Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

Seven hundred years had swiftly passed in the Chaos World since the Divine King acquired the Divine Artifact.

From the birth of humanity, in the blink of an eye, millennia had passed. Gradually, even the lives from the Golden Age were coming to the end allowed by fate.

As their bodies decayed and their souls leapt from the flesh, laden with insights and experiences gained from their lengthy lives, they followed the cryptic guidance back to the Spirit Realm.

The soul and the body mutually influence each other, and these beings from the Golden Age, despite their primitive makeup, were especially favored by the deities. Many of them had been in contact with more than one deity and, consequently touched by Divine Power, their spiritual bodies also became peculiar.

Just as the creatures from the Golden Age were more long-lived compared to those of later generations, so too were their souls.

If the lifespan of ordinary material souls varied from seven to eight times that of their bodies or even more, it could be foreseen that the spiritual bodies of these Golden Age beings all possessed lifespans measured in hundreds of thousands of years.

Even for the spiritual bodies of the Golden Humanity, Laine had no doubt that if they did not come to the Spirit Realm, the souls tainted by Divine Power would not dissipate. Instead, they would wander over the land and skies, transforming into a sort of ‘Heroic Spirit’.

Then, in the era of Zeus, along with other remnants of the second epoch, they were erased by a wave of the new Divine King’s hand.

Beyond lifespan, the spiritual bodies of beings from the Golden Age often possessed extraordinary strength under the influence of Divine Power.

This power was not evident in the physical world, but it was amplified in the Spirit Realm. Using this power, the vast majority quickly crossed the surface layer of the Spirit Realm and entered the nascent Dream Domain.

There, they instinctively absorbed the scattered spiritual energy to further strengthen their soul bodies, or fought with naturally born spiritual bodies within the Dream Domain, devouring each other. Quite a few, in the process, gained memory fragments of other spiritual bodies, gradually awakening Wisdom and learning to think.

So, as time passed, a unique social structure composed of spiritual lives was born within the three layers of the Spirit Realm.

Some powerful spiritual bodies chose dream fragments and infected them with their own power, then continually expanded their influence and territory. Once large enough, these expansive Dream Domains were noticed by the third layer of the Spirit Realm itself, ultimately reporting back to Laine.

When Laine discovered this behavior, at first he was a bit angry. Such acts were akin to creating a ‘realm within a realm’, and even the instinctual Laws of this world had issued ‘bounties’ for this before, let alone Laine with his subjective thinking?

But later, he realized that although these unique Dream Domains were controlled by their creators, the primary authority still belonged to the Spirit Realm. They were different from Laine; their very existence stemmed from the power of Spirituality, not an external Origin.

Therefore, Laine not only refrained from punishment but, in the name of the Lord of the Spirit Realm, acknowledged their ownership over their own ‘Dream Domains’. Just like the angels of the Spirit Realm before receiving Godhood, and the quasi-gods like Star Gods, River Gods, Mountain Gods, Lake Gods, these spiritual lives suddenly transformed, becoming quasi-gods with domains of their own.

They were not innate deities, so they were immortal, but not eternal. They lacked Godhood, yet the Dream Domains they controlled were the grounds of their Divine Authority. The broader the Dream Domain and the larger its proportion in the third layer of the Spirit Realm, the more powerful they grew.

As more and more such Dream Domains were born, the inner cycle of the Spirit Realm was slightly enhanced. For intelligent life, desire is the ladder of progress, and in order to become more potent, they always found methods that even Laine found surprising to better manage their dream worlds.

Hence, Laine was generous in rewarding those who excelled. He wrote new rules into the Laws of the interface: If a being contributed to the development of the Spirit Realm, then the power of the interface would tilt in its favor.

Feeling the response from the Spirit Realm, these original pioneers of the ‘Dream Domain’ were encouraged. They arrogantly declared themselves ‘Lords of the Spirit Realm’, proclaiming that they were the chosen agents of the great and ancient Spirit Realm’s will, dignified beings second only to the angels of the Spirit Realm.

Regarding this, Laine simply smiled.

The Spirit Realm was developing, and the outer world was changing as well. Unbeknownst to any, the God of Sun had reclaimed nearly half of the cosmos, yet the battlefield was gradually moving away from the Sun’s domain.

In such an environment, seven hundred years later, a war that would decide the possession of the cosmos erupted deep within the stars.

In the depths of the starry sky, tens of thousands of star gods were arrayed on either side.

In the battlefield of true gods, the existence of quasi-gods held greater value than their actual worth.

As part of the starry expanses, their assembly here symbolized that the deities of both sides could receive the blessings from a half of the starry sky each controlled.

In the midst of the battlefield, within the dark and icy void, several figures larger than celestial bodies clashed together, just as they did in the bygone millennia.

In this place where the law of matter seemed weaker, they unfurled their forms and fought like the titanic gods of myth.

Or, to put it another way, the titans from the later myths were merely shadows left by the titanic deities.

“Light—!”

With a gentle cry, that was Theia, the Mother of Light. As in every instance before, the desolate starry heavens became even brighter.

The starlight merged with the sunlight, transforming under divine authority into splendid ribbons. They streaked across the void, passing horizontally through the Queen of Gods’ body without touching any physical entity.

This was a separation on the temporal plane, and if one did not possess special dominion or divine artifact, nearly no god could harm the goddess who dwelled in bygone times.

However, Theia was unconcerned, for this was a war over the sovereignty of the starry sky, not a duel with the Queen of Gods.

The ribbon trailing behind shattered in an instant into skyful of threads, enveloping over a hundred star gods and the leading Atlas.

With just a gentle collision, their divine bodies burst apart, and even the God of Strength’s body was left with huge wounds.

“Clang—”

In silence, a sickle emblazoned with blood-red patterns emerged behind Theia.

In its presence, the ribbons of light surrounding the Goddess of Light were effortlessly severed, as if they didn’t exist, leaving a long gash on her arm.

With a slight frown and seemingly superficial cuts, Theia found under the influence of divine power that her wounds were slow to heal. This wasn’t her first time, so the Goddess of Light was not the least bit concerned about the injury on her body, instead returning with a punch to the side of the sickle.

The Goddess’s delicate arm appeared lacking in strength, yet Rhea, the Queen of Gods, was forced back several steps by the blow, her face revealing an abnormal flush.

The godhood that presided over the flow of time was inherently ill-suited for combat, and with the “Sun” present, “Light” was nearly doubled in strength. Even though Rhea, as the Queen of Gods, had greater divine power than the Mother of Light, the tide of battle was completely reversed.

Without the help of the three oak goddesses and Atlas, if she weren’t relying on a divine artifact, she wouldn’t even be able to stall her opponent’s onslaught.

However, compared to the still ‘friendly’ exchange between the two goddesses, on the other hand, the battlefield between Hyperion, the God of Sun, and Crius, the God of Meteorology, was an entirely different scene.

The sun has always been fierce and intense, and Hyperion was especially so.

Even compared to his own wife, the Sun God held nothing back against his enemies, and he certainly did not consider ‘his own people’ worth any special consideration.