When Haru entered the Holy Light Temple's main hall, he heard something unexpected.
A weak voice, begging for mercy.
It was Skarion, the Lord of Slaughter. The baptism had almost finished, he was at his limit, and sensing Haru's presence, he made his plea. A hundred thousand years of service in exchange for his freedom. He didn't want transformation. He was an ancient Supreme God, hundreds of thousands of years of cultivation, the Lord of his own Slaughter Pantheon. He had his own goals, his own ambitions. He would not want to become someone's loyal believer.
Malakar, the Lord of Destruction, followed with his own plea. Two hundred thousand years of service.
The Lich Lord Zakaria Nekrosi, the Goddess of Darkness Mordra, and the Goddess of Death Micteya said nothing. Their transformation had already been completed, the resistance was gone. Only the two ancient Supreme Gods were still fighting.
Haru ignored both of them. They had united before to destroy the Great Aetherium. He had suppressed their souls. The baptism would finish within days, and then they would stand up as his willing, loyal and zealous believers. He wasn't releasing anyone. Especially not the architects of the attack against him.
He moved to the Holy Grail and withdrew the souls that were ready. Tens of thousands of light balls emerged, mostly Dimensional Demon Gods from Arboriel's underground. More than 40,000 in total. The weakest were Intermediate Gods, dozens were High Gods, and at the apex stood the Demon Lord Dantean, an intermediate-stage Supreme God.
He felt a brief flicker of regret. There should have been two Demon Lords. The other one, Miltonic, even stronger than Dantean at the late-stage, had made a different choice when his body was destroyed. Rather than be captured, he had self-destructed his soul together with his artifact. There was nothing left to transform. Haru had missed out on what would have been a significantly stronger addition to his ranks.
The regret didn't last long, because one other soul stood out among the light balls. It was the Aurora Goddess Amelie, formerly of the Nature Pantheon, said by the wider world to have fallen in the Ancient Era's battle of planets. But she hadn't. Her soul had been placed in the Holy Grail alongside and transformed together with them. Now she was also ready.
Two Supreme Gods. More than 40,000 Gods, all at least Intermediate Gods, all waiting to be resurrected. Haru checked the cost.
[Do you want to spend 2,480 Billion Power Stones to help these souls reincarnate?]
He checked his Power Stone reserves: roughly 170 billion. Not even close.
He then checked his Divine Crystal reserves: just over 57 million. One Divine Crystal substituted for one million Power Stones, which meant 2,480 billion Power Stones required fewer than 2.48 million Divine Crystals.
"Use Divine Crystals and resurrect them."
His reserves dropped by 2.5 million. The God Level Angel Reincarnation Pool in front of him ignited with blinding light, energy fluctuations surging through the pool in waves.
Then the first ball of light emerged.
…
Location: Floravelle, the base camp of the Nature Pantheon.
Floravelle was Elunara's Divine Kingdom, built over hundreds of thousands of years into something no outside force had ever successfully invaded. Even the Titan and Dragon Pantheons gave it a wide berth. In the Ancient Era's Divine War, the twelve Demon Monarchs had looked at it, calculated the cost, and turned away.
Hundreds of thousands of years of Elunara's cultivation had gone into strengthening its defenses, and the Nature Pantheon's millions of gods lived and cultivated within it accordingly.
In the center of that realm, suspended tens of thousands of meters above the ground, hung an Elven Garden larger than the Great Aetherium's Astral Cities. It emitted aurora in every direction, running through the entire Floravelle like a permanent light. Every creature below who saw it knelt involuntarily.
Inside the garden, Elunara sat cross-legged among the flowers. Then she opened her emerald green eyes. The Divine Aura that emanated from her body in that moment had shifted. She felt it immediately. She had ascended.
Eight days of retreat, after countless failed attempts across tens of thousands of years, after the injuries from the Ancient Era's Divine War had stolen several tens of thousands of years from her development, after Svetlana's blessing had finally provided the last piece she needed. She was finally a peak Supreme Goddess.
The breakthrough was fast, but it wasn't surprising. Her talent and law comprehension ability had always exceeded Varkath's, and Varkath had already reached the peak. There was never any question of whether she would get there. The only question had been when the accumulated groundwork would finally tip over the threshold.
She ran the comparison in her head. Before this breakthrough, at the late-stage, she had been able to fight Malakar and Skarion simultaneously. Micteya had added enough pressure that three-on-one became genuinely dangerous, but now, at the peak, she could suppress all three easily. The Evil Pantheon's strategy of assembling five Supreme Gods to threaten the Nature Pantheon had just become irrelevant.
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