The Era of Gods

Chapter 542: Chapter 542 The Division and Distinctions of the True God

Therefore, while Outland territories are essential, the core still lies in one’s own Divine Realm.

The numerous high-quality followers provide Lin Xiao with a substantial amount of the Power of Faith, which then transforms into pure Divine Power, further condensing into Divinity and strengthening the Divine Fire.

The growth of the Son of the Divine Realm during the Demigod Stage mainly focuses on two aspects. One is the mastery of rules, which is the most intuitive growth and the most stringent ascension requirement.

After all, to be divinely enthroned, one must meet the standards of rule mastery. Otherwise, even if you possess billions of Divine Power, you cannot achieve Divine Enthronement.

The second aspect is the enhancement of Divine Fire.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Divinity isn’t significant. The strengthening of Divinity is continuous throughout a deity’s growth journey, regardless of whether one has just become a Son of the Divine Realm or will become a powerful True God in the future. The stronger the Divinity, the better, without limits.

And the enhancement of Divine Fire is related to Divinity. Generally, the stronger the Divinity and the higher the rules mastered, the more powerful the Divine Fire will naturally become.

Moreover, Divine Fire is connected to the essence of soul and life. The stronger the Divine Fire, the stronger the essence of soul and life become. Correspondingly, the stronger your life essence and soul essence are, the stronger your Divine Fire will be, as will your Divinity. This is a chain relationship.

Lin Xiao’s Divinity Level has reached an impressive Rank 7. Although it has increased significantly during this period, with his soul merging with the Origin Core of the Crystal Wall System, his Divinity increased from the original 133 points to 177 units of Divinity. However, this did not lead to a qualitative change or further promotion.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

It can be seen that reaching Divinity Level Rank 7 is already extremely powerful, and further advancement would be quite difficult.

However, it can be predicted that once he returns from his incarnation and fuses with the Innate Ancient God Source, his Divinity will likely be greatly strengthened again, with a high probability of ascending to the exceedingly rare Rank 8 Divinity.

Lin Xiao is not sure about the upper limit of Divinity Levels, but he guesses it’s unlikely to be as exaggerated as having over a dozen levels; it’s probably either Rank 9 or Rank 10.

Rank 7 is probably already a very powerful level of Divinity, or else he would not have been able to become a Son of Gaia.

Theoretically, Lin Xiao is already qualified to attempt Divine Enthronement, but he feels the need to wait. Not to mention anything else, at the very least he needs to properly settle the followers within the Moon Cloud Realm and secure a stable source of resources and troops before swallowing Moon Cloud Realm.

Then, to completely devour the Moon Cloud Realm and ideally enable the merged Origin Core of the Crystal Wall System to undergo another transformation.

These must be done before the Divine Enthronement, as there would not be as much time afterward.

After Divine Enthronement, all powers will return to the True Body, and it won’t be possible to freely create incarnations as is currently the case.

After the Divine Enthronement, creating an incarnation will represent a true Incarnation of God, which has very stringent requirements. You can’t just create several of them casually; if one dies, it will take a long time before a new one can be split off.

A newly enthroned deity with Weak Divine Power can only split off one incarnation, and it must necessarily be a Divine Position Incarnation.

When one’s God Level advances to Fifth Level and becomes Weak Divine Power, it becomes possible to split off multiple incarnations. Generally, the number depends on the Divine Positions mastered. Aside from the Main Deity Position, you can split one Incarnation of God for each additional Divine Position, with their strength typically being half of the True Body’s God Level.

For example, if the True Body’s God Level is Level 4, then the incarnation would be equivalent to a Level 2 God Level.

However, since there is no concept of a half level in God Levels, if the True Body’s God Level is Level 3, the incarnation will only be First Level. If it’s Fifth Level, then the incarnation is Second Level. If a newly enthroned deity’s God Level is only Level 0, the Incarnation of God is also considered Level 0 by default. This means there won’t be True Deity Incarnations that are just Demigods.

This situation will change once one ascends to Medium Divine Power, but before discussing this, it’s important to clarify that Medium Divine Power inherently possesses five Incarnations of God, which are different from the previous Divine Position Incarnations.

The Divine Position Incarnations of Weak Divine Power and Weak Divine Power are solely the Incarnation of a single Divine Position. For example, Lin Xiao can split off Lifeline Divine Position Incarnation, Creator Divine Position Incarnation, Truth Divine Position Incarnation, etc., with each incarnation mastering the rules of a single Divine Position’s power.

However, the incarations of deities with Medium Divine Power and above will possess the powers of all Divine Positions simultaneously, much more formidable than those of Weak Divine Power, capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with their True Bodies.

Therefore, a deity’s strength reaching Medium Divine Power is considered a very powerful True God. This is also why only those with Medium Divine Power are qualified to establish a formal Divine System.

It’s not a compulsory criterion, but deities below Medium Divine Power are too weak. If even their incarnations are weak, how can they suppress the Gods in the Divine System?

The Incarnations of Medium Divine Power possess all the powers of the True Body, akin to a weakened version of the True Body, more than capable of easily suppressing the True Bodies of inferior True Gods.

In addition, deities with Medium Divine Power and above have a minor distinction in the level of their incarnations compared to those with God Levels below Ten possessing Weak Divine Power.

To illustrate, a Weak Divine Power deity with a God Level of five would have a Second Level Incarnation, whereas a Medium Divine Power deity with a God Level of eleven would have their incarnation’s level as six rather than five, one rounding down and the other rounding up.

As for the Incarnation of God with Powerful Divine Power, there was no difference from those with Medium Divine Power except for the fact that they had as many as twenty.

However, Incarnations with Powerful Divine Power possessed stronger divine power and a higher mastery of rules. Both in quantity and quality, they were stronger than those with Medium Divine Power.

Lin Xiao had no idea how many incarnations a being with Great Divine Power had. This kind of information wasn’t in the textbooks, and he didn’t have the qualifications or the possibility to learn about it. All he needed to know was that they were very strong.

It’s worth mentioning that Ancient gods didn’t have additional incarnations, but the powers of the Ancient God’s Divinity they mastered could be inherited by their incarnations. Therefore, a Deity with an Ancient God was definitely much stronger than a Deity of the same level without one.

Of course, knowing about these Deity-related matters was enough; they were concerns for the future. The current pressing matter was to quickly attack the Nightmare Main World and to seize the fruits of victory as soon as possible.

Since he had decided not to risk competing for the ownership of the so-called Star Soul Crystal Wall System, he needn’t worry too much. Just by crushing all the Children of Nightmare in the Outland and breaking into the Nightmare Main World, he could secure enough military achievements to give the Human Overlord an advantage in this competition, gradually eroding the Nightmare Sovereign’s existing influence in the Crystal Wall System, and step by step defeating the opposition.

Half a year later, Lin Xiao, along with Wu Zhonglin and other Great Lords from the main cities, formally sent out troops after transforming all 200,000 subordinates with an average level over Level 70, and more than 30,000 with an average level over Level 75, into the Lord template, to begin the assault on regions occupied by Nightmare players.

No full-scale mobilization of the entire camp was needed. As long as someone took the lead and the players saw their strength, a large number of players would naturally follow without having to offer anything in return.

After all, players were the best at seizing opportunities; with someone taking the lead, followers would naturally gather.

What concept was an army made up of over 200,000 NPCs with a template higher than a Lord?

It was equivalent to an army made up of over 200,000 Bosses of Level 70 or higher, and all with a mix of melee, range, and support abilities.

Moreover, to avoid these NPC subordinates being targeted and killed by the Nightmare players in the chaotic battles, Lin Xiao had brought in players from the Moon Soar Guild, granting them certain command rights; each could command twenty subordinates, coordinating them in battle to maximize their strength and minimize losses.

The Nightmare players who had been caught off guard on the many Floating Lands contested by both camps were slaughtered one after another, and the fortresses on the front line were all leveled.

The territories seized were distributed among the elites of the guild, further fueling their war spirit.

It wasn’t until they had flattened all the contended Floating Lands in one go and advanced deep into the heartland of the Nightmare Camp that the players from the various Human Camps gradually realized what was happening.

Just as he had said, once someone had initiated the attack and appeared strong, other players would follow to snatch up the spoils.

The more who gathered, the more they would share the pressure.

And seeing them seize so much territory, capture so many fortresses, and plunder so much resources, other players were green with envy. After all, years of accumulation meant that even a single fortress held resources worth four or five levels. All of those gathered resources, even if divided among a few guilds, amounted to a considerable bounty.

Masses of guilds called on friends and allies to gather, and their numbers swelled. In less than three months, the forces of united players had grown even larger than Lin Xiao’s forces.

The greater the momentum, the more it triggered a chain reaction. Naturally, the Nightmare players resisted with all their might. A year later, the scale of the war had become larger than any historical campaign, and both sides had entered a full-scale decisive phase.

By then, the Duronger Alliance, led by the Moon Soar Guild, wasn’t as conspicuous as before, not only to avoid casualties but also because other players were fiercely competing over territories. Fearing the land would be taken completely, they were even more aggressive than Lin Xiao’s forces in combat.

Lin Xiao watched with satisfaction, deliberately coordinating with them, usually staying behind to maintain order, stepping in only when faced with tough targets they couldn’t handle themselves. And especially whenever the Nightmare players assembled a significant force of players, he would personally strike to crush them.

Even though he kept a low profile, Lin Xiao’s personal interventions in several battles were decisive. The black holes he summoned were destructive on a cataclysmic scale, not least during one battle when he summoned a black hole that devoured an entire Broken Floating Land spanning hundreds of kilometers, along with millions of Nightmare players on it, thereby earning the horrific title, World Devourer.

At least to the Nightmare players, this was truly horrifying.

The downgrading strike from the ruleset was not something ordinary players could withstand. Each of his interventions meant a significant push forward on the battlefront. In just five years, they had reached the core of the Nightmare players’ bases in the Outland, equivalent to the Human players’ Hellfire Plains, forcing the activity range of the Nightmare players into this area.

At this point, Lin Xiao couldn’t use his ultimate moves anymore.

It wasn’t for fear of breaking apart this huge Broken Floating Land but because the Nightmare Sovereign had intervened. A super Nightmare Hero akin to the Archpriest Afilia emerged from the Nightmare Main World into the Outland, and Lin Xiao immediately sensed the terrifying gaze of the Nightmare Sovereign. He knew that if he intervened once more, it would provoke an attack from the Nightmare Sovereign.

He was not yet willing to forfeit this projection of himself, so he had to cease his personal involvement. From then on, progress depended on his subordinate troops and the multitude of Human players.

Fortunately, they had been in an advantageous position all along. The players’ strength as a whole had increased over the past few years, while the Nightmare players had died countless times, losing a portion of their experience with each death. Over the years, the average Nightmare player had died dozens of times, each time reducing their average level by one or two.

A one to two level drop per person might not seem like much, but when the entire group fell by one or two levels, the gap widened significantly.