Chapter 463: The Heart of a King

While Donald sorted through the divine materials at his disposal to prepare for crafting his second artifact, Uther in the Dark Manor was also at a critical stage in the process of merging his divine essence.

Earlier than Donald had anticipated, after about twenty days, the once faintly glowing divine essence began to emit a radiant divinity. Through the fusion of holy light with these divine rays, Uther’s divine bloodline grew stronger over these days, now filling more than half of his body. With a little more effort, he could reach the level where he could ignite a divine flame.

Yet Uther did not choose the easier path of merging his divine essence. Remembering his master’s instructions, he decided that mastering holy light must go hand in hand with, or even surpass, his own strength. Out of faith in his master Donald, Uther was convinced that mastering holy light would bring greater benefits and more potential for growth.

Indeed, the power of the demi-god essence Axse came from a portion of the Lightbringer’s radiant power, limiting it to the level of a demi-god. Even after being refined by Donald’s Book of Truth and acquired by someone else, without connecting with the Lightbringer’s power, it could only grow to the level of an ordinary demi-god. Any further development would lead to conflicts with such a powerful being as the Lightbringer, making it impossible to gather divine authority and become a new god.

The other option—accepting the Lightbringer’s power—would mean being controlled by that being, with one’s life and death no longer in one’s own hands!

In comparison, although holy light also had limited potential, it could still support one to the level of a lower god without being constrained by other entities.

Given these circumstances, Donald clearly knew which path to choose.

Three more days passed, and suddenly, a majestic and deep voice resonated deep within the souls of all the Paladins of the Silver Hand Order.

“Brave, strong, merciful, compassionate—protect the weak and the good with a heart of light, and punish evil and corruption with a holy flame. May light endure forever, and divinity be immortal…”

This was the doctrine passed down to paladins, now proclaimed by Uther, who had fully taken control of holy light and ascended to the rank of an immortal demi-god.

Apart from these holy knights trained by him, all beings in the main world with a strong sensitivity to holy light can hear it. After Uther obtains a divine position, he can automatically gain the corresponding power to become a holy knight. However, holy light itself is not a divine position but rather an illusory force formed by the collective intentions of beings who aspire to light and goodness. Its radiant and sacred attributes are similar to true divine powers but differ, being more like using illusion to alter reality. In fact, some beings with naturally strong mental powers can alter parts of their existence through strong desires. Therefore, if Uther wants to establish a divine domain, it will be relatively easier in the realms of light, goodness, and holy knights. The first two are characteristics of his power, while the latter is a professional divine position. At this point, like other demi-god warriors, Uther needs time to accumulate strength before successfully establishing a divine domain, unlike Donald who is exceptionally gifted. Thus, Donald finally has his first true demi-god subordinate, while Uther, this demi-god holy knight, is now the source of holy light power—holy light is his divine flame, and all those who pray to it are known to him. He also possesses a demi-god divinity whose power has not yet been fully mastered or integrated, allowing his strength to grow faster than that of many demi-god warriors. Since he has not yet officially obtained a divine position, he temporarily serves as a divine messenger under him during this period. Yet, Uther’s combat strength far exceeds that of most demi-gods in the main world; even the divine messengers of higher gods may not be his match if they do not use divine artifacts. Once Uther reaches the status of a demi-god, Donald’s available strength increases significantly. This holy light divine messenger was immediately sent by Donald to the Chieftainship of Thirion on the New Continent to intimidate other forces, attract more followers, and provide support to Kelthas’s mercenary forces at any time. Next, Donald officially begins working on crafting divine artifacts. When thinking of divine artifacts, he first recalls that journey to the Abyss, where he seized one of the two sub-divine artifacts among the seven Banai divine artifacts from the Duke of Bones. After all, besides being a true god, he is also a mage, and using such artifacts specifically created for mages allows him to unleash even greater power.

However, he clearly underestimated the wisdom of the powerful mages in the Magic Empire of Bannay. Through Chikofield’s previous introductions, Donald learned that the greatest strength of Bannay’s Seven Divine Artifacts lay in the fact that when combined, these seven secondary artifacts could exert a power comparable to that of medium-grade divine artifacts. Donald wasn’t unable to disassemble these artifacts and reforge them into true divine artifacts, but he couldn’t do so without destroying the attributes of the artifact set—unless he could gather all seven powerful secondary artifacts at once! In that case, these two secondary artifacts could only remain as they were for now, and their usefulness to Donald, who was already a true god, wasn’t as great as that of true divine artifacts. Since Natural Fury was already an offensive divine artifact, Donald normally needed a defensive one. But since he already had the Book of Truth, a high-grade divine artifact that, though not specifically designed for defense, still had defensive capabilities surpassing most medium-grade divine artifacts due to its high-grade status, Donald didn’t need to seek defensive powers for now and could focus more on offense. Thus, Donald thought of another force he had mastered around the same time as Natural Fury—the illusory long sword of the Heart of the King, condensed from the realm of royal authority that existed in the world of consciousness. Since Natural Fury had been successfully transformed into a true divine artifact, the Heart of the King could do the same. This incomplete divine authority arose accidentally from Donald’s experiments to see if mages could master a spiritual willpower similar to that of a sword sage. However, divine realms like royal power and royalty weren’t very useful to him, and he didn’t want to establish a vast empire. After all, compared to the immortal True God Church, no matter how powerful a nation might be, it would eventually fall, and usually much sooner than expected—even true gods couldn’t guarantee this for long. Additionally, Donald was impatient with the complicated affairs of governing a country. Of course, he wouldn’t admit that this was the real reason he didn’t want to build a nation! So this time, Donald didn’t first master divine authority before allocating divine powers; clearly, he didn’t intend to make this new artifact his primary one but rather a secondary one.