Chapter 196: Realm, the Nine Steps of the Divine

Tokyo, Japan — the Extraordinary Response Strategy Division.

"Every time I watch it, it's still breathtaking." Professor Beishan gazed at the video of the Departed King playing on the big screen, deeply moved.

Three days had already passed since the great battle between Quetzalcoatl and God.

These three days felt like three centuries had passed; the changes wrought upon the world were enormous, like the leap from the Bronze Age to the Information Technology Age. The most obvious change was that everyone was seeking gods to believe in — over meals and tea, people chatted about gods and ghosts, discussing mythological history.

Japan, too, had undergone tremendous changes.

Akihabara — paradise of Japan's two-dimensional world: games, figures, anime, anything a guy might be interested in could be bought here. One of the world's largest figure hubs, in just three short days Akihabara had become the "world" of the gods.

God-related games, figures, animations, and merchandise — everything one could want was available.

Especially those god figures.

Using the video filmed by the Departed King, which clearly captured the appearances of the various gods, figure manufacturers took those gods as prototypes and crafted all manner of deity figures — domineering in design, exquisite beyond compare.

The moment a god figure went on sale, it sold out instantly.

Among them, the Quetzalcoatl figures sold best. Forget otaku — even people who didn't care for two-dimensional stuff would go buy a Japanese god figure, a Quetzalcoatl figure.

Gradually, Japan even gained many new collectors — god collectors — who specialized in gathering all sorts of figures, merchandise, and other items related to mythological gods.

Beyond the great changes in Akihabara, Japan had many other great changes as well.

For instance, history teachers would commandeer PE classes to lecture on mythological history; PE teachers were essentially idle all day, and no other teacher dared to fight the history teacher for the use of the PE period.

For instance, television had added several new programs — all of them about gods.

For instance, the foot traffic at shrines and temples had multiplied more than tenfold. Because so many people wanted to become monks, priests, or shrine maidens, the shrines and temples had no choice but to raise their entry thresholds — requiring at minimum an undergraduate degree and the like — in order to stem the flood of new applicants.

For instance, Japan's world-famous action film industry…

Similar changes were playing out across the entire world.

And these were only the visible, surface-level changes; many unknown changes were also underway.

For example, every country was running various extraordinary plans, sending people to try to make contact with the gods' dwelling places in hopes of establishing friendly ties with them.

The country with the biggest change, however, had to be the United States.

Since the great battle between Quetzalcoatl and God, Achuan and the others who had survived by luck sat collapsed on the ground, their clothes soaked through with sweat, feeling as if they had narrowly escaped death.

They had never imagined, never expected, that they would be rescued — and that the reason for their rescue was actually because of people from Huaguo…

Although five states had been lost, the U. S. had 50 states in total. Losing five hurt, certainly, but it wasn't enough to destroy the nation; they still had plenty of strength left. The only pity was that the land of those five states had been shattered — a scene of utter devastation, a wasteland — and it would take more than ten years for the earth to recover.

Quetzalcoatl's intent was to use the devastation of those five states to make the U. S. remember the sin of killing 25 million Native Americans.

Of course, that wasn't the main point.

The main point was that after Achuan and the others survived, besides immediately launching rescue operations in the five states — rescuing the lucky survivors and resettling them in other states — they also ordered the large-scale promotion of Native American mythology and the worship of Quetzalcoatl.

That's right — Achuan and the others had abandoned God's embrace and decided to worship Quetzalcoatl.

Quetzalcoatl was going to kill them, true, but in the end hadn't Quetzalcoatl shown great mercy? They should be grateful, thank Quetzalcoatl for not killing them. Besides, they were now living on this land where Native Americans had lived — worshipping Quetzalcoatl was only proper.

With subjects who believed in him, Quetzalcoatl surely wouldn't mind.

One had to know that the power of faith was a tremendous aid to gods — otherwise God wouldn't have been able to fight Quetzalcoatl to a standstill while initially fighting on the edge of the battlefield.

The main reason was the power of faith — it was essentially a cultivation cheat for gods.

One could see that Quetzalcoatl statues had been erected in every state of the U. S. Even in those five states temporarily unfit for human habitation, Achuan had sent people to erect Quetzalcoatl statues one after another — the meaning was clear: a response to Quetzalcoatl's words about remembering the sin.

At the same time, the U. S. was promoting Native American mythology on all fronts; courses on Native American culture had become a mandatory elective among electives, and so on.

Worth mentioning.

Many people from various countries were flocking to the U. S. — not to live there, but to visit, to see the five destroyed states, to witness just how terrifying gods could be.

The five states had become the single most popular tourist destination at present — bar none.

"Indeed," Director Takahashi agreed with Professor Beishan, his eyes never leaving the video on the big screen.

Yesterday, the Departed King had filmed the entire incident between Quetzalcoatl and God from beginning to end, edited it into a video, and posted it online — causing a sensation.

They had watched the gods' battle via satellite and telescope — not clear enough — but the video was very clear, letting one feel the terror of the gods more viscerally.

In less than half a day, the Departed King's video "Archive: Quetzalcoatl and God" had surpassed one billion views.

"What do you think the Departed King is?" Professor Zhongtian blurted out suddenly.

Each time they delved deeper, their understanding of the Departed King was refreshed — they had thought they were overestimating him, but in fact they had underestimated him.

Unfortunately, though this topic had been discussed many times, they still couldn't figure out who the Departed King was.

"I don't know, but I can now say for certain that the Departed King is at least an ancient god-level figure who has reached the latter three steps of the Nine Steps of the Divine realm."

"I agree."

"I agree as well."

"We still underestimated the Departed King. We thought he had merely reached the god level — we didn't expect him to be far more powerful than imagined. The latter three steps of the Nine Steps of the Divine realm — very possible."

When Minister Saito spoke, he received unanimous agreement from everyone present.

Ever since the incident with Master Konghai, the government had learned from Tsuchimikado Kenji about the classification of extraordinary power levels.

"Nine Realms of Living Beings, Nine Steps of the Divine realm."

This was the classification of extraordinary power levels.

More precisely, it was the power classification for all beings possessing extraordinary power — the extraordinary, yokai, gods, and the like.

They still remembered how shocked Director Takahashi and the others had been upon hearing Tsuchimikado Kenji describe the details of the power classification.

So it turned out that "god" was not merely a title — it was also a realm, referring to those existences as powerful as gods.

Gods were divided into two types: innate and acquired.

Innate was easy to understand — for example, among Japan's eight million gods, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi were born as gods, lofty and high, worshipped by the world.

The other type was acquired — referring to humans or other beings who, through cultivation, cultivated their way up to the god level.

For example, the Emperor Meiji enshrined at Meiji Shrine — Emperor Meiji was originally a human, but he was enshrined as a god. In reality, he had cultivated step by step until he finally achieved the Divine realm — that is, stepping into the "Nine Steps of the Divine realm."

Master Konghai, powerful as a god or buddha, was an extraordinary being who had ascended to the "Nine Steps of the Divine realm." Calling him a human was technically true, but calling him a god was more fitting.