Chapter 1252: Proving the Dao Through Killing! Hidden Behind the Scenes

The power of a Divine Spirit is only truly its own when it comes to its divine essence.

Everything else, whether it is the Divine Format or the Divine Position, is power that the World Law bestows upon the Divine Spirit.

There’s no need to think too highly of the God of Gods, Ayo. He’s essentially a moderator. Within the pantheon of Ferren, he can promote anyone to administrator status at will, or even strip administrators (Divine Spirits) of their privileges. However, as long as one escapes his positional suppression, there’s a lot of room for maneuver.

Ayo appeared frequently during the Saint’s Calamity.

Firstly, the Fate Slate was stolen because the Three Gods of Death yearned to surpass the power of all gods, and the secrets of the Fate Slate offered a possibility of becoming the God of Gods.

Shirek amassed the power of the Three Gods of Death, even attempting to replace the God of Gods, which signified that their combined power had reached the threshold of the God of Gods.

Ayo is not all-knowing and all-powerful either.

When the Fate Slate was stolen, he was unaware. Shirek, during the Year of Upheaval, killed Klanwo, seized the Fate Slate, and presented it to him, yet Ayo did not know; on the contrary, he happily promoted Shirek to a god and bestowed upon him all the divine positions of the Three Gods of Death.

Shirek was elevated by him single-handedly, so for all the wrongdoings since the Year of Upheaval, he must bear part of the responsibility.

Ayo is merely someone who cleans up after messes, and not very well at that.

He twice massively altered the deity roster of the Ferren pantheon; the first during the Saint’s Calamity, directly promoting Shirek and Midnight to gods, and the second, after Shirek was sentenced to imprisonment, conspiring with Lady of Dark Night, Shire, to murder Mystra (Midnight), which led to the outbreak of the Spellplague, causing the world to fall into turmoil and collapse, prompting him to clean up the mess and rewrite the deity roster of the Ferren pantheon.

Apart from that, most of the time, Ayo is hands-off, and when he takes charge, it’s basically chaos.

In the future, a resurrected horde of minor gods will make the Divine Spirits even more numerous than wild dogs, with cultists stirring up trouble everywhere, all thanks to his good deeds.

Duncan left the Pole Star Camp Tent.

“It seems attempting to touch the domain of the God of Gods through the divine position of an upper concept is somewhat ineffective.”

Duncan is calm now, not angry at all.

He’s simply wanting to upend the table.

There are only a few ways to become the God of Gods, much like the paths to a Saint’s enlightenment, with not much choice available.

The first is the Fate Slate.

This is also the cause of the Saint’s Calamity; the Three Gods of Death discovered the possibility within the Fate Slate to surpass all gods and thus stole it, triggering the Saint’s Calamity.

What exactly the Fate Slate is, Duncan doesn’t quite understand, but it could be similar to a Saint’s natal treasure or perhaps a manifestation of the laws of Realm Heaven.

This path is already blocked.

The Three Gods of Death paid the price for it, and the Fate Slate was reclaimed by Ayo, making it impossible for others to obtain it again.

The second method is by elevating one’s Divine Format.

Shirek walked this path by secretly impersonating Ayo, aiming to become the only True God, gathering the powers of the Three Gods of Death, even brainwashing mortals with the Shire Bible. If he had truly succeeded, his Divine Format level would have surpassed other Mighty Divine Power, possibly reaching a Divine Format level above 20, which is about the standard of the God of Gods.

This was once Duncan’s direction too, but the trial at the Pole Star Camp Tent, under Ayo’s one-man show, left him with nothing, not even gaining any of the domain laws of death.

To walk this path, one must unify death and gather and elevate concepts like soul, reincarnation, and fate.

Ayo promoted Klanwo to Mighty Divine Power, blocking Duncan’s path to advancement.

If he still wants to walk this path, he not only has to take down Shirek but also Klanwo, and possibly even face the Ancient Death God Ye Ge and the besiegement of other gods such as the Magic Goddess Mystra, Klanwo’s lover.

The third method is by elevating one’s Divinity.

This path is actually the simplest because someone has blazed the trail ahead, namely the Ancient Death God Ye Ge.

Even when the divine positions of death were split into three, no one dared to underestimate the Ancient Death God Ye Ge with his Weak Divine Power, because even just his divine essence and personal strength vastly surpassed those of other Divine Spirits.

This path is simply through slaughter!

Slaughter all Divine Spirits!

Without a divine position, seize one; without a Divine Format, usurp one. One doesn’t need a divine position or Divine Format either: it’s about continually condensing one’s divine essence until quantitative change leads to qualitative change, surpassing all other gods to become the greatest immortal divine essence existence.

During the Saint’s Calamity, the Mighty Divine Power Bane and the Demigod Tom with Weak Divine Power both perished together.

There was a huge positional difference between them.

But stripped of the abilities granted by the Divine Format, Bane and Tom were actually quite similar, both near-max-level practitioners (professional level around 40).

This includes Heim slaying the Magic Goddess, and Waukeen being imprisoned by the Dark Monarch, which all represented the true strength of Divine Spirits once stripped of their divine positions.

“I’m now essentially stuck at the practitioner’s level cap.”

“The highest Divine Format level for a Demigod is 5.”

“This means that my human form is ultimately a practitioner at about level 45, whereas other Divine Spirits, with the boost of Divine Format, are way above me.”

“Without a Divine Format level, without an upper conceptual divine position, I can only pile up my divine essence.”

“Aside from slaughter, there is no other way.”

Divine positions can descend from heaven, Divine Formats can be promoted, but divinity cannot. It takes about a century to accumulate even a bit of divinity, and divine-like power is the result of long years of endurance.