Chapter 330: The Upright Wu Chang

Feeling the vibrations coming from afar, Wu Chang frowned deeply.

Among the many instances of the Wasteland Realm, the Deep Sea Lord was unquestionably the strongest enemy he had ever faced.

As a divine avatar smuggled into the Wasteland Realm via partial remains, its stats were obviously formidable, and even against Lin, it held its own.

Mechanically possessing a divine realm—a phenomenon that should not appear in the Wasteland Realm—the Deep Sea Lord's abilities were massively amplified, both in offense and defense.

A divine realm is exclusive: unless its owner permits it, other deities' divine power is repelled within the realm, their effects drastically suppressed.

Generally speaking, to enter a deity's divine realm and defeat them, there are only two methods.

One is to unfold your own divine realm to cancel it out; the other is to use your authority to forcibly twist the rules of their divine realm.

This is why the Great Holy Mother showed such a loss of composure when she saw Wuqu Star Lord suppress the Deep Sea Lord using only martial skills, without invoking his divine realm or authority.

Wuqu Star Lord is an exception; Lin, currently fighting, is the standard case.

In terms of divine power and all attribute stats, Lin's divine power is several times greater than the Great Holy Mother's, and only slightly inferior to the Deep Sea Lord's.

But as a lower deity, her rank is too low, and her control over divine power remains primitive.

Her attacks, driven by light divine power, weaken by thirty percent before fully forming due to divine realm suppression.

After forming and leaving her body, they weaken another thirty percent due to the divine realm's exclusive rules.

By the time they strike the divine realm's owner, who is additionally protected by the realm, they weaken another thirty percent.

A full-strength attack delivers only one-tenth of its power—Lin's stats are strong enough to make this work; had the Great Holy Mother used the same attack, the force would barely suffice to give the Deep Sea Lord a massage, let alone satisfy his appetite.

Mortals before deities are like ants; separated by divinity, mortals cannot harm a deity in the slightest.

The divine realm is a second watershed: while the gap between having and not having a divine realm isn't as vast as that between having and not having divinity, it remains insurmountable.

For Lin to defeat the Deep Sea Lord through divine power alone is as absurd as dreaming the impossible; she must learn from Wuqu Star Lord and concentrate her divine power within her body and weapon, minimizing the divine realm's influence.

Then, she swings her warhammer, using ordinary attacks enhanced by divine power to fight the Deep Sea Lord.

But the gap between Lin and Wuqu Star Lord in martial skill is greater than the gap between her and the Deep Sea Lord in beauty; her clumsy imitation only ensures she won't die immediately, far from securing victory.

Whether in stats or mechanics, Lin shows no hope of winning.

Wu Chang had originally believed Lin was invincible in the Wasteland Realm; now it was clear she still had far to go—they still needed to train.

Wu Chang sighed and turned his gaze toward the Great Holy Mother beside him.

Still, on the bright side, a being like the Deep Sea Lord is an ultra-hidden boss that doesn't appear even in instances—it is an absolute exception.

Most divine projections are still as weak as the Great Holy Mother.

The Great Holy Mother shifted her shoulders uneasily twice, sensing Wu Chang's gaze and meeting his eyes.

"Mortal, your gaze makes me uncomfortable."

"Sorry." Wu Chang shrugged and turned his gaze back to Lin.

She may be weak, but her body is surprisingly sensitive—no wonder she's the absolutely pure Great Holy Mother.

In the battlefield, Lin swung the Light of Resolve, locked in combat with the Deep Sea Lord.

This B-rank warhammer reached its lifetime peak in Lin's hands; bathed in immense willpower, its head carried absolute destructive force, shattering one tentacle.

If a painter or bard witnessed this scene, it would become legend, passed down as a divine artifact.

The warhammer swung with ferocity, but as the battle dragged on, its flaws emerged: insufficient area damage, making limb-severing difficult.

Ordinary hammer strikes that could repel tentacles only wounded them; under the divine realm's nourishment, they regenerated within a few breaths.

To sever a limb, Lin needed to charge, expending three to four times the energy to catch an opening and break one tentacle.

But the time she spent charging and seeking openings was more than enough for the Deep Sea Lord to regenerate a new tentacle.

Though Lin appeared to gradually inflict damage on the Deep Sea Lord, she was in fact being dragged into a grossly unequal war of attrition.

If this continued, Lin would soon exhaust her divine power.

Moreover, once the Deep Sea Lord assessed Lin's level and realized she lacked Wuqu Star Lord's devastating tricks, even maintaining the current stalemate became difficult.

Facing a weak opponent, the Deep Sea Lord ceased probing and unleashed a heavy blow.

Dozens of tentacles struck from all directions, and in an instant, Lin was buried beneath them.

Wu Chang could no longer sit still—Saintess x tentacles, you little bastard, what are you trying to play in front of me?

He was about to activate his True Self to transform into a Deep Sea Variant and land two punches on the Deep Sea Lord—but before he moved, a blinding Jin Guang erupted from the gaps between the tentacles.

Boom!

A beam of Jin Guang pierced through the tentacle mass and hovered in the sky.

Lin, gripping her warhammer and gasping heavily, looked battered—but above her head, her halo now bore ornate patterns, and her wings had multiplied from two to four.

Unlike the illusory wings she had summoned in her earthly divine realm with divine realm support, the wings now behind her were absolutely solid, real.

Two pairs of wings meant Lin, under the pressure of the Deep Sea Lord, had successfully broken through her bottleneck and ascended to Archangel.

The "Arch" in Archangel signifies rule or governance—it is the highest rank among the three tiers of angels.

According to myth, Archangels are extensions of a deity's authority; they embody the Lord's will, govern lower angels, and hold partial control over cosmic order.

In the Abyss Game, Archangels are the pinnacle among lower deities; if one can master the ability to interfere with order, they may enter the realm of rules and ascend to Seraphim, becoming mid-tier deities.

Wu Chang looked up at Lin in the sky; her four-winged Archangel form radiated an aura more than twice as strong as her two-winged state.

Merely by attribute and divine power stats, Lin had surpassed the Deep Sea Lord—it seemed like a last-moment breakthrough, a desperate counterattack.

But the problem was, Lin had just ascended to Archangel; she hadn't even mastered, let alone skillfully used, the Archangel's core ability: order manipulation.

Lin's current Archangel form was fundamentally no different from her Power Angel state.

That meant she still suffered the same divine realm suppression from the Deep Sea Lord.

Wu Chang's gaze shifted between Lin and the Deep Sea Lord, his expression turning solemn; his intuition told him Lin's chance of victory had dropped from 95% to 90%.

Why did the win rate seem to have decreased? Because the earlier 95% was 95 to 5.

He turned to the Great Holy Mother and asked:

"Great Holy Mother, do you believe Lin can win after her breakthrough?"

The Great Mother shook her head. "Of course she can't win."

Wu Chang grumbled, "Then why let her fight?"

This woman isn't actually treating Aileen as cannon fodder, is she?

The Great Mother seemed to guess what Wu Chang was thinking. She slowly rose into the air, looking down upon him from above.

"If I join her, she'll have a sliver of a chance."

Before Wu Chang could ask further, he saw the Great Mother condense all her remaining divine power into a white holy flame, while her pure battle armor peeled off her body and flew forward and backward toward Aileen.

The marks of the Great Mother had been stripped from the Undying Holy Flame and the Pure Battle Armor; both items, now containing her divine rules, became ownerless, waiting for Aileen to use them.

The Great Mother called out: "Recall my previous teachings—master them well!"

With all her divine power released, the Great Mother could no longer maintain her divine true form and reverted to her ordinary state.

Depleted divine power and severe injuries caused her possessed puppet body to begin crumbling; she could not even stabilize her floating form and plummeted straight from the sky.

Seeing this, Wu Chang quickly caught the Great Mother. He could clearly feel her fragility in his arms—her body was light and brittle; even the slightest movement of his arm made flakes of skin fall from her surface.

Without exaggeration, if he applied even slight pressure, he could crush the puppet in his arms.

There was not a single drop of divine power left inside the Great Mother.

Had she taken the wrong pill, or had she turned over a new leaf, to exhaust all her divine power to help them fight the Deep Lord?

Was it because she realized she couldn't defeat Aileen, and now sought to play the favor card to gain control of Briver Island?

Regardless of the Great Mother's intentions, one thing was certain: she was no longer a threat.

Wu Chang asked, "Your Holiness, the Great Mother, are you all right?"

The Great Mother coughed twice; the vibration caused cracks to appear on her facial skin. "What do you think, damn mortal?"

Wu Chang said, "If you can still curse, your spirit must be decent."

Wu Chang chatted idly with the Great Mother, his gaze fixed on Aileen.

Treating the Undying Holy Flame and the Pure Battle Armor as "consumable items" and temporarily lending them to Aileen seemed highly unreasonable.

If gods could create "consumable items" this way, then consumable items would be worthless.

In reality, not just anyone could temporarily lend their abilities like this—Aileen and the Great Mother were exceptions.

First, Aileen was born to be the Great Mother's vessel; her body was crafted to perfectly suit the Great Mother's essence—she might as well be called a manifestation of the Great Mother.

Second, Aileen's light magic was inherited from the Great Mother; her divine essence's holy scar also originated from the Great Mother. Their divine nature and techniques were of the same origin.

On an energy level, Aileen and the Great Mother were nearly one and the same—only then could the Great Mother temporarily lend her abilities.

Aileen flapped her wings, and golden feathers landed on the Holy Flame and the Armor, embedding her own marks into them.

One golden feather melted and flowed rapidly across the Pure Battle Armor, tracing intricate golden patterns.

Another golden feather plunged into the Undying Holy Flame, turning the pure white flame into white-gold.

As the marks embedded, Aileen temporarily gained control of the Great Mother's mid-tier divine rules.

Wearing the Pure Battle Armor with golden trim, Aileen became sacred and inviolable.

The corruption and malice within the Deep Lord's divine realm, which had previously crushed and eroded Aileen's divine power, now could not approach her even slightly.

Aileen remained unaffected.

Equipped with the Pure Battle Armor, Aileen temporarily broke free from the realm's constraints and could fully unleash her full power.

Merely from this change, the odds shifted to seven to three in their favor.

Then Aileen manipulated the golden Undying Holy Flame, wrapping it around the hammerhead of her weapon; with the Undying Holy Flame as her attack, her divine power would no longer be diminished or absorbed by the realm.

With the Undying Holy Flame and the Pure Battle Armor, she and the Deep Lord were now evenly matched.

It was only temporary, because the Great Mother was too weak—her current Undying Holy Flame could sustain only one full strike from Aileen.

Aileen had only one chance: she must gather all her strength, unleash it in an instant, and settle the victory with a single blow!

Sensing the immense power gathering in Aileen's hammerhead, the Deep Lord's eyes filled with fear.

The threat of death cleared his gaze; driven by his cowardly nature, he wanted to flee immediately.

But the Lost Continent had already been reduced to nothing but the Lost City after the fleet's collision, and his temple had been consumed to replenish his divine power.

Now he had nowhere left to hide.

Just as the Deep Lord had nowhere to retreat, Aileen struck with Determination's Light.

Boom!

The golden hammer smashed onto the Deep Lord's head; Jin Guang pierced through his skull, and the white-gold holy flame flooded in, turning the Deep Lord into a burning liquid.

The Deep Lord roared and struggled in the flames, desperately trying to flee toward the sea, but his movements grew slower and slower; before he could even attempt to return to the ocean depths, flames erupted from every Kong Dong on his body.

Wu Chang tore his gaze from the Deep Lord engulfed in fire and looked at the Great Mother he was supporting. He asked:

"Earlier, you made Aileen fight the Deep Lord to force a breakthrough—was that all part of your plan to defeat him this way?"

The Great Mother smirked. "Of course."

Wu Chang asked, "What if Aileen hadn't broken through?"

The Great Mother replied with utter certainty:

"Only a Seraphim who can touch the rules can borrow my power. If she couldn't break through, both her and you would die—only the difference between dying sooner or later."

Wu Chang shook his head, puzzled.

"If you wanted us dead, wouldn't that suit you perfectly?"

The Great Mother didn't hide it anymore. "If you and Aileen had died alongside the Deep Lord, I would have blessed all my faithful across the realm, granting them seven days and nights of unrestrained celebration."

"But if you died, the Deep Lord would seize Briver Island. Not only would you lose the fight for faith—even human survival would be uncertain."

Wu Chang smoothly praised: "Your Holiness, the Great Mother, truly embodies mercy. On behalf of all humanity in this realm, I thank you."

"And what about me?" the Great Mother countered. "I saved your life and Aileen's. What are you going to do to thank me?"

Wu Chang laughed heartily. "We're comrades-in-arms. Talking about thanks would be too distant."

As the two spoke, Aileen had already used her warhammer as a cane and returned from the battlefield.

To seize the only chance of victory, Aileen unleashed all her strength in her final attack.

Now she was utterly drained, even struggling to remain standing, relying on the Light of Resolve.

When she saw Wu Chang, she finally relaxed completely, her body going limp and about to collapse onto the ground.

Seeing this, Wu Chang immediately tossed the Savior of All Humanity aside and rushed to Aileen, catching her before she hit the ground.

Aileen smiled brightly and said, "I succeeded."

Wu Chang said gently, "Congratulations. I knew you could do it."

He took a rocking chair from his personal space, placed Aileen on it, and stood behind her, massaging her shoulders.

"Young Lady Aileen, you've worked hard—rest well. Once you've recovered a bit, we'll go see what the Deep Lord hid."

Aileen looked at the Great Mother, lying on the ground unable to rise, and said worriedly:

"The Great Mother's condition is terrible. Let's take her back first."

Hearing Aileen mention the Great Mother, Wu Chang remembered the Savior of All Humanity he'd thrown on the ground. He met the Great Mother's furious gaze with a look of apology, helping her up and seating her on a small stool.

"Sorry, I only brought one rocking chair. Please make do for now."

The Great Mother: "You!"

Before the Great Mother could complain, Wu Chang returned behind Aileen and continued massaging her shoulders.

"The Great Mother seems full of vigor—she can surely hold on. She'd rather watch the Deep Lord's treasury than return early to rest."

"After all, we signed a Divine Pact."

Thinking of the Divine Pact, the Great Mother gave up arguing with Wu Chang, closed her eyes, and focused on restoring her body.

Wu Chang was right: the Divine Pact she'd signed with Wu Chang and Aileen made defeating the Deep Lord merely a step—the true goal was Briever Island and the treasures guarded by the Deep Lord.

He was letting Aileen recover her strength—giving her time to heal.

That damned human had at least some conscience. If he'd abandoned Aileen and gone searching for the Deep Lord's treasury himself, she'd have been left watching helplessly.

For his relative integrity, she'd forgive his earlier rudeness.

In the Divine Pact signed between the Great Mother and Aileen, the loot distribution after defeating the Deep Lord was simple.

After the Deep Lord's death, all his possessions became ownerless—whomever found them kept them; no one was to steal from another.

The upright Wu Chang strictly followed this Divine Pact.

Each to his own.

So while his physical body rested with Aileen and the Great Mother, his True Self, carrying the All-Knowing Crystal, was frantically looting the Lost City.

Of course, before looting, he didn't forget to give the dying Deep Lord one final stab.

He swallowed the Deep Lord's vital essence, and a prompt appeared before his eyes.

"Strength attribute +150."

Wu Chang rubbed his eyes, checking repeatedly to confirm he hadn't misread.

Before swallowing the Deep Lord's vital essence, his Strength attribute had stacked to 330 points—even with the Violator title, it had reached the Wasteland Realm's barrier limit.

All Strength gained from the Sea Giant stacking was reduced by 30%.

Once his Strength exceeded 400, it was further reduced by another 30%.

Despite these penalties, gaining 150 points meant the Deep Lord's vital essence provided over 200 points of Strength!

The amount of Strength gained from consuming vital essence was proportional to the target's original power and the gap between their Strength and his own.

That is, even using his 330-point Strength as a baseline, the Deep Lord could still grant him 200 points.

Even without considering the fluctuation, the most Strength Wu Chang had ever absorbed in a single instance before was only 70 points.

This enormous gap proved the Deep Lord's terrifying power.

Without the Wood Carving of Wuqu Star Lord, he and Aileen might not have defeated the Deep Lord.

As he marveled at the Deep Lord's strength, he followed his intuition and looted the Lost City.

With the most valuable Deep Sea Temple swallowed by the Deep Lord, the only remaining targets were the larger temples in the city.

The most valuable treasures of the former Xilan Kingdom had all been placed on offering tables as tributes, awaiting the Deep Aberrations to collect.

Every time Wu Chang entered a temple, he headed straight for the offering table, making his looting effortless.

It must be said that the Xilan Kingdom, as a former world dominator, had highly advanced forging, alchemy, and mysticism—he found many valuable items on the offering tables.

Too bad even the best items required careful maintenance; most had rotted from prolonged seawater exposure.

For example, a B-rank sword—he merely swung it into a flourish, and it snapped at the base.

Many gemstone items had lost their luster, now with the suffix (Damaged).

After careful selection, only the special precious metals enhanced by prayer energy were worth stowing in his personal space.

"Item Name: Deep-Sea Sunken Iron"

"Item Type: consumable"

"Item Effect: A precious metal capable of absorbing faith. Rare and expensive. Can be exchanged for ten thousand Corrupted Silver Coins at the System Recycler Merchant, or used to forge weapons and stabilize a divine realm's foundation."

One block of Deep-Sea Sunken Iron was worth ten thousand Corrupted Silver Coins—he picked up twenty-five blocks at once.

After checking repeatedly and confirming no more Deep-Sea Sunken Iron remained in the Lost City, he reluctantly left, leapt into the sea, and prepared to enter the Deep Lord's true treasury.

The All-Knowing Crystal told him the real treasures lay beneath the deep sea.

(End of Chapter)