Chapter 473: Assimilation
The Light God had lived for thousands of years, and his combat experience was naturally far richer than that of Lance, a young man in his twenties. Not to mention, he was proficient in all skills.
Experience and skills were the keys to defeating a stronger opponent with a weaker force.
Yet, the Light God was still driven into retreat step by step by Lance.
“How is your combat experience even richer than mine?!”
Lance was controlled by the Hero’s Crown and unable to speak. So Jiang Li, who was watching the battle beside him, kindly answered for him.
“That’s because the Hero’s Crown stores the combat experience of an immortal. In terms of experience and vision, you simply cannot surpass an immortal.”
“None of you seven have studied formation arrays. Let me explain: every piece of hero equipment contains a small formation. When the hero wears a full set of four pieces, it forms a formation that weakens the faith power.”
“Do you still think the Executor of Honghu, who gave you this equipment, is a good person?”
Jiang Li spoke confidently, like a formation expert, though actually he was just repeating what Bai Hongtu had said.
Li Er and the Wishful Gourd pretended not to know and didn’t expose him.
The Light God had to admit that they couldn’t defeat Lance.
Just as Lance was about to win, he suddenly stopped attacking.
The Light God thought Lance was holding back to not make him lose too embarrassingly.
“We admit defeat.” The Light God said dejectedly, not understanding why the Executor of Honghu had deceived them.
Jiang Li strode forward, pressing down on the snarling Lance and removing the crown. Lance immediately regained clarity and trembled upon seeing the crown.
The Hero’s Crown was terrifying.
“Obviously, to destroy the Ayla World, the Executor of Honghu made two plans. First, he went to the Demon King, using ascension as bait to persuade him not to intervene, then used the dungeon’s formations to enhance the three races’ innate talents, ultimately giving the children world-shattering power from birth.”
“Perhaps the Executor of Honghu thought this plan was unreliable, so he set another plan with the Seven Gods.”
“When someone collects the full hero set, it will trigger the three races to start a massacre. The Light God, controlled by faith power, must fight.”
“The hero is slightly stronger than the Light God, but not by much. Their battle will cause massive casualties.”
“Lance stopped attacking not to give you face, but to wait several months and fight you elsewhere. This way, death spreads to other places, repeating until the world is completely destroyed.”
The Executor of Honghu did not design the Hero’s Crown to fight continuously, probably fearing that if the Light God lost, a nascent Heavenly Dao would arise from the despair of all beings.
Therefore, the Executor of Honghu kept the hero controlled—despairing but not completely hopeless.
In fact, the Demon King and the Seven Gods knew the Executor of Honghu was no good after discussing it. However, the Demon King was deceived and, to sever causal connections, could not leave the Demon King Castle.
The Seven Gods were trapped by the faith power and could not leave its influence range. Without a church on the demon tribe side, the Seven Gods could not reach the demon tribe’s side.
This caused the Demon King and the Seven Gods, the eight oldest beings, never to have spoken to each other.
Jiang Li thought the Executor of Honghu’s plan with the Seven Gods was somewhat crude and uncertain, as if casually arranged, with the main effort focused on the Demon King and the dungeon.
“Does that mean we will never be independent from the faith power?” The Seven Gods felt despondent. They had always believed that with enough faith power, it could be transformed, freeing them from its bonds.
To this end, they fabricated the Scripture of Light, erased the disgraceful dark history of the divine race, emphasized the status of the Seven Gods, and required all believers to praise them when using magic to enhance faith.
They had done this for over a thousand years, only to find it was all in vain.
“No, separating the soul from faith power is easy. If you want, I can do it for you now.” Jiang Li, the cultivator most familiar with faith power, did not use it himself but had studied it extensively.
“Thank you, River God!” The Seven Gods were overjoyed, not expecting such happiness to come so suddenly.
“Don’t call me River God. I’m just playing that role for two days. My name is Jiang Li. My true identity is the Human Sovereign of the Nine Provinces.”
“Nine Provinces? Human Sovereign?”
“Li Er, second sect master, come explain some basics to them.” Jiang Li didn’t want to repeatedly introduce the myriad worlds.
After the soul separates from faith power, it must find a body. Suitable bodies were hard to find, so Jiang Li took the easy route and simply created seven bodies for them.
The process was similar to when he created a body for Meng Chun, with the only difference being that the materials used were not as good as that time.
Meng Chun’s soul was at the Unity Stage peak and had high demands for her body. The Seven Gods were just at the start of the Unity Stage, so the bodies created matched only the initial strength of that stage.
If the materials were too good, the bodies would be too strong, causing a mismatch with the Seven Gods’ souls.
Upon receiving their true bodies, the Seven Gods were so moved they were speechless.
On one hand, they had become independent from faith power; on the other, they learned how vast the world beyond Ayla World was, understood cultivation rankings, discovered how powerful Li Er was, and that Jiang Li was even stronger.
“Even after independence, you remain the Seven Gods of the three races’ faith. You can continue to use faith power to grant skills to the three races.”
The Light God scratched his head. “That’s great. I just got my body and still feel a little uncomfortable. I keep wanting to return to my previous state and give skills to the believers.”
The other six gods nodded in agreement, sharing the same feeling as the Light God.
Jiang Li smiled without saying anything.
In truth, the Seven Gods had long been assimilated by faith power. Now they were the perfect gods of the three races’ faith, undoubtedly very different from when they were divine beings.
Whether they parasitized faith power or became independent, there was essentially no difference.
They thought they wanted to grant skills to their believers from their hearts, but that was the influence of faith power, which they had not realized.
Jiang Li had no intention of telling them the truth.
“If you want to communicate and exchange with the Nine Provinces, I will assign a special person for that afterward. If not, it’s fine too. The Nine Provinces World will not force it. After all, the world needs independence; it’s a personal choice.”
After saying this, Jiang Li left the curious Seven Gods behind and went to solve the dungeon formation problem.
The dungeon’s formation was easy to solve. Destroying the formation required no technical skill; Jiang Li could casually destroy it.
With the hero set taken away, Lance became the hero. Adventurers would no longer fantasize about being future heroes, and foolishly charging in would be much less common.
But fundamentally, this was an educational issue. To truly solve it, education was necessary—a long process.
On the demon tribe side, the Wishful Gourd stepped down, Li Er resigned, and Unicorn, the strongest among the demons, became the new demon king.
The Wishful Gourd and Li Er wanted to stay in the Beast Nation for a while, but Jiang Li ruthlessly rejected them. The two of them had no choice but to follow Jiang Li back to the Nine Provinces.