Divine Kingdom of Light.
Iluvia looked at the six people who had successfully and safely arrived at the Player Town on the screen, nodding slightly.
“Very well. Things will be much easier to handle from here on.”
The next step was to set up a super-long-distance spatial teleportation array to bring over all the believers from Windhaven Town to the east of the Starfall Forest.
Although it was a massive project, with the magical materials Selby and the others had brought back, she was confident it could be completed quickly as long as they had enough time.
Thinking of this, Iluvia's mood improved even further.
“Once they arrive, this place should become much livelier.”
After all, during its peak, the city of hope, Castellan, had accommodated nearly a million people, with city walls stretching for dozens of miles. It was undoubtedly a prosperous and sturdy city.
What the players had rebuilt now was merely a small area around the Temple of Light in Castellan. The outskirts were still covered in endless broken walls and ruins.
Most players were keen on grinding monsters, exploring the wilderness, and advancing quests. Even the lifestyle players only focused on building basic infrastructure, which could hardly be called real development.
Although the town looked lively, it ultimately lacked the warmth of local civilization.
The arrival of the believers from Windhaven Town would perfectly make up for this shortcoming.
Clergy, craftsmen, merchants, and ordinary residents—only with these people would Castellan truly become a “city” rather than just a game spawn point.
“It is indeed time to accelerate our development,” Iluvia murmured to herself.
Her thoughts shifted, and she remembered another matter.
After Mikael dealt with that necromancer last night, she had brought back a strange object from his body.
With a thought, a piece of black parchment appeared out of thin air before her, quietly floating in midair.
The surface of the parchment had an old, matte finish, covered with twisted and bizarre black runes that writhed slowly like living things.
A cold, deathly aura radiated from the paper, but upon closer inspection, it did not feel evil. Instead, it carried a faint sense of ancient, solemn weight, as if bearing the gravity of ten thousand years.
Iluvia's beautiful brow furrowed slightly as she gently swept her divine sense into the parchment.
The next moment, she felt it.
It was a pure, ancient aura of divine power.
Unlike Mosator's aggressive divine power of plague and calamity, and unlike her own warm and pure divine power of light, this aura, though cold on the surface, was deeper and quieter. It carried a vast, ancient sensation, as if it had just been awakened after a long slumber.
“The aura of a deity...”
Iluvia's heart stirred, and a trace of astonishment flashed through her eyes. “Could this be a divine artifact?”
Thinking of this, her spirits lifted.
If this truly was a divine artifact, then the value of this rescue mission would be incredibly high.
However, when she tried to use her own perception to analyze the parchment's specific function, she found that her thoughts sank into it like a clay ox entering the sea, receiving no feedback whatsoever.
“...It seems this will take some effort.”
Iluvia pondered for a moment and decided to use her divine power to appraise it.
The next second, 5 points of divine power were consumed.
The true name and some information of this divine artifact surfaced in her mind:
【Name: Book of the Undead (Fragment)】
【Description: The supreme sacred relic of the Undead Realm, rumored to be the Transcendent Divine Artifact of the Undead Ruler, Dipu. It governs all the dead and the laws of necromancy. This is one of its fragmented pages, capable of summoning high-tier undead legions.】
【Grade: Transcendent Divine Artifact (Fragmented)】
“The Undead Ruler... Dipu?!”
Iluvia's pupils contracted slightly, her expression filled with utter astonishment.
This name was like a key, instantly unlocking the sealed inheritance memories within her Divine Spark.
The Undead Ruler—Dipu.
One of the oldest primal ancient gods of the continent of Aenoria.
Rumor had it that this ancient deity had already existed at the dawn of the world, when the laws of nature were first born.
No one knew where they came from, and their specific Divine Authority was unknown. It was only known that their authority was related to the “undead,” “death,” and “resurrection,” serving as the ultimate destination for all the deceased.
In legends, this ruler had dragged five continents back from the Abyss—which was now the Undead Realm, also known as the Five Layers of Hell.
Later, they cooperated with the previous Goddess of Light. Devilitafil dispatched angels to purify the Abyssal pollution of those planes, allowing them to operate stably. The current Undead Realm was the result of that purification.
Although the purified Undead Realm had shed its pollution, it remained barren and deathly silent, dense with deathly aura and unsuitable for living beings. Thus, mortals regarded it as hell.
Because of this, Dipu was also revered as the “Lord of Hell.”
Under the Undead Ruler Dipu were four Undead Monarchs, each guarding one of the other four layers of hell, and every single one of them was an existence at the peak of Intermediate Divine Power.
As for Dipu himself, rumors said this deity had even touched the threshold of Great Divine Power, making them a half-step God King, one of the absolute top existences in all of Aenoria.
The various chief gods of the Supreme Temple were all deeply wary of them.
However, because of their cooperation in purifying the planes, the previous Goddess of Light and Dipu had somewhat of a friendly relationship.
Yet, for some reason, they had not chosen to help the previous Goddess of Light during the divine war a thousand years ago.
Some rumored that they did not participate in the divine war a thousand years ago because they were preparing to break through to Great Divine Power and had no interest in intervening.
But Iluvia felt this matter was highly suspicious. The previous Goddess of Light was the only deity on the continent of Aenoria who could purify Abyssal pollution and planar origins.
Logically speaking, if Dipu could drag five planes back from the Abyss, they would certainly be able to drag back even more. All those planes would require the Goddess of Light's purification, as they could only function normally and stably after being purified.
Based on this, the Undead Realm would birth even more Undead Monarchs, which would greatly bolster its strength. There was no way Dipu did not know the importance of this, yet they still chose to stand by and watch during the divine war a thousand years ago, which was highly unreasonable.
In short, whether in terms of reason, logic, or interest, Dipu should have had no reason to sit idly by and watch the previous Goddess of Light perish.
Yet, that was exactly what they did.
“Something is wrong... very wrong.”
Iluvia felt that this deity was highly mysterious. She constantly felt as though they were plotting something, and that everything was far from as simple as it appeared on the surface.
However, she could not figure out the reason.
She then shook her head.
“Forget it, there's no point in thinking so much. That is an old monster at the half-step God King level, while I am currently only a Lesser Divine Power. Even if I knew their secrets, there is nothing I could do.”
“I should worry about the matters at hand first.”
In any case, this matter was still too far off, and she was not familiar with them anyway. Right now, recovering her strength was the most important thing.
Pulling back her thoughts, Iluvia noticed the last few words in the description:
“A Transcendent Divine Artifact?!”
She looked stunned.
It was no wonder Iluvia was so surprised. Transcendent Divine Artifacts were extremely rare in this world; even in the inheritance memories of the previous Goddess of Light, she had barely heard of anyone possessing one.
On the continent of Aenoria, divine artifacts were categorized into five grades: Transcendent Divine Artifacts, True Divine Artifacts, pseudo-divine artifacts, ordinary divine artifacts, and demigod artifacts.
The boundaries between the latter three were blurry, with no strict order in rank, though under normal circumstances, pseudo-divine artifacts were of a higher grade because they were modeled after True Divine Artifacts.
Meanwhile, True Divine Artifacts were the standard equipment for actual deities. Whether they were ancient gods or True Gods of faith, they would more or less have one or two True Divine Artifacts in their hands.
As for Transcendent Divine Artifacts...
That was an entirely different dimension!
Among the ancient gods, aside from the Undead Ruler, perhaps only the Dragon God possessed a Transcendent Divine Artifact. Furthermore, these Transcendent Divine Artifacts were likely companion items born with them, as she had never heard of anyone actually forging one.
As for the True Gods of faith, their divine artifacts were all forged later on, with their upper limit being merely True Divine Artifacts.
On the other hand, because the previous Goddess of Light was sufficiently powerful and had a large enough pantheon, she had possessed over a dozen True Divine Artifacts in total, all forged later in her life.
Among them, most of the True Divine Artifacts had been distributed to her archangels and subordinate gods.
The previous Goddess of Light had only kept two True Divine Artifacts for herself, though to be more precise, it was actually just one.
This was because the other True Divine Artifact was called the 「Angel Reincarnation Pool」, which was the place where believers reincarnated into angels and purified their angelic bloodlines.
As for the True Divine Artifact she had kept for herself, it was an angelic longsword named the 「Sword of the Eternal Sacred Angel」.
However, it was a pity that due to the divine war a thousand years ago, the previous Goddess of Light had fallen, and many of those True Divine Artifacts had gone missing.
Rate on N.U.
