Identity

"Because it means I still have room to improve."

"But if I kept winning, I'd have no idea how to improve."

"I imagine you feel the same way, Lord Aier."

Aier fell silent.

He understood how Pash felt.

In the Coiling Dragon Universe, the end of cultivation was reaching perfection.

Pash's mastery of chess was like that of a god who had cultivated one set of Laws and Profound Mysteries to perfection. He had no direction left to advance in.

But Aier couldn't relate to Pash.

After all, he knew that perfection was only the end of the Coiling Dragon Universe, not the Hongmeng Universe.

He had a cheat. Even if he reached perfection, he could still keep moving forward.

So, in response to Pash's lament, Aier said nothing.

When Aier didn't reply, Pash smiled faintly.

"I'd like to thank you, Lord Aier."

"These new rules of chess have given me a great deal of inspiration."

"Not at all."

Aier shook his head. "That's thanks to your own ability."

"To me, chess is just a pastime. Whatever inspiration you found in these rules has nothing to do with me."

"Hahaha..."

Hearing Aier say this, Pash pointed at him and laughed.

He was an Overgod!

Even if he was only a Lesser Sovereign, he was still a being beyond the reach of ordinary gods.

Anyone else would have been overjoyed to receive such direct thanks.

But Aier, on the other hand, had just been handed a favor and promptly spat it back out.

The chessboard and pieces they used were both made of soul power.

From the game, each of them could roughly sense the strength of the other's soul power.

Pash had been able to tell from Aier's soul power that he had reached perfection.

He didn't believe Aier couldn't tell what sort of being had soul power greater than his own.

Another perfected expert—or an Overgod!

Even so, Aier still treated him as an ordinary chess partner, clearly unwilling to become too entangled with him.

But that didn't suit Pash, the Blood Peak Overgod.

"Looks like you've figured out who I am."

"Yes. In Hell, there are only a few whose soul power surpasses mine."

"Dunnington, the perfected expert of the Death Element. Judging solely by his mastery of the soul, it wouldn't be wrong to call him the greatest."

Among the seven elemental Laws and the four Edicts, the Laws of Death and the Fate System focused on the soul. They were the most mysterious and unpredictable of the eleven systems.

The Fate System had two perfected experts: Fate Chief Sovereign Ao Fu and Magnus.

But the Death System had only one, Dunnington. Even the Chief Sovereign of Death hadn't cultivated the Laws of Death to perfection.

Of course, this didn't mean that the Fate System was inferior to the Laws of Death just because it had more perfected experts.

It was simply that the three of them each excelled in different areas.

Fate Chief Sovereign Ao Fu devoted himself to finding ways to increase his own strength. His creation of the "Samsara Golden Body," which could raise his physical strength to the level of a Sovereign Artifact, showed that his focus was on being well-rounded.

He wanted everything: physical strength, mastery of Laws and Profound Mysteries, and the creation of new techniques.

Magnus, by contrast, was far behind him. At least his physical strength was no different from that of an ordinary god.

There was little written about Dunnington.

However, Aier suspected that he was the friend of Beirut's who could extract the fragments of Laws that a Saint Realm expert had comprehended from their soul.

Even Aier couldn't yet extract fragments of Laws from the soul of someone at the peak of the Saint Realm.

That alone showed how terrifying Dunnington's mastery of the soul was.

Aier even believed that Dunnington was the only one in the entire Coiling Dragon Universe capable of doing this.

That gave Dunnington considerable standing, even among the Overgods.

After all, not every Overgod was alone in the world.

Some Overgods had descendants.

If a descendant they cared about lacked talent for cultivation, Dunnington could be their last hope.

They could directly refine the fragments of Laws comprehended by someone at the peak of the Saint Realm, bypassing the initial bottleneck. They would only need to break through the bottleneck of mastery to become a High God.

That cut the difficulty of cultivation by more than half.

Bebe had received a fragment of the Laws of Darkness, which was why he'd reached the High God level in such a short time.

If someone still couldn't break through the bottlenecks to the Divine Realm, Mid-God, or High God stages with that kind of assistance, then they simply had no hope.

Of course, those who advanced by refining fragments of Laws didn't lose all ability to improve the way those who refined a Godhead did. But they found it much harder to fuse the Mysteries of the Laws than ordinary High Gods.

Still, those who needed fragments of Laws weren't exactly gifted at cultivation.

Bebe had his Innate Divine Ability, God-Slaying, and a body as tough as a Godhead. With unmatched offense and unmatched defense, he became the most terrifying existence beneath perfection, despite never fusing the Mysteries of the Laws.

Without a Soul Defense Overgod Artifact or Willpower, anyone facing Bebe would be killed in an instant!

But if his opponent had a Soul Defense Overgod Artifact, Bebe's boosted physical strength would only let him unleash attacks at the level of a Six-Star Fiend. He was a specialist with a glaring weakness.

These thoughts flashed through Aier's mind, but he didn't voice them. Instead, he continued, "But Dunnington has always been in the Sea of Chaos. Even if he'd heard the news spread by the Four Divine Beasts Clan, there's no way he could have arrived so quickly and found me with such precision."

"So, you're an Overgod!"

"This is Blood Peak Continent. If I'm not mistaken, you must be the Blood Peak Overgod?"

"What? The Blood Peak Overgod?"

Eric, standing behind Aier, was instantly stunned by what Aier had said.

He'd never imagined that the Red-Haired Youth who had played chess with Lord Aier for thousands of years was actually a great Overgod!

"Eric pays his respects to the Overgod!"

It had been one thing when he didn't know who the Red-Haired Youth was. Now that he knew, Eric's legs gave out beneath him. He fell to his knees and prostrated himself before Pash.

But neither Aier nor Pash paid any attention to Eric.

After the two looked at each other for a while, Pash was the first to speak.

"You guessed correctly. I am Pash, the Blood Peak Overgod."

"Greetings, Overgod."

When Pash openly admitted his identity, Aier grew solemn and bowed slightly to him.

Although Overgods treated perfected experts as near-equals, Aier knew that the gap in strength between a perfected expert and an Overgod was enormous.

Even the most arrogant perfected expert couldn't afford to act recklessly before someone who could kill him with ease at any moment.

Or did he really think an Overgod wouldn't kill a perfected expert?