Chapter 666: Divine Rank

Compared to the Abyssal Will’s anger at the appearance of the River of Darkness, the Underworld showed no reaction.
The Underworld, which has always been rather mysterious in the multiverse, has never been fully exposed to the outside world. No one knows how many secrets lie within it.
As the destination for the souls of the universe, the Underworld is so vast that even a high-ranking god like the God of the Underworld, Rops, finds it difficult to control entirely.
In fact, Rops has only held his divine status for a short time. He was a mortal who received the opportunity to become a god around the same time as the Goddess of Magic, Euryana. Euryana was able to rise to the rank of a high-ranking god so quickly thanks to the blessings of the Goddess of the Silver Moon, while Rops relied entirely on the assistance of this mysterious realm.
This is also why Rops is called the God of the Underworld rather than his predecessor, the God of Death.
After the waters of the River of Darkness flowed into the Underworld, it seemed to find an environment perfectly suited to it. It spread rapidly through the Underworld at a speed dozens of times faster than that of Hell and the Abyss. Moreover, it seemed to be connected to some mysterious force within the Underworld. In addition to its main stream, several branches emerged, quickly connecting the entire Underworld.
Through his perception of the River of Darkness, Donald was able to get a general idea of the situation in the Underworld—even if it was just a rough outline. The Underworld is so vast that it can almost compare to the entire material world. Many places are blocked by powerful and mysterious unknown forces, and even with the power of the River of Darkness, it is impossible to explore them completely. After all, the River of Darkness is still new and has limited power, so only its main stream penetrates the entire Underworld, with few branches. To create a network of waterways covering such a vast realm, it will likely have to wait until he becomes a high-ranking god!
“Although it is called the land of the dead, there is still vitality here. It is far cleaner than the Abyss, which is like a garbage dump of the filthiest parts of the multiverse.”
However, though the Underworld is good, it belongs to someone else. So Donald merely used the River of Darkness to observe and let it develop on its own, without any intention of changing its structure.
Because as soon as the River of Darkness appeared in the Underworld, several powerful willspenetrated it it, including that of Rops, the high-ranking god. It turned out that the situation in the Underworld was not as simple as he had imagined. Although Rops’ followers claim that their god is the ruler of the Underworld, through his earlier perceptions, Donald realized that Rops controls at most one-third of the Underworld.

In response to the prying of those powerful beings from the underworld, Donald conveyed goodwill and the intention not to disrupt the underworld through the River of the Underworld, causing them to retreat upon contact. Of course, Donald did not want to reveal his identity, so he only appeared as a part of the will within the River of the Underworld. Otherwise, if they discovered that the river was actually controlled by a lower-tier god, it would surely give rise to many other thoughts! In less than three months, the River of the Underworld had developed from its inception to the point where it initially covered both major planes of the lower realms. Only the Abyss remained slow in expansion—it had not even fully eroded the first layer of the Plain of Endless Abysses, having flowed through only about half of it. Moreover, the faster one went deeper, the slower the river flowed, clearly as the will of the Abyss was resisting its invasion. Even so, the power of the River of the Underworld had already surpassed what ordinary true gods could imagine. As its master, if Donald wished, he could use the river to gain power comparable to that of higher-tier gods. However, with his current physical strength, he could not sustain such immense power for long. Thus, he could only temporarily utilize the river’s power for less than a minute; any longer, and his physical form would collapse. Yet even this minute could determine the outcome of a battle at critical moments! Besides, Donald never intended to rely solely on the river’s power to become a higher-tier god. Its creation was originally merely part of his plan to destroy the Abyss and to secure a backup for himself. As the Hell plane developed steadily and the expansion of the River of the Underworld got on track, Donald vanished in a flash and returned to his own divine realm. After all, although he had temporary authority granted by Astymos, as an incarnation of a true god, it was not suitable for him to stay long in a lower realm like Hell. Speaking of which, Hell and the Abyss are quite similar in nature. If the multiverse is compared to a human body, then they are both the excretory organs responsible for removing negative energy and impurities from it. That’s why the gods refer to the Abyss as the universe’s garbage disposal. Indeed, this is true—only Hell handles relatively pure forms of negativity and orderly evil, while the Abyss absorbs everything chaotic and filthy, giving rise to various strange demon races. This is why creatures of Hell, such as devils, are inherently of higher quality than most abyssal demons and can exert greater collective power.

Upon returning to the Divine Kingdom, the true form residing at its core immediately became aware of all the experiences of the Punishment Avatar during that period. Although the true form and its avatars were one entity, they existed relatively independently. If one was in a different dimension, a plane barrier would prevent communication; the other could sense it but not achieve consciousness synchronization. Of course, any benefits gained by the avatar ultimately fell back on the true form. This was why Donald, the God of Laws, suddenly rose to the rank of mid-tier god, while the Punishment Avatar, which had actually experienced everything, saw no increase in power. Over the years since he successfully seized the throne, Donald’s followers, both openly and secretly, had reached nearly 100,000, providing enough faith power to rival some established mid-tier gods. Moreover, he continued to steal hundreds of thousands of units of faith power from the orcs. As long as his understanding of the laws improved, ascending to mid-tier god status would be no problem. Now, as his opponents grew stronger and even lower-tier god powers became insufficient, it was time to venture into the realm of mid-tier gods! “Natural Authority has already been taken by the God of Laws. The true form of the God of Laws was originally a new god who achieved greatness by founding a Natural Divine Kingdom, so this can be considered a fortunate coincidence. Thus, the true form of the God of Faith still has three paths to choose from: Balance, Order, and Creation. There’s also the realm of Time, but given my current understanding of the laws of time, it will likely take over a hundred years to gather the power needed for a mid-tier god status!” As Balance and Creation were the first realms mastered, Donald had a relatively deeper understanding of them, having basically reached the level to ascend to a lower-tier god status. However, thanks to the powerful exclusive artifact, the Whip of Order, and the foundation of Balance as a sub-realm of Order, he had the most profound understanding of the Order realm. Through the power of the Whip of Order, combined with his mastery of several sub-realm of Order, this was the power closest to achieving mid-tier god status at present. For a deity to raise their divine rank, it’s not about mastering more divine functions. Some complex divine realms not only offer little benefit to the development of a true god but can even hinder the advancement of their divine rank. According to the classification of divine ranks in the universe by the former owner of the Book of Truth, a zero-level divine rank—meaning no divine rank or a blank divine rank—is that of a demi-god. At this stage, such a deity only possesses divine fire, hence their divine rank is zero.

Divine levels from 1 to 5 correspond to newly risen gods, also known as those with weak divine power; levels 6 to 10 belong to lower gods, also referred to as those with weak divine strength; levels 11 to 15 are intermediate gods, known as those with moderate divine power; levels 16 to 20 are higher gods, also called those with powerful divine strength. Above level 20 lies the realm of the supreme god, which is not even recorded in the Book of Truth.

The classification of divine levels in this universe is relatively vague, but it is roughly similar—only without such detailed division into twenty levels; instead, it is roughly divided into stages from newly risen gods to higher gods.

In contrast, Donald prefers a more comprehensive system of divine level classification from another universe. According to calculations from the Book of Truth, his current divine level as the God of Laws is 11, meaning he has just reached the level of an intermediate god, while his divine level as the God of Faith is 10, which represents the peak of lower gods.

To advance from a lower god to an intermediate god, in any universe, one must establish a primary divine role to unify all powers and achieve greater divine strength. Or, in terms of the Earth universe’s terminology, it means determining the direction of the universal laws one adheres to.

After some consideration, Donald chose what could be considered the most likely path to becoming a supreme god: Order!

“The true form of the God of Laws has already embarked on the path of the natural realm. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, it will at least enable him to reach half the level of a supreme god, serving as an experimental step. Thus, the God of Faith doesn’t need any domains related to nature!”

Before officially establishing his other primary divine role, Donald first separated out the natural-related domains of the God of Faith.

Seeing a brilliant emerald-green divine crystal appear in his hand, Donald without hesitation threw it to his true form as the God of Laws.

As these divine aspects were separated, the Avatars of Punishment and Nature Protection automatically disappeared, merging their powers into this divine crystal. To reappear, they would need to expend divine energy to create them anew.

After removing the powers of the nature-related domains, the divine level of the God of Faith dropped to 6. It was only a little short of falling back to the level of a newly risen god.

Fortunately, as Donald quickly replenished the accumulated power of faith, the divine powers of the other domains within the crystal began to grow rapidly, raising the divine level of the God of Faith back above 8.

In the following days, the true form of Donald’s faith god retracted all the avatars it had created, including their powers, and focused on accumulating strength within the core of the divine kingdom to establish its supreme divine position. As for matters within the divine kingdom, they were left to be managed by the Law God.