change this situation.

Days later, a golden light departed the Dark God Kingdom and ascended to the surface.

He arrived at the southern part of the main continent on the surface, Pompeii Empire, the Faith Area of the God of Vengeance.

Based on the data collected over the years, the God of Vengeance is one of the Magic God’s most formidable archenemies, with a Divinity Level of twelve and also possesses Medium Divine Power. More than two thousand years ago, the god of magic deity sequence fought against the God of Vengeance, seizing two of the God of Vengeance’s Kingdom territories.

If it weren’t for the God of Vengeance later decisively seeking refuge with one of the three major deities of Powerful Divine Power, the Chaos God, he might not only have been unable to save the last Empire Parish, but he might also have fallen himself.

This definitely counts as a deep and significant vendetta; over these two millennia, the God of Vengeance continuously sought trouble for the Magic God, but without the support of the main god of chaos, he was unable to do anything against the Magic God.