Now!
Wu Heng's eyes sharpened. He raised his right hand slightly, and the entire army fixed their eyes on it.
Whoosh! Wu Heng abruptly swept his right hand forward!
"Fire!"
The two words left his mouth, cold and clear.
"Rat-a-tat-tat!"
"Boom! Rumble!"
In an instant, the thunder of artillery echoed through the sky, growing ever louder. It seemed to rip the air apart, leaving the many priests gasping for breath.
"God!"
They wailed as they charged toward the soldiers, only to be swept by machine-gun fire.
"I fight for God. I will be reborn in His kingdom!"
Spitting blood, the chief priest lay on the ground and uttered his final words.
A powerful shock wave spread in all directions, tearing through the Ganges and exposing its riverbed.
A shrill, nauseating screech rang out from Hastur's nest, only to be swallowed by scorching flames an instant later.
Planes roared overhead, raining bombs onto the ground. Blinding flashes lit the sky as waves of bombs and incendiaries plowed across the earth again and again.
The Tower Mark transmitted a string of messages to Wu Heng:
[Completed Plot Mission 2: Kill the Son of God. Earned 3,000 survival points. Exploration progress and plot rating increased.]
[All plot missions completed. You may choose to return early.]
[Bonus: Killed a Son of God. Earned 3,000 survival points.]
[Bonus: Killed a Son of God. Earned 3,000 survival points.]
A series of notification sounds reached Wu Heng.
Roar! A charred, twenty-meter-tall figure, its whole body wreathed in flames, rose from the Ganges and roared as it lunged toward the army.
It was Hastur. Its connection to the nest had been severed, and it had lost the ability to be reborn, but its strength had been unsealed. It truly lived up to its title, Eldest Son of God.
Yet faced with the densely packed troops lining the banks, it didn't even know which direction to attack first.
Another wave of planes roared in to bomb it, blasting it back into the mud.
Seeing the Tower Mark's notification, Wu Heng finally relaxed. These Sons of God really couldn't resurrect; they could be killed.
He stood quietly on the roof of a vehicle, enjoying the fireworks.
Hastur, listen to this gospel of steel!
The artillery pounded without pause. After a full half hour, the Tower Mark finally sent Wu Heng another message.
[Bonus: Killed a Son of God. Earned 3,000 survival points.]
Wu Heng knew Hastur was completely dead and ordered the troops to cease fire.
The guns fell silent, but the thick smoke over the battlefield lingered, as if reluctant to leave.
Wu Heng went to the Ganges. The riverbed had been blasted to pieces, and black, muddy water covered the ground.
He plunged his hand into the filthy water and activated Siphon. Streams of cool energy flowed from the ground into his body, and the black water around him seemed to clear a little.
Wu Heng quickly absorbed the remaining black water, mixed with the blood of the Son of God. He felt as refreshed as if he'd stepped into an air-conditioned room on a sweltering summer day and then eaten ten popsicles.
His mind had grown stronger. He could even close his eyes and sense everything around him.
He also felt he had gained some control over his emotions and could regulate his happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy.
He clenched his fist. His physical abilities had improved by more than half, too.
The most obvious change was that his skin felt far more resilient. Even if a bullet hit him, it would probably only scrape the surface instead of punching a hole through him as before.
Wu Heng took out the Goddess Money Pouch and reached inside with the perception he'd just strengthened.
This time, he easily broke through the ripples beneath the pouch's coin space and entered its deeper dimension.
The space was pitch-black and seemed to be absorbing some kind of energy from the outside air. He'd guessed wrong: the coins didn't come from the inner space. They formed on that layer of ripples.
But that wasn't the point. The point was that this deeper space was enormous—about one million cubic meters, roughly a hundred meters long, wide, and high.
A strong adult had about five liters of blood in their body, and one cubic meter could hold a thousand liters. It would take two hundred million strong, middle-aged adults to fill a million cubic meters.
The moment Wu Heng's consciousness entered the space, he felt the pouch acknowledge him as its master. Unless he died, only he could open the deeper dimension.
However, the information the pouch sent him was disappointing. The space was huge, but its opening was only about a meter wide, too small for anything really large.
Otherwise, he'd have loved to put a black-box remote control in there.
Still, Wu Heng was quite satisfied. He decided to rename the Goddess Money Pouch the Life Box.
If he filled the Life Box with blood, couldn't he imitate the Styx of the myths from his previous life and declare:
As long as the Life Box remains full, Wu Heng cannot die!
Wu Heng looked up at the devastation around him. A fragment of dried bone was crumbling away. Feeling the Goddess Money Pouch—now the Life Box—in his hand, he was overcome with ambition:
The goddess's wealth—even the life of the God of Greed—is mine.
I am Greed!
The only regret was that so few Sons of God had come. Just eleven.
Two armored divisions had been deployed against them, yet the 160 million Sons of God hadn't even been enough to make up a single company. That showed just how inflated the figure of 160 million really was.
Wu Heng turned and ordered the troops to withdraw. After such a fierce battle, with Hastur dead, even if the other Sons of God woke up, they probably wouldn't dare come here. Waiting any longer would be a waste of time.
"You sinner! Devil!"
"You will fall into hell and suffer in its flames for all eternity!"
"God will never forgive you!"
A priest with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, barely clinging to life, glared at Wu Heng with venomous hatred.
"The fires of hell?"
"Your imagination is far too limited."
Wu Heng glanced at the priest indifferently.
"Take a look behind you."
"Your god is bleeding all over the ground!"
The wounded priest froze at his words.
He spat out a mouthful of blood and struggled to crawl toward the place where the god had fallen. Only when he reached a puddle stained black did he kiss the earth and close his eyes.
"God!"
With that final, mournful cry, he went to join his god.
Naturally, not all the priests were so devout.
About half of them had charged at the troops when they saw the army blaspheming. In the heat of battle, no one was going to show mercy.
The other half had fled. Apart from a few who'd been grazed by stray bullets, they were all alive and well.
Wu Heng had paid each of them ten gold coins to lead the ritual. Here in Pune, that was enough to live comfortably for three years.
Wu Heng looked at the now-calm Ganges and felt a little sorry for the blood the current had carried away. His range for absorbing it was limited; he had to touch it.
He hadn't dared block the river because he needed the current to carry the nest's aura downstream and draw out the sleeping Sons of God.
After thinking it over, Wu Heng decided to travel by boat to the next stretch of the Ganges and see if he could block the flow. He'd absorb whatever he could.
He didn't like wasting things; he made sure to eat every last grain of rice in his bowl.
Besides, with a way to teleport out whenever he wanted as a fallback, he didn't mind running into a Son of God that had awakened.
At that moment, a white seaplane with straight wings descended from the sky and landed on the Ganges. It skidded along the water toward the troops.
It was a British Empire S.5A seaplane.
Wu Heng sensed a scorching, revolting presence coming from the plane.
An hour earlier, after Wu Heng had contacted Governor Daren and asked him to mobilize the Royal Air Force, Daren had submitted an application to the domestic parliament at the same time, explaining that the situation was urgent and there was no other choice.
As long as he submitted it in time, he and Commander-in-Chief Kamil could work together to handle the matter indirectly, and the consequences wouldn't be too severe.
Just as the parliament was about to approve the request, the pope of the Church of England contacted them. He said he'd sensed something wrong with the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force. The man might have been tainted by an evil aura, and they needed to investigate.
The parliament was horrified and hurriedly rejected the application, but it was already too late.
They could only dispatch a special plane as quickly as possible, carrying Red Clothes Cardinal Aslan Webster and the Holy See's divine blessing, Angel Feather, to Pune, intending to purify Kamil.
I'm going to sleep first!
Before you continue