The Era of Gods-Chapter 567 - Sanctuary

Chapter 567 -567 Sanctuary

The Lord of Darkness was a deity of the Medium Divine Power, his God Level reaching as high as the Eleventh Level; his strength had undergone a qualitative transformation, and any of his incarnations had a God Level of Fifth Level, comparable to those with Weak Divine Power.

Moreover, all incarnations could master their entire Godhood, equivalent to the True Body of a deity with Weak Divine Power taking action, and Lin Xiao’s current incarnation absolutely couldn’t overcome it.

Unable to overcome it, he naturally had to run. Taking advantage of the fact that The Lord of Darkness needed some time to arrive without coordinates, Lin Xiao quickly connected to the Teleportation Array he had previously dug out on the Second Level of the Dark Territory. The space twisted, swiftly swallowing him up.

A golden Hand of God shone brightly, swiping through the air just before he vanished, erasing the traces of spatial disturbance and his own existence. The underground returned to calm, leaving only a sprawl of corpses.

After a long while, boundless Darkness converged rapidly in the Void, turning into a pitch-black Lightning that crashed down with a thunderous explosion, as a tremendous voice roared:

“Who dares to provoke the great Lord of Darkness!”

An oppressive might that could suffocate mortals descended abruptly, an extremely overbearing and terrifying will sweeping across the ruins. Upon seeing the corpses of the Zoel scattered all around, the terrifying will boiled like oil in a pan. The fury was so intense that even ten kilometers away, one could clearly sense it. Every creature hidden in the Darkness within the range trembled at the god’s wrath.

But by now, Lin Xiao had long since left, even the residual traces of his presence had been wiped clean, leaving only the impotent rage of The Lord of Darkness.

“Boom!”

Golden light descended from the sky, sweeping over a ten-kilometer radius like a tidal wave. Stone, underground plants, and creatures vanished as the gold light passed over them.

A common Extraordinary godhood ability—Regional Divine Power Shockwave.

When the golden light dissipated, in the center where the Grey Dwarf castle stood, a basin hundreds of meters deep had been fiercely blasted out by the angry Lord of Darkness, spanning a radius of ten kilometers.

Inside the tunnel, Lin Xiao waited a full month before he and Jonila reopened the seal. The first thing he saw was the glow of a fire burning in the nearby Subterranean Tribe, his deity’s Eye of Truth making out clearly the Zoel who were burning, killing, and plundering.

Although he had dealt with the Elf Patrol Team from Reiradeira City in one fell swoop, the third level of the underground was not just home to a single Zoel Elven city—clearly, these were Zoel from other places.

These Ground Dwellers were completely powerless against the Zoel Patrol Team and unable to resist. They hid in the underground caves, but the Zoel piled many subterranean plants at the entrance to the caves, setting them on fire to smoke out the Ground Dwellers inside, or to suffocate them alive.

Some Zoel Mages summoned Water Elements to flood the tunnels with water and drop in poison. Before long, little Ground Dwellers with blackened skin floated up.

There was no resistance from the Ground Dwellers, for they could not resist at all.

The Ground Dwellers were too weak, their stature less than a meter tall and their innate Constitution frail. They couldn’t even beat human youths of the same size, had no proper weapons, and certainly could not inflict the slightest injury on the Zoel Elves.

What Lin Xiao saw was a one-sided massacre. Jonila clenched her giant axe, eyes filled with anger.

Lin Xiao sighed, tapped his Magic Wand, and with a flick of his right hand, he tore a crack in space before him. A searing heat rushed towards him.

Suddenly, a gateway of light opened and a gigantic fiery head poked through. The Fire Element about to roar at the sight of Lin Xiao immediately shut its mouth.

This was an Elite Fire Element, its combat power in this world equivalent to a top-level Professional of Professional Level Fifteen and above.

He summoned five or six Elite Fire Elements and dozens of Large Fire Elementals all at once, forming a massive sea of moving flames that surged forward. The sky-high blaze immediately caught the attention of the Zoel raiding party; a whistle sounded, and the Zoel involved in the plunder quickly gathered into an army of about a hundred, then slowly retreated.

A host of Fire Elements, with no benefit to defeating and a great risk of losses, and nothing essential for them here. Any Zoel with a normal brain would choose to leave.

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Having saved the Subterranean Tribe, Lin Xiao didn’t show himself, but simply let the Fire Elements patrol near the tribe to prevent the Zoel from returning.

The wrath of The Lord of Darkness probably hadn’t entirely subsided yet. If his Zoel Priests recognized him, he might descend immediately, and that would be troublesome.

Lin Xiao did not go to rescue other Ground Dweller tribes; one person with exhausted clones could not keep up. This time, they could only rely on themselves.

A month later, the traditional looting period of the Zoel ended. Patrol teams from different Zoel Cities of the third layer of the Dark Territory gradually left, leaving the Ground Dweller tribes in a state of utter devastation.

In the following half-year, the Ground Dwellers would silently rebuild their homes, replant their crops, reproduce, and wait for the crops to mature in half a year. Then they would face another round of Zoel sweeps, an endless cycle of Reincarnation.

At this moment, Lin Xiao had firmly decided to develop faith within this weak race, to protect them, and ultimately to become a deity through the power of this race in this world, eventually integrating into this world and becoming a member of the Hall of All Gods.

Although the Ground Dwellers were extraordinarily weak and the Power of Faith they provided was pathetically small, not even one percent of what an ordinary human could offer—so insignificant that even if they numbered over a billion, no deity would wish to protect them.

Though if their numbers were sufficient, the Power of Faith could be considerable, at least enough to sustain a New God, but again, the Ground Dwellers were too weak, with no combat power, and short lives to boot. Even if they were not killed by the Zoel, their lifespan barely exceeded ten years. Accepting this race as one’s main faith variety meant spending every day fretting over how to protect them, enough to drive a bunch of gods to despair.

The input and yield were completely disproportionate.

So if Lin Xiao wanted to achieve godhood based on the Ground Dwellers, he had to change this situation, at the very least, he had to find a way to give the Ground Dwellers a certain combat ability.

He already had a preliminary outline for this and was only awaiting implementation.

After the Zoels retreated, Lin Xiao dismissed the summoned Fire Elements but did not show himself. Instead, he took the Minotaur, Jonila, and found a spot within a mountain range a few kilometers from the tribe to carve out a cave where he planned to settle down for a prolonged period, also collecting some of the deceased Ground Dweller bodies for research.

The book “On Gaining Recognition from a Foreign Race in a Different Domain” had detailed explanations of various initial contact methods, and Lin Xiao chose one from them.

Over the next six months, he watched over the Ground Dwellers as they rebuilt their tribe, while studying their physiological structure and making preparations.

The cave was expanded, sealed with a Magic Array to prevent the scent from escaping, then further enlarged with space spells, and he took out a whole set of top-tier Alchemy equipment from the Magic Cube to study the Ground Dwellers’ physiological structure.

At this point, he no longer needed the Creation Magic Cube; his own knowledge of the Creationist godhood was enough to easily see through the deep cellular structure of the Cave-dwellers, and given time, he could change their physiological structure to make them stronger by himself.

However, at this stage, he could only strengthen a few Cave-dwellers, and if he wanted to change the entire Abyssal Race, he had to become a deity in this world and have both the Creator and Abyssal godhoods, otherwise he would be unable to apply the change to the whole race.

Time unknowingly passed amidst his research, and half a year later, when the Zoel Elf Patrol Team arrived again, this time as soon as they began their raid on the Subterranean Tribe, Lin Xiao appeared and summoned a Blizzard that covered several kilometers, scaring off the Zoel Patrol Team.

This time he didn’t stay invisible; he appeared directly in front of the Ground Dwellers, assuming their form.

Countless experiences of predecessors could testify that when pioneering the faith of a race, assuming the appearance of that race can most efficiently speed up the gathering of faith, especially for a weak race like the Ground Dwellers.

When Lin Xiao appeared in the Ground Dweller tribe as a super-strong Ground Dweller over two meters tall, summoning a powerful blizzard to drive away the Zoel, at that moment he felt hundreds of barely discernible weak threads of faith.

It was both because the Ground Dwellers were too weak to offer substantial Power of Faith and because they were new to faith, not yet steadfast, currently mere nominal believers.

But there was no rush, time was abundant.

He didn’t go elsewhere but stayed in the tribe. After driving away several Zoel Patrol Teams over time, the threads of faith within his Divinity gradually solidified, no longer as fragile as before, on the verge of breaking.

Time flowed by, one year after another passed.

Lin Xiao never actively spread faith in the Ground Dweller tribe, but every half-year when the Zoel raiding teams came to plunder, he stepped forward to drive the Zoel away, and if any Zoel raiding team persisted, he did not skimp on the Wrath of Thunder to strike them down.

This situation lasted for a full six years; the original Ground Dwellers had become old, as very few lived beyond three years, but now this tribe had many who lived to seven or eight years.

At this point, after six years of research, Lin Xiao finally managed to re-engineer the Ground Dwellers’ genetics with his own abilities.

They were still Ground Dwellers, but using Creation techniques, he eliminated the unnecessary and surplus genes within the Ground Dwellers; then he extracted useful genes from the bodies of the Zoel, the Grey Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, and even the Dreadclaw Beasts and other subterranean monsters. After reweaving, modulating, and integrating these into the Ground Dweller genetics, he made them as strong as possible without drastically changing their appearance.

The main reason for doing so was not to change the Ground Dweller race.

If the transformation was too great, the result would no longer be Ground Dwellers, and the project to change one would be a massive undertaking.

With only minor adjustments, the Ground Dwellers might not become very strong, but their most important trait, their reproductive speed, was retained, ensuring the race would not change. This would be more low-key and less likely to attract the covetous gaze of other deities.

Weak Ground Dwellers didn’t catch the attention of any gods, but if Ground Dwellers had the combat power of humans and a much higher reproduction ability, that would surely attract the attention and competition of numerous True Gods, and by then, he would not be able to keep this race to himself.