Chapter 710: Learning of the Conspiracy

Anim never expected that despite having activated its domain defense—which should at least have posed some resistance, if not completely stopped, the opponent’s attacks—it would suffer such a devastating defeat. It had no idea that the title “Eternal King of Nozdormu” was not given lightly; the power of the mental domain simply couldn’t prevent the penetration of the powerful laws of time. A difference of one level in the realm of laws meant an abyssal gap, not to mention the much larger disparity between them. This miscalculation led to a chain of mistakes, plunging Anim, which had once seemed certain of victory, into unprecedented despair.

The fall of its avatar alerted Anim greatly. It was the first time in thousands of years it had felt such crisis, sensing a mortal threat. Yet, it was trapped in a struggle between a powerful mid-tier divine puppet and an avatar of a true god, let alone with another major avatar lurking nearby.

“Who the hell are you?”

Fully enraged, Anim no longer cared about its own safety, focusing solely on escaping. After all, even if a mid-tier god’s body was injured, as long as some tissue remained, it could recover at the cost of some damage. With its life on the line, who would worry about minor injuries?

Faced with the counterattack from the Merchant and the God of Strange Things, the Destroyer Golden Body remained unshaken, using its formidable physique to withstand the attacks. Its extremely high divine resistance allowed it to ignore most divine spells and physical attacks from beings below mid-tier gods. Especially for a deity like Anim, who relied on mental abilities, those mental attacks, which seemed insurmountable to other beings, could only cause disruption rather than true harm to the puppet-like Destroyer Golden Body. It was simply Anim’s kryptonite! This left the Merchant and the God of Strange Things utterly furious.

Fortunately, the other two true gods were still wary of their own mental abilities. This was why, despite Anim suffering severe injuries and losing most of its tentacles, it hadn’t been fatally harmed. The King of the North and the Bronze Dragon King were also reluctant to go all out, fearing they might be dragged down and suffer mutual losses. Thus, they only held back from launching a full assault. After all, the gap in rank was too great; even with a mid-tier god’s body going berserk, the two of them couldn’t confront it head-on.

So Anim still harbored a glimmer of hope. He knew the other party was stalling to drain his strength, yet he hesitated to resort to his ultimate tactic—abandoning his divine kingdom and most of his body to escape. However, this thought changed instantly when the puppet on the other side unleashed devastating power. The flames of destruction and the beams of annihilation were powerful enough to instantly kill lower-ranked true gods or even gods of the same rank. Although Charlie wasn’t as skilled in using the Body of Destruction as its original owner, it still posed a deadly threat to Anim.
“Not good!”
“Haha! Let’s die together!”
The moment the Body of Destruction activated its ultimate move, Anim was engulfed by the flames of destruction and pierced by the beams of annihilation. He immediately resorted to his last resort. The massive, damaged tentacled creature’s body swelled rapidly like an inflating balloon, only to explode with a loud boom like a burst ball. A colossal energy storm sent both true gods flying hundreds of miles away. It was only because Nozdorm realized something was wrong and quickly activated his Time Domain that he and Charlie managed to escape the blast zone a moment earlier. Even then, it was only thanks to their full defensive efforts that they avoided severe injuries or death from the explosion. After all, it was the explosion of a mid-tier god’s true body—even if its power wasn’t at its peak, it was still enough to kill lower-ranked true gods.
“That was close! We almost fell for it!” Nozdorm said, still shaken.
His control over the Time Domain wasn’t yet perfect. Against the explosion of a mid-tier god like Anim, there was only a slim chance of stopping it, but escaping ahead of the explosion was much easier. Thus, the Eternal King wisely chose not to try to stop the enemy’s explosion but instead retreated with his companion in advance, ensuring their own safety.
This destructive energy storm nearly destroyed most of Anim’s divine kingdom. Neither the King of the North nor the King of the Bronze Dragons noticed that at the moment of the explosion, a faint light vanished into the space of the kingdom in the blink of an eye, carried by the shockwave. But they both knew that a powerful being of mid-tier god status couldn’t be easily defeated by them. Glancing at the kingdom’s realm, which now appeared somewhat more orderly after being largely destroyed, the King of the North sighed, “It seems Donald had great foresight. I wonder if Anim will manage to escape by chance!”

“Don’t worry. Just a mid-tier god who has lost most of his power—how could he possibly escape from his great master’s grasp?”
As a loyal subordinate of Donald, Nozdorm knew well the formidable tactics of his master. Since his birth, although his master had taken risks, he had always managed to turn the situation around at critical moments, as if everything was under his control. This time would be no exception!
In the void, a pitch-black, transparent stream of light, with a hint of crystalline glow, shot out of Anim’s divine realm like a meteor. As soon as it broke free from the realm’s barrier, it tried to flee deep into the outer void.
But before it could go far enough to disappear into the void, the stream of light seemed to hit an invisible barrier and was stopped outside the divine realm.
“What?”
Anim’s soul and divinity, taking advantage of the divine body’s self-destruction, hid within the brilliance of divinity in an attempt to escape. Unbeknownst to them, there was another obstacle outside the divine realm—clearly a plot against them!
Now with only its soul left and most of its divine power lost, Anim could only conjure up a phantom figure the size of an ordinary human in the void, its face filled with disbelief.
Looking at the figure before it, Anim said bitterly, “So it’s Prince Nature’s Guardian. I wonder if you can tell me why you’re doing this to me? So I can die understanding, without any regrets.”
Donald’s avatar appeared in the air, with an invisible barrier completely surrounding Anim’s divine realm. But instead of answering Anim’s questions, Donald simply waved his hand, freezing the space around them. Even if Anim’s full-powered mid-tier god form were here, it might not be able to break through such a powerful force of order. And now, with only its soul and divinity left, Anim didn’t even have enough strength to rebuild its body.
After doing this, Donald looked at Anim, who had once again been trapped inside a divinity crystal, and said softly, “As expected of someone from a cunning and strange background. Even at this point, you still hope for a miracle. If you had destroyed your divinity earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to you or get the information I wanted. But now, you have no chance at all!”
With that, he waved his hand, and the trapped divinity appeared in his hand.
With a flash of divine light, Anim’s soul was completely extracted without any resistance, and Donald casually put the divinity away.

The value of a divine essence is beyond doubt. If such an essence is given to a demigod, another powerful true god will likely emerge soon, and barring accidents, it will quickly rise to the level of a mid-tier god. Yet in Donald’s hands, this divine essence seemed like just an ordinary material, and he paid it little attention. In his view, obtaining precious immortal materials or exotic items from other realms was far more important than getting a divine essence. After all, with the Destiny Book and the Codex of the Gods—two powerful tools for establishing a divine domain—divine essences could be easily acquired by investing effort. The path to becoming a supreme god wasn’t one where having many divine essences guaranteed smooth progress; instead, obtaining precious materials to craft powerful artifacts or items was far more effective in enhancing one’s strength and realm. Of course, divine essences of supreme gods were still unique, their value comparable to that of high-tier artifacts, as such essences themselves were among the best materials for crafting them. After securing the divine essence, Donald didn’t remove the barrier in the void but stood there, immediately beginning to search through the memories within the soul of the deity Anim. This was what the two true gods, Charlie and Nozdormu, saw after emerging from their divine realms, and they immediately realized Donald’s plan must have succeeded perfectly. Moments later, Donald’s eyes widened as he projected a sharp divine light into the void, saying solemnly, “It’s indeed the worst-case scenario!” The King of the North hurried over and asked, “What’s wrong?” Donald shook his head. “The attacks on our home world’s industries were indeed carried out by this guy. The reason is that Catherine controls the commercial realm, which conflicts with his divine domain. But there’s a deeper conspiracy at play!” With that, he copied the memories he had extracted and shared them with Charlie and Nozdormu. After reading those memories, both the King of the North and the Eternal King were stunned. “So there’s such a conspiracy! That Lord of Dawn truly has grand plans—his schemes are so intricate; it seems he’s not just targeting our pantheon as an enemy.” Even Charlie, who wasn’t good at political scheming, could see the problems here, let alone Donald, who had a more comprehensive understanding of the multiverse’s situation.

“Not bad! It’s good that we know about these situations. Don’t mention them on the way back. Let’s discuss everything once we return to the Divine Kingdom. Avoid saying certain words, as even with a divine barrier, it might attract their attention. Although the possibility is slim, it’s not impossible—after all, they are powerful higher gods!”