The Era of Gods - Chapter 536

Chapter 536: Chapter 536: The Hidden World – Terrifying Conjecture

In this world, there exist Star Souls, world spirits that have developed their own will, as well as ancient gods that specifically corrupt Star Souls.

The origins of these ancient gods had taken him by surprise; they were not the agents sent by the Nightmare Sovereign, nor were they derivations of the world’s evil aspect, but rather innately born from the Crystal Wall System with the purpose of killing Star Souls still in gestation.

That is to say, if any planet within this world were to foster the birth of a Star Soul, the world mechanism would automatically nurture several ancient gods to corrupt the Star Soul, murdering the unformed Titan in its nascent stage.

The primary reason the Crystal Wall System did this was related to the current power struggle for dominion between the Human Overlord and the Nightmare Sovereign.

Both these dominators are actually Titans, the first Titans born of this universe. The universe itself does not repel the birth of Titans, who are Innate Ancient Gods; however, once these two powerful beings grew stronger, they killed the original will of the Crystal Wall Origin, attempting to seize the origin and become the new Lords of the Crystal Wall System.

This naturally provoked the inherent resistance of the Crystal Wall Origin, leading to the birth of ancient gods, especially designed to kill newly born Star Souls, distinct from the Titan Crystal Universe where ancient gods were created by the Void Lords to corrupt Star Souls.

Plainly speaking, this is the Crystal Wall Origin’s instinctive resistance, yet it is unfortunate for the Star Souls born later.

And the two dominators, not wanting to spawn new competitors, would naturally not go out of their way to protect newborn Star Souls, instead, they would also kill newly birthed Titans, like Du Longer, who even after killing the ancient gods and becoming a Dark Titan, would eventually be slain by the two dominators.

The birth of Lin Xiao was an accident; that is to say, he should now be considered the third Titan of this world.

This is also one of the main reasons why Lin Xiao is willing to cooperate with the Dominator. After defeating the Nightmare Sovereign, he would become one of only two Titans in this world, theoretically eligible to compete for the dominion of the Crystal Wall System. If there was a bigwig in the Main World willing to give him a push, it would pose a significant threat to the Human Overlord, which means his Titan incarnation is doomed in the future.

The problem is that there is no patron behind Lin Xiao ready to pay a huge price to support him, not even his father-in-law.

Not to mention that he is not yet officially married to Shen Yuexin; even if he were, his father-in-law would be less likely to allow him to take this step.

Because this would pose a great risk of the tail wagging the dog: at that point, if his Titan incarnation became much stronger than his True Body, it would certainly backlash against the True Body in an uncontrollable and irreversible way.

Then he would no longer be himself; instead, he would become a native ancient god of a Different Domain Crystal Wall, the Lord of the Crystal Wall System.

There’s another quite absurd situation here: if he were to break up with Shen Yuexin and simply make a deal with the Radiance’s Dominator purely as a Titan ancient god of the Star Soul Crystal Wall System, he would definitely gain the full support of the entire Radiance, even at the cost of great losses and sacrifices for them.

After all, should it succeed, Radiance would birth a new member of great divine power, and any cost would be worth it.

This is a paradox. Lin Xiao certainly would not want to be devoured by his own incarnation; at that point, he would no longer be himself, so what good is becoming a member of great divine power to him? What does it have to do with me?

It is also fortunate that he owns the Creation Magic Cube that allows him to communicate with his incarnation at any time, maintaining control over this avatar.

Well, at least he can control it for now; if it becomes much more powerful, that might change.

For other players who have avatars that become Titans, if they are unable to contact their True Body for a long time and there’s a big gap between the strengths of the avatar and the True Body, there’s a high chance the avatar will go out of control, with unpredictable consequences.

That being said, the presence of ancient gods in this broken Outerworld yet no trace of the Star Soul is inherently inconsistent. The natural response of the world only dispatches ancient gods after detecting a Star Soul. But now, having ancient gods in this world without any traces of the Star Soul can only mean two possibilities.

One possibility is that a powerful entity has hidden the traces of the Star Soul.

The second is that this world initially had no ancient gods, and the ancient god migrated from another world.

These are the only two possibilities; there is no third.

Regardless of which it is, Lin Xiao is very interested and circles the great pit before jumping in.

The dense grey fog does not obscure his vision, and within the fog float Demon killers that attack anyone who jumps down, but he falls too fast and quickly passes them by.

Jumping into the Bottomless Abyss feels like falling into the Void. Nothing can be seen; dense grey fog is everywhere. As one goes deeper, the fog becomes thicker, and deeper down, the fog starts to corrode – initially eroding equipment. The predecessors who tried endured equipment degradation until it was completely depleted before dying, leaving them with nothing when they revived.

Aside from his Orange Legend set, Lin Xiao is clad in other orange legendary scattered pieces, including adornments and rings, and even the magic wand in his hand is top-tier orange gear.

As a bona fide Titan Ancient God, Divine Artifacts might not be mass-produced, but creating Orange legendary equipment was still possible. Before parting ways with his girlfriend, he had specially prepared a set of Orange armor for her and transformed her profession template into a Hero template.

He had also bestowed this privilege on his high priestess, Afilia. Now, she could borrow strength from his True Body each month through prayer, converting it into one Hero template and ten Elite templates that were specifically awarded to players who had accomplished remarkable feats. This was not limited to subordinates in the Moon Soar Guild; other players also had the opportunity to receive them.

To players, Orange legendary equipment was already considered a Divine Artifact. Obtaining one piece could significantly strengthen their abilities. With over a dozen pieces of Orange equipment on him, just the two set accessories that automatically generated a Mana Shield with a defense of one hundred thousand every half-minute were enough to block most damages.

Thus, he unflinchingly descended tens of kilometers, the corrosive mist around him not even touching his body.

At this depth, the corrosive mist in the void had begun to transform into various illusions as if alive. Recounted by the players who had tried, these illusions became increasingly tangible over time, eventually able to manifest physical attacks.

In Lin Xiao’s perception, these illusions were remnants of the power of the Ancient gods.

Looking down into the Bottomless abyss, although he could see nothing, he instinctively felt as if some colossal entity existed below.

Hours later, what seemed like an endless descent finally came to an end. As he was plummeting, Lin Xiao suddenly sensed a massive shadow flit through the actualized mist below, followed swiftly by another dark shadow that slammed heavily into him, shattering his hundred thousand defense Mana Shield and catapulting him away.

“You have been attacked by an unknown entity, but you are immune to the target’s decay and mind control effects.”

This strike appeared to trigger something, as countless shadows surged from below. Following that, numerous force field auras began to act upon him. If a normal person arrived here, they would instantly find themselves afflicted with dozens of different negative enemy BUFFs.

“What is this thing? This mist is too irritating!”

Lin Xiao pointed with his finger and uttered lowly:

“Black Hole!”

A point of darkness emerged at his fingertip, and the next second, an indescribable terrifying suction power emitted from this dark point, binding the dense, tangible mist nearby and rapidly pulling it into the black hole.

In less than a minute, all the mist within a several kilometers radius was devoured, and the mist from farther away was quickly converging towards him, but it was enough for him to clearly see what lay beneath the mist…

Below was a seemingly endless mountain of flesh, or rather, within his field of vision, everything was part of this flesh mountain, with countless bizarre and enormous creatures growing on it.

There was a creature resembling a centipede stretching over ten kilometers long, as well as giant tentacles with teeth and suckers like those in horror movies, spiked and formless tentacles, and those with a human head and serpentine body covered in claws… It was like a monster museum with everything imaginable.

Each of these behemoths was an independent entity, each being a level 80 or above Leader-class monster at the very least, with the stronger ones being 90 or more, following the Lord template. In the distance, there were several incredibly powerful auras, and the base of their bodies was connected to the expansive blood-flesh Earth below, tearing at each other, devouring.

As the endless mist was devoured, more of the underground space became clear, allowing Lin Xiao to see a wider area; the more he saw, the more shocked he became, far more so than when he encountered the Ancient god Lifespan Devourer Zagulon back on the Ornell Planet.

The power of the Titans gave Lin Xiao exceptional vision. As he saw more, his mind was filled with questions, and gradually an answer that other players couldn’t understand, even if they saw it, emerged in his mind.

In ancient times, this planet had indeed given birth to a Star Soul, but it was unlucky. Before it could grow or face the attacks from the Ancient gods and the Void Demon, it was defeated prematurely, before its powers could peak, and was devoured by the Ancient gods without even having a chance to become a Dark Titan.

The unknown Ancient god that devoured the Dark Titan underwent some kind of transformation, shedding its massive original body and leaving behind this enormous flesh mountain carcass.

In other words, this world’s situation was the first scenario he had hypothesized: a powerful being had concealed any trace of the Star Soul’s existence.

That being was very likely the Ancient god that successfully devoured the Star Soul and transformed.

From this, Lin Xiao started to think about deeper issues. The Ancient gods were an innate resistance of the Crystal Wall Origin. If an Ancient god succeeded in devouring a Star Soul and transformed, what would it become? Where did it go after concealing itself? How many such quietly transformed terrifying beings were there in this world? Were the two Overlords aware of them?

At this moment, Lin Xiao had many questions in his mind. He wanted to ask the Human Overlord but reasoned that keeping this secret might yield additional gains, or maybe, this was an opportunity.

As this last thought emerged, he couldn’t help but shudder and immediately realized the danger of such an idea.

“I need to contact my True Body!”