Sovereign of the Ashes-Chapter 1015: The Godslayers

Given the Spider Queen’s foul mood, Sein dared not bring up his request for her divine spider silk again.

During the battle at Feymous Canyon, he had placed Lou inside a custom-made spatial storage device he had crafted for her.

Because of Lou’s half-undead nature, Sein had meticulously adjusted the internal environment of the storage space, increasing the concentration of death energy to better accommodate her condition.

Judging by her improved appearance, the setup had worked—her complexion was noticeably healthier than before.

However, the moment she was freed from the storage device, Lou clung to Sein more than ever, outright refusing to return to the death energy-infused space.

Even though the environment inside was perfectly suited for a half-undead being like her, it was clear that nothing mattered to her more than being with her “Big Brother”.

Taking advantage of this downtime, Sein continued his research on Lou, uncovering even more about her unique condition.

One of his recent ideas was to graft a pair of skeletal wings onto her back, making use of the remarkable fusion properties of half-undead creatures.

Unfortunately, he had yet to find the right materials to make it possible.

***

About a month later...

One night, as Sein and the Spider Queen arrived at a waterfall, what seemed like a golden meteor streaked across the night sky.

This time, however, it was not coming toward them.

It was a falling star, no... not a star...

It was a divine nation!

“That guy is finally dead. What a stubborn one.”

With a sneer, the Spider Queen cast a glance at the divine cocoon at her feet.

In Faeloria, as in all planes that followed the path of faith, the death of a Rank Four or higher deity was always accompanied by the collapse of their divine nation.

This was because a divine nation existed only through the strength of its deity’s divine power.

By contrast, when the mages of the Magus World created subspaces, these realms did not immediately disintegrate upon their creator’s death.

The stability of a subspace was determined by the spatial knowledge and mana frameworks used in its construction—making it independent of the mage’s survival.

However, without the regular infusion of elemental energy, these masterless subspaces would still shrink and deteriorate over time.

The divine nation plummeting from the sky right now belonged to none other than the God of Brute Force.

With his death, his entire kingdom had been torn from the heavens, now crashing toward the world below.

As it fell, the once-majestic divine nation erupted into flames, transforming into a blazing meteorite.

In mere moments, everything within it was obliterated—including the followers of the God of Brute Force.

A god had fallen!

This was an event that had not occurred in Faeloria for thousands of years!

At that moment, not only did mortals tremble in awe and fear as they gazed at the sky, but even the gods—high above in their respective divine nations—turned their eyes toward the celestial phenomenon.

“Who has fallen?”

“Could this be the prelude to the Avatar Crisis?!”

More than one deity uttered the same question in shock and unease from the safety of their own divine nations.

For the lesser gods, those wielding weak or lesser divine power, the sight of a god’s fall sent a wave of dread through their very existence!

At that very moment, across all of Faeloria, every creature who had placed their faith in the God of Brute Force felt their connection to their deity sever in an instant.

The divine light that once radiated from their altars and totem poles vanished.

Pious believers fell to their knees, tears brimming in their eyes as their hearts sank into despair.

They did not understand what had happened.

To them, it felt as though their god had abandoned them.

At the same time, the skills and divine arts that the God of Brute Force had once bestowed upon them were ripped away from them.

Since these abilities were not their own, but merely granted through divine power, they could no longer wield the strength of their fallen god.

Similarly, if the Magus World were to eliminate Eluvira, the Goddess of Magic, upon their conquest of this realm—destroying the Weave along with her—then nearly all of Faeloria’s elemental magic and mages would be rendered powerless in an instant!

BOOM!

The blazing divine nation finally crashed into Faeloria’s vast eastern sea.

It was at this moment, Sein finally understood why Faeloria’s eastern sea was littered with so many islands.

It was likely that many of them were remnants of fallen divine nations.

With dragons being as inherently greedy as they were, he wondered just how many divine relics and treasures had already been scavenged from these divine ruins.

As the God of Brute Force fell, the deities were shocked, while millions of Faelorians lifted their heads, witnessing the celestial spectacle of a divine nation’s destruction.

Far in the frozen north, deep within the relentless snowy mountain ranges, a group of figures stepped out from the huts and villages they had called home for generations.

“Is the Avatar Crisis finally beginning? The legendary path to godhood... at last, we have waited long enough!”

One among them, a middle-aged swordsman, stood atop a windswept cliff, clad in a simple leather outfit, his voice trembling with excitement.

Despite his unkempt beard and weathered face, the blade in his hand gleamed with an unusual icy sharpness.

He was an Epic Being—a Rank Three being just like Sein!

All around him, solitaries and ascetics lifted their gazes toward the sky, their eyes brimming with anticipation and unease.

Among them, most were Transcendent and Legendary Beings—Rank One and Rank Two by the standards of the Magus World.

Throughout Faeloria’s history, the concepts of godhood and god-slaying had never been uncommon.

In their bid for control, the deities had long sought to empower mortals with divine power, using faith as a leash.

But in doing so, they had also weakened the natural pathways through which Faeloria’s beings could ascend on their own.

It was possible that, even without Eluvira, the Goddess of Magic, Faeloria might still have given rise to a thriving magical civilization like the Magus World.

After all, even Eluvira herself was not born a goddess.

In her early growth, she managed to unravel the truths of elemental mysteries and divine power, eventually forging something as strange and wondrous as the Weave.

Despite the many restrictions imposed by the gods, Faeloria remained vast, with a population in the trillions.

With such a massive population base, exceptional prodigies or rebellious individuals would inevitably emerge.

Some rejected faith altogether, while others discovered and forged their own paths toward self-cultivation and evolution.

They cut through the thorns in pursuit of a higher existence!

They chose to cut through the thorns in pursuit of a higher existence, while those who remained faithful to their gods were destined only to become an exarch—a Rank Three creature.

The gods would never permit their followers to one day surpass them.

In all of Faeloria, only the God of Justice had ever dared to take that step.

Under him, a handful of lesser gods stood—not simply his subordinates, but true disciples, personally elevated by him.

Several lesser gods under him—his loyal followers—were granted higher cultivation methods and eventually ascended to divinity, where he continued to guide them.

Yet, a god with such a pioneering vision and absolute confidence as the God of Justice was one of a kind.

Most gods were not so magnanimous. Under their iron grip, Faeloria’s path to godhood had become increasingly difficult.

Nonetheless, hidden legacies and ascetic practitioners persisted through the generations.

In Faeloria, this determined group came to be known as The Godslayers—a secret organization that had been relentlessly hunted by deities from all major factions!

Its members were scattered across only a few places in Faeloria: the remote snowy mountains of the far north and the chaotic borders of Purgatory.

Rumors also spoke of their presence in the territory of the sea gods in the south.

In fact, the fall of a lesser deity in the outer seas several millennia ago was said to be the work of the Godslayers.

Yet, after slaying a lesser sea god, the assassins never ascended to godhood. The enraged sea gods had united in fury, crushing those who had dared sow chaos in the southern seas.

In every cycle of the Avatar Crisis, at least half of the gods who fell had perished by a Godslayer’s hand.

Like persistent pests, they were impossible to exterminate completely!

Some deities even suspected that certain powerful deities within the major divine factions were covertly supporting the Godslayers.

Among Faeloria’s intermediate and lesser deities, hatred for these insurgents ran deep.