The Era of Gods - Chapter 535

Chapter 535: Chapter 535 Trace of Yarji, the Child of Nightmare

“But when they joined forces with other guild powers, it wasn’t just the major and minor shareholders of the main city, but also many guilds and fortresses coveting shares of the main city. Their combined strength is greater than that of us and his Excellency, the Dragon Emperor. In some time, they plan to hold a grand assembly, where I expect they will force me to cede some interests.”

Shen Yuexin leaned into her boyfriend’s embrace, explaining every detail of the situation from the beginning to the end.

Actually, she had tactics in mind before, but once her boyfriend returned, she couldn’t help but rely on this man, finding comfort and security in his arms.

“Give me the list of Great Lords who turned their backs and those with an ambiguous attitude, and also send me a list of those major guilds causing the biggest commotion.”

The next day, Lin Xiao took the list to Duronger Fortress, returning to the core area of the Temple Area. The Holy Knights guarding the Temple entrance and passing players seemed not to notice him.

Lin Xiao looked up towards the interior of the Temple, where there was a statue of Duronel Star Soul. They hadn’t changed the object of their worship, even after Duronel had fallen.

“Faith can be used!”

Lifting his right hand, a cluster of pure light gathered in his palm, rapidly forming into a sphere of light. With a throw, the light sphere flew out, landing and quickly morphing into a humanoid figure of light, which swiftly took on the delicate and slender shape and as the figure solidified, a face emerged—remarkably, it was the previously fallen High Priest of Light, Afilia.

Like someone awakening from a long dream, confusion filled her eyes upon opening them, but when she saw Lin Xiao, it was as if she witnessed something unbelievable, showing a hint of excitement as she knelt before him praying and calling:

“Great Supreme One, your most devout servant is here!”

As the former chief priest of Duronel, she instantly recognized Lin Xiao’s true identity.

Through her eyes, Lin Xiao who had devoured the Dark Titan Duronel was the supreme being of her faith.

In fact, that was indeed the case. Lin Xiao himself possessed half of Duronel’s Star Soul, and upon devouring the Dark Titan, he became the reborn Duronel—the two were, essentially, one.

After becoming a true Titan, he revived the once High Priest of Light, granting her the power appropriate for a high priest, akin to the Popes or the elect in the Pantheon System, or even like the infamous commanders of the Dark Titan Sargeras’s forces, the Deceiver Kil’jaeden and the Defiler Archimonde.

Of course, due to the restrictions of the world, the strength of Lin Xiao as the Dark Titan paled in comparison to that of Sargeras in the Titan Crystal Universe, hence Afilia’s strength was nowhere near Kil’jaeden’s or Archimonde’s.

By this time, Afilia had become a super boss of Level 99 with a heroic template, strong enough to easily suppress a newly born Ancient god.

“Go! Meet some old friends.”

As he watched her leave, Lin Xiao strolled alone in the plaza of the Temple Area, accompanied by a burly man with dragon horns on his head—none other than the leader of the Dragon Clan, Arlos.

He promised that as long as a suitable lake was found, he would revive his wife, the lady of the lake, in exchange for the loyalty of this powerful warrior.

As a Titan born from the soul of Duronel, all that remained of the life on Duronel Planet after death would merge into the Star Soul. Lin Xiao, having inherited all of Duronel’s Star Soul and essence, naturally also inherited the True Spirits of all life that had died on Duronel Planet. He could resurrect anyone from Duronel’s past existence if he wished.

Although unlimited resurrections weren’t feasible as they would affect his strength, reviving a small amount posed no issue.

After revival, Lin Xiao’s True Body granted Arlos even greater strength. By then, he, too, was a Level 99 super boss, one of the two most powerful under his command.

Two days later, Lin Xiao met all the leaders of the Duron remnants in the Temple Area without any obstruction, taking over control of all the remnants with ease.

Without waiting for the grand assembly half a month later, just five days after, dozens of Lords and Guild Presidents on the list suddenly received system notifications that they had lost all their authority in Duronger Fortress.

Everyone was dumbfounded and then plunged into chaos.

Lin Xiao had no intention to personally notify the Great Lords on the list, nor did he plan to show off at the assembly after half a month. With his current strength and status, getting entangled with those players was beneath him. He resolved the issue directly at its root, decisively stripping their authority in one fell swoop.

He wasn’t afraid of them causing trouble out of discontent. While they might have been a minor hassle before, now with his high priest in place, two Level 99 heroes were more than enough to suppress anything.

Lin Xiao now had more important matters to attend to. After meeting his girlfriend, he needed to start the conquest of the Children of Nightmare. Squabbles over power and profit amongst internal players were of no interest to him.

He needed to locate the Children of Nightmare’s Main World, which wasn’t difficult. After parting with his girlfriend, he went directly to the Children of Nightmare’s territory. Inside their occupied area, just like the Expeditionary Army Fortress, was a base with a gateway to other worlds. With his strength, he could effortlessly derive the coordinates of the Children of Nightmare’s Main World.

However, less than an hour after Lin Xiao left Duron Fortress, he saw a message in the world channel that blew everyone’s mind. He immediately stopped in his tracks, his face showing astonishment:

“Yarji?”

The message that caused a sensation in the world channel was from Wu Zhonglin who, on the westernmost plains of Hellfire, deep within the Underground World beneath the Hell’s Wall Mountain Range, discovered a large number of Children of Nightmare and a fortress belonging to them. With his formidable strength, he ventured even deeper underground and found a massive subterranean space with a main city of the Children of Nightmare, and a… figure he could not describe in words, a powerful being of the Children of Nightmare.

Yes, the Children of Nightmare had built a main city for themselves in the Underground World, right beneath the humans’ stronghold in Outland.

But this was just one of the highlights. The other was that the one who built this city of the Children of Nightmare was none other than the being called Yarji, mentioned by the seer, Ricks—a True-Body Descending Children of Nightmare.

This True-Body descending Children of Nightmare was equivalent in strength to a Demigod, and the data Wu Zhonglin saw before his death showed that its Level had reached 97, a hero template. However, Lin Xiao noticed something even deeper from the screenshot—this individual had become an Ancient god.

This was unbelievable, or rather, it should have been impossible. After all, the shattered Outland had long been destroyed; no Ancient gods should exist there, nor any Star Souls to corrupt, and yet, it indeed was a Child of Nightmare.

As a Dark Titan who was once corrupted and fallen by the Ancient gods, Lin Xiao was certain that this true incarnation of Yarji, the Child of Nightmare, had indeed undergone Godification into an Ancient god.

That is to say, he was once indeed just a Child of Nightmare player, but for some reason, the essence of his life transformed into that of an Ancient god.

“Perhaps I should go see for myself!”

While it’s important to strategize against the main world of the Children of Nightmare, this unexpected event was also crucial, especially since it was too close to the Human Expeditionary Army Fortress. He did not want to be in the middle of an assault on the main world of the Children of Nightmare, only to have a fire in his own backyard causing trouble.

To return, he would need to pass through Biggs’s ancient coliseum fortress. Decades had passed, and he still firmly held that fortress, having risen to Fifth Level and possessing sufficient strength to dominate the region, including the nearby Teleportation Array leading to the humans’ hinterland. Leveraging this, he had made a fortune and was living very lavishly.

He didn’t alert Biggs and simply made a round trip before leaving.

The giant pit full of Undead had long been cleared out. Biggs had stationed an elite NPC squad led by a Level 80 Lord-level NPC to guard the place, dedicated to cleansing the Undead and maintaining order.

Using the Teleportation Array, he arrived at the Shathar Desolate Land, where the Shatar Undead were still present, and reputation still at worship level. However, the orange trinket called Will of the Undead, that was once a part of the Shatar Undead faction, was no longer there—it had already been exchanged by someone.

Now, the Demon Fortress in the center of the Hell’s Wall Mountain Range not far from the Shattrath Ruins had been breached, and players had built a fortress there, guarding the only passage between the Hellfire Plain and the Setek Basin within the Hell Wall, making a fortune as well.

The Setek Basin was a basin one-third the size of Hellfire Fortress, surrounded by mountains on three sides and an abyss formed by a great crack in the Earth on the other side, impassable.

The basin was filled with Demons and Undead, with a place called Setek at the very center, a huge pit over ten kilometers in diameter and bottomless. Thick dark fog constantly billowed from it year-round. Adventurers who weren’t afraid of death jumped down, most killed midway by monsters lurking around the pit’s edge or within the fog, with only a few managing to continue their fall until they…

Hit some unknown depth and met an obscure death.

Because they too don’t know what lies at the bottom, after falling to deep depths, the fog in the void began to contain an extremely corrosive and toxic poison, and many died in mid-air before making it to the bottom. So far, no one has made it down there to see for themselves.

Lin Xiao arrived at the edge of this colossal pit, where many players were leveling up by killing a type of monster called Demon killer, which spawned around the pit’s edge. It was said they had a chance to drop a valuable, purple-quality material called Primordial Essence.

Lin Xiao reached out to grasp a wisp of grey fog into his hand, rubbed it with his thumb, and then looked back down:

“The residual aura of an Ancient god; did this shattered world also once have Ancient gods and Star Souls?”

But he immediately discounted this theory:

“No, that can’t be right. If a Star Soul had been born here, there’s no way I wouldn’t sense it!”

As a Titan, it was impossible for him not to sense the presence of his own kind, even if the Titans of this world had long perished or had fallen in their Star Soul stage. But now, he could only sense the aura of Ancient gods and not that of any Star Soul, which meant that while Ancient gods had once come to this world, it certainly never birthed a Star Soul.

“But that logic doesn’t make sense!”

Through contact with the Human Overlord, as collaborators, Lin Xiao had acquired many of the world’s secrets from the Overlord.