Chapter 478: Stealing Faith
After thousands of years of worship by the orcs, along with the continuous nourishment from countless shamanic souls, the faint divinity within these totems has now grown a hundred times stronger.
According to the plan, once the right moment arrives and all the totems are gathered together, the scattered divinity of Ughesh and the fragments of his soul hidden somewhere will coalesce into a new god of the orcs.
And once the dictator is revived, with the belief of millions of orcs, he will soon be able to ascend to divinity once again—without facing the obstacles encountered by ordinary deities who must ignite divine flames.
Since the orcs have been secretly carrying out Ughesh’s commands in secrecy, undetected by humans and other gods, it was not until recently, when Ughesh was ready to reclaim his throne, that the human gods finally realized what was happening.
Had it not been for the rare opportunity of the arrival of the New Continent, with the attention of the human gods focused on the Totem Continent, they would not have rushed to take action.
Of course, Ughesh, eager to restore his freedom and strength, no longer wished to hide in the shadows; continuing to survive in secrecy was also a major reason. Otherwise, he could wait until he regained greater strength before resuming his reign—by then, even if the timing was unfavorable, it would be difficult for the human gods to stop him.
The fusion of the two major planes of the main world provided Ughesh with the perfect opportunity to restore his soul and body and reunite his shattered divine kingdom. Given more time, he might even regain the immense power of a great supreme god.
After learning the secrets of the totems, Donald also began to consider planning a backup for himself, just in case something similar to Ughesh’s situation arose in the future!
While Donald was deciphering the secrets of the Orc God Totem, King Charles of the North hesitated about giving up the spoils before him.
The domains of the Orc God of Plunder and the Orc God of Fertility were not suitable for him, nor did he like these areas. Yet, giving up the most valuable divine titles among the spoils was extremely difficult for him—after all, this was his best path to strengthening his power!
Donald naturally noticed Charles’s dilemma and said, “Why, Prince Charles, do you seem hesitant? If we use other divine titles as substitutes, would you be willing?”
Bigel’s domain of plunder was a rare one not recorded in the Codex of Gods, making it Donald’s top target. As for Kara’s domain of fertility, it was also useful to him, which was why he suggested exchanging it for other divine titles.
The most complete divine crystal in Donald’s possession at present is the newly acquired divine essence taken from the God of Winter Wolves. Although the divine essence of the God of Laws differs slightly from that of the God of Faith, the powers of divinity and rules it contains are real and tangible. Both the God of Faith and the God of Laws can successfully refine it—there is no difference among true gods in this regard.
The King of the North is already a true god, so he merely absorbs the power of this divine essence without any other changes occurring.
The divine essence of the God of Winter Wolves contains two aspects of divinity: winter and fear. However, since the King of the North is not a deity of the dark and evil faction, the aspect of fear, which belongs to the chaotic and evil domain, is not suitable for him. Therefore, Donald used the Book of Truth to extract it. To prevent the loss of one aspect of divinity from lowering the level of this divine essence, Donald simultaneously expended divine power to transform the original powers related to wind, cold, and ice and snow, assigning them to this divine essence to maintain balance and preserve its complete structure as a newly acquired divine essence.
The King of the North was also happy for Donald to replace an unrelated aspect of divinity with one related to his own domain of power. Moreover, the aspect of winter alone is one that can develop into at least a lower or middle-tier god, and its value is roughly comparable to that of the divine essences of the two orc true gods.
In short, it was the King of the North, Charles, who benefited from this outcome. Otherwise, why would an enemy go out of their way to understand a divinity that suits their own situation?
After distributing the most precious spoils, the rest became much easier to handle.
Next, Donald began to strip away the divine essences of the two orc true gods.
Whether it was Bigel, the God of Orc Plunder, or Kara, the God of Orc Procreation, they were both powerful newly ascended gods. Apart from their short time as gods and their failure to establish their own divine kingdoms, having inherited some of the power of the dictator Ughesh, their strength in the main world was already comparable to that of lower-tier gods!
Even such powerful true gods, once trapped by both Donald and the Book of Truth and dragged into the powerful upper-tier god kingdom of the Land of Truth, were suppressed by its rules, slowing down their thoughts to such an extent that they couldn’t even think of escaping and regaining their freedom!
As a result, the two orc true gods ended up in the miserable fate of having their divine essences stripped away.
Having lost their divinity, although Bigel and Kara, having already stepped into immortality, could still maintain their physical vitality and will, most of their spiritual powers were stripped away along with their divinity. Thus, even if they could regain their freedom now, their strength would be no match for a demi-god warrior—at most, they would be just stronger legends! As for their physical bodies, Donald hadn’t thought of any use for them yet, so he decided to keep them imprisoned in the Land of Truth for now! After finishing these tasks, Donald left the Land of Truth with Charlie. After all, such an environment that wasn’t his own divine realm, even with the temporary access Donald had granted him, wasn’t a place where a newly risen god could stay for long! After leaving the divine realm, the King of the North called out and began attempting to absorb the divinity of the God of Winter Wolves on the altar. Meanwhile, Donald studied the two newly obtained divinities in the underground palace, while also guarding King Charlie as he processed these divinities. Over there, Celt VII was still busy integrating his new body, and Charlie was eager to absorb the power of the new divinity. With the royal palace’s forbidden areas largely unguarded, Donald didn’t dare to immediately draw power from these two divinities either; he only tried to gain a preliminary understanding of them. It was then that he discovered an interesting phenomenon. He noticed that the two divinities floating in front of him, having left the Land of Truth and lost the shielding and suppression of the divine realm’s rules, were continuously drawing faith power from the outside world through streams of faith. However, due to the lack of control from an autonomous consciousness, this faith power drawn by the divinities wasn’t transformed into divine energy but was simply passed along, eventually dissipating in the air as no master was there to absorb it. Seeing this, Donald felt a pang of sorrow. “All this is such abundant divine energy!” Suddenly, an idea struck him. “Since this faith power seems to be uncontrolled, maybe…” So, Donald sent his true divine consciousness into one of the divinities, tracing back to its source through one of the streams of faith. Soon, the image of an old orc praying in a simple hut appeared in Donald’s mind, but the content of the old orc’s prayer made Donald angry. “All grown old and unable to walk, yet still thinking of raiding human territories for supplies and food, even wanting to kill people—truly a race born chaotic and evil!” Seeing this, the last trace of pity Donald still had for orcs vanished completely!
Setting aside the negative emotions caused by the thought of encountering those orcs, Donald also realized that his plan was likely to succeed, so he immediately released Beigel, the former God of Plunder, from the Land of Truth. As soon as Beigel appeared in the outside world, even though it had lost its divine status, it immediately caused one of the two divine essences to tremble. If Donald hadn’t promptly sent out a divine beam to suppress it, that essence of plunder would likely have flown over and merged with its original owner! This was because Beigel was once the God of Plunder, and every drop of blood and every ounce of power in its body was highly compatible with the powers of that deity, naturally triggering a reaction in the divine essence. “It really works!” Before Beigel, suddenly freed and about to regain control of its divine essence, could rejoice for even a moment, it heard Donald’s triumphant laughter and then lost control of itself, becoming a puppet at someone else’s mercy. After restraining Beigel, Donald placed the divine essence three feet above its head and carefully observed what happened between them. A few seconds later, he indeed saw the divine essence, drawn to its master’s presence, begin to accumulate faith energy. But since Beigel, which was connected to it, was completely restrained, this faith energy couldn’t be transformed into divine power. Instead of being wasted as before, it accumulated around the divine essence. “It’s done!” Seeing this, Donald was overjoyed! Since the former consciousnesses within those two divine essences had already been completely erased by the Book of Truth, whoever merged with them would become the new master of those divine essences—thus becoming the new God of Plunder and God of Orc Reproduction. Moreover, although these divine essences had lost contact with their original owners, they hadn’t been absorbed by other gods, and those original owners hadn’t died either. So, from an external perspective, it seemed as though the gods associated with these divine essences hadn’t perished. As a result, the orc believers would naturally continue to offer their faith to these two gods, and other orc gods wouldn’t think that Beigel and Kara had died—they would assume they were imprisoned by other gods. Gods possess great vitality; those at the level of mid-tier gods or above are hard to kill completely and can usually only be suppressed and sealed away. Therefore, considering that the orc chief god Ughesh was currently busy stabilizing his divine realm and seeking revenge against gods like the Lord of Dawn, it was likely he wouldn’t try to rescue Beigel and the others for several years. This gave Donald more time to steal faith energy!