"In the name of the Lord of Hell and the great rulers—kill!"
From the uppermost layer of Flagus, the devil army that had been preparing for ages surged into the golden divine kingdom under the command of the pit fiends, their war cries shaking the heavens.
BOOM!
The first thing to greet the devils was the roaring thunder within the divine kingdom.
Countless bolts of lightning, coiling like enormous dragons, screamed downward and carved out horrifying craters upon the ground. The devils at the centers were obliterated to ash in an instant, and even those merely caught in the searing aftermath howled as they perished—their meager fire resistance proved utterly worthless.
Although the devils had once signed a ceasefire agreement with
Moreover, the moment the devils launched their assault first, the pact was broken beyond repair, and Leylin felt not the slightest hesitation.
"In the name of my lord
At the edges of the divine kingdom, behind the defensive fortifications built by the toiling devils, the ranks of devil hunters stood in disciplined readiness.
The devil hunters gazed across at the approaching army, their eyes filled with indifference, greed, and even excitement!
For them, these devils were a wellspring of power!
What was more, this was the divine kingdom of the god they worshipped. To defend it, they would sacrifice everything.
Deep within the central command post behind the devil hunter army, Isabelle and Phoenix stared intently at the battlefield projection, while one of Leylin's divine avatars hovered beside them.
"This divine war is going to be a protracted war of attrition…"
Leylin, in his capacity as a deity, delivered this prophecy.
…
During all those years, Leylin's divine kingdom had stood proudly at the pinnacle of Hell. Even though the lowest layers saw ceaseless warfare, for the other petitioners—or even the natives of the Bankes Islands—the infinite expanse of the divine kingdom rendered them virtually oblivious to the conflict.
The gods were no different. Divine wars routinely lasted over a century, and most ended without any decisive result. The previous campaign in the orcish wilderness had been a rare exception—its primary purpose had been to pin down the orcish divine pantheon's forces and support the war raging across the material world.
At that moment, in the center of the divine kingdom, within the grand temple atop the White Jade Sacred Mountain.
[Ding! Simulation experiment #78,923 complete. ER-3 experimental sample data obtained. Storage pathway: Rules Database —
The Chip's mechanical voice pulled Leylin back from a trancelike state.
He casually glanced at the Chip's current contents and pulled up the records of his comprehension of the Rules.
[Ding! Host's comprehension of Rules: Slaughter 100%!
The Chip reported faithfully.
"Has it really reached this stage?" The god's eyes held a faint daze. "The sacrifices of those demons have truly been of great help..."
Originally, comprehending the Rule of Death required a massive number of soul samples, as well as the annihilation force generated when living beings perished.
Even if those Hell Lords hadn't come to provoke him, Leylin had planned to launch a campaign of slaughter against Hell, creating vast quantities of killing and death.
And now that they were willingly coming to his divine kingdom to die and serve as free experimental subjects, why would he refuse their request?
For this reason, he had deliberately maintained the intensity of the war, holding the demons firmly at the edge of the divine kingdom—causing no impact within it whatsoever, while secretly giving his enemies hope, ensuring that the Hell Lords kept pouring their resources in, all of which became his own accumulation.
"By now, condensing the divine office should be more than sufficient..."
Leylin's comprehension of the Rule of Death had already entered a bottleneck. The next step was to obtain the final fragments of the Rule through the condensation of his divine office.
"And the Goddess of the
Leylin lowered his head, his eyes carrying a certain resolve and a solemn killing intent.
The other party had not only colluded with Kelewyr to directly detain Leylin's believers, but had also incited the Hell Lords to assemble demonic armies to attack his divine kingdom.
She had even been rigorously investigating the Church of the Giant Serpent in the material world. A whole contingent of enforcers led by
Had Leylin not already planned to temporarily halt his expansion in the material world and recalled Tifa, his Church of the Giant Serpent would have suffered devastating losses!
And the effects were already slowly becoming apparent — in the material world, Leylin's faith, which had at first been lukewarm, had now stagnated or even begun to decline!
For a true god who relied on faith, this was an exceedingly dangerous phenomenon!
Once the faith he acquired was insufficient to sustain this deity's divine throne, he would naturally perish — his divine kingdom would plummet into the depths of the Astral Plane, and even his divine soul would be directly annihilated.
The relationship between a deity and its followers was like that between fish and water. Followers could convert to another faith, but a deity had no path of retreat whatsoever.
Leylin's faith development in the Primary Material World had already stagnated, and he was now relying primarily on the faith from Bankes Island to hold things together.
But even so, the current situation was exceedingly dangerous.
Mortal followers living within a divine kingdom would gradually manifest the characteristics of petitioners as they were steeped in its rules.
Eventually, they would even be converted into purely spiritual entities, losing all mortal capabilities such as eating and reproduction.
For Leylin, this blow would have been the most devastating of all.
And the Bankes Empire had already gone through several generations within his divine kingdom, putting it dangerously close to that critical threshold.
"However, there is a silver lining... My comprehension of the Laws of Death has been progressing smoothly, and preparations for the main body outside are nearly complete. Even if I were to bring the main body in now and initiate the Final War, it would be acceptable..."
A hint of ruthlessness flickered through Leylin's eyes.
His true path ultimately lay in that of a
For the sake of his main body's success, even sacrificing this true god avatar was an acceptable price.
That was why Leylin had settled on a strategy of delay, taking no action whatsoever against
And this had truly bought him enough time to reach his current level.
The reason was simple — it was not that Mystra was stupid, but that she simply could not imagine that Leylin at this point was merely a Wizard's avatar!!!
The methods she had employed against Leylin would have been enough to gradually whittle any minor deity down to nothing without the slightest obstacle. Unfortunately, when the fundamental direction and premise were wrong, no amount of schemes or tricks could make a difference.
This was an absolute gap in perception, and Leylin had exploited it perfectly.
And the several decades of time gained from this had finally allowed Leylin to lay the foundation upon which he could stand proud against any storm!
Just at that moment, Leylin's heart suddenly tightened. His deity-level foresight immediately alerted him to the arrival of an overwhelming crisis.
His consciousness instantly traced the source of this crisis, and he arrived at the Pantheon.
At that moment, upon a magnificent throne, one of Leylin's avatars opened his eyes, and he immediately saw Mystra delivering an impassioned speech.
"...For all the reasons stated above, I motion! To strip the God of Slaughter, Kukulkan, of his divine seat!!!"
She was loudly declaring something, her icy gaze sweeping over.
Within the Pantheon, numerous gods occasionally cast looks of schadenfreude toward Leylin.
The gods of the good-aligned factions had always looked down upon evil gods to begin with, and the gods of the same evil faction had no real affinity with Leylin. The only exception, Bane, shot him a helpless look.
"I agree!!!"
Right after Mystra,
"I also agree!" This came from the god seated upon the throne of death. Leylin recognized at a glance that this was the seat of the mighty god of death,
The other party had clearly sensed Leylin's deepening comprehension of the laws of death, his eyes filled with gravity and hostility.
"I also agree!"
Within the orcish pantheon,
After Gruumsh declared his stance, the other orcish deities followed suit one after another, denouncing Leylin's unjust actions.
In the blink of an eye, Leylin felt as though he was being hostilely regarded and boycotted by every true god, and even his divine seat had begun to teeter precariously.
At this moment, Leylin lacked a solid foundation and had few allies. The consequences of his earlier reckless attacks on other gods now fully manifested themselves.
"I agree!" "I agree as well!"
...
Accompanied by the roaring waves of divine fury, terrifying waves of primordial force gathered around Leylin.
Had the Supreme God still been present, in the face of such accusations, the will of the gods would have unscrimeinately stripped Leylin of his divine nature and divine portfolio, causing him to perish outright.
But now, the Supreme God was slumbering, and the entire Pantheon council no longer held the authority to punish true gods. The motion they had formed could do nothing more than exile Leylin from the Pantheon and isolate him completely.
Crack! Crack!
Terrifying lightning bolts struck down, and Leylin's divine throne cracked inch by inch. His avatar was subsequently annihilated without any power to resist.
Of course, this was merely a loss of a small amount of divine power; the actual damage was not great. However, the ensuing consequences would be truly terrifying.
A god universally resisted and hostileized by all other deities would have little possibility or room for future development.
Leylin did not know that he had inadvertently created a record, becoming the true god who, since the slumber of the Supreme God, was resisted together by both good and evil gods and expelled from the Pantheon.