4: Chapter 4 Divine Baptism and the Greedy Lizard God's Peeping
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
For mortal kingdoms, this might be but a fleeting moment, yet for Su Chen's divine domain, it was a cataclysmic change akin to the shifting of seas into mulberry fields.
The dark, somber ore mountain had long since vanished, replaced by a terrifying ant nest where a black tide of chitinous shells had drowned out the desert's base color.
The scalp-tingling *crunch* never ceased, echoing day and night—a hymn to evolution and devouring.
Bolstered by the terrifying tenfold egg-laying efficiency of the 'Life Greenhouse,' the ant colony's numbers had exploded from the initial three hundred to a heart-stopping figure—five thousand!
Each of these five thousand worker ants, having devoured vast quantities of black iron ore, had undergone their first metamorphosis. They were no longer fragile cannon fodder, but 'Black Iron Ants' clad in sturdy carapaces, their mandibles capable of easily piercing iron plates!
As for the one hundred core combatants, the Devouring Steel-toothed Ants, their transformation was even more astonishing.
After consuming the chitinous plates of all the second-order Explosive Beetles, their bodies expanded once more, their carapaces now shimmering with a dark, profound metallic luster. The ferocious aura emanating from them teetered on the brink of the third-order biological threshold, awaiting only a catalyst to complete their final evolution.
Above the central expanse of the divine domain, high in the sky.
Su Chen's divine soul sat cross-legged in the void.
Below him, thousands of fanatical believers prayed with unwavering devotion. Day and night, they offered everything they had. Their pure, concentrated faith power had condensed to a visible degree, transforming into a milky-white mist. Like the gentlest sea of clouds, it enveloped Su Chen's divine soul layer by layer, lifting him aloft.
He felt as if he were immersed in a warm spring, every thought nourished and amplified by this power.
He could clearly perceive that the 'vessel' deep within his divine soul, which stored faith power, was already full to the brim. It even emitted a strained hum from being overfilled.
The time had come.
"Burn a million faith points, condense divine power!"
Su Chen's divine countenance showed no expression, only absolute calm, as if stating an established fact.
Boom—!
With a single thought.
The sea of faith clouds enveloping him was instantly ignited!
There were no flames, no light, yet a torrent of heat more terrifying than a stellar core erupted in an instant, violently flooding back into his divine soul and divine body.
This was the first and most crucial chasm on the path to godhood.
The baptism of divine fire!
"Arghhh—!"
The soul-rending agony of tearing apart his divine soul clashed with the sublime sensation of a life-level ascension. These two diametrically opposed feelings assaulted his will simultaneously, forcing out an unrestrained roar.
His divine soul was being violently forged and reshaped under theflushing of this torrent.
The illusory parts, constructed from faith power, were being incinerated, leaving behind only the purest, most fundamental core.
The incinerated faith power transformed into a higher-level energy, seeping back in and condensing, causing his divine soul to solidify from its illusory state.
One strand.
Then another.
Black threads, carrying an aura of destruction and plunder, began to materialize and dance at his fingertips.
That was divine power!
The fundamental distinction between a deity and mortals, the extension of will, the manifestation of rules!
This was divine power unique to him, its nature stemming from the deepest part of his divinity—slaughter and devouring!
The system's notification tone finally rang out.
"Ding! Congratulations on successfully advancing to [First-Turn Demigod]!"
"Your divine domain area has automatically expanded to fifty square kilometers!"
"You have awakened the innate divine art: [Slaughtering Aura]!"
Su Chen slowly opened his eyes.
The world had become different.
He could 'see' every grain of sand in his domain, 'hear' the heartbeat of every Black Iron Ant deep underground, and 'sense' the flow of every strand of spatial energy within the rolling mists fifty kilometers away.
It was a feeling of omniscient and omnipotent control.
However.
Before his divine consciousness could fully immerse itself in this newborn, formidable power...
Buzz—!
A sharp, urgent warning, brimming with vigilance and hostility, shot directly into his mind through the spiritual network spanning the entire divine domain.
This alert came from a flying soldier ant he had dispatched to the edge of his domain for sentry duty.
"Hmm?"
Su Chen's eyes, now composed of divine fire, instantly turned icy. His divine consciousness tore through space, crossing dozens of kilometers in a ten-thousandth of a second to land precisely at the northwestern border of his domain.
Through the compound eyes of that flying soldier ant, he saw.
Within the perpetually rolling gray mists outside the divine domain, several figures flickered in and out of sight.
They were kobolds.
Their forms were wretched, peering and craning their necks as they cautiously peered into the interior of the divine domain. One of them held a faintly glowing crystal, clearly mapping and recording the terrain within Su Chen's domain.
And on these kobolds, Su Chen caught a whiff of a putrid, nauseating stench.
It wasn't their own odor.
But a divine power mark, belonging to another deity.
"The aura of a First-Turn Demigod... weak, yet brimming with greed."
Su Chen's divine consciousness instantly deciphered the nature of this power.
Did they take him for a newly ascended, unstable pushover? Sending some cannon fodder to scout the way?
On Su Chen's divine countenance, the corner of his mouth, now formed of divine fire, lifted silently into a cold curve.
His perception pierced through the mist, locking onto the source of that divine power mark from afar.
On the other side of the mist, a pair of turbid, cold vertical pupils were fixed unwaveringly upon his newly expanded fertile land, filled with undisguised greed and malice.
His neighbor.
The God of Lizards.
"Since you're here, there's no need to leave."
Su Chen's will held no panic, no anger, only the calm andcold of a hunter discovering prey.
In the next moment, he issued his first war edict as a demigod, directed towards the depths of the earth, towards the insectoid hive that was frantically laying eggs.
"All forces..."
His voice reverberated throughout the spiritual network, causing the gnawing sounds of five thousand Black Iron Ants to cease abruptly. Countless pairs of crimson compound eyes lifted in unison, gazing skyward.
"...prepare for battle!"
"Tonight's dinner is lizard meat!"