192 Gods Descen (1/2)

What is a God? There was no way to actually answer this question since this colorful world contained too many existences known as Gods that really did reach the level of Gods in the eyes of people; however, in actual fact, Gods consisted of many varying levels.

The Elemental Gods, the True Gods of Order, the Evil Gods of Chaos, the Original Gods, and the others—they had all created their own organizations, and everything about their abilities and personalities was different. Not a single person could give an exact definition of a God, and even the veteran demons in the Chaos Abyss were able to become Gods, recruit believers, and bestow divine powers upon their followers.

And, to tell the truth, there were quite a few major demons that did this, and their believers usually hid in the shadows. Those dangerous demon worshipers were usually at the top of the most wanted lists.

As a matter of fact, there was actually more information on the Order Gods, the victors of the previous Holy War.

From a certain standpoint, since Lorci was an exiled Order God, she was still similar to a True God of Order as she had her own Divine Kingdom and teachings, and she even protected the dark elf species.

In order to understand these undying existences, one would first need to understand the differences between the True Gods of Order and the other Gods. Most True Gods of Order had a direct connection with a particular Divine Task, and their existences were representations of certain Concepts.

First, Gods should never be treated as individuals. Yet while they were indeed high above mortals and would never naturally die, they had quite a few limitations as well.

They were on a divine plane, but their main bodies were also trapped in the divine plane. They combined with their Divine Tasks and Concepts and became incredibly powerful, but, because of this, they were partially assimilated by the Concepts and had lost their senses of self.

The side of Order was orderly, after all, and their God system was like a tree with many branches and leaves, with all the Gods being a part of the overall tree, and each Divine Obligation and God had various connections with each other.

Low Gods, Middle Gods, High Gods, Main Gods—this was only a rough separation of their ranks, but in a way, it was indeed the current situation of this world tree.

If each Main God were said to be at the top of the divine tree, then the strongest Gods would be the tree’s branches, and the countless souls and their worship that could be seen down the ladder constituted the source of nutrition supporting this tree.

From a certain perspective, Lorci was still the same Elf Order God from before; she was creating her own world tree so that she could become an actual Main God of the elves, and her first step in accomplishing her goal was to construct the Dark Elf Gods, with the Poison God Felix being the first.

After they became a part of the world tree and lost a part of their self-consciousness, these Gods could be considered to no longer be individuals. The closest analogy to their existences would be a country.

Each God had their own Divine Kingdom, which was the combination of a Concept and group benefits, and these Gods would obtain the powers of administration. However, they were also tied down by the very same administrator powers.

Leaving their own Divine Kingdom? That was strongly forbidden, and as long as the Gods did not leave their Divine Kingdoms, it would be impossible for them to truly perish. If their physical bodies that they sent out were killed off, then the only thing that would happen would be some loss of divine power.

And now that the Elemental Tide wasn’t very active in the current generation, the Gods’ physical bodies were rather limited in power, and perhaps a SemiGod-level physical body would be able to deal with normal situations. But when faced with veteran SemiGods who had been through hundreds of battles, they would typically end up as part of their enemies’ experiments on researching divine power.

Yet in order to allow their Guardian God to truly be able to assist them, the ancient Elf Kingdom—in this aspect, at least—was far more advanced than other kingdoms.

”God’s Descent!”

There were certain standards to be fulfilled for a True God to perfectly accept a body as a vessel—the body needed to be customized, and their soul’s wavelength needed to be adjusted in order to adhere to the True God’s soul’s wavelength. This way, the True God could use power close to their maximum.

If a God’s Descent succeeded, and the True God’s will perfectly aligned with the vessel's, then its willpower and soul would transform into strength. And if the alignment ratio was over ninety percent, then with the vessel and will combining into one, the True God’s host would be able to wield power far surpassing that of a God’s physical body, and their combat strength would be almost at the level of a True God.

It was worth mentioning, however, that God’s Descent was a double-edged sword. This soul contained much of the God’s power, and if this vessel, which contained pure willpower and force, ended up being killed, then the True God’s divine power would take a huge blow. It that God was only a weak God to begin with, then there was a high chance of the God directly perishing.

The Forest Guardian God Clareladin had personally descended with his SemiGod descendant as his vessel and had indeed managed to draw out tremendous power. He had even managed to force Lorci into descending into her main physical body, but it was precisely because of this that Clareladin had met his end when his vessel SemiGod Prescott died.

These requirements were incredibly high, especially regarding the willpower of the original vessel. And, of course, the closer the person was to the God, the better. If there was a bloodline relation or a synchronized soul wavelength, then it would be all the better. In a way, Karwenz’s descent was the Chaos Abyss’ version of a God’s descent, and it worked almost exactly the same as that of True Gods of Order.

But there were also professionals at summoning the Gods into themselves, and the human witches in the far west, the soul shamans of the beastmen, and the moon elves’ soul priests all had bodies specialized for Gods’ descents. Among these groups, the moon elves had the oldest traditions.

The moon elves had always been the tribe of priests, which was an important role in the Elf Kingdom. Throughout the great history of the Elf Kingdom, the greatest priests would always come from the moon elf tribe.

Their innate body structures were the most suitable for communicating directly with the Gods, and their high-level Divine Arts that borrowed divine power aligned with their racial talent to begin with.

And after Atrion had joined Lorci, the Spider Queen had unhesitatingly designated him as a future vessel for the Poison God Felix. Amelia had also been countered all the way up until now because she had been facing against Atrion, who had been borrowing the Poison God’s divine power that naturally countered her plants.

”God’s Descent!”

With Atrion’s muttering, a dark-black light fell down from the skies, and a mysterious black mist wrapped itself around Atrion.

Abnormal magical runes appeared on Atrion’s skin and caused him to moan in pain as he knelt to the ground, but all the human spears and arrows tossed in his direction were blocked by an invisible barrier.

”Poison God Felix!”

The already corroding ground around him was evidence of the identity of the descending God. It was the lucky God who had recently just ascended.

Felix, who had been born as a dark elf, had long since reached the pinnacle of a SemiGod. When Lorci had helped him steal the Forest Guardian God’s divinity, a change had occurred in his Divine Obligation¹ of planting and guarding forests, which then combined with the poison assassin Felix’s original body’s specialties and transformed the Obligation into that of the Poison God.

Yet I didn’t even need the sight before me to confirm my opponent because my system wouldn’t possibly remain idle at such a critical time.

[Epic Quest: Slaying a God.]

[Quest Description: Kill the Poison God Felix, and make the foolish Lorci taste the feeling of losing her children again. Let her know the consequences of a double betrayal.]

[Reward: Depends on your performance, but a minimum of 50,000 Fate Points.]

[Punishment for failure: Believe me, if you fail, you won’t even need a punishment. Felix is such a weak God. You wouldn’t actually fail, would you?]

”Slaying a God? What an overestimation of my capabilities. Even if Felix is a super-weak God who just rose up to the level of a True God, I’m still not certain of being able to defeat him.”