The Era of Gods

Chapter 308: Return to the Divine Realm

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At this moment, Lin Xiao felt the Creation Energy surging from deep within his brain had flowed throughout his entire body, cleansing all foreign substances within him, until only his heart remained, where strands of purifying light were seeping into it.

As the purifying light formed by the Creation Energy infiltrated, wisps of gray mist began to seep out from his heart.

The Creation Rubik’s Cube had burned a total of ten units of Creation Energy, the majority of which was used to awaken his memories, with only a small fraction used to cleanse his own anomalies, which were now nearly cleansed.

“I wonder how the others are doing now, whether they have awoken.”

“Or whether they are still alive!”

Lin Xiao remained silent, this world was extremely mysterious, actually able to completely block their connection with Gaia Will, either this Crystal Wall Universe’s will was exceptionally powerful, or this world was one of those very rare special worlds.

From the previous sight of countless Nightmare Lords converging at the edge of this universe, including a Lord with Powerful Divine Power presiding, it could be seen that this world was probably already occupied by the Nightmare World.

So many Nightmare Lords gathering outside; this scene reminded him of the one at the Myriad Images God Temple, very similar to the scenario back then.

The juniors entered the Ruins of Myriad, while the gods waited outside the ruins…

Lin Xiao had a hypothesis in his heart, could it be that this world was also a grand opportunity created by the Nightmare World for the younger generation to compete for, with many young Nightmare Lords existing within this world now?

This possibility was very high.

However, what was the grand opportunity of this world?

Lin Xiao looked out the window, the pitch-black clouds and the ink-black sea merged into one, with occasional lightning blasting apart, wherein he quickly averted his gaze.

Years of experience in this fallen world told him not to stare outside casually for too long.

When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

This world was extremely weird, the mysterious entities living in this world possessed many inconceivable abilities, often just one extra glance at you in a crowd was enough to snatch your life away.

About a minute later, Lin Xiao felt the power of Creation Energy had penetrated to the deepest part of his heart, and when the last wisp of gray mist was expelled and dissipated, he suddenly felt a moment of dizziness, and everything in front of him quickly distorted, Lin Xiao instantly stood up from the bath and pulled out the curved knife beside the tub.

However, the dizzying distortion in front of him quickly returned to normal, but he could feel that the entire world seemed to have changed.

After a short silence, he suddenly summoned the panel to check again.

The first interface seemed unchanged, except his spiritual power had surged by ten points, but on closer inspection, he found there was something more compared to the previous panel, a question mark had appeared below the attributes table, and his consciousness touched upon a realm of chaos.

With a sense of doubt, he opened the second task panel, Lin Xiao’s pupils contracted slightly.

The original three tasks had disappeared, replaced by two new tasks—

The first task: Slay the Children of Nightmare that have descended into this world, rewarding 1-5 rating points for each based on the target’s strength and status and plundering some of their power; repeatable.

The second task: Destroy the nine Nightmare nodes infused with Nightmare’s Will in this world, with each node granting 1% of the world authority and the patronage of the world’s Clan; the more Nightmare nodes destroyed, the greater the world’s favor gained.

“This…”

Completely the opposite of the previous tasks.

Lin Xiao tried to compare the previous tasks with the current ones, and suddenly realized that the two sets of tasks were completely opposed, which means…

Combining the information revealed in the tasks with what he saw before entering this world, Lin Xiao had a bold guess in his mind.

Was it that he was previously regarded by the world’s will as one of the invading Children of Nightmare, but now that he had awakened, he was no longer deemed a Child of Nightmare, hence these new tasks?

He couldn’t be certain, but it felt likely to be the case.

The tasks were mandated, Lin Xiao felt he couldn’t refuse them, and looking at the complex situation of this world, even if he now seemed to be recognized by the world’s will as one of their own, his condition wasn’t much better.

Clearly, this world had been invaded by the Nightmare World, with numerous descending Children of Nightmare and nine Nightmare nodes controlling the world; the omni-present dark clouds and the world full of weirdness were obviously not normal, and even being regarded by the world’s will, he still had no help to speak of, still reliant on himself.

“Knock knock!”

The sound of knocking came.

Lin Xiao stood up alertly and called out:

“Who is it?”

“Your old man!”

He relaxed, put on his clothes, opened the door, and standing at the door was the old captain with a pipe in his mouth.

“Looks like you’ve made a good recovery.”

The old captain walked in, pipe that he never let go of in hand, glanced around the room, casually sat down next to the table, and Lin Xiao habitually poured a glass of water and passed it to him.

The old captain exhaled a smoke ring, tapped the ash on the side of the table before looking up and asking:

“Have you awakened?”

Lin Xiao was inwardly startled, pondering how to answer, the old captain waved his hand and said:

“No need to answer anything else, just tell me yes or no.”

“`

“Yes,” he replied.

“Good, don’t tell anyone.”

“Hmm.”

“Rub my back for me.”

He obediently went over to give the old captain a back rub and was surprised to discover the solid muscles beneath the captain’s clothing, not at all typical for his age.

Following his usual practice, he applied pressure for more than ten minutes, just when he thought the old captain was about to fall asleep, he suddenly said,

“Little Karl, how many years have you been with me?”

He thought for a moment and replied,

“Five years.”

“Five years, I still remember what you looked like when you first came.”

The old captain picked up his pipe, leisurely packed it with tobacco, lit it, and took a puff before saying,

“I had thought about letting you go ashore after a while, as the sea is too dangerous. But now that you’ve awakened, I will give you a chance. If you can meet my requirements, then The Explorer will be yours.”

Lin Xiao felt a surge of joy inside, but he restrained his excitement and asked,

“What about you, old dad?”

The old captain chuckled and said,

“I, naturally, will retire to the land.”

“But, don’t get too excited too soon. It won’t be easy to inherit my ship. You’ll need to achieve something that makes the crew recognize you. If they don’t, you won’t be able to become the captain.”

Lin Xiao nodded earnestly,

“I will work hard.”

“You have one year. This year is your time to show what you can do. Since you’ve awakened, you can significantly strengthen your resistance to Weird Whispers. I believe you can achieve something that will convince everyone.”

Afterward, his old dad talked with him for a while, including some things that he couldn’t know before, such as how to acquire even greater strength. Two hours later, he left with his pipe.

Lin Xiao watched the old dad’s retreating figure, pondering the things he had just discussed.

This world was incredibly strange, and so was its power system.

It was broadly divided into three types, the first being the awakening the old dad believed in.

Awakening, as per the old dad’s understanding, was akin to a mental variant. Normally, due to the strangeness of this world and the invasion of the Nightmare World, the entire world had mutated, giving birth to countless terrifying beings.

These horrifying beings possessed extremely dreadful powers such as distortion, contamination, radiation, curses, and more. Mortals could not look directly at them or touch them. Any contact would lead to their minds and bodies being twisted by the beings’ strange powers and turning into monsters.

Once awakened, a mental variant would develop a great resistance to these indescribable, bizarre existences, thus gaining the ability to combat them.

As for how to fight, this involved the world’s second and most common power system—bloodborne warriors.

Bloodborne warriors were those who harbored the monster flesh and blood slew by humans within their own bodies. Through strong will and the aid of magic potions to suppress the monstrous powers within the flesh, they absorbed the strength within the flesh and blood, granting humans power beyond ordinary mortals and the strength to confront these evil creatures head-on.

However, since they were mortal vessels harboring evil power, even with the suppression of magic potions, the integrated monster flesh and blood would constantly emit corrupting influence, affecting the individual. Over time, and with an increased number of monster flesh integrations, bloodborne warriors would slowly be affected, causing physical and mental mutations.

If one could not suppress these mutations, they would lose control, a state known as bloodborne discontrol, with grievous consequences.

Either their genes would collapse into a mush, or they would lose their sanity under the monster flesh’s influence and turn into a vaguely-shaped monster. Many of the monsters in the wild were once humans that had transformed.

Like the previous boatswain, Horner, he ended up in bloodborne discontrol, his muscles grotesquely mutated, and without intervention, he would have become some form of monster.

Since awakening brings about a surge in spiritual power and resistance to normal Weird Whispers, those mortals who can awaken often integrate monster flesh and blood more times, easily becoming more powerful bloodborne warriors.

Moreover, because awakeners’ mental strength spikes, they can learn the world’s third power system, the witchcraft system.

This witchcraft system is similar to that of mages, but witchcraft is more mysterious and dangerous, and equally more powerful. The old dad, however, didn’t know much about this area; he only mentioned it in passing.

Setting aside witchcraft for now, as there was no way to learn it at present, what could immediately enhance his own power was becoming a bloodborne warrior. Lin Xiao had an idea about this.

Normally bloodborne warriors use magic potions to suppress the monstrous power within the flesh, but this doesn’t suppress it completely. Even the strongest potions can’t nullify it completely; there would always be some remnants left. These remnants would accumulate over time, and even the strongest warriors or awakeners couldn’t suppress it indefinitely. After all, he had never heard of a bloodborne warrior dying a natural death.

He didn’t want to end up like that.

His idea was to use the Creation Magic Cube’s disassembling and refining functions to purify the evil power that could affect the mind and body in the integrated monster flesh and blood into pure flesh for integration.

If that were possible, he could continuously integrate monster flesh and blood without any side effects, growing stronger rapidly.

Even if it meant using up Creation Energy, he would do so.

The reason was simple; he needed to survive, which required formidable strength.

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