8: Chapter 8 Plundering Divine Power and Merging with an Indestructible Shell
The sound of collapsing faith was not a physical entity, yet it was more deafening than any thunderclap.
It detonated directly in the deepest recesses of Guldan's soul.
That statue, which had stood for centuries, was not merely a pile of rocks; it was the very cornerstone of his existence and all his power as a demigod.
"No—!"
A howl, utterly inhuman, tore its way from Guldan's rigid body.
The sound no longer held anger, but a soul-deep collapse and despair born from having his very foundation ripped away.
"My statue! My faith!!"
The moment the statue crumbled, countless strands of faith—invisible to the naked eye yet undeniably real—snapped one by one.
They were the links between him and all his believers, the channels through which he drew his power.
The channels were severed.
Guldan's once overwhelmingly powerful First-Turn Demigod aura, potent enough to warp reality, now deflated like a punctured balloon, plummeting with avalanche-like speed.
His once-solid divine soul-body began to flicker violently, its light waxing and waning erratically.
The divine power constituting his form was wildly dissipating. The edges of his body grew illusory, transparent, as if a mere gust of wind could scatter him.
He had become a guttering candle in a tempest, on the verge of being snuffed out at any moment.
At that same instant, the sky of the swamp divine realm was rent asunder by a crack torn open by a will far colder and more merciless.
Su Chen's true form stepped out from the rift.
He did not descend to the earth but hovered above this wailing, dying demigod's realm like a supreme sovereign judging all creation.
His gaze fell indifferently upon Guldan's disintegrating divine soul.
No pity.
No mockery.
Only the ultimate calm and focus of a hunter locking onto his prey.
Strike while the enemy is vulnerable.
This was never a villainous bad habit, but the most efficient principle etched into the bones of every plunderer and reaper.
In the very instant Guldan was paralyzed by his faith's collapse, unable to mount any effective reaction...
Su Chen, moved.
He did not chant any complex incantations, nor did he summon any flashy magic.
For a dying demigod, such theatrics were unnecessary.
He merely mobilized all his divine power of slaughter—that purest, most primordial authority over death.
"Die."
A single icy syllable, uttered from between Su Chen's lips, became the sole law of this divine realm.
He spread his fingers and made a grasping motion in Guldan's direction.
In that instant, the entire space groaned under unbearable pressure.
Countless streams of divine power, black as ink, surged from the void. They were no longer mere energy but coalesced into blades of supremely sharp, tangible substance.
These blades did not simply shoot forth. Under Su Chen's will, they swirled around Guldan's divine soul, forming an airtight, rapidly rotating storm of carnage!
Space was sliced, light was shredded, all existence consumed by that pure will to slaughter.
The storm instantly engulfed Guldan's broken, illusory divine soul.
"Ah—!"
The agony of death finally jolted Guldan from his collapse. He felt himself being erased from existence, piece by piece, strand by strand!
"I refuse to accept this! If not for my carelessness..."
*Thump!*
That unwilling roar was abruptly cut short.
The storm of carnage violently contracted inward, grinding all sound, all light, all existence into the most primordial nothingness.
This demigod, who had entrenched himself in Guldan's Swamp and ruled the lizardmen tribes for centuries, could not even finish his last words before utterly perishing by Su Chen's hand.
The storm dissipated.
Guldan's divine soul transformed into a sky full of swirling motes of light, like fireflies on a summer night—brilliant, yet cold.
A cold, mechanical system prompt sounded precisely within Su Chen's consciousness network.
"Ding! Congratulations on slaying the First-Turn Demigod 'Guldan'!"
"You have obtained spoils of war: 7 Strands of Divine Power."
"You have plundered a divine portfolio fragment: [Firmness (Unclaimed)]"
Su Chen indifferently raised his hand and beckoned toward the void.
Those swirling motes of light, along with one particularly resplendent core among them, transformed into a stream of radiance and were drawn into his sleeve.
His attention instantly focused on that piece of loot.
It was a crystalline fragment emitting a heavy, earthy yellow glow.
It hovered quietly in Su Chen's palm, radiating no energy fluctuations, yet exuding an immovable, eternally enduring sense of weight.
This was the most core remnant left behind after Guldan's divine spark shattered upon his fall.
It was the materialized embodiment of the defensive principles he had spent his life studying.
"The Firmness divine portfolio?"
A glint of sharp light flashed in Su Chen's eyes.
For the Zerg Swarm, offensive power was never an issue.
What truly limited their ability to challenge foes beyond their tier was always their fragile defense.
And this divine portfolio seemed tailor-made for his swarm!
"System, compatibility assessment!"
Su Chen issued the command in his mind.
"Ding! Compatibility between the 'Firmness divine portfolio' and the Zerg carapace genetic template is 99%. Proceed with fusion?"
The mechanical prompt delivered a result even Su Chen found satisfactory.
"Fuse!"
Without the slightest hesitation, he pressed that crystal fragment bearing the [Firmness] rule directly against the center of his forehead.
The moment the fragment touched his skin, it transformed into a gentle, earthy yellow stream of light and merged into the very source of his divine soul.
Simultaneously, through the boundless faith channel, Su Chen lavishly bestowed this newly absorbed power of rule upon all his followers!
The next moment.
Whether it was the Steel-Fanged Ants gnawing on the statue's remnants in Guldan's swamp divine realm, or the newly hatched larvae in Su Chen's divine kingdom...
A wondrous change occurred simultaneously on every single Zerg.
Upon their originally pitch-black, metal-cold-gleaming carapaces, intricate, earthy yellow patterns suddenly and inexplicably surfaced.
These patterns seemed alive. They swam, intertwined, and finally etched themselves deeply into the carapace, forming a strange structure akin to layers of bedrock.
Under the influence of the rule's power, the density of the carapace began to increase exponentially.
The once relatively smooth surfaces became rougher, heavier.
Every single Steel-Fanged Ant seemed to have donned an additional layer of invisible armor, condensed from the laws of the earth, over its original metallic exoskeleton.
*Crack!*
At Su Chen's mental command, a Steel-Fanged Ant standing by at his feet was lifted by an invisible force and flew into his palm.
He pressed his fingers together and squeezed.
This time, a completely different sensation was transmitted back.
It was no longer the previous hard-yet-somehow-malleable texture.
Instead, it was replaced by an extreme toughness and solidity.
Even with his current demigod-level terrifying strength, he felt a distinct, grating resistance!
It was as if he wasn't squeezing an insect, but a piece of divinely forged metal, tempered a thousand times and empowered by law!
"Defensive power... has doubled!"
A deeply satisfied arc curled at the corner of Su Chen's mouth.
This wasn't merely an increase in physical hardness, but an enhancement of the very conceptual property of "Firmness" on an existential level.
Now, even if these Steel-Fanged Ants stood still and let ordinary second-tier supernormal creatures hack at them with all their might, they probably wouldn't leave a decent scratch on this new carapace!