The Era of Gods

After nearly half a month of this wearing down, Lin Xiao had been patiently waiting. Finally, on the sixteenth day, tens of thousands of Transcendent Water Elementals surrounded and killed the last guard around the Mother nest of flesh and blood, breaking through the massive flesh nest and seizing the Mother Seed.

This flesh nest was situated at the very core of the Children of Nightmare’s Realm, less than ten kilometers away from where the true body of the Children of Nightmare resided, the equivalent of the Divine Palace that housed the True Body in Lin Xiao’s Divine Realm.

Upon the collapse of the flesh nest, the concentrated Nightmare Power dissipated, and it was possible to see the even larger shadow in the distance than the Mother nest of flesh and blood.

That was the source of the Nightmare Realm. This vast Nightmare Realm initially extended outward from there, with the continuous Nightmare Power also extending from that point. The Child of Nightmare sat at the core, overlooking and ruling the entire realm.

But today, its rule came to an end.

After resting for two days, another seventy thousand Transcendent Water Elementals were summoned, launching the final assault on the core, the Nightmare God Mountain.

Unlike Human Divine Realms, the Nightmare core had neither a God Country nor Prayers of any sort, just a few core guards, including that legendary Six-winged Wingman.

But just one legendary being couldn’t withstand the continuous assault of the Transcendent Water Elementals. Eventually, after killing two or three thousand Rank 6 Transcendent Water Elementals, it was encircled and killed.

Once the guards were dead, they faced the Children of Nightmare’s True Body directly.

The control that the Child of Nightmare had over its own domain was suppressed to the extreme, with its consciousness even constrained to the vicinity of the core. It had lost control over most other areas of its domain, and its strength had dropped significantly.

Facing such an exasperating tactic, it was extremely frustrated but helpless.

It now deeply regretted not engaging in a full-scale battle earlier. Although at a slight disadvantage, the situation had not been utterly hopeless, with a glimmer of chance at victory. But hesitation led to the current predicament—the point of no return.

There was no turning the tables.

With no external interference, after four days of stubborn resistance, the Child of Nightmare’s core shell was breached, its powers exhausted, and it was slain.

Lin Xiao watched from afar. The true form of the Child of Nightmare resembled an enlarged version of a giant serpent, its body more than seventy meters long, with several legs, appearing to be a four-legged serpentine creature transformed by Nightmare Power. At the moment of its death, a black light surged to the sky, returning to the core of the Nightmare Realm.

This reminded him of what he’d seen in a peculiar world where the Child of Nightmare appeared human but possessed a serpentine, cold aura.

With the death of the Child of Nightmare, Lin Xiao felt the Nightmare Divine Realm lose any resistance and quickly activated his own Divine Realm to devour the Nightmare Realm.

Externally, this was evident as the edges of the Nightmare Realm began to crumble, transforming into countless granular light mists flowing along the passage between the two realms into Lin Xiao’s Divine Realm.

Located at the core of his Divine Realm, Lin Xiao’s True Body immediately sensed the continuous infusion of the essence of the Divine Realm into his own, as the slowly expanding edges of his Divine Realm began to grow and expand wildly.

According to the rules, he could devour the opposing Divine Realm starting from the fall of the Child of Nightmare, with the duration depending on the size and strength of the opponent’s realm, generally lasting longer for larger and stronger realms.

Lin Xiao was not clear on the specific duration, having never before engaged in a battle to the death with other Divine Territory Players.

But regardless of the duration, the opportunity to devour was a pure gain.

Moreover, taking advantage of the devouring process, he ordered the Clan to spread out across the entire Nightmare Realm and plunder its resources indiscriminately.

Most resources he didn’t need or were difficult to utilize, but common mineral resources were universal. He gathered these and placed them in the Fire Elemental Domain, using its Power of Flames to purify the residual Nightmare Power first.

Beyond that, Lin Xiao personally entered the core of the Nightmare Realm, plundering the Child of Nightmare’s core treasures.

Like the Divine Palace at the core of Lin Xiao’s Divine Realm, the Nightmare Realm also had its core, located within the black mountain formed by Nightmare Power. Any cards merged into the Nightmare Realm or personal treasures like Ancient Treasures would be found inside it.

For example, if someone defeated Lin Xiao, they could enter his Divine Palace to plunder, taking all the cards and miraculous buildings embedded in his Divine Realm, including his Soul of God.

Generally, only some physical card items could be taken, such as used special consumable cards like Breeding Cards—they couldn’t be stripped away again.

As the Child of Nightmare had fallen, the Nightmare Realm had lost its master, and the rules within the core had ceased to apply or, rather, their power had significantly weakened, much like being nonexistent to Lin Xiao.

Stepping into the core palace, Lin Xiao immediately saw, hanging from the dome of the Nightmare Palace… a piece of paper?

It looked like a very dark piece of parchment, with a layer of transparent glow visible on the paper’s surface that separated it from the black Nightmare Power of the dome. Through the Nightmare Power and the transparent glow, unknown texts could be seen densely written on the paper.

Lin Xiao had learned many of the common languages of the Crystal Wall Universe’s mainstream race, including Dragon, Elf, Dwarf, and Demon, among others, but he had never seen the script written on that piece of paper.

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It was clear that the Child of Nightmare had previously been using the power of the Nightmare Realm to wear down the power on the paper, which in Eastern terms is called refining.

Now it seems there is still some resistance left in the paper, probably not yet fully refined.

He waved his hand, and the Nightmare Power lingering in the Divine Palace dissipated, causing the sheet of paper to slowly float down, revealing many cards embedded in the dome above. The Nightmare World also used cards to strengthen the fields, but these cards were made of Nightmare Power and filled with its essence, making them unusable directly by the Human Divine Realm.

Thirty-seven cards could be retrieved from the Nightmare Realm, and he took all of them out without caring what they were, including two Ancient Treasures that were also corroded by Nightmare Power at the center of the dome.

Also, there was the Soul of God from the Child of Nightmare, whose True Body died and merged into the core of the Nightmare. This object contained the essence of the Child of Nightmare and seemed to hold some secrets.

He didn’t have time to research this for now and first checked the Ancient Treasures.

The Ancient Treasures were all First Level, with very simple effects: they added one point each to Constitution and Strength.

He put them away for now and then took down the piece of paper to check its attributes, revealing a hint of surprise.

This item turned out to be a Rank 2 Ancient Treasure, not a part of some Divine Artifact or book as he had imagined.

In his memory, the famous Artifacts like the Book of Nasr, Book of All Laws, Book of Sanctity, and Book of Filth were all in the form of books. He had thought this was a page from some kind of divine artifact book, but it was actually a Rank 2 Ancient Treasure.

But then again, even though it’s not the page of a divine artifact book he had envisioned but an Ancient Treasure, it essentially is part of a book—only that the book itself is an Ancient Treasure.

To put it simply, this page-like Rank 2 Ancient Treasure is just part of a super Ancient Treasure that is like a book.

The name of the Ancient Treasure is quite pretentious; it’s called the Book of Rules, and this page is called Spring.

Unlike other Ancient Treasures, a normal First Level Ancient Treasure only has one attribute, a Rank 2 has two, and a Rank 3 Top-tier Heirloom has three attributes, whether passive or active. This Rank 2 Ancient Treasure, fully named Book of Rules: Spring, only has one effect.

Ancient Treasure: Book of Rules: Spring (Rank 2 Ancient Treasure)

Passive Effect: Spring is the season when everything comes back to life. When loaded into the Divine Realm, during the spring season, it greatly enhances the effect and speed of reproduction, and every other week, all creatures within the Divine Realm receive a minor Purification effect.

Evaluation: Spring has come, and everything is revived.

This kind of Ancient Treasure is quite magical. It doesn’t add any attributes, and the effect doesn’t seem much, but once it’s loaded into the Divine Realm for an extended period, its power becomes quite substantial.

It’s a pity it’s only limited to spring. It would be great to complete the cycle by collecting the rules of all four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

After scavenging all the war loot, Lin Xiao returned to his own Divine Realm. There was nothing left to scavenge since the different races and power systems meant that most resources in the Nightmare Divine Realm were useless to him.

While the absorption of the Nightmare Realm was still underway, Lin Xiao went back to his Divine Palace to tally up the war loot, keeping what could be used and dealing with what could not.

His condition was not normal; once he finished digesting the Nightmare Realm, he would cut off the connection with his Divine Realm and return to that strange world. He could foresee more encounters with other Children of Nightmare ahead and a total war where it was either kill or be killed. He needed to maximize the power of his Divine Realm as much as possible.

First, he had Slarda strengthen the construction of faith, holding mass and large-scale prayer activities without affecting the faith, to accumulate Divine Power in preparation for the next battle.

If he had enough Divine Power in this battle, he wouldn’t have had to fight so cautiously and desperately.

Then, he planned to adjust some of the extraordinary abilities on the Extraordinary Magic Network.

The recent battles showed that although the extraordinary abilities were powerful, they were not very practical, aside from summoning Water Elementals. The main issue was the high requirements for their use.

Well, except for the foresight extraordinary ability.

This Extraordinary Magic Network, which he envisioned would be usable by all clans in his Divine Realm, in actuality could only be used frequently by the Wise Goblins and the Supreme Naga. The Earth Dwarves could barely use it once, and the Small Fishman couldn’t use it at all. This limitation was too great and wasted the potential of this treasure.

He planned to readjust the five extraordinary abilities on it, changing what needed to be changed and weakening what needed to be weakened.

After all, these were only Rank 1 extraordinary abilities. If they set such high requirements now, what would happen when the treasure was upgraded, and it was time to load Rank 2 extraordinary abilities?

The first one was foresight, which was converted from his own transcendental ability. It was so low consumption that even a Small Fishman could use it, so he left this one unchanged.

The second was Godspeed, and after some thought, Lin Xiao directly halved its power.

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