Chapter 206: with translation of chapter title

According to the bias of the laws and settings, different worlds will have different divine systems.

For example, in some worlds the gods are an advancement of life forms; as long as local creatures become strong enough, they can prove the Dao and become gods.

And in some worlds the gods are the embodiments of certain concepts, sharing the same lifespan as heaven and earth, shining together with the sun and moon, neither more nor less, eternal and unchanging.

Moreover, in some worlds the gods simply do not exist; sentient beings must rely on their own power to break free from their home planet and soar through the azure skies.

As for the gods of the Yangyue World, they are somewhat like "companies" on Earth.

If a creature wishes to become a god, it must first obtain sufficient credibility through various means.

For example, Wendigo, in order to gain the qualification for godhood, first rallied a group of his kind and formed an organization called the "Strange Council."

Then, leveraging that, he found the prairie wolf king who was in need of assistance to unify the barbaric plains, gaining his trust and aid.

Thus, Wendigo was able to assemble his own small core team, establish a company, and take the first step on his divine career.

But if the CEO wants to drive a Cullinan, he needs to grow the company, set a clear business direction, and obtain sufficient performance.

And if a god wishes to establish a divine kingdom and ascend to god-king, he also needs to determine his own divine authority and obtain ample faith.

For instance, the Holy Light Company: its holy light clerics can provide healing and psychological comfort to believers, and from time to time they also step in to deal with disobedient anomalies.

Moreover, the unique holy light professional system, its supporting advanced training institutions, and the excellent promotion mechanism within the church have even attracted all kinds of talented powerhouses to join.

Thus, Holy Light quickly became a transcendent god‑king‑level existence, and its church became the state religion of the Hui Guang Kingdom, as stable as Mount Tai.

Therefore, to a certain extent, great authority and massive faith are the same thing—obtaining one yields the other.

But authority is not Chinese cabbage; it is not something anyone who wants it can simply obtain—naturally it comes with rather complex restrictions.

First, the god himself must possess power matching that authority, otherwise he would only invite backlash instead of reaching higher.

A novice proving the Dao to become a sky god is merely a fictional tale; it cannot happen in reality.

Second, divine positions are like one radish per hole—once someone has taken an authority, you cannot obtain it unless the corresponding god dies.

Wordplay is useless; a name that can be changed at will is merely a codename, while the concept it represents is unique.

Finally, after the basic authority is determined, any later acquisition or advancement of authority will be related to it.

A bonfire god cannot midway become a stream god; you cannot produce an evaporation reaction.

Therefore, after perusing many ancient texts, Wendigo cautiously chose "shadow" as his authority, regarding "night" as his ultimate goal.

And he did not adopt an aggressive, wide‑net approach; instead, he first acted as an ally of the wolf king, preaching within the plains, only recently beginning to spread.

This is the development path of the vast majority of gods: find a route with few competitors and unmanned key points.

Advancing this way is the most stable and safe; one only needs to contend with the followers of various gods.

But some people like to take shortcuts to skip levels, exploiting system bugs to cheat.

Thus, the "god‑usurping" playstyle emerged.

Several thousand years ago, a river god once usurped the position of the sea god, relying on the fact that their authorities were similar, making it easy to strike covertly.

And now this "Lord of All Living Beings"—we do not know exactly what his authority is, nor even whether he is truly a god.

But clearly, the name indicates his developmental direction is related to positive concepts such as vital energy.

And this is precisely the essence of Holy Light.

If he gradually alters and corrupts the tenets of nearby Holy Light believers, secretly siphons faith from the Holy Light god, and finally hollows Him out…

It's crazy! And also dangerous!

But if it succeeds, it's a one‑step solution!

Thinking this through, Wendigo's killing intent vanished without a trace.

After all, ordinary people will reckon with good people and with bad people, but no one idle will bother to reckon with a madman.

Moreover, since he is so bold, there must be some backing behind him; after all, a pure gambler would not sit on a god's high throne.

So.

Let Holy Light worry about this thorny prickly ball; I just need to follow the wolf king's steps and steadily push the plan forward.

Even to say……

An enemy's enemy is a friend; the Hui Guang king is weak and incompetent, his court full of swine and dogs—this is a piece of fat that all the gods are eyeing.

Then, could this arrogant Lord of All serve as the vanguard for my assault on Hui Guang, a shield against Holy Light's wrath?

Having made up his mind, Wendigo resumed that hehe‑laughing demeanor, seeming affable but actually arrogant.

【Friend, your suggestion is very interesting; in fact, my greatest gain over my long life has been a cautious attitude toward life.】

【Perhaps recent events have made me a bit impatient, causing me to forget my original intention as a god, and thus I've become a laughingstock in your eyes.】

【Therefore, as you wish, I will no longer meddle with the land and believers of the Hui Guang Kingdom; consider this my apology.】

???

No way, did I dig out my ears?

Threats and pressure are just for fun; Ji Ming had no intention of relying on that to overwhelm Wendigo in negotiations.

His real aim was to drag the opponent into a trash‑talk arena, then use his rich combat experience to make them break their defenses on the spot.

After all, in online flame wars, he who panics first loses—classic "panic makes you lose."

The result was that I slapped him, but he didn't get angry; instead he warmed the other side of his face with a hot water bottle, intending to let me take a warm hit.

This completely does not match Wendigo's fixed impression of him.

——accustomed to feigning kindness, but once he acts he is a thoroughly despicable old schemer.

When things go awry there must be a demon; this matter certainly has something fishy.

But the opponent has already voluntarily retreated three li; if I kept chasing and striking, that would be impolite on my part.

Ah, I had actually taken out Eleanor's recording crystal to enjoy once more the sheep brother's blood‑curdling scream……

Forget it, I'll wait for a future chance.

So Ji Ming then followed his lead.

Well, I accept your apology, Wendigo—remember to be careful next time.

Damn it, what's it like to be scolded by a god like this?

After saying that, the Master of All Living Beings hung up directly, without even a polite farewell.

Wendigo's anger, which had just barely subsided, began to rise again, gnashing his teeth, and even inside his black robe surged continuous red flames.

This is the divine form He gained after attaining the Shadow Godhead; in a daze, it resembled the abyssal demon described in myths.

Inside the huge tent, a piercing cold wind blew; if an ordinary person stepped in, they'd likely have their vitality snatched away instantly.

Under the surging divine might, even the peculiar little lich Marlsa felt uneasy and quickly whispered.

"Chairman, did the negotiations break down?"

... No, anger is a sign of impotence!

Marlsa is a key part of Wendigo's expansion plan; He still needs this exceptionally talented lich to help Him unleash a necromantic calamity.

So He quickly reined in His malice, doing His best to regain His usual composure.

"Little Bone, in this world there will always be things that don't go as planned; anger and disappointment are normal, but the most important thing is to find a way to resolve them."

After Lao Yang Tou rambled on about his life philosophy, Wendigo pulled his black robe tighter and stepped out of the tent.

This time, those greeting Him outside were no longer steppe werewolves, but two strong skeletons obviously transformed from beastmen.

"Go, help me set a time with the Wolf Prince to discuss the early spring offensive, and…"

He gazed at the leaden sky, thick with clouds that occasionally shed a few snowflakes; his hollow eyes held no emotion.

"After everything ends, there will be a formal war against the Hui Guang Kingdom."

After the curtain fell, Ji Ming took a sip of SpiritGathering Liquid, feeling there was still more to say.

Although hearing Lao Yang Tou's apologetic bow felt satisfying, not seeing how much He let his guard down was still a bit lacking.

As for Wendigo's promised withdrawal from Sunlight City…

Ji Ming thought that just hearing it out would be enough; for a god like this, making Him spit out the meat He's already swallowed is harder than killing Him, at least Ji Ming doesn't believe it.

Anyway, the map of the Shadow faithful's stronghold has already been handed to Eleanor; let's see what results we can find after checking the Sheng Guang Jiao Tang.

After a brief rest, Ji Ming activated the teleport function and arrived at the mortuary.

Edgar, Hatred, and the stone gargoyle's corpses lay side by side here, their faces increasingly peaceful… well, increasingly twisted.

Sylvia's resurrection magic isn't omnipotent; the higher the target's level and the longer the time since death, the lower the chance of revival, and the probability drops sharply.

Moreover, these three mad villains have little utility; even as selectable player races they'd be unsuitable due to their unsightly appearance.

So Ji Ming merely gathered their corpses here as a simple storage of particles, to be kept for later, with no intention of reviving or using them.

But…

The backstories of Edgar and Hatred are already known from the diary, but we know nothing about the stone gargoyle yet.

Following his habitual practice after collecting strong corpses, Ji Ming first took out a revival card and examined each of the three bodies in turn.

Only then did Ji Ming learn that the stone gargoyle's background was not trivial—he had actually been an elite captain in the Dark Flame Kingdom's army back then.

But after Sylvia and their top combat power erupted, he, greedy for life and lacking energy, simply reverted to his stone state.

As the saying goes, 'Stay still and you're a turtle'; he just sat there unmoving for ten thousand years until today, when he finally revived.

Tsk, no wonder he got killed by a player swarm—he didn't even have a decent last word; turns out he was a little weakling…

Chuckling darkly, Ji Ming aimed the revival card at Hatred, but no prompt appeared in his vision.

Impossible! I already gave the infantry a burst of experience—how could this patchwork monster possibly not be dead?

After thinking, Ji Ming directly activated 【Holy One's Judgment】, enabling both True Sight and Biological Transparency effects at once.

Only then did Ji Ming discover that, besides Hatred's twisted limbs and organs, there was something bottle-like lodged within the wrapping of its heart muscle.

Activating the mortuary's built-in dissection system, Ji Ming completely tore open Hatred's corpse and extracted it.

Sure enough, it was a petri-dish‑style transparent glass bottle, inside which an unknown liquid floated with something resembling an embryo.

"What is this? A tiny person in a bottle?"

"Could this actually be Hatred's true form, with the rotting meat before us merely the filthy shell it shed?"

Ji Ming really knows nothing about alchemy; what little he has comes from urban legends and artistic works, which hardly counts as real knowledge.

So he quickly pulled out Edgar's estate, began flipping through its notes and records, hoping to find some clues.

But just as Ji Ming was busy flipping through the book, the embryo inside the bottle suddenly twitched and opened its eyes.

It looked very young, entirely fish‑like in appearance, with eyes unusually large.

"Holy shit…"

Fortunately, a separation barrier on the warship still lay between them—this was the little boss's technology, so Ji Ming didn't have to worry about the other side lashing out.

In the silent standoff, he was still hesitating what to say when he saw the other side open its mouth.

"Dad."

"Huh?"

Ji Ming's heart jolted; he immediately turned to look behind him.

But as far as the eye could see, there were only corpses scattered everywhere—nothing frightening, let alone anything alive.

"Could it be like Wang and Mao, that this is its distinctive call?"

However, after Ji Ming pondered and turned back, he heard the creature in the bottle say 'Dad' again.

No, could it be that something invisible is present?

Yet no matter how Ji Ming inspected or searched, even after summoning the little boss, he still couldn't see anything.

"Savior, do you think it's possible that the 'Dad' it's calling actually refers to you?"

Ji Ming is not someone who habitually doubts himself; he prefers to be stubborn.

"Impossible, I've always followed the rules and kept myself pure; I could never be a father."

Opening Edgar's diary, Ji Ming this time focused on retrieving information about "life."

Only after careful reading did he discover that Edgar's purpose in creating hatred was not some war machine, but to create a life to keep him company.

So the embryo in the bottle is very likely an artificial life that hatched from the hatred's husk.

——Edgar ultimately succeeded, after his death.

The Yangyue World has existed for hundreds of millions of years; geniuses who have successfully created life do exist, though they are not many.

Moreover, those athletes are either a blasphemous act of the Strong Prosperity Empire, or a heaven-defying deed of a powerful deity.

An alchemist who never finished a single specialized course at an academy, relying entirely on various unorthodox methods to cultivate… this is indeed the first.

"Head Brother, you're truly a genius!"

Unable to help sighing, Ji Ming closed the diary.

However, the dead Edgar is a good Edgar; he wouldn't possibly cause trouble for himself because of this resurrected anti-human alchemy madman.

And as a faint blue light swept over the glass bottle, Yangyue also gave its own test results.

【The embryo now is still very fragile; it needs a lot of energy, as well as alchemy techniques related to life and soul, to sustain.】

【But if we can cultivate it successfully, with the help of the whole team, it's very likely we can create a perfect life.】

【Savior, what do you intend to do with this existence?】

"Disposal? Screw that!"

He kicked two feet of alchemy texts piled almost as high as himself, and Ji Ming sighed.

"What else can we do but kill it, or just keep it alive?"

I corrected a typo in chapter twenty-nine, then went back in……sigh