Seeing a figure hurtling toward them, Redding remained expressionless. He raised a hand slightly, and Water Element divine power emerged from his body.
An incomparably gentle force, like an invisible hand, steadily caught Pash as he flew toward them.
"Th-thank you!"
Caught by Redding and sensing his goodwill, Pash thanked him, then said, "Brother, hurry and run. Frost is a Highgod. I'll hold him off."
With that, Pash leaped forward, raising his saber to face Frost once more.
Before Pash had gotten close to Frost, a figure had already stepped in front of him.
Clad in a long white robe, Redding turned his hand over, and a deep-blue flexible sword appeared in it.
Frost tightened his grip on his spear, his gaze growing more serious.
As Frost watched, Redding raised his hand and flicked his wrist. A massive water python took shape, opened its abyss-like maw, and lunged to devour Frost.
Frost raised his spear in an upward strike, every muscle in his body taut. Although Redding had revealed the presence of a Midgod, he seemed to fly somewhat faster than Pash, a Highgod. Tristan dared not be careless.
Holding his spear horizontally, Frost sent pale purple arcs of electricity dancing along its shaft. Drawing on the Lightning Law, he hurled the spear.
Flashing with lightning, the spear shot straight at the water python's head.
The sharp divine artifact spear pierced straight through the water python Redding had formed with divine power, pinning it firmly to the ground.
Frost raised a hand and closed it on empty air, detonating the violent lightning he had infused into the spear, but the expected arcs of electricity did not appear.
Instead, after Redding's water python swallowed it, Frost felt that he had lost control of his divine artifact spear. Frost had once used this move to kill a Highgod expert.
But against Redding, the finishing move that had never failed him before seemed to have no effect at all.
His move had vanished without a trace. Not only had it failed to affect Redding, Frost could not even retrieve his own divine artifact.
Run!
The hairs all over Frost's body stood on end. An instinct for danger honed through years of battle sent him fleeing without looking back.
His intuition told him Redding was dangerous, and his instincts urged him to leave this place at once.
As a Lightning Element Highgod, Frost was extremely fast. Flying at full speed, he covered more than ten li in an instant, but Redding was faster still.
Innate Divine Ability-Dragon Roar!
Roaaar!
A piercing dragon roar rang out, and time in the surrounding area immediately slowed. Frost felt his speed drop hundreds or thousands of times over. Not only his divine body, but even his soul's thoughts slowed countless times over.
Whoosh!
A deep-blue light flashed, and Redding moved in front of Frost in an instant, the flexible sword in his hand raised high.
Once infused with divine power, the flexible blade could cut through iron like mud. It sliced through Frost's neck with ease.
"Guh."
His head flew into the air. Before Frost could react, he saw a headless corpse dressed just like him falling toward the ground.
The next second, a flash of sword light passed, and Frost's soul was utterly obliterated.
Redding raised a hand and drew a High Godhead radiating purple light and a metallically gleaming spatial ring into his palm.
He deftly stored the Divine Spark in the spatial ring, then turned and flew toward Laius and the other two.
Drip.
Redding drew a fingertip across his palm, squeezed out a drop of blood, and let it fall onto the spatial ring.
The ring absorbed the blood, and Redding refined it in an instant. He was secretly delighted; it seemed Frost had no other Divine Clones. He sent his soul into the spatial ring and sensed the items inside.
Inside the spatial ring, dozens of broken divine artifacts were piled into a small mountain. The vast majority were Lowgod Artifacts, though there were also a few Midgod Artifacts. Beside them lay a small pile of Divine Sparks, the corpses of some Divine Beasts, and a heap of strange and curious things.
"This guy was pretty rich!" Redding exclaimed.
The world had only just come into being, and God Level experts had not fallen to the point of becoming bandits as they would later.
Across the Four Overgod Planes, the land was vast and the population sparse. The God Level experts Frost had killed, whose belongings were in his spatial ring, numbered nearly a third of those Redding and the others had encountered over the past few days.
While Redding counted his spoils, Pash flew over to the four of them.
"Thank you, brother. My name is Pash..."
The dark-faced, burly man flew to Redding's side and first thanked him.
Although Redding gave off the presence of a Midgod, the combat power he had unleashed when dealing with Frost far surpassed that of an ordinary Highgod. Pash knew he could not treat Redding like an ordinary Midgod.
Redding nodded and smiled at Pash. "I'm Redding, and these three are my younger brothers and sister."
With that, Redding introduced Laius, Nemo, and Bowen to Pash one by one.
Redding had not originally intended to intervene for Pash, but now that Frost was dead, if Pash really was the future Blood Peak Sovereign, there was no loss in establishing a good relationship with him early.
Somewhat puzzled, Pash asked Laius, "Brother Laius, when I saw you break through just now, another body flew out of you..."
Before Pash could finish, Bowen interrupted from the side. "Pash, when you broke through to God Level, did you choose Internal Godhood?"
"Yes. Is there a difference?" Pash looked at the four of them in confusion, not understanding.
Redding smiled and explained, "Of course there is."
"With Internal Godhood, the Divine Spark enters your Saint Domain True Body, and afterward you can only cultivate the Profound Mysteries of the element in which you became a god. With External Godhood, not only do you gain another Divine Clone, you can also comprehend the Profound Mysteries of other Laws and cultivate new Divine Clones."
There was one more point Redding kept to himself: if his strongest Divine Clone fell, his Saint Domain True Body could refine a Divine Spark and restore his strength in the shortest possible time.
Hearing Redding's explanation, Pash opened his mouth slightly. "Then didn't I lose out badly by choosing Internal Godhood?"
Redding chuckled. "Not necessarily. Internal Godhood has its benefits too. At least cultivation is a little faster."
External Godhood split the soul, reducing its strength. If it could not recover in time, not only would cultivation be affected, but one would also be more likely to fall to a soul attack in battle.
Moreover, once they had experienced the pain of having their soul split in two, the vast majority of people would not want to try it a second time.
After hearing Redding's explanation, Pash understood somewhat. Internal Godhood and External Godhood each had their advantages and disadvantages, but overall, External Godhood had a slight advantage.
Thinking about how he had chosen Internal Godhood, Pash felt somewhat depressed. From now on, he would have only his Destruction Divine Clone as a body. Once someone killed him, he would be gone for good.
His gloom lasted a few minutes before Pash dispelled the clouds from his heart and turned to discussing the cultivation of Profound Mysteries with the Four Divine Beasts.
I can't cultivate any other Divine Clones anyway, so I might as well work hard to improve my strength, Pash thought.