The Era of Gods

Chapter 313: Rogue and Helplessness

At that moment, Lin Xiao felt the Creation Energy surging from the depths of his brain, flowing throughout his entire body, expelling all foreign substances within him. At last, the only part left was his heart, where strands of cleansing light were seeping into it.

As the cleansing light formed by the Creation Energy infiltrated, wisps of grey mist seeped out from his heart.

The Creation Rubik’s Cube had burnt a whole ten units of Creation Energy, the majority of which was used to awaken his memories, with only a small part used for the expulsion of his body’s abnormalities, which was now nearing completion.

“I wonder how the others are doing now, whether they’ve woken up.”

“Or if they’re even still alive!”

Lin Xiao fell silent. This world was extremely mysterious; it had completely blocked their connection with the Gaia Will. Either the Will of this Crystal Wall Universe was exceptionally powerful, or this world was one of those extremely rare special worlds.

Considering the countless Nightmare Lords gathering at the edge of this universe, including a sovereign comparable to Powerful Divine Power presiding, it was clear that this world was likely occupied by the Nightmare World.

The sight of so many Nightmare Lords waiting outside was reminiscent of a scene he had witnessed at the Myriad Images God Temple, strikingly similar to the event at the Myriad Images God Temple.

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

Lin Xiao had a guess in his heart. Could this world be a chance for the younger generation of the Nightmare World to compete for like those in the Ruins of Myriad? Were there many young Nightmare Lords in this world now?

The possibility was high.

But what was the great opportunity of this world?

Lin Xiao looked out the window to see the dark clouds merged with the ink-black sea. Occasionally, he saw lightning strike, and he quickly averted his gaze.

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

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

This world was incredibly bizarre, and the odd beings inhabiting this world have many unfathomable abilities. Often, just an extra glance in a crowd could cost you your life.

After about a minute, Lin Xiao felt the strength of the Creation Energy penetrate to the deepest part of his heart. When the last wisp of grey mist was expelled and dissipated, he suddenly felt a sense of dizziness, and everything before him twisted rapidly. Lin Xiao immediately stood up from the bathtub and drew the curved knife by the tub.

However, the dizzy distortion quickly returned to normal, but he could feel that the whole world seemed to have changed.

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

The first interface seemed unchanged, except his spiritual power had surged by ten points. Besides that, after careful observation, he noticed the panel had one extra thing compared to before—a question mark had appeared below the attribute list, and his consciousness touched a piece of chaos.

With a confused heart, he opened the second task panel and his pupils shrank.

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

The first task: Kill the Children of Nightmare descending upon this world; each kill, depending on the target’s strength and status, awards 1-5 points of score and plunders a portion of their power. Repeatable.

The second task: Destroy the nine Nightmare nodes where the Nightmare’s Will descends upon this world; for each node destroyed, you gain 1% of world authority and the favor of the world’s Clan. The more Nightmare nodes destroyed, the more favor you receive from the world.

“This…”

It was the complete opposite of the previous tasks.

Lin Xiao tried to enumerate the differences between the past and current tasks and suddenly realized they were utterly opposed—that is…

Combining the information conveyed by the tasks with what he had seen before entering this world, Lin Xiao had a bold guess.

Could it be that he was previously regarded by the world’s will as an invading Child of Nightmare, but now having awakened, he was no longer deemed as such, hence the new tasks?

He couldn’t be certain, but it felt right.

The tasks were compulsorily assigned; Lin Xiao felt he couldn’t refuse. Considering the complicated situation of this world, even now that he seemed to be recognized by the world’s will, his situation wasn’t much better.

Clearly, this world had been invaded by the Nightmare World, filled with descending Children of Nightmare and nine Nightmare nodes controlling the world. The omnipresent dark clouds and the world’s weirdness were obviously not normal. Even favored by the world’s will, he had no assistance to speak of; he still had to rely on himself.

“Thud, thud!”

There was a knock on the door.

Lin Xiao stood up alertly and called out,

“Who is it?”

“Your old man!”

He breathed a sigh of relief, got dressed, and opened the door to see the old captain, puffing on his pipe.

“Seems you’ve recovered well.”

The old captain, with his inseparable pipe, walked in, glanced around the room, and casually sat down at a table. Lin Xiao habitually poured a glass of water and handed it over.

After blowing a smoke ring, tapping the ash off his pipe at the table edge, the captain looked up and asked,

“Have you awakened?”

Lin Xiao was slightly startled, pondering how to reply, but then the old captain waved his hand and said,

“You don’t need to answer anything else, just tell me yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“Good, don’t tell anyone.”

“Hmm.”

“Give me a back rub.”

He obediently went over to give the old captain a back rub and was surprised to find that the apparently elderly captain had firm muscles beneath his clothes, not at all typical for his age.

Following his usual habit, he pressed hard for over ten minutes when, just as he thought the old captain was about to fall asleep, the latter suddenly said:

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

After thinking for a moment, he replied:

“Five years.”

“Five years, I still remember what you were like back then.”

The old captain leisurely packed his pipe with tobacco, lit it, and took a puff before speaking:

“I was thinking of having you land-bound after a while, the sea is too dangerous. But since you’ve awakened, old dad will give you a chance. If you can meet my requirements, The Explorer will be yours.”

Lin Xiao was overjoyed upon hearing this but managed to contain his excitement and asked:

“What about you, old dad?”

The old captain chuckled:

“Old dad here will naturally retire back on shore.”

“But don’t get too excited too soon. It won’t be easy to take over old dad’s ship. You must achieve something that earns the crew’s approval. If they don’t approve, you can’t be the captain.”

Lin Xiao nodded earnestly:

“I’ll do my best.”

“You have one year. This year is your time to show what you can do. After your awakening, you’re much stronger in resisting the Weird Whispers, I believe you’ll be able to perform convincingly.”

After that, old dad chatted with him for a while, sharing some things that were previously beyond his knowledge, such as how to gain greater strength. Two hours later, he left with his pipe.

Lin Xiao watched the old dad’s receding figure, contemplating what the old man had just told him.

This world was incredibly strange, as was its system of power.

It was broadly divided into three types, one of which was what the old dad considered awakening.

What’s called awakening, according to the old dad’s understanding, was akin to a mental mutation. Normally, because of the weirdness of this world and the incursion of the Nightmare World, the entire world had mutated, leading to the birth of many terrifying beings.

These terrifying beings possessed extremely horrific powers such as distortion, pollution, radiation, curses, and more. Mortals couldn’t look at them or touch them directly; if they did, they would be twisted by the strange powers of these beings into monsters.

Once awakened and mentally mutated, one would develop a great resistance to these indescribable, strange beings and thus be able to combat them.

As for how to combat them, this involved the second and the most common power system in this world—blood warriors.

Blood warriors are those who take monster flesh and blood slain with their own bodies and, with strong will and the aid of magic potions, suppress the strange powers within the monster flesh and blood, absorbing its strength into themselves to give humans power beyond mortals and the ability to confront these evil creatures head-on.

But after all, it is a mortal body harboring evil power. Even with magic potions to suppress it, the integrated monster flesh and blood constantly emits distorting power that affects the person. Over time, and especially with increased frequency of integration with monster flesh and blood, blood warriors would slowly be affected, resulting in physical and mental mutations.

Once unable to suppress these mutations, one would lose control, a condition known as blood origin control loss, with extremely severe consequences.

Either the genetics collapse and turn into a pile of mush, or the individual loses reason under the influence of monster flesh and blood and becomes a deformed creature. Many of the monsters in the wild today were once humans who transformed.

Like the former sailor Horner, who ultimately lost control of his blood origin, his muscles grotesquely mutated, and without intervention, he would have turned into some formless monster.

Since awakening and mental mutation increased one’s spiritual power, allowing for greater resistance to the usual Weird Whispers, those mortals who could awaken often integrated with monster flesh and blood more times, making it easier for them to become stronger blood warriors.

Also, because awakeners have an explosive increase in mental strength, they can learn the world’s third power system, the witchcraft system.

This witchcraft system is similar to mages, but witchcraft is more strange and dangerous, and likewise more powerful. But old dad didn’t know much about this aspect; he only mentioned it in passing.

Putting aside the witchcraft system for now, with no way to learn it at present, the immediate way to enhance one’s strength is to become a blood warrior. As for that, Lin Xiao has an idea.

Normally, blood warriors use magic potions to suppress the strange power in the monster flesh and blood, but this suppression isn’t complete. Even the most potent magic potion can’t totally suppress it; there will always be some remnants that accumulate over time in the body. No matter how strong the warrior or awakener was, no one could suppress it indefinitely. Anyway, he had never heard of a blood warrior who had died a natural death.

He did not want to end up like that.

His idea was to use the Creation Rubik’s Cube’s function of breakdown and refinement to see if might purify the evil power that affects the mind and flesh from the integrated monster flesh and blood, converting it into pure flesh and blood for integration.

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

Even if it required consumption of Creation Energy, he would still do it.

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