19: Chapter 19 The Poisonous Water Elemental Pearl and the Impotent Fury of the God of Corpses
That collective will, powerful enough to tear apart stars and devour deities, surged and roared like boiling magma through every node of the Nid Hive Network.
It was the hunger of an entire race.
Su Chen's consciousness was the sole center of this storm, the calmest eye of the chaotic ocean.
He did not drown in the fanaticism he had ignited; instead, he grew even calmer.
Ambition needs power to fill it, and power comes from the purest plunder and digestion.
His torrent of will quietly withdrew from the souls of billions of Zerg Swarm, silently contracting and returning to the primal place that belonged only to him.
The Divine Realm.
Bloody mud and grotesque bones formed the main palette of this domain, and the air was filled with a rich scent of blood and pheromones.
This was the origin of the Zerg Swarm and the crucible of all evolution.
In the center of the Divine Realm, the colossal carcass of a monster, comparable in size to a mountain, lay quietly.
A Tyrant Leech.
Its tough hide had been completely ripped open by Queen of Blades Sarah's bone blades, and the exposed, curled flesh revealed a massive cavity.
Amidst the messy organs and tissue fluid, an unusual light flickered.
Su Chen's will converged here.
A pearl the size of a fist was quietly suspended in the center of the carcass's abdominal cavity.
It was a profound jade green, as if carved from the purest emerald, and within it, liquid seemed to flow slowly, reflecting an eerie light.
A visible ring of dense water vapor surrounded it, and further out, wisps of seemingly living green poisonous mist swirled ceaselessly.
Su Chen's will merely "gazed" at it, and a sharp stinging sensation was directly fed back to his soul.
This was not physical damage, but an erosion at the level of laws.
A line of data clearly appeared in Su Chen's consciousness.
[Item]: poisonous water essence pearl (Rare Material)
[Tier]: Peak Sixth-Tier
[Attributes]: Contains high concentrations of water and poison laws. It is an excellent core for creating special Divine Realm environments or refining poisonous divine artifacts.
[Market Valuation]: 60 million Power Of Faith!
Sixty million!
This number, like a heavy bomb, exploded with violent ripples in Su Chen's consciousness, vast as a sea of stars.
His mind, with its immense computing power capable of processing information from billions of Zerg Swarm simultaneously, experienced a microsecond-level pause.
What did sixty million Power Of Faith mean?
A diligent Three-Turn Demigod who had developed for hundreds of years and had billions of followers, selling off all the accumulated wealth in their divine kingdom and emptying every last bit of their assets, would probably amount to this figure.
And now, this fortune, enough to drive countless demigods mad, was presented before him in the form of a pearl.
This was the charm of intercepting.
This was the advantage of being a "Calamity" rather than a "Deity."
Deities need to manage, to develop, and to spend long years harvesting faith.
The Zerg, however, only needed one successful hunt.
As Su Chen processed the impact of this windfall, another part of his consciousness was connected to a broader and noisier domain.
The City of Deities.
The online gathering place for all beings who had obtained divinity and possessed a Divine Realm. Its public chat channel, humorously called the "World Channel" by countless deities, was currently being repeatedly refreshed by a blood-red pinned message. Its frequency was so high that the entire information flow even experienced lag.
[God of Corrupt Corpses (Second-Turn Demigod)]: Who is it?!
[God of Corrupt Corpses]: Get out here! That damned! Despicable and shameless Zerg Deity, who is it?!
[God of Corrupt Corpses]: You dared to ambush my hunting party?! You dared to snatch the water essence pearl I had my eyes on?! Scum! Coward! You only dare to hide in the dark and gnaw like a maggot!
[God of Corrupt Corpses]: I swear! I swear by my divinity! Even if I search the entire endless void, I will find your Divine Realm coordinates! I will grind your bugs into meat paste one by one! I will turn your Divine Realm into my Corrupt Corpse Paradise!!
Each line of text, fueled by divine power, burned with malice and fury. Across the endless space, Su Chen could clearly "smell" the exasperated putrid stench of the God of Corrupt Corpses.
In the channel, after a brief silence, other divine wills began to emerge.
[Lord of Storms (Three-Turn Demigod)]: A Zerg Deity? Interesting, a newcomer recently emerging?
[God of Forging (Four-Turn Demigod)]: Corrupt Corpses, your people were wiped out again? You really took a heavy loss this time. A Peak Sixth-Tier water essence pearl, tsk tsk, that's enough to commission a decent sub-divine artifact from me.
[Goddess of Pleasure (Second-Turn Demigod)]: Oh my, so fierce. But, to snatch food from the God of Corrupt Corpses' mouth, this Zerg newcomer has some skill.
[God of Corrupt Corpses]: All of you shut up! If anyone provides the coordinates of that bug, I'm willing to pay three million Power Of Faith as a reward!
[God of Shadows (Reincarnation Unknown)]: Three million to buy the coordinates of someone who can snatch your stuff? Corrupt Corpses, has your brain rotted and spoiled like your followers?
Watching this chaotic and noisy scene, a hint of cold pleasure flashed through Su Chen's consciousness.
"Tsk tsk, he's anxious."
This feeling was ineffable.
In this cruel hunting ground, to make your enemy curse and stomp their feet, yet be unable to find you, this unilateral control of information asymmetry was itself a supreme enjoyment.
Anger solves no problems; it only exposes one's incompetence.
This God of Corrupt Corpses clearly hadn't understood this truth yet.
Su Chen's will withdrew from the World Channel, refocusing on the emerald pearl.
Sell it?
The thought flashed through his mind.
Sixty million Power Of Faith would be enough to instantly unlock several key nodes in his Nid Hive technology tree, and even mass-produce more powerful troop types.
But just a second later, he rejected the idea.
"No."
His mind was calm and clear.
"A law core of this level is priceless and rarely available on the market."
Most of what circulated in the market were conventional materials. Such a supreme item, perfectly integrating two high-concentration laws, would be acquired at any cost by the truly powerful, the forces around the Seven-Turn, Eight-Turn, or even Nine-Turn Demigods, once it appeared.
Sixty million was just an estimation.
A threshold that would deter ordinary demigods, but might not actually be enough to purchase it.
More importantly...
Su Chen's will swept over another corner of the Divine Realm.
There, Queen of Blades Sarah stood quietly, her bone wings subtly trembling. In her deep purple pupils, the fanaticism from the racial speech had not completely faded, replaced instead by an extreme craving for power.
Her path of evolution required a more stringent, more special environment.
"Sarah's next metamorphosis requires an extreme poisonous environment to stimulate the breaking and recombination of her genetic chain."
"This pearl is the perfect catalyst."
"With it, a 'Poisonous Incubation Pool' can be created in the Divine Realm."
Su Chen's decision was cold and efficient.
"Power held in hand is always more reliable than numbers in an account."
This was the creed of the Zerg.
Without the slightest hesitation, and without any reluctance over the sixty million valuation.
Su Chen's will enveloped the poisonous water essence pearl.
The next moment, this priceless treasure cut through the sky, carrying an emerald stream of light, and was casually tossed by him into the only lake in the center of the Divine Realm.
"Plop."
A soft splash.
The pearl submerged into the water, stirring no great ripples.
The lake water remained clear, reflecting the crimson sky above the Divine Realm.
One second.
Two seconds.
In the third second, a sudden change occurred!
Centered on the pearl's impact point, a dense, impossibly thick ghastly green color suddenly spread out!
That was not dyeing, but corruption! It was erosion!
"Hiss—hiss hiss—"
A piercing boiling sound erupted.
The originally clear lake water began to churn violently, and countless fist-sized bubbles surged from the lakebed, then burst with a "pop," releasing green poisonous mist with a sweet, pungent smell.
In just a dozen breaths, the lake's color transformed completely from crystal clear to a ghastly green resembling concentrated sulfuric acid.
The land by the lake, touched by the spreading water, immediately sizzled as if corroded, emitting black smoke.
A perfect, poisonous hotbed, imbued with the aura of destruction and rebirth.
Was born.