Blood War

There was no need to mention becoming Petitioners. This was the same as with traditional old gods. The greatest difference between New Gods and old gods lay in the function of Reincarnation.

After Petitioners died too many times, traditional old gods would have them merge into the Divine Kingdom to strengthen it. New Gods, on the other hand, allowed them to Reincarnate, be reborn in the material plane of the Divine Domain, and live anew.

The greatest advantage of this was that, after Reincarnation, a Petitioner's soul would bear the mark of the Lord of the Divine Domain. They would naturally feel close to the faith of their previous life, and once exposed to the church's teachings, they could easily accept the faith and become Devout Believers.

Through repeated cycles like this, it was easy to accumulate a large number of Devout Believers in the material plane. Faith Points would naturally come pouring in like a rushing stream.

There were not many Petitioners stored in Lin Xiao's Divine Kingdom now, only several dozen Level 1 Murloc Warriors accumulated over the years. All the other dead Murloc believers had been sent off to Reincarnate.

In fact, if he had not needed a few to keep up appearances, he would have sent all these Murloc Warriors to Reincarnate long ago.

Level 1 Murloc Warriors were far too weak. They were not even qualified to serve as cannon fodder. At the very least, warriors had to be Level 3 or above to qualify as cannon fodder, while Divine Kingdom guards and the like had to be Level 4 or higher.

Lin Xiao intended to take the elite route.

Enough idle chatter. When he personally acted and guided the souls of those Murloc believers into the Divine Kingdom, the impact on the believers at that instant was unprecedented. Since it was his first time doing this, the effect was simply explosive. In an instant, more than seventy percent of the True Believers became Devout Believers, and thirty or forty Zealous Believers emerged at once.

If they all survived this time, his faith would surge again.

Seeing this, the Murloc Chieftain raised his weapon at just the right moment and shouted, "Children, the great Lord of Gray Mist is watching over us at this very moment! Kill all the heretics!"

After saying that, he lowered his head and looked toward a Snakemen Priest holding a Bone Staff ahead of him. At that very moment, the Snakemen Priest raised his Bone Staff and shouted, "The great Gelas has set His gaze here. He told me that killing these heretics will earn us Gelas's pleas—"

Before he could finish, a figure had already split the seawater and charged before him. The Snakemen Priest reacted by raising his Bone Staff and slamming it down hard. Just as he opened his mouth, he saw a pair of golden pupils. The soul-shaking majesty stunned him for an instant, and then he felt Severe Pain in his chest. An immense force sent his body flying several meters through the air before he crashed heavily into the seawater, the icy water swiftly drowning his consciousness.

Pulling out his Short Spear, the Murloc Chieftain shot backward into the seawater and slid more than ten meters away. He emerged from the water and took a deep breath.

The instant he made his move, the frenzied Murlocs charged one after another at the Snake-Men.

The Salted Fish Thrust skill granted them tremendous speed and as much as five times the destructive power. Although Snake-Men possessed powerful physiques and decent protection from their scales, they could not defend against the fivefold kinetic impact of Fine Iron Short Spears.

The weapons summoned by a five-Star Level card were hardly inferior. Even without the fivefold burst, they could still injure Snake-Men.

A Murloc tore through the seawater at tremendous speed and pierced a Snake-Man through the body with his spear, only to be immediately cut down by another Snake-Man's counterattack.

Another Murloc stabbed at a sturdy Snakemen Leader with the same tremendous speed. The quick-reacting Snakemen Leader twisted aside to evade the Salted Fish Thrust, then slashed backhandedly and cut him in two.

With a savage grin, he grabbed the Short Spear and was about to reclaim it when his body suddenly lurched. A sharp spearhead pierced through his body and emerged from the other side. The enraged Snakemen Leader slashed backhandedly and Executed the ambushing Murloc, but at that instant, two Murlocs targeted him at the same time.

Two Short Spears struck the Snakemen Leader in the waist and back, one from the front and one from behind. Together with the previous spear, three spears had pierced through his body. Even a Level 2 Snakemen Leader could not withstand such grievous wounds.

The enraged Snakemen Leader threw back his head and roared. Bloodlight flared in his pupils as he spun around and killed two Murlocs who had temporarily exhausted their strength after bursting forth.

But the next second, three more Murlocs charged out at once, their three spears piercing through his body simultaneously.

This time, the three Murlocs had learned their lesson. The moment they hit their target, they abandoned their spears and rolled into the water. A flash of brilliant blade light sliced through the seawater, but struck nothing.

Having been pierced through seven times, each wound a grievous one, the Snakemen Leader could no longer endure. His towering body swayed in circles a few times before falling into the seawater with a bang, bobbing with the waves as blood rapidly dyed a large area red.

This was merely one corner of the battlefield. The Murlocs, who had originally been no match for the Snake-Men at all, relied on the exceedingly Rare five-Star Level skill card, Salted Fish Thrust, to unleash a burst of power up to five times stronger in an instant. Though they only had the strength for a single strike, after unleashing it, their post-burst weakness and ten-minute cooldown left them at the Snake-Men's mercy.

But it was, after all, a fivefold burst. Combined with the sharpness of the Fine Iron Short Spears, even a Level 2 Snakemen Leader could not withstand the burst of even a Level 0 Murloc.

Lin Xiao's True Body stood high in the air, overlooking the battlefield. Tall Snake-Men kept falling, but for every Snake-Man that fell, at least one Murloc died with him, and even more Murlocs were injured.

He fell silent for a moment, then extended a finger again and cast the Level 1 divine spell—Essence of Sea Water. A full hundred thousand Faith Points burned away.

The next second, countless blue specks of starlight rose from the seawater within a hundred-meter-by-hundred-meter area below. They swiftly approached the surrounding Murlocs and merged into their bodies. The wounds on the injured Murlocs visibly began to heal.

This divine spell was a healing spell, restricted to use in the sea. Its base cost was ten thousand Faith Points, and spending additional Faith Points could greatly increase its power. Its effects were even more obvious when he cast it with his True Body.

However, it was not a proper healing spell, and large-scale divine spells had never produced immediate results. At most, it could ease the Murlocs' physical exhaustion after using Salted Fish Thrust. Its healing effect was not particularly great.

But that was enough. At the very least, it could greatly improve their survival rate during the weakened period after their burst.

More than six hundred Murlocs charged forward one after another, every one of them bursting forth with fanatical expressions. Every Snake-Man had to face the ambush of two or three Murlocs.

Such ambushes were impossible to defend against. Aside from powerful Snakemen Leaders, who could react through advance prediction, ordinary Snake-Men could not Intercept them even if they spotted them beforehand. They could only watch helplessly as a black shadow flashed before their eyes, leaving them no time even to dodge.

But the Snake-Men's powerful physiques made it difficult to kill them in a single strike, while their counterattacks were fatal to the weakened Murlocs after their bursts.

For every Snake-Man who fell, one or even two Murlocs would inevitably die alongside him.

Within Lin Xiao's Divine Sea, the Faith Threads representing his believers snapped one by one. Every broken thread represented the death of a believer, the loss of at least one True Believer, and in most cases a Devout Believer. To a Deity, this was an enormous loss.

But he had no choice. He could not possibly take the field himself.

When he had first opened his Divine Domain, whether it was his teachers, seniors, or parents, they had repeatedly warned him that unless he was at the end of his rope, he must never personally act with his True Body.

Now that his True Body had descended, he could at most cast divine spells or use Transcendent Power to assist from the side, but he absolutely could not personally enter the fray in melee combat.