The Era of Gods

There wasn’t much to hesitate about, given the circumstances he had no choice but to decide on changing his task. Did he really want to slaughter a demigod’s followers right under their nose?

Being bold was one thing; courting death was quite another.

With a thought, he called forth the task projection screen from the Divine Artifact Platform, which lay outside the plane. He wanted to see if there were any suitable tasks nearby.

Both exterminating the other four Frogman Tribes and the Snake Tribe were no longer viable, leaving him with one of the four tasks he had previously accepted: to slaughter a powerful Sea Beast. He decided to first check the nearby tasks to see if there was anything else he could do along the way.

The task panel, once densely packed with tasks, was now mostly grayed out, indicating that they had been taken by others and were no longer available.

First, he filtered out the gray tasks. The cluttered task panel suddenly became much clearer, with only a sparse few tasks remaining that could be done. Among them, there were several nearby, but…

One task with a bloody 100 points and three others with blazing red names indicating high difficulty levels of 95 points or above dazzled his eyes.

He passed on the 100 point task right away—its objective was quite simple, to kill a Snake People Demigod…

The other three tasks all had difficulties above 95 points, ranked from low to high at 95, 97, and 99 points, respectively.

The 95-point task was to destroy the Totem Pillar located at the center of the Snake Tribe in the Central Blackwater Swamp, essentially the altar representing the Snake People Demigod.

That was pretty much the same as slapping the face of the Snake People Demigod directly; even if…

“Hm?”

Lin Xiao’s eyes suddenly lit up as he noticed another page behind the task. He swiped and saw a tip:

“Observations indicate that the Snake People Demigod was injured due to unknown reasons several decades ago and spends half of each year in slumber, entering a deep sleep during the winter season as a habit.”

“That’s not very useful, is it!”

Lin Xiao temporarily ignored this as slumber didn’t mean the demigod couldn’t wake up. No matter how deep the sleep was, if it sensed that its followers in its own lair were being wiped out, it would certainly wake up in a rage. Besides, the battlefield was right in this swamp; should it awaken during a critical moment of the war, wouldn’t that be utterly disastrous?

Lin Xiao didn’t dare to take that risk; after all, if anything went wrong, it would basically mean game over.

The second task, with 97 points, was as Lin Xiao expected: to destroy Yuyuan City, a city of the Merfolk Empire located forty sea miles east of the Blackwater Swamp.

This task came with a tip too:

“Observations show that each spring, Yuyuan City dispatches a large number of envoy teams to collect tributes and taxes from the surrounding maritime tribes. This is when the city’s defensive power is at its weakest.”

Again, not very useful. No matter how many teams Yuyuan City sent out, the city’s defensive strength wouldn’t be weak. It was definitely not something he could conquer with his current strength, unless his power increased tenfold, then perhaps he would dare to try.

The third task, with 99 points, was second only to the 100 point task of slaying a demigod. The goal of this task, as displayed on the panel, was to exterminate a Divine Sea Beast that was settled more than fifty kilometers northeast of Yuyuan City, in a sea trench.

The so-called Divine Sea Beasts were powerful sea creatures that had gathered Divinity due to the prolonged worship by certain races.

XXX

Many deities are not humans by nature but are powerful beings that, for various reasons, have been worshipped by sentient creatures. Over time, they slowly accumulate faith and condense divine power. With the long-term accumulation of faith, they eventually achieve godhood and might even ignite the divine fire to become True Gods.

These wild deities are generally Evil Gods, possessing domains such as fear, destruction, slaughter, death, and so on. After all, these creatures initially do not consciously collect faith. It is mainly because they are so powerful that they inspire fear in others, giving rise to a perverted form of worship and thus godhood.

It is similar to how immense sea beasts could easily become objects of worship for coastal fishermen. Even in the super ancient eras of China, before heading out to sea, fishermen would offer incense to the Dragon King, the Sea God, Mazu, and the like, praying for a safe voyage—that is the most primitive form of faith.

Once these creatures accumulate enough faith to condense divinity, they become Divine Beings, like Lin Xiao, only without intelligence to amass faith and divine power. Whether they can become gods is purely a matter of luck, so there are very few of these deities.

The Divine Sea Beast involved in the mission had clearly become a Divine Being through this method. It lacked intelligence, but its combat power was exceptionally high. Even a Normal Demigod, who is also a sentient being, might not be able to defeat this Divine Sea Beast in its own territory.

Although this mission is rated only ninety-nine points instead of one hundred, its difficulty is estimated to be no less than that of slaughtering a demigod.

Like the previous two missions, this one also came with a hint:

“It is observed that this Divine Sea Beast is a giant deep-sea octopus, with its longest tentacle reaching six hundred and thirty meters. It dwells in the abyss, feasting on large creatures such as sea sharks and whales!”

“Damn, six hundred and thirty meters.”

This size immediately discouraged him, and he focused his attention seriously on the other two missions instead.

But after reviewing the missions again, he simply closed the panel and didn’t choose any of them.

The difficulty was too high; they were impossible to complete.

If all his Fishmen subordinates turned into Naga, and he had tens of thousands of Naga at his disposal, then he might have the courage to try. Even that Snake People Demigod, he would dare to confront.

Although demigods are formidable, they are not without weaknesses. If you strike first with overwhelming force, killing all members of the Frogman and Snake Tribes at the Black Water Swamp, the source of the Snake People Demigod’s faith, his power would weaken drastically. Moreover, without faith value to replenish, the demigod would grow weaker and weaker until the insufficient divine power could no longer sustain its godhood, causing it to fall from the status of a demigod to that of a mighty Divine Being, no longer a demigod.

The strength of a Divine Being compared to a demigod ,

As he thought about it, a peculiar expression suddenly appeared on Lin Xiao’s face. He tilted his head and stared up at the sky, his face changing back and forth, frozen as if pondering something.

At that moment, a bold idea suddenly sprang to mind.

If he could somehow manage to kill all the followers of the Snake People Demigod, then wait for the Snake People Demigod to weaken gradually until it fell from demigod to Divine Being, could he then drown it with the Human Sea Tactic?

This idea seemed quite feasible. Demigods couldn’t be killed with the Human Sea Tactic, but Divine Beings could. As long as all the followers of the Snake People Demigod were killed, this plan could be possible.

Of course, it was equally dangerous, and figuring out how to kill all of the demigod’s followers without it noticing was a big problem.

He already had a rough idea in his mind, but he was unsure if it would work.

The plan was simple: he would ally with the Merfolk Empire of Yuyuan City and then, after stabilizing his position there, he would find a way to slowly provoke the Snake Tribe, causing a dispute between the two powers, using the strength of Yuyuan City to attack Black Water Swamp.

Lin Xiao didn’t believe that there was no bad blood between the Merfolk Empire and Black Water Swamp. Yuyuan City’s location was right across from Blackwater Swamp, an obvious strategic position to contain the forces on that side.