Orthodox Gods Return, the Struggle for Divine Authority

Inside a temple in the small bluestone city.

When the thousandth Azure Nether Pearl rolled into the deep stone groove, trailing a faint spiritual glow, the air seemed to drain from the entire hall.

The jubilant cheers stopped abruptly. In their place came a deathly silence that could freeze the Divine Soul.

"Humm—!"

The thirty-foot Black Iron Divine Statue gave a muffled roar. Rust peeled from its surface in great sheets like cracked dragon scales, exposing a body of Black Iron that gleamed with an icy light, deep as the stars.

A sickly white flame suddenly sprang up in the previously unlit lamp.

Where its light fell, shadows stretched impossibly long and twisted into grotesque shapes, making the hall look like the underworld.

The Black Iron Divine Statue slowly opened eyes that had been shut for ten thousand years.

They were not the eyes of a living creature, but two flickering masses of black fire filled with absolute order and merciless Divine Edicts.

"The Divine Sovereign... has awakened!"

The fan-bearing young man at their head was wild with fervor. Without even wiping the sweat from his brow, he dropped to his knees with a thud, raised both hands, and shouted, "Scholar Zhao Li has led his fellows to offer a thousand pearls! We beg the Divine Sovereign to reveal himself, grant us his protection, and purge this realm of evil demons!"

"We beg the Divine Sovereign to reveal himself!"

Dozens of cultivators at Qi Refining Perfection knelt behind him, their voices shaking the heavens.

To them, once this god of Foundation Establishment rank awakened, they would be the "chosen ones" within a hundred miles.

But the Black Iron Divine Statue delivered no divine decree.

It turned its neck mechanically, producing a grating scrape of metal against metal.

The sickly white