Beirut was a little surprised, too. He had originally wanted to force Hodan to his knees, but when he saw Hodan fall back onto the ground, he said nothing. He only glanced sideways at him.
Hodan got to his feet and asked cautiously, "Lord Beirut, what if someone from Yulan Continent attacks me? Also, can I look around Yulan Continent for a while?" After all, this was related to his plans going forward, so Hodan could only brace himself and ask.
Beirut glared at Hodan, thought for a moment, then said, "As long as no one from Yulan Continent attacks you, you mustn't take the initiative to attack anyone from Yulan Continent, nor may you disrupt its order. As for looking around, that's fine, but you must follow the rules of the mortal world. Understood?"
"Yes, Lord Beirut." Hodan suppressed his emotions and replied with his head lowered. But after waiting a while without hearing a response from Beirut, he looked up and saw that Beirut had already vanished.
Hodan waited there for a while. Seeing that Beirut had no further demands, he hurried back to the Arctic Icefield to calm down and plan his next move.
At the same time, in Hell Plane,
Hodan's Saint Domain True Body had stopped cultivating as soon as his Thunder God Clone teleported to Yulan Continent. After all, the Thunder God Clone was the guarantee of Hodan's current strength, and it was also one of his lives. He couldn't afford to be careless. When first entering Yulan Continent, Hodan naturally had to keep a close eye on his Thunder God Clone.
Perhaps it was because he was a transmigrator, but Hodan's Divine Clone and Saint Domain True Body could share the same point of view even across planes. Moreover, whatever happened to his Divine Clone, his Saint Domain True Body felt it too. Unlike in the original story, where the true body could only vaguely sense its Divine Clone.
They truly were two bodies with one mind.
There should have been nothing wrong with paying Beirut a visit, but Beirut had actually dared to force Hodan down, trying to make him kneel. Hodan couldn't tolerate that. Though this was a different world, his ancestors had spent countless years and shed blood to stand tall again. Now someone wanted him to kneel, and his soul instantly filled with defiance and fury.
Although he hadn't dared show it in front of Beirut, when he saw Beirut exerting pressure on him, Hodan clenched his fists so tightly that they bled. Defiance and anger radiated from his entire body, and a desire to bring about a whole new world surged up from deep within him.
The Eight Great Clans to which Hodan belonged had already been deeply dissatisfied with Beirut for protecting the Four Divine Beasts Clan. The Four Divine Beasts Clan was their sworn enemy, yet because of a single word from Beirut, the Eight Great Clans had dared not attack the Skyline Mountains. They had only been forced to swallow their resentment because they lacked the strength. And now this had happened, too.
For a moment, Hodan felt as though his soul were about to burn, brimming with defiance. Through gritted teeth, he said, "Beirut, just wait until I get the chance. I can't kill your Chief Sovereign clone, but I can still kill your Darkness God Clone in Hell."
If Beirut hadn't intervened to stop the Eight Great Clans, the Four Divine Beasts Clan would have been wiped out long ago. Then the chain of events in this world that led to Hodan's parents being killed by Jiawei would never have happened, and Hodan would never have transmigrated here and taken over a body.
At that moment, a seed of hatred took root in Hodan's heart. If he ever got the chance, he would kill Beirut and repay him for the "great favor" of bringing him to this world.
Unfortunately, weakness was a sin. If he wanted to control his own fate, he needed strength—strength that feared nothing.
Hodan's longing for strength grew all the more intense. He lamented how fate had toyed with him by bringing him to this world, and he lamented his own weakness, which left him unable to control his destiny.
In that state, Hodan suddenly felt as if inspiration had struck him. A feeling naturally rose within him... He clearly sensed that he had crossed some kind of boundary: the boundary between Saint-level and godhood.
A strange fluctuation of the Laws of the World descended, landing directly inside the little bamboo building where Hodan was. This happened so often in Hell that it wouldn't attract anyone's attention.
Hodan abruptly raised his head and looked up at the sky!
"Buzz~~~"
A vast power that shook the soul suddenly descended, enveloping Hodan completely. The space around him warped, as though separating him from the surrounding area, and his entire body began to float.
He was floating without any control over it.
This was the first time Hodan had truly faced the Laws of the World. It was an experience completely unlike watching it happen in his memories.
"How terrifying." Hodan could sense that vast, boundless, ancient, and strange power. More precisely, it seemed to be something akin to laws and rules. Before it, Hodan felt like nothing more than an ant.
"This should be the Laws of the World, judging whether I've become a god." Hodan was utterly shaken.
"What is this?" Hodan wondered.
A moment later—
The surging world elements dissipated. A black crystal emitting a pale blue-green glow floated above Hodan's head. It was a Lowgod Fate Rule Godhead. The instant the Godhead formed, it naturally connected with Hodan's soul.
That was because this Godhead had formed based on the aura of Hodan's soul, making it a perfect match for him.
Even if he successfully refined someone else's Godhead, it could never compare to one formed by the Laws of the World based on his own soul.
"Godhead."
Hodan looked up at the Godhead floating there, glowing blue-green, and a surge of excitement rose in his heart. When he had first come to the Coiling Dragon World, he had always dreamed of reaching the pinnacle of cultivation and then finding a way home. Now he could finally take the first step. No matter how composed Hodan tried to be, he couldn't suppress the joy surging within him.
"At last, I've become a god through the Fate Rule." Joy appeared on Hodan's face. He had proved that he, too, could keep cultivating and growing stronger. Even without his Thunder God Clone, he could still walk his own path to becoming a powerhouse. Just then, a message naturally appeared in his soul: "The Laws of the World are letting me choose whether the Godhead will be outside or inside my body."
Without the slightest hesitation, Hodan controlled the Godhead and made it float beside him. Of course he chose to split his soul. Not only did he still have the potential to cultivate the Destruction Rules, but having more Divine Clones meant having more lives. There was no way he would put his Divine Clone inside his Saint Domain True Body.
The Laws of the World accepted Hodan's choice. Immediately, he let out a scream of agony. The excruciating pain made every muscle in his body spasm and convulse.
Splitting his soul was millions of times more painful than any physical torment.
At that moment, Hodan stopped thinking altogether. He could only scream in pain on instinct.
Gradually...
Hodan's screams of pain grew quieter.
In the depths of Hodan's soul, the two halves of his severed soul had both changed into "blade shapes." More precisely, his original blade-shaped soul had become two smaller blade-shaped souls. One remained deep in Hodan's mind, while the other flew straight out of his body.
Hodan's soul flew toward the Godhead. Then it merged into the Godhead with astonishing ease, fusing together with it. This was one sign that he had successfully refined a Godhead.
"Rumble—"
The space around him trembled. The soul inside the Godhead strangely sensed a place at the very heart of the boundless spatial chaos—a vast, boundless plane, a place only gods could sense—
The Elemental Ocean!
"Boom—"
It was a hazy, mist-filled space. No light shone from the sky; only the blue-green glow radiating from the Elemental Ocean itself faintly illuminated this plane.
Boundless elemental waves surged, rising and falling. This was the Fate Ocean.
The surface of the Elemental Ocean was made of condensed world elements, as tangible as liquid. Through the Godhead, Hodan's soul could sense a certain depth beneath the surface of the Divine Power Ocean.
The Elemental Ocean had elemental liquid at its surface, and beneath it... lay endless divine power!
Suddenly, a substantial amount of divine power vanished from the ocean, traveling along a special passage formed by the Laws of the World. It descended directly into the little bamboo building where Hodan was, then began to form a divine body around the Fate Godhead fused with his soul.
"Ch-ch-ch." Before his eyes, a naked body almost identical to Hodan's original body formed from the head downward. Hodan willed the divine power within him to gather across his skin, forming a blue-green robe.
At that moment, the special power representing the Laws of the World vanished into thin air, and the little bamboo building returned to stillness.
"It's over." A happy smile appeared on Hodan's face. He immediately controlled his Divine Clone and merged it into his original body. The Divine Clone melded directly with Hodan's body, becoming one with it in an utterly bizarre way.
This was the wonder of a Divine Clone: it could freely switch places with the Saint Domain True Body, and the Saint Domain True Body could also use the Divine Clone's divine power to a certain extent.
Beirut would never have imagined that someone in this world could share his Divine Clone's point of view and senses across planes. Nor would he have thought that the Mid-God he regarded as an ant was thinking of killing his Darkness God Clone. And he certainly hadn't expected that his own pressure would spur Hodan to cultivate a Fate God Clone.
Before you continue