Chapter 305: Three Divine Arts

"Dead ones don't need feeding!" Negrilis immediately scolded him mercilessly.

But Liu insisted, dragging over a zombie: "Mine. Smart."

The zombie looked at Liu, then at Negrilis, and finally turned to Ange, slowly kneeling before him.

"Huh? Sentient? A lich?" Negrilis gasped, hurrying over to examine it closely.

After studying it for a while, he confirmed it was indeed a lich—just recently awakened to sentience.

"You raised it?" Negrilis asked skeptically. Do undead even need raising?

Every sentient undead is precious, because they're incredibly rare—among millions of undead, perhaps only a handful possess intelligence.

Darkside City has over three thousand sentient undead, accumulated over thousands of years from a population base of billions.

In this era, the average human lifespan is only in the forties; a thousand years means dozens of generational turnovers.

"I raised it! At first it was dumb—I talked to it, talked and talked, and then it got smart," Liu insisted earnestly, pounding his chest repeatedly to prove his sincerity.

Negrilis didn't believe him: "You're saying just talking to it turned a dumb zombie into a smart skeleton? You're pulling my leg. If it were that easy, liches would be crawling everywhere. Fine, fine—I know you want to care for them. Wait until they're reincarnated, then you can take care of them."

Though skeptical, Negrilis still gave her this chance—zombie dragons don't need food, water, or waste, but they still require maintenance.

The real problem is these hundred-plus living ones. Raising flying dragons isn't easy—otherwise, there wouldn't be only one flying dragon knight order across all planes; if they were easy to raise, Silver Coins would've bred legions for transport long ago.

They're cowardly—yes, cowardly. Otherwise, they wouldn't have dropped dead by the dozens on the spot. After being startled, they easily fall ill and spread avian plagues.

Second, they're picky eaters—they refuse ordinary grain, only consuming meat and soybeans, and their food must be prepared meticulously, or they get diarrhea.

Even the City of Beauty doesn't raise horses—how could they raise a hundred flying dragons? Maybe we should just kill them all and reincarnate them as undead dragons.

As Negrilis pondered, it suddenly sensed a disturbance, turned around, and saw Ange pulling a spectral shadow from the largest dragon's body, then punching it, shattering something within.

"Damn it... the God of Beauty's Fist—you saved that for something important and wasted it here? You..." Negrilis was too late to stop him, and could only mutter in frustration.

When healing Kadan on Dragon Island, Ange didn't use the God of Beauty's Fist because he'd already found the simplest solution to Kadan's egg-stuck problem.

Bruce also preferred this method—he understood it. The God of Beauty's Fist was too esoteric; he couldn't comprehend it. What if, in fixing the defect, he accidentally smashed something else?

No one wants to use an untested technique on their own child when a more reliable alternative exists.

So Ange had saved his God of Beauty's Fist.

Now, this hard-earned technique was wasted on a single flying dragon—it made Negrilis furious.

But Negrilis was used to it; if Ange ever followed its logic, it might actually feel uneasy.

After a brief sulk, it calmed down and asked: "What did you smash?"

Ange replied: "Gut defect."

"Gut defect? Does it have a stomach illness?" Negrilis asked, confused.

The dragon was tall and robust—no visible signs of digestive issues. Knowing how the God of Beauty's Fist worked, Negrilis knew Ange had to identify the defect precisely to fix it—how did he know this dragon had a gut problem?

"It told me. Flying dragon. It made it," Ange said, then summoned two hundred small fat sheep, transferred over tons of grain and dried seaweed, and finally walked to a massive boulder.

The boulder towered taller than Ange, weighing several tons. He gripped it, straining to lift it.

Lu Se sprinted over, eager to help: "Lord! Lord! Let me help! Everyone, come help!"

But before he could reach, Ange's hands suddenly grew light—he flung a cloud of straw into the air. The multi-ton boulder, before everyone's eyes, had transformed into an equal weight of straw, which Ange then scattered everywhere.

Several tons of straw occupied vastly more space than the same weight of stone.

Everyone stood stunned, jaws hanging open. Though they'd seen Little Bu transform into a straw owl, that scene paled in comparison—this was incomparably more astonishing.

A multi-ton boulder, visibly turning into straw, expanding its volume tenfold, and with Ange's overzealous motion, some straw even flew into the sky. The contrast between heavy and light, small and vast, was utterly shocking.

"A... miracle," Lisa whispered.

As a former Holy Maiden of Light, this sight struck her deeply—because the Holy Scripture's creation myth described the Creator turning mud into grain. Ange hadn't turned mud into grain, but straw—but the essence was identical: transforming one substance into another. That was the act of creation.

Negrilis was even more shaken—not by the stone turning to straw, but by Ange's words: "It told me." Only Negrilis understood which "it" he meant.

"Bloodline inheritance—you mean, every time you transform into the Dragon God, your bloodline passes down knowledge to you?" Negrilis dragged Ange out of the straw pile, desperate to know.

Ange had mentioned before that the Dragon God told him things—but that wasn't the Dragon God himself, but bloodline inheritance. Back then, they hadn't seen flying dragons, so the bloodline hadn't awakened these memories.

If this knowledge emerged only now, during his transformation facing the dragon knights, then every Dragon God transformation granted him new insights.

Ange nodded.

Negrilis slapped its waist: "I knew it! That's why every time you transform into the Dragon God, you learn so many new tricks—even stuff unrelated to farming! I never taught you any of it—so it's all bloodline inheritance!"

"Flying dragon. It made. Defect. Weak gut. No eat plants. Smash," Ange replied, as usual, speaking in terse fragments.

"Pfft? Eat plants?" Negrilis widened its dragon eyes. Feed flying dragons plants? Aren't soybeans plants?

"Not plant enough. Grass better," Ange said, walking up to the giant dragon and pointing at its body.

The dragon grew hungry, eyeing the small fat sheep, glancing around nervously.

Normally, knights or attendants would prepare its food—but as it looked around, no one seemed willing to do so.

Starving, the dragon finally acted on instinct, opening its jaws wide: "Ahh~~~ Ahh~~~ Ahh~~~"

"Is this guy an idiot? Why is it just opening its mouth?"

"It... it seems to be waiting for the sheep to walk into its mouth."

「……」

With no one to help, these pampered dragons, used to being hand-fed, finally reclaimed their feeding instincts—lunging at a plump, juicy sheep, chewing it whole, fur, skin, and all.

One after another, devouring dozens of sheep, until Ange stopped it and pointed to the dried seaweed.

The dragon tried several times to snatch a sheep, but Ange swatted it back each time. Starving, it reluctantly began nibbling the dried seaweed.

After a few bites, Ange tossed it a sheep; after a few more bites of seaweed, he tossed another sheep. Within minutes, he forcibly rewired the dragon's diet—switching it from meat-based to seaweed-based.

For a normal flying dragon, such a drastic dietary shift would've caused severe diarrhea—but this one showed no ill effects.

Worse, its teeth were changing—growing broader molars for grinding, while its sharp canines regressed dramatically.

Once its molars fully formed, Ange stopped giving it seaweed and fed it only straw. The dragon resisted, but hunger forced it to eventually chew the straw happily.

If it could eat straw, other plants were no problem—Ange brought some grass, and it devoured it eagerly.

One blow of the God of Beauty's Fist had turned a meat-eating dragon into a grass-eating one.

Negrilis's eyes gleamed—it understood the implications perfectly. If flying dragons could eat grass, the grass on Dragon Island alone could sustain tens of thousands.

Dragon beasts—dragon beasts—were essentially livestock raised by dragons. Ancient dragons bred them primarily for food.

But raising dragon beasts required massive amounts of meat, so dragons bred grazing sheep instead. Over time, they realized: if sheep fed dragon beasts, and dragon beasts were eaten, why not just eat the sheep directly?

So dragons switched to raising cattle and sheep—grass-eating animals—and drove away the meat-eating dragon beasts to fend for themselves.

In his youth, Negrilis had wondered: Why did the Dragon God create a species that was carnivorous and hard to raise?

Now it understood—the Dragon God's creations weren't perfect, or at least, not perfect for what the Dragon God truly needed.

During his Dragon God transformation, Ange inherited the Dragon God's knowledge of flying dragons—and with the God of Beauty's Fist, he smashed the very flaws the Dragon God deemed defective.

Now, this grass-eating dragon was the true, perfect dragon beast the Dragon God envisioned.

"And then you turn soil into grass—so eating grass is just eating soil. Perfect," Negrilis grumbled.

Ange now possessed three divine aspects, each with a unique divine technique: the God of Undeath's Instant Death Aura, the God of Beauty's Fist, and the God of Cultivation's Elemental Conversion—each utterly unimaginable.

If divine techniques had rankings, these would rank among the very top—even rivaling the Harvest Goddess's Gaze of Fertility.

Negrilis once thought the Gaze of Fertility was useless—but now it realized it was a population multiplier. With the Harvest Goddess present, any species could rapidly double its numbers.

If the Harvest Goddess were still alive, Negrilis would spare no cost to bring her to Dragon Island and force the dragons into marital duty.

I hope Lisa can steal the Harvest Goddess's divine power—if she awakens the same technique, it would be perfect.

The grass dragons were isolated in a separate enclosure; the other dragons were driven to the lake island to temporarily reside there.

Modifying one dragon's defect showed no immediate change—the grass dragon must reproduce, passing down its modified bloodline, and only after several generations would the transformation become evident.

But with just one grass dragon, its descendants would all inherit the modified bloodline. If it continued breeding with ordinary dragons, the bloodline would dilute—whether it regressed was uncertain.

To prevent regression, Ange must modify more grass dragons, allowing their offspring to interbreed. After several generations, the bloodlines would be distant enough to avoid inbreeding, and population could grow.

As he worked, Ange suddenly felt a tremor in his soul and sharply turned his gaze southward.

"What's wrong?" Negrilis noticed his reaction and asked urgently.

Ange said nothing, pulling out the Brass Book.

As his physical body appeared in this plane, Negrilis also sensed the disturbance: "Divine fire? Someone ignited divine fire?"

Igniting divine fire has a peculiar mechanism—apparently, all deities in the plane sense a tremor.

Ange's God of Beauty and God of Cultivation divine fires were ignited in the Damp Sea plane, which the Redeemer Goddess sensed.

The first time, she charged in, thinking it was a weak new god—only to crash into a nest of deities.

The second time, she learned her lesson and refused to leave.

Now, both Ange and Negrilis felt the tremor—someone had ignited divine fire.

……

The Church had entered its highest alert status: shields deployed, spatial interference arrays activated, all teleportation arrays disabled, and spatial magic like Instant Flash rendered useless.

All defense systems were powered up, departments armed and ready—but ordinary people felt nothing, confused and grumbling about their superiors' overreaction and needless panic.

Some didn't understand: when disaster strikes, normalcy is the best sign.

Daisen stared at the divine energy crackling from his hands, shocked at the shadow behind Gulianni: "You... you..."

"Heh. You, the thief of faith-fire, are even more despicable than we are, aren't you?" Gulianni said calmly. "What's this faith-fire in your hands? Do you think I can't see it?"

"I, I, I..." Daisen stammered, unable to speak.

Yes, the thief of fire—the Light Gods vanished over a thousand years ago, yet the Church operated normally, believers faithfully offering devotion—could no faith-fire have been ignited?

Of course they could—but they were stolen. By Daisen and his ancestors, who lived parasitically on the Church, calling themselves "Thieves of Fire," hoarding every spark capable of granting divinity.

Daisen even used surplus faith-fire to ambush Harvey once.

Unfortunately, they lacked the ability to ignite the faith-fire themselves—never achieving their lifelong dream: becoming gods.

But as he watched the divine energy crackling from his palms, Daisen couldn't believe it—Gulianni had fulfilled his dream, igniting his divine fire.

"You have two choices: swear allegiance to my lord, or die," Gulianni said with a smile, maintaining his ever-kindly demeanor, yet his words sent a chill down their spine.

Dai Sen stared at the shadow behind Gulianni and slowly knelt to the ground, gritting his teeth to ask: "Are you the demons Anthony spoke of?"

"No, my lord is merely the shadow of light," Gulianni's cheek twitched as he thought inwardly: Anthony picked a random excuse—but somehow got it right…