Chapter 530: The God‑Sealing Fire

"Lord, what happened?"

Degiko noticed that Lei En's complexion was off, his breathing suddenly became rapid, and he hurried over to ask with concern.

The Extreme Warrior and the minotaurs also cast worried glances.

"It's nothing," Lei En waved his hand, a faint smile on his face: "I just figured out a key node in the rune array; it should let us break the gate's protection faster."

"That's good, that's good."

Degiko, no longer suspicious, finally relaxed; the others all breathed a sigh of relief and continued meditating or resting.

However, they didn't know that at this moment Lei En's heart was roiling with a massive wave, and it took great effort to suppress his excitement. If no one were nearby, he would have shouted out loud:

"Divine Fire!"

"The strange stone inside that Sun‑Spotted Viper is a Divine Fire, the mortal's key to sealing the gods!"

Lei En let out a silent shout, and it took him a long time to barely regain his composure.

In Ai Lun E Si's world, sealing the gods is the ultimate dream of all mortal races.

Whether human, elf, dwarf, troll, or dragon, and all the myriad races of countless planes, anyone who knows of the gods' great power or has heard the legends of the many successful sealings in history inevitably dreams of one day ascending to divinity.

Deities possess boundless divine power, supreme glory, and endless lifespan!

In this world, the gods are everything.

But sealing the gods is also the hardest thing in the world, bar none.

Ai Lun E Si's history is a history of mortals attempting divinity; countless calamities, cataclysms, revolutions, and wars were more or less caused directly or indirectly by the era's most outstanding powerful figures trying to seal the gods.

Only a handful ever succeeded; the most recent was the Deceiver Luo Xi.

He ascended in the New Era Calendar year 1358, precisely when the Empire was at its most chaotic; the Empire fractured, the royal house perished, and the Deceiver was very likely the mastermind behind all these events, stirring the world to pave the way for his own sealing of the gods.

Nearly twelve hundred years have passed since, and no mortal has succeeded in sealing the gods.

Thus the difficulty of sealing the gods is evident.

In the Weizelan Grand Library there is a top‑secret tome, accessible only to the Speaker of the Six‑Man Council; its title is "The Path to Sealing the Gods", author unknown.

According to the teacher, he obtained it unintentionally during his youthful adventures; its contents are the world's highest secrets, shocking and scandalous, detailing how mortals should seal the gods, including the conditions, methods, and many attributes of the deities.

Ai Lun E Si has many books concerning the deities, such as "Gods and Followers", "On Faith", "Third Epoch Elf Divine System", "Dwarven Gods", and so on; these works each allude to the path of sealing the gods and are banned in most nations.

Yet none of the studies on the deities reaches the level of "The Path to Sealing the Gods".

Its description is blunt, easy to understand, and very bold, directly pointing to the essence of the deities; it can be called the magnum opus of divine literature.

Lei En has already read that book and even copied it to his mobile library.

The book mentions divinity, Divine Fire, divine power, divine rank, divine office, Divine Technique, and so on, providing fairly detailed introductions; the term most frequently referenced is "Divine Fire".

Divine Fire is the mortal's key to sealing the gods, the most crucial element on the Path!

Igniting Divine Fire enables one to seal the gods.

According to Lei En's own understanding, each deity is like a conglomerate of massive energy, akin to a complete power‑generation system.

Divinity is the fuel, transformed from the power of belief combined with the soul, while Divine Fire is the power plant that burns divinity to generate divine power.

Divine office is the attribute category of divine power.

Divine rank is the standard of divine power's strength.

Whether divinity, divine power, or divine office, they are generated or chosen by the deity itself; only Divine Fire, the world's most precious thing, must be obtained from outside.

Many related books mention that, according to legend, Divine Fire is a product of the world's birth.

Divine Fire in the world is limited, its quantity fixed.

Each portion of Divine Fire can correspond to only one divine office, producing a single‑attribute divine power. A deity must possess at least one portion of Divine Fire to seal the gods, but can also hold multiple portions, gaining multiple offices.

The more Divine Fire, the stronger the divine power, the higher the divine rank!

No one knows how many Divine Fires exist in the world; "The Path to Sealing the Gods" is vague, estimating between two hundred and four hundred, uncertain. In other words, the number of deities in Ai Lun E Si has an upper limit, never exceeding the number of Divine Fires.

In fact, the number of deities is far lower than the number of Divine Fires.

Because many deities hold more than one divine office, the most famous is the Lord of Ocean and Storms Krasu, a great being hailed as the strongest deity in the world, possessing as many as double‑digit offices.

Additionally, some Divine Fires are unaccounted for, hidden in unknown corners of the world.

When ownerless, Divine Fire takes the form of a plain stone, presenting itself as a solid; some scholars call it a "Divine Stone".

When a mortal obtains a Divine Stone, they ignite it with sufficient divinity, choose their divine office, generate the first strand of divine power, and officially become a deity!

Without Divine Fire, even abundant divinity only makes one a demigod, worlds apart from a true god.

Therefore, Divine Fire is the key to sealing the gods.

Possessing Divine Fire grants infinite possibilities.

It is Ai Lun E Si's most precious thing, more coveted than divine artifacts; countless people covet it, and countless wars and calamities have arisen because of Divine Fire—it is the root of countless disputes.

Lei En's emotions surged, finally understanding why the Sun God had hope of resurrection.

He must have separated a portion of Divine Fire before his fall, hidden within this tomb, then let his followers continue to pray, sending faith power; a faint strand of divinity serves as a catalyst, transmuting into more divinity, reigniting the Divine Fire, thereby truly resurrecting!

Other deities, such as the Dwarven "God of Forge and Craft" Mola Ding, lost all Divine Fire upon their fall, their divine offices were stripped, making resurrection far beyond any ordinary level.

Unfortunately, mortal calculations cannot match heavenly ones.

The Sun God's meticulous preparations for his own resurrection were ruined by a Sun‑Spotted Viper.

Lei En scanned the interior of the pyramid; the massive architecture unfolded before his eyes, and at last he discovered an anomaly in a corner of the palace.

It was a crack, not large—only a child's arm could fit—but it stretched from the pyramid's interior outward, winding dozens of times, forming a narrow passage that linked the inside and outside through the tightly fitted massive stones.

The crack likely resulted from tens of thousands of years of change, the pyramid's own weight compressing and causing slight deformation, so that even wind cannot pass through.

It didn't even affect the pyramid's rune array; it can only be considered a tiny flaw.

Yet an ignorant Sun‑Spotted Viper slithered into this flaw.

From the size of the gap, Lei En judged that when the Sun‑Spotted Viper entered the pyramid, it was probably freshly hatched, and a little more growth would cause it to become stuck.

Moreover, the Sun‑Spotted Viper had to come from the desert outside into this massive underground tomb, which is no easy feat.

Something with such a low probability actually happened.

One can only say that the God of the Scorching Sun, when alive, must have had a terrible relationship with the Goddess of Fortune, yet grew too close to the God of Misfortune.

As for the sun‑spotted viper inside the pyramid, it is both lucky and unlucky.

The lucky part is that it swallowed the Divine Fire left by the God of the Scorching Sun, absorbing a continual flow of divine nature, and within thirty years grew to a terrifying power it could never attain on its own.

The unlucky part is that the divine nature is too powerful and too dangerous, far beyond what it can endure.

Divine nature is, in a sense, the deity's soul; for a god, it encompasses its character, beliefs, wisdom and memories— all information related to the deity itself— and it is also a supreme form of energy that can be transmuted into divine power through Divine Fire.

Mortals or other beings can absorb divine nature, gaining great power and even extending their lifespan.

But the quality of divine nature is too high; a mortal's soul cannot bear it.

A mortal must undergo at least seven Soul Transformations—i. e., ascend to Saint Rank—so that the essence of the soul, colloquially called "spiritual substance," approaches the quality of divine nature, allowing it to erase the information within divine nature and safely absorb it. In fact, when a mortal experiences the eighth Soul Transformation, equivalent to a th Level transcendent, they can hear the prayers of believers, receive the power of faith combined with spiritual substance, transmute it into their own divine nature, and ascend to a demigod.

Souls below Saint Rank that absorb divine nature are in great danger.

If this deity is still alive, even a trace of its divine nature would cause one to be controlled as a divine servant.

If the deity is already dead, it might reconstitute through divine nature aggregation, possess a mortal's body, and revive.

The sun‑spotted viper does not fall into either of the above cases; its intelligence is too low, or rather, it is merely a beast driven by survival instinct, trapped inside the pyramid with no food, able to survive only by devouring divine nature.

The ceiling for this venomous snake is extremely low; divine energy forcibly propped it up to this size.

Its innate talent makes it impossible to ascend to Saint Rank; the information within divine nature places it on the brink of madness, and the massive energy could burst at any moment, leading to self‑destruction.

The response heard by the Minotaur of the Sun‑Chaser Tribe during prayer should be the sun‑spotted viper's howl of pain; it lacks intelligence, cannot speak, and of course cannot communicate with the Minotaur.

However, the divine nature the sun‑spotted viper absorbed is still insufficient to resurrect the God of the Scorching Sun.

Thus this awkward situation arose.

If left unchecked, in a few years this sun‑spotted viper will be burst by divine nature and die; moreover, the divine nature it has absorbed will be unrecoverable, wasted.

At that moment the sun‑spotted viper seemed to sense someone watching it, startled awake, lifted its head from the altar, its massive snake head standing upright, scanning around but finding nothing.

Lei En saw this and withdrew his gaze.

His thoughts became active; his Soul Eye saw clearly that the sun‑spotted viper's demon soul contained only five Elements, extremely scarce, and even the two superlative Elements were not very impressive, showing that despite its massive power it cannot wield it.

This is an excellent opportunity.

Lei En is not currently contemplating deification, nor has his strength reached that level, but with a piece of Divine Fire before him, he absolutely will not let it slip away.

Once the Divine Fire is taken, the God of the Scorching Sun cannot be resurrected.

Therefore it must be kept secret from the Minotaur.

"How should we proceed?"

Lei En furrowed his brows and began to ponder, at first unable to think of a good solution; seeing that the Soul Power Pool still held over 450 units of energy, he decided to first continue strengthening himself, and then make plans.

(End of chapter)