The Era of Gods

Chapter 314: Plundering the Nightmare Divine Realm

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“Crack!”

A thick, incandescent lightning bolt exploded across the sky, fragmenting into countless smaller bolts, which formed a titanic face under the restraint of an invisible force. Lin Xiao watched impassively toward the spatial passage where, beyond the endless hordes of nightmare creatures, hid an extremely powerful will.

This will was far stronger than his, but because of the different power systems between humans and the Nightmare World, it was unclear how this opponent’s strength compared to that of a human demigod.

Or to put it another way, whether this Child of Nightmare was equivalent to a demigod-like Nightmare Lord.

He speculated that even if it wasn’t the same, it couldn’t be far off; otherwise, a non-demigod couldn’t possibly elevate their God Domain Strength to Rank 8. In the Human Main World, generally only a few super elites listed on the Tianjiao or peerless charts would possess a God Domain of the eighth rank.

Furthermore, unlike the route of Divine Enthronement through faith followed in the Human Main World, the Children of Nightmare from the Nightmare World followed the path of domains. They didn’t require faith; as long as there were creatures within their Void Territory, the Lords could gain strength.

The larger and more powerful the creatures the Void Territory could accommodate, the stronger the Children of Nightmare would become.

This was a simple and crude path to power, which was many times simpler than the human process of cultivating believers for Divine Enthronement.

However, this pathway had one major flaw, which was the singularity of power. The Nightmare World could not master the rules and had only pure strength.

Of course, pure strength was not weak; in fact, it was very strong, as one might say “one force to break a myriad magics.”

But the premise of “one force to break a myriad magics” was that the strength was overwhelming enough to crush all, which was regretfully something Nightmare Lords of the same rank generally couldn’t achieve, despite their condensed Power of God’s Domain being generally stronger than others of the same rank.

An endless stream of nightmare creatures invaded Lin Xiao’s Divine Realm. These creatures were bizarre and varied, but many roughly resembled certain beings.

This was because many Nightmare Creatures were twisted and transformed by the Nightmare Lords after conquering beings from Foreign Dimensions and driving them into their Nightmare Territories, using the Nightmare Power. This was how all creatures in the Nightmare World came into being, without any fixed native species.

So, if one day you see a Child of Nightmare that looked exactly like a human or a gigantic Dragon Child of Nightmare, don’t be surprised. These would indeed be nightmare entities transformed from humans and dragons.

In open-field combat, there were no overly complex tactics. When two God Domains clashed in full-scale battle, the combatants numbered at least six or seven hundred thousand, if not more. In such large-scale battles, tactics were usually useless.

More than two hundred thousand Small Fishmen, twenty thousand fierce Naga, thirty thousand Wise Goblin Mages, and twenty thousand Earth Dwarves all gathered on the wastelands.

As a deluge of nightmare entities emerged from the shattered spatial passage, the Priesthood and Mage team had already bestowed various buffs onto the vanguard of fifty thousand Small Fishmen. Slarda’s roar resounded:

“My children, the Supreme Illustrious Truth and the Creator are watching us. Show your courage to Our Lord, and the glory of Our Lord will shine upon us!”

A tremendous weapon struck the ground, and rings of Hero Aura erupted:

“In the name of Our Lord, attack!”

The fifty thousand vanguards dispersed into skirmish formations, charging at the incoming myriad of strange nightmare creatures, while the mages behind began casting in unison to summon various Elements.

Not the Enhanced Water Element Summoning from the Extraordinary Magic Network, but normal elemental summoning.

Over time, the Wise Goblins grew increasingly powerful. As Mages, a profession that becomes mightier with the accumulation of knowledge over time, numerous veteran Mages could easily summon the legendary Flame Lord Kurbert, who had already ascended to legend, under the lead of a dozen Rank 6 Grand Magicians.

Then, taking advantage of the Flame Lord’s commanding powers, they cooperated with many Mages to summon more Fire Elements from within the Fire Elemental Domain.

The summoned Fire Elements gathered together, and the dreadful heat melted the Earth, quickly creating a massive Lava Lake. The temperature in the nearby area skyrocketed, the arid grass dried up at a visible rate, bursting into flames spontaneously, while the colossal Lava Lake provided energy for the Fire Elements and could summon even more Fire Elements.

After years of development, the total number of Fire Elements living within the entire Fire Elemental Domain had reached seventy or eighty thousand. Kurbert had ascended to a Rank 8 Flame Lord, following the advancement of the entire God Domain to Rank 9, and the vast Fire Elemental Domain gradually birthed more high-ranking Fire Elements. At this point, there were already over a dozen Rank 7 elite Giant Fire Elements.

As is well known, Fire Elements could use Fire Magic of one rank higher in advantageous environments, so the dozen or so Rank 7 elite Giant Fire Elements were qualified to use Fire Legendary Spells, which was equivalent to having a dozen Legendary Fire Mages.

Even if they could only perform the Legendary Spells once before exhausting their strength, those were still Legendary Spells.

One Rank 7 elite Giant Fire Elemental transformed into a huge, tens-of-meters-wide fireball that shot skyward, hundreds of meters high, and then rapidly reformed into the massive body of a Giant Fire Elemental. Infinite Flame converged on the Giant Fire Elemental, making it expand dozens of times in size to become a super Giant Fire Elemental hundreds of meters tall. Opening its mouth wide, a vortex of Flame formed, into which endless flames poured. Even its hundreds-of-meters-tall body collapsed and merged into the vortex, ultimately solidifying into a blinding pillar of fire that descended from the heavens, like a laser beam.

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At this moment, the Nightmare Behemoth that had been standing at the entrance of the interdimensional gateway finally moved. With its weapon raised, it drew back its gray domain which had extended over ten kilometers, and Lin Xiao’s gaze intensified as he saw this domain retract and extract a thread of strength from all the Nightmare Creatures affected by the domain moments before.

Not much strength was taken from each creature, but the small amounts added up, and together with the pre-existing strength of the Legendary Nightmare Beast, when it thrust its weapon towards the Vault of Heaven, a huge vortex converged and boundless gray light gathered at the weapon turning into a deep black glow that shot skyward and collided head-on with the descending laser.

“Boom!”

A deafening explosion rang out as a blinding aura burst open in mid-air, quickly spreading out into a miles-wide disc of black and red fire that spanned the Void.

After a moment, the disc of fire shattered, and countless flames rained down like a shower of fire.

But then came the second wave, and the third wave; a total of five consecutive waves of Fire Legendary Spells were unleashed. The Nightmare Behemoth couldn’t withstand even two waves, and after the third wave, a thick beam of light shot out from the spatial gateway and struck its back. It was the Children of Nightmare lending their strength that saved it from dire straits.

Lin Xiao didn’t feel any regret, whether it was killing the Legendary Nightmare Beast or depleting the strength of the Children of Nightmare, both outcomes served his purpose.

Even though the opponent, the Children of Nightmare, were stronger than him, and their Nightmare Creatures seemed to far outnumber his own Clan, he wasn’t worried. He had an absolute advantage in terms of Clan quality, and he hadn’t yet used the Extraordinary Magic Network.

After the five waves of Legendary Fire Magic, they stopped the sequence of consecutive Legendary Spells and switched to widespread Rain of Fire to deal with the Nightmare Creatures.

These Nightmare Creatures all looked different, but they shared a common trait: they could use the Nightmare Power within themselves to form Shields to block Spells, and they were quite durable. The dense rain of fire could not harm them for the time being.

“Boom!”

The interdimensional gateway between the two worlds suddenly shook violently, and as the two Divine Realms connected more tightly, a large piece of the edge crumbled, expanding the breach and allowing more Nightmare Creatures to pour through.

Lin Xiao, presiding over the Divine Realm, could vaguely make out the seemingly endless army of Nightmare Creatures on the other side of the channel, their numbers perhaps many times his own.

As the gateway between the two worlds widened, more Nightmare Creatures flowed in, including some strong Nightmare Creatures; the vanguard of Small Fishmen suffered heavy losses and were quickly overwhelmed. It was then that Slarda ordered the Wise Goblins to begin activating the Enhanced Water Element Summoning from the Extraordinary Magic Network.

Strictly speaking, besides the Small Fishmen, the rest of the Earth Dwarves and the Shura Naga could all use the Extraordinary Magic Network’s Extraordinary Abilities due to their own spiritual power.

But the Earth Dwarves had limited energy and summoning even once would leave them with very low spirit, affecting their combat capabilities.

On the other hand, the Wise Goblins were all Mages with strong spiritual power, capable of using it many times in a row without affecting their combat strength.

Thirty thousand Wise Goblin Grand Magicians cast spells simultaneously, and countless summoning fluctuations merged into an extremely terrifying wave of summoning. The pupils of the Legendary Nightmare Beast flickered with dim light before it suddenly turned and roared towards the breach behind it in the interdimensional rift. Shortly after, the space at the breach trembled violently and dozens of dim lights converged at one point, forming a humanoid Nightmare Creature holding an ornate Magic Wand.

This was an Incarnation of a Nightmare Lord descending into Lin Xiao’s Divine Realm. It raised its ornate Magic Wand and slammed it down as if striking hard ground, it began to chant, wand raised high. One of the three crystals on the wand, which were carved to resemble Exotic Beasts, lit up and burst into light that transformed into a gray crystal. A faint ripple spread out like a tide, reaching the forming summoning channel, which collapsed with the passing of this invisible ripple.

No, it wasn’t collapsing, it was dissipating, a mass-scale dispersion.

The simultaneous summoning of the Enhanced Water Element by thirty thousand Wise Goblins all failed, including the efforts of all the Extraordinary Grand Magicians.

Seeing this, Slarda ordered without hesitation:

“Continue!”

The second wave of summoning began, and the Incarnation of the Nightmare Lord from afar cast another spell. The second crystal on the ornate wand dimmed, and once again a mass-scale dispel was employed.

Seeing this, Lin Xiao just sneered and lowered his head silently while Slarda ordered again without any hesitation to continue.

After all, every Wise Goblin could use it four or five times on average, and the elite Mages even more. He didn’t believe the opponent could keep using such a wide-range dispel spell; such a wide range, and the power was approaching the level of Legendary Spells.

Indeed, after three mass-scale dispels, the opponent could still perform a fourth, though this time it consumed the Incarnation’s strength, which became nearly halved after the dispersion. If performed again, it was feared that it would collapse directly.

However, when the fifth summoning of Enhanced Water Element occurred, which for most normal Wise Goblins was their last, Lin Xiao, who sat upon the throne in the Divine Palace, suddenly rose and pointed down.