The True Meaning of Devouring

The True Meaning of Devouring

Lincoln casually manipulated space, and a spatial rift appeared. He stepped inside.

Near the Darkness Divine Plane, a lone figure drifted helplessly through the Spatial Turbulence, unable to move at all. Despair filled his eyes—until he saw a black figure flying toward him in the distance. Then his expression gradually turned to one of resentment.

The black figure was naturally Lincoln, and the lone figure was, of course, Black.

Black glared viciously at Lincoln, grinding his teeth as he said, "So you really did become a Chief God."

"Yes, I became a Chief God." Lincoln smiled. After years of suffering and scheming, he was happy to offer a few words of explanation. "But you probably still can't understand why I did this, can you?"

Lincoln's casual ease only made Black more resentful. "Why? I never wronged you, yet you tricked me and led me to my death! Tell me, so I can die knowing the reason!"

"You don't need to know," Lincoln said with a faint smile. "Are you ready? From today on, Paragon High-God Black—no, just Black—will disappear from this world forever."

"Tell me, you bastard!" Black roared. "You're a mighty Chief God, and you use such despicable methods against a mere god. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

Lincoln shook his head. "Just leave this world with your questions unanswered."

As soon as he finished speaking, Black's Death Divine Clone lost all signs of life. Another body emerged from within it, and the Material Defense Sovereign Artifact released its bond and drifted away. Without the Sovereign Artifact's protection, both bodies were instantly swept away and destroyed by the Spatial Turbulence.

Lincoln let the Sovereign Artifact go, neither claiming it nor destroying it. A treasure he had once longed for now seemed unremarkable. He took out the spatial ring he had obtained from Black's Darkness Divine Clone and dripped a drop of blood onto it.

He had successfully claimed it.

A smile appeared on Lincoln's face. "It seems he really did have only two Divine Clones. From now on, I can tell the story of what happened however I like. If you had any other Divine Clones, I'd have had to go to the trouble of hunting them all down."

In the past, he had used his Innate Divine Ability openly in battle. But this time, he had deceived and manipulated a Paragon while posing as a Chief God. There were too many suspicious details; he had to keep the truth secret.

Lincoln strolled through the Spatial Turbulence. Since obtaining the Overgod Mission, this was the first time he had truly relaxed. A hundred thousand years ago, he had obtained the Supreme God Token and completed the mission in constant fear, always keeping to the shadows. A thousand years ago, he had acquired a Sovereign Spark and become a Chief God. Then he had secretly hunted down Black, and at last become a Paragon Intermediate Sovereign. From then on, only the Four Rule Sovereigns and the Four Divine Beasts, as a group, could threaten him. The Chief Sovereign of Light and the Thunder Sovereign should also be stronger than he was, though their Laws and Mysteries were not as well fused as his, despite their extra Willpower. Killing him would still be quite difficult.

With his Sovereign Artifact Body, his strength had already surpassed that of the other five Law Sovereigns.

Of course, with Divine Clones of all seven elements, he could choose to hunt other Chief Gods. If he first killed two Intermediate or Low-Sovereigns, then went after a High-Level Chief God, he could soon gain power far beyond that of a Sovereign. But such a plan had too many variables and was far too dangerous. For one thing, if the Four Rule Sovereigns noticed him before he reached his full strength, he would be in danger. Even at full strength, he would still be in serious danger if Orf, who possessed a full set of Defensive Supreme Artifacts, set his sights on him. Orf was a Paragon, after all, and had the Willpower from refining an additional Sovereign Spark, the Willpower from ten consecutive wins on the Plane Battlefield, and a Sovereign Artifact Body. After so many years of research, even if he had no outrageous technique like the Samsara Golden Body, he likely still had a technique that could multiply his strength a hundredfold. He was formidable in every respect.

Even if he wanted to bait someone into attacking him, Lincoln had no suitable target at the moment. He had no history with any of the other Chief Gods. Was he supposed to bait Augusta? Better not.

Lincoln quietly made his way back to the Chainis Plane. Unless his life was in immediate danger, he would never use a Plane Teleportation Array to return to a Material Plane. The teleportation arrays in the Four Supreme Planes and the Seven Divine Planes were different from those in the Material Planes. A Material Plane had eleven arrays, each connecting to a different Divine Plane. But in the eleven great planes, each array came in a pair: one was exclusively for traveling to Material Planes, while the other was for traveling to Divine or Supreme Planes. Lincoln didn't believe he could be sure nothing would go wrong during teleportation—or that no one would tamper with it maliciously.

"Black, you'd never have guessed," Lincoln thought to himself. "No one knows—not even Aier or Vivian—that my Innate Divine Ability as a divine beast, the 'Seven-Colored Heaven-Swallowing Python,' is called 'Whale-Swallow Silkworm-Eat.' Devouring divine power and soul power is only its most superficial use. As Death Chief Sovereign Hela said, I can devour enough Highgod Power of all seven elements to give myself a body like a High-God Artifact. I can also devour enough Sovereign's Might of all seven elements to give myself a body at the level of a Sovereign Artifact. That is the true use of devouring divine power. As for devouring souls to replenish my soul power, that's only a superficial ability too. Its true ability is that, against an opponent of the same level, I can lock on to a God Spark of the same element and devour my opponent's soul, gaining insight into their Laws and Mysteries—even their Fusion Profound Mysteries."

"Unfortunately, this ability has quite a few limitations. First, I must have a Divine Clone of the same element. And using a lower-level God Spark to lock onto a higher-level one doesn't work. Even at the same level, I can't succeed if my opponent's soul power is stronger than mine; if our soul powers are equal, I have only a thirty percent chance. Of course, if my opponent doesn't resist, I'll succeed every time. There are also plenty of ways to disrupt it. If there's another God Spark of the same element within ten thousand miles, the Innate Divine Ability will fail. If there's a God Spark of a different element nearby, there's nearly a fifty percent chance it will fail. And whether it succeeds or not, my soul power will be left at rock bottom."

"Unfortunately, insights gained through this Innate Divine Ability can't be stacked. If I could devour two Wind Element Asuras, each of whom had fused three Mysteries, and their insights perfectly complemented each other, I could reach Paragon that way. Then I wouldn't have needed to target you. Instead, each new devouring directly overwrites the insights from the last, so I have to analyze the Laws from scratch every time. And with my soul power at rock bottom, the greater my understanding of the Mysteries, the longer it takes—and the more dangerous it gets."

"Of course, I never dared try this against a Paragon High-God with Willpower. Not until I became a Chief God. With the absolute suppression a Chief God holds over a god, the devouring went smoothly, just as I'd hoped."

"This is the secret behind how I devoured countless powerful beings over the past ten million years and became a Seven-Element Asura! Black, this is why you died. You were the only Paragon of the Laws of Darkness across all the countless planes."

"Devour souls, be trapped in your own cocoon, then break free and be reborn. That is the true meaning of devouring!"