Book 12, The Descent of the Gods – Chapter 22, (title hidden)

Only after killing the Deity would Yale be rescued?

Hearing Zassler’s words, Linley felt a hint of pressure.

“Yale currently...” When Linley thought about how Yale was currently being dominated by the Soulseed and would completely obey the orders of that mysterious Deity, he felt both rage and injustice in his heart. “No matter who that Deity is, I will definitely kill him!”

For the sake of letting Yale become the old Yale once again.

To let Yale regain his sense of self. He had to do this!

“Lord Linley? I want to ask.” Zassler paused a moment, then asked, “Lord Linley, after you and Lord Fain killed those two silver-robed men together, did you acquire anything from the corpses of those silver-robed men? For example, interspatial rings....”

“There were interspatial rings.” Linley nodded as he looked at Zassler. “But I gave them to Wharton already. Wharton can give them to whoever he wants. What of it?”

Perhaps to a King of a Kingdom, interspatial rings were very precious.

But to an ordinary Saint, they were relatively commonplace items. To an expert like Linley, it would be very easy for him to acquire an interspatial ring. Thus, he didn’t care too much about the interspatial ring that he had found on the silver-robed men’s corpses. They had acquired two interspatial rings from the two silver-robed men. Fain took one, and Linley had taken one.

“Lord Linley, it’s best if you first investigate what exactly is within that interspatial ring.” Zassler said solemnly.

“Fine.”

Linley listened to Zassler’s advice and immediately sent someone to invite Wharton to come over.

Wharton quickly arrived at the rear gardens. On the way over, he was feeling rather worried. “Big bro highly values the love he shared with his bros. But that Yale, he...big bro must feel terrible right now.” Wharton was worrying for Linley, but when he saw Linley, he discovered...

Right now, Linley didn’t seem heartbroken at all. Instead, he was frowning slightly, a steely look in his gaze, as though he was worrying about something.

“Big bro, why’d you summon me?” Wharton immediately asked.

“I gave you an interspatial ring, right? Have you given it to someone else yet?” Linley asked hastily.

Wharton laughed and said, “Not yet. I was planning to give it to Nina in a few days. Nina and I have been married for so long, but I’ve never gifted her with anything particularly precious.”

“Have Nina come over quickly and have her bind it with blood. Let’s see what’s inside this interspatial ring.” Linley said hurriedly.

Wharton was very surprised. Why was his big brother in such a rush over this?

Soon, Nina arrived. After knowing what Linley wanted, Nina very straightforwardly immediately bound the interspatial ring by blood, and then retrieved all of the contents stored within the ring at once.

There were some clothes, some ore...and in particular, a crystal ball stood out.

“That’s it.” Zassler’s eyes lit up when he saw the crystal ball.

Linley, Wharton, and Nina were all somewhat puzzled. As far as they were concerned, the crystal ball had a bit of a strange aura, yes, but Linley and the other two had no idea what effect the crystal ball had. But Zassler knew what it was, as soon as he saw it.

Zassler reached out and lifted up the crystal ball. The materials on the inside of the crystal ball seemed to be different compared to the materials on the outside of it. When the sunlight shone into the crystal ball, it would distort and then solidify within the heart of the crystal ball.

Zassler controlled his spiritual energy, delivering it into the crystal ball, carefully inspecting the situation within.

“This crystal ball has already been refined.” Zassler said after a pause, trying to find a way to simplify what he wanted to say. “Its current purpose is now to absorb any surrounding unprotected souls within an area of ten square meters or so.”

“Collect souls?” Linley’s heart shuddered.

He understood now.

The ‘dead city’ events were clearly caused by the silver-robed men, who would slaughter people with one hand while holding the crystal ball in the other. Each time a person was killed, their soul would naturally be absorbed into the crystal ball. After wiping out the entire Bluelion City, nearly a hundred thousand souls would have been absorbed.

“What is the purpose of collecting souls?” Wharton said in astonishment. Wharton and Nina both felt a sense of great shock.

Zassler explained, “The collecting of many souls...first of all, because Necromancy comes from the Overgod of Death, generally speaking, those who train in Necromancy are able to become Deities. They mostly train in the Edicts of Death, and the Edicts of Death contain much regarding the usage of souls.”

“By amassing a large amount of souls, one can execute some special attacks.” Zassler explained.

“The...the Edicts of Death, it really is...” Even Linley felt rather uncomfortable.

He knew of the seven Elemental Laws of earth, fire, water, wind, lightning, light, and darkness. He also knew that Death, Destruction, Life, and Fate were four types of Edicts. Edicts and Laws were two different concepts. The Edicts were the rules which governed the functioning of the entire universe.

As for the Edicts of Death, training in them focused on ‘Death’.

“The biggest purpose of amassing so many souls is to refine them and absorb them to increase one’s own soul in power.” Zassler’s words never ceased to amaze.

“Strengthen the power of one’s own soul?” Linley was truly stunned.

In the past, Dylin had told Linley that there were two options to becoming a Deity. The second option was to form a clone Deity body around the divine spark, which would represent that one’s soul was being split in half. The soul was the most basic element to any living creature! Upon becoming a Deity, a Deity’s body, once destroyed, could instantly be reformed from energy.

But if the soul was destroyed, then one would definitely die.

While one trained and grew stronger, one’s soul would slowly grow stronger as well.

“Refine a large amount of souls, then absorb them to strengthen one’s own soul?” Linley felt this was simply inconceivable.

“Right. Only, refining souls is simply too hard.” Zassler sighed. “It requires a thorough understanding of souls. Even I am not capable of doing such a thing. I imagine that a Deity who trains in the Way of Death will be capable of doing this. But most likely even other Deities who train in different Laws will find it very hard to do this.”

Linley nodded to himself.

Refining the souls of others to strengthen one’s own soul. This ability was simply too monstrous.

If any ordinary Demigod was capable of it, that would be too ridiculous. From the sound of it, even Deities capable of doing this were extremely rare.

“I think that I already have a good idea as to where that Deity is currently located.” Zassler said.

Linley’s eyes instantly lit up.

Zassler said calmly, “Putting all the pieces together, such as Yale asking to buy so many battle captives, or those silver-robed men destroying cities and collecting souls...clearly, this Deity is desperately in need of souls. As for this Deity’s location, I imagine that he is located in the place where those battle captives are being delivered to.”

Linley agreed with this point as well.

“We also know that the excuse the Dawson Conglomerate gave us for the reason why they are buying so many slaves is because they are excavating an enormous secret mine, with the location being within a mountain range near the southern edge of our Baruch Empire. Within that mountain range, there is a large valley, where one of the branches of the Dawson Conglomerate are located. I think...that Deity is probably there.” Zassler guessed.

Zassler’s lips revealed a hint of an evil smile. “Not just that. For Yale to be able to arrive so quickly...Lord Linley, you killed that silver-robed man just last night, but Yale arrived right away today. I expect that last night, Yale received the order from that Deity to come deal with you.”

Linley nodded slightly.

“Yale isn’t a Saint. He has to ride a flying magical beast. First, he needs to go to the Deity to retrieve the Soulsilk Poison, and then make haste to Dragonblood Castle. He only spent ten or so hours...and how fast can a flying magical beast be? Thus, that Deity is definitely within a few thousand kilometers of us. Otherwise, there is no way Yale would be able to make haste to Dragonblood Castle so quickly.”

“The only large branch of the Dawson Conglomerate within a few thousand kilometers of us is that valley.”

Zassler was very certain.

“Right.” Linley nodded slightly. “Wharton, Zassler, Nina...all of you can go rest. I’m going to immediately begin training.”

“Big bro, are you in that much of a hurry?” Wharton was somewhat surprised. After all, Linley had said that they would have dinner together, and he would only go back into training after dinner.

“What sort of a mood do you think I am in? Enough. All of you, go handle your own affairs.” Linley turned his gaze towards the southwest. “Collecting souls? Slaughtering living beings? Dominating Yale...” Linley was filled with a killing urge towards this unseen, mysterious Deity.

Linley immediately left the rear flower garden, entering the hidden secret training room deep within Dragonblood Castle.

As soon as Linley stepped into the pocket dimension, Delia, who was seated in the meditative position on the stone bed, opened her eyes.

“Linley, what happened?” Delia was somewhat puzzled.

Seeing Delia, Linley made a decision. He didn’t want Delia to worry. Forcing out a smile, he said, “Nothing. Let’s continue training.” Linley immediately sat on the floor in the meditative position. Outside the pocket dimension, the multicolored chaotic space continued to flow about.

“Upon reaching the Deity-level, the very first Deity I will kill will be that bastard.” Linley’s heart was filled with a murderous urge.

Linley took three deep breaths before he was able to calm down, and then he fully began to absorb himself in attuning with the Elemental Laws of the Wind, constantly experimenting and perfecting the Profound Truths of Velocity...

As he attuned with the boundless Elemental Laws, those three illusionary mental swords which represented the ‘Fast’ aspect, ‘Slow’ aspect, and ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’ all began to display their attacks in his mind. Those three swords transformed countless times, and in a single instant, Linley was capable of hypothesizing ten million different methods of usage.

Hypothesize, and then verify using the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ swords. Only then could he slowly gain new insights.

Only one experiment after another would he be able to understand what the right path was.

The more insight he gained, the more Linley could clearly sense that the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects truly weren’t opposites at all. They both contained commonalities. Fortunately, Linley had only gained some low-level insights into the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects, allowing his ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’ to also improve.

If he had previously reached an extremely high level in the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects, it would be extremely hard for him to fuse them later.

Time flowed like water, never stopping.

The Grand Warlock also knew that the Soulsilk Poison which Yale had used had failed to kill Linley. This was actually a cause of considerable surprise to the Grand Warlock. This Soulsilk Poison was extremely toxic, and not a single Saint had been able to escape its affects alive yet.

Linley was the very first to survive this technique of the Grand Warlock’s.

“I suppose I’ll let that little punk of a Saint live for a while longer.” The Grand Warlock didn’t care about a Saint. If the opponent was a Deity, he might have been a bit concerned.

But a Saint?

The only reason he wanted to kill Linley was because Linley had killed his silver-robed guardians, making him a bit angry.

“So he actually didn’t kill Yale. He really is ‘soft-hearted’. Someone like him would have been betrayed and murdered in the Gebados Planar Prison long ago. Oh well, it’s all for the best. For him to do this saves me the trouble of spending more soul energy to go control another member of the Dawson Conglomerate.”

This affair quickly disappeared from the Grand Warlock’s mind. Right now, the Grand Warlock focused on refining the large amount of souls in front of him.

In the blink of an eye, more than half a year had passed.

Deep within Dragonblood Castle. The pocket dimension. Within the mind of Linley, who was in the meditative position, immersed in his training. Those three illusionary swords continued to display themselves again and again, representing yet another mystery of the ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’.

“Here it comes.”

Linley’s mind and soul began to naturally, clearly sense...that he had just crossed beyond a certain boundary. The boundary between Saints and Deities.

Linley opened his eyes and raised his head!

“Rumble...”

A thunderous, soul-shaking energy suddenly descended, completely enveloping Linley within it. The area around Linley all distorted, seemingly separating Linley from the nearby space. Linley’s entire body was raised into the air.

His body was not under his control at all as he levitated upwards.

“How terrifying...” Linley could sense that enormous, boundless, ancient, unique energy. To be more specific, it was the presence of something like a Law or an Edict. In front of this presence, Linley felt as though he were nothing more than an ant.

“This...should be the natural Edict which determines whether one is to become a Deity or not.” Linley’s heart was utterly shaken.

[TL Note – The title for this chapter is Linley Becomes a Deity]