223: Chapter 223: Artificial Gods

Lin Yuan withdrew the right hand pressed against the crown of Blood Crow's head.

Blood Crow collapsed limply into the pile of rubble beside the cooling pool, his mouth and eyes crooked, white foam hanging from the corners of his mouth, and meaningless "Heh, heh" sounds emitting from his throat.

This demigod 7th-turn powerhouse, once infamous in the Chaotic Star Domain, had neurons in his brain shattered into a mess of paste.

Lin Yuan shook off the residual blood stains on his fingertips and quickly sorted through the information obtained from the soul search just now.

Chen Fu.

An old-timer who should have died in a gang fight years ago had now transformed into the white glove of some mysterious big shot.

"You sure hide deep." Lin Yuan muttered to himself.

Blood Crow's memory did not contain the slightest clue about that "master".

The other party acted extremely cautiously, communicating with Blood Crow solely through the Soul Summoning Platform, and even the Divine Power fluctuations went through multiple layers of disguise.

Lin Yuan didn't plan to follow the vine to trace down the melons himself.

Since Senior Su Jin had made a promise, such time-consuming and laborious human-search work was best left to those bigshots to handle.

As a freshman, it was more pragmatic for him to focus his energy on acquiring resources.

As for now...

Lin Yuan turned around and looked at the devastated Wasteland Divine Domain before him.

Investigating the mastermind behind the scenes was a matter for later, but completely devouring the loot before him was the proper business.

Lin Yuan squatted down and aggressively tore off the three storage divine rings on Blood Crow's fingers.

By the way, he used Divine Power to probe into Blood Crow's body, forcibly tearing open the private storage space he had opened up deep within his Divine Soul.

Clatter—

Treasures piled like a mountain fell from the Void Realm, forming several small mounds on the flat rock ground.

The rich brilliance of Divine Power and the treasure light reflected off each other, illuminating the dim underground ruins brightly.

Lin Yuan swept his Divine Sense across and quickly completed the inventory.

First to catch the eye was a dazzling string of numbers in the divine card account.

As many as 13.5 billion faith points!

Aside from the faith points, what made Lin Yuan's heart skip a beat the most were the neat rows of transparent crystals stacked in boxes beside them.

High-purity Divine Power crystals, referred to as divine crystals for short.

A full 32,000 units!

This thing was much more precious than ordinary faith points.

Divine crystals were solid energy sources formed by highly compressing and condensing massive amounts of faith power through a special divine formation.

Each unit of divine crystal could replenish a huge amount of Divine Power, belonging to genuine hard currency in the transaction circles of high-ranking deities.

Lin Yuan casually grabbed a handful of divine crystals, feeling the warm and pure Divine Power fluctuations within them, and was in a great mood.

Then, his gaze fell upon a dark red staff obliquely stuck in the rubble pile.

Semi-Divine Artifact, [Nine Skull Blood Staff].

The staff was cast entirely from an unknown dark, dull divine gold, with nine miniature skulls emitting rich grievances embedded at the top.

Lin Yuan grasped the staff, and an icy, bloodthirsty Concept surged into his mind along his palm.

This semi-Divine Artifact could greatly amplify the power of blood-type and necromancy-type divine arts.

Nine blood-evil resentful spirits were sealed within the staff body, and a wave of the hand could stir up a sky-filling sea of blood.

Besides these, a large amount of top-grade divine medicine and Heaven And Earth Treasure were scattered on the ground.

The "Ten-Thousand-Year Earth Core Milk" capable of refining the divine body, the "Nine-Leaf Soul-Returning Grass" for repairing Divine Soul damage, and the "Blood Marrow Ganoderma" for strengthening bone hardness.

As well as countless demonic Cultivation Technique Jade Slips and construction blueprints for modern industrial Alchemy assembly lines.

"Murder and arson bring golden belts; the ancients do not deceive me."

Lin Yuan couldn't help exclaiming with emotion.

The family fortune saved by Blood Crow during these ten years of exile was now all taken advantage of by him.

After putting all the loot into the storage rings by category, Lin Yuan's gaze fell back onto Blood Crow, who was paralyzed on the ground.

The ordinary treasures had been looted, but the most valuable things on this guy hadn't been touched yet.

A demigod 7th-turn Physical Body, even if its Realm dropped and its divine fire withered, was still a mobile treasury.

The foundation of a deity lay in divine Domain talent, divine fire, and Law.

Lin Yuan touched his chin, a look of eagerness flashing in his eyes.

If all these core elements constituting a deity were extracted, could he conduct an experiment on his own dependents?

For instance... artificially creating a brand-new dependent with deity characteristics?

Thinking of this, Lin Yuan hesitated no longer.

With a thought in his mind, his hidden talent suddenly operated.

SSS-grade talent—[Creation Extraction]!

In the Void Realm, countless dark golden chains manifested out of thin air.

The chains made a clattering metal collision sound, tightly wrapping around Blood Crow lying on the ground.

"Uh... Ah..."

Blood Crow, who had fallen into a demented state, seemed to sense a certain annihilation crisis from the bottom of life, and his withered body began to twitch.

The dark golden chains tightened.

Under the absolute rules of Creation Extraction, Blood Crow's Physical Body, broken Divine Soul,

Divine fire and Law fragments deep within the Sea of Consciousness were deconstructed and stripped inch by inch.

Matter and energy were forcibly decomposed under the traction of the chains, turning into golden spots of light flying all over the sky.

A few seconds later, Blood Crow on the ground disappeared without a trace.

In his original place, only four clusters of strange halos suspended in mid-air remained, emitting completely different Law fluctuations.

Lin Yuan raised his hand in a beckoning motion, and the four halos slowly landed in his palm.

At the same time, a translucent panel that only he could see emerged before his eyes.

[Extraction successful, obtained divinity Concept entry:]

[Entry 1: Divine Domain Talent · Blood Corpse Proliferation (Incomplete Divine-Grade)]

[Attribute: Divine Domain exclusive talent. After Fusion, the reproduction speed of all flesh-and-blood and necromancy-type life forms within the divine Domain increases by 500%.

After dependents kill hostile targets, 1% of the opponent's vital Qi and Origin is forcibly stripped and directly fed back to the divine Domain core. The efficiency of converting corpses into nutrients increases by 300%.]

[Entry 2: Divine Fire Origin · Fiendish Blood (Faint Divinity)]

[Attribute: Divine fire characteristic entry. After Fusion, one's own Divine Power comes with 'Fiendish Blood Erosion' and 'Life Drain' effects.]

[Entry 3: Faith Circuit · Myriad Spirits Blood Covenant (Incomplete Divine-Grade)]

[Attribute: Deity underlying architecture entry. Construct a faith extraction circuit, greatly lowering the threshold for believers to generate fanatical faith. The faith power provided by believers in a near-death or berserk state is increased by 500%.]

[Entry 4: Godhood Rudiment · Withered Blood (Incomplete Divine-Grade)]

[Attribute: Law comprehension aggregate. Contains fragments of the 'Blood Law' and 'Withered Bones Law'. After Fusion, one can directly master the basic application of the corresponding Laws, greatly lowering the threshold for condensing one's own Godhood Rudiment.]

Lin Yuan looked at the entry information on the panel and fell into deep thought.

The rating mechanism of the entries had changed.

Previously, entries extracted from ordinary Vicious Beast or alien corpses...

Their ratings were divided according to the ranks of individual creatures such as bronze, silver, and gold.

But now, the entries extracted from Blood Crow, a demigod, displayed [Faint Divinity] and [Incomplete Divine-Grade].

The judgment mechanism had changed.

Lin Yuan quickly figured out the logic behind it.

An insurmountable chasm existed between deities and ordinary individual creatures.

Entries of ordinary creatures strengthened individual combat power, but entries of the deity dimension strengthened divine Domain ecology, Law control, and the essence of Divine Power.

This was just like the entries Lin Yuan previously extracted from the core fragments of the Abyssal Demon God, which were directly judged as [Lower Divine-Grade].

"Tyrant, come over." Lin Yuan transmitted his voice.

The ten-thousand-meter-tall Tyrant strode over, crushing more than a dozen underground bunkers along the way.

Arriving above the reactor, it very consciously shrank its figure to a height of a hundred meters.

Kneeling on one knee in front of Lin Yuan, its eight thick arms rested on its knees.

Lin Yuan pointed at the four divinity entries suspended in his palm.

"Relax your mind and spirit, don't resist."

Lin Yuan raised his hand and waved, pushing [Divine Fire Origin · Fiendish Blood] and [Faith Circuit · Myriad Spirits Blood Covenant]...

These two entries capable of forming the foundation of a deity directly toward Tyrant's chest.

If Tyrant could bear these two entries, it meant it could ignite the divine fire within its body and even carve out a miniature internal divine Domain belonging to itself.

By then, Tyrant would no longer be merely a dependent with formidable combat power, but an affiliated deity with deity characteristics.

However, what happened the next moment stunned Lin Yuan.

The two halos emitting faint divinity collided with Tyrant's chest, but did not merge into flesh and blood as usual.

The halos shuttled back and forth inside Tyrant's massive body like a completely intangible phantom.

They penetrated straight through Tyrant's back and re-suspended in mid-air.

Tyrant blinked its huge eyes, looked down at its chest, then looked at Lin Yuan, a confused whine emitting from its throat.

It completely felt no injection of any power.

"What's going on?"

Lin Yuan furrowed his brows slightly.

The failure of fusing the demon god entries last time was because Tyrant was only at the Platinum Rank back then, and its Physical Body strength couldn't withstand the power impact of the Lower Divine-Grade.

But now, Tyrant was already at the Epic Rank. Under the blessing of the dual Domain, its Physical Body strength alone was not even inferior to ordinary Legend-rank dependents.

Moreover, when the entries penetrated through just now...

Tyrant's body showed no signs of rejection or damage; it was purely "unable to interact".

It was as if the two things were simply not in the same dimension.

Lin Yuan reached out to summon the entries back to his palm, concentrating to carefully check the bottom-most description of the entry panel.

A line of cold information fed back into his Sea of Consciousness.

[The target does not possess the characteristics of a "Universe life form". The target is currently in a state of the boundary between virtuality and reality, unable to bear the core rules of a deity. Forcing Fusion will lead to conceptual collapse.]

Seeing this note, a flash of realization crossed Lin Yuan's eyes.

So the crux of the matter was here.

At the demigod stage, the divine Domain opened up by a deity was, after all, only a semi-plane attached to the prime material Universe, located between the boundary of virtuality and reality.

All dependents living in the divine Domain, judged by the underlying Laws of the Universe, belonged to "semi-plane derivative creations" and had never left a life imprint in the real Universe.

This was like the divine Domain being a realistic holographic game, and the dependents being top-tier characters invincible in the game.

But their underlying data still belonged to virtual code, completely unable to bear the deity authority of the real Universe.

Only when Lin Yuan ignited the divine fire and condensed the godhood, lifting the divine Domain into a real starry sky habitat and turning the divine Domain into a true and non-illusory eternal divine kingdom...

At that time, the dependents living in the divine Domain could complete the transformation from "illusory creations" to "Universe solid life forms".

"It seems the god-creation plan has to be temporarily shelved."

Lin Yuan shook his head, patted Tyrant's big head, and motioned for it to return to the divine Domain to continue clearing the battlefield.

Tyrant curled its lips, stood up, and transformed back into a ten-thousand-meter demon god.

It turned around to pound a metal fortress in the distance, venting all its anger on those surviving demonic cultivators.

Since the dependents couldn't use them, Lin Yuan could only accept them graciously himself.

He sat cross-legged on the ground, Divine Power surging in his palms, and pressed the four divinity halos into his chest.

Boom!

After the four halos merged into his body, a Divine Power storm whipped up in Lin Yuan's Sea of Consciousness.

The profound foundation of the demigod 6th-turn erupted comprehensively at this moment.

As soon as the four entries from Blood Crow entered the Sea of Consciousness, before they could stir up any storms, they were instantly swallowed by the Origin Fire.

In just a few minutes, the Fusion was completely finished.

Lin Yuan opened his eyes, a bone-white pattern flashing deep within his pupils before quickly disappearing.

He stood up and felt the earth-shaking changes happening within his body.

First was the divine Domain talent.

[Flesh and Blood Hotbed] did not exist independently.

It was forcibly swallowed and assimilated by the supreme talent [Creation Extraction], turning into a resident sub-talent of Creation Extraction.

Lin Yuan could perceive that the Demon Tree roots within the Wasteland Divine Domain became even thicker at this moment.

The reproduction speed and gene evolution efficiency of all dependents directly doubled several times.

At this moment, within this divine Domain...

Countless Tyrant Demons, Fire Spirits, and Zerg fighting on the periphery, whenever they tore apart a demonic cultivator or devoured a Vicious Beast...

The vital Qi and Origin power contained in the corpses no longer required them to manually transport them back to the divine Domain.

They automatically transformed into wisps of red light, crossing space and injecting into the core of the Wasteland Divine Domain.

The efficiency increased by more than a hundred times.

This meant that as long as Lin Yuan's dependents fought outside, his divine Domain could automatically recover health and upgrade at all times.

Second was Law comprehension.

After fusing [Godhood Rudiment · Withered Blood], Lin Yuan's mind inexplicably gained a massive amount of application experience regarding the Blood Law and Withered Bones Law.

In the Void Realm, two clear Law divine chains loomed vaguely beside Lin Yuan.

One was like a rolling blood river, emitting a rich aura of life and erosion.

The other was like eerie white bones, permeating the Concept of death and withering.

Lin Yuan raised his right hand and grabbed into the void towards a demonic cultivator's corpse in the distance that had been cut into two halves by a Liquid Metal Crab.

"Rise."

Puchi!

The residual blood within that corpse boiled instantly, breaking out of the body and condensing into a sharp blood-red long saber in mid-air.

A nauseating fishy stench flowed on the blade.

Lin Yuan hooked his fingers slightly.

Click, click, click.

The fragmented bones within the corpse pierced through the skin and flesh, rapidly stitching together, turning into a skeleton warrior holding a bone shield in the blink of an eye.

Words become Law, Laws materialize.

Although these two Laws were only rudiments, under the deduction of Lin Yuan's powerful Divine Soul, as long as he practiced more...

His attainments in blood-type and bone-type divine arts would not be inferior in the slightest to Blood Crow, who had practiced bitterly for decades.

Not only that.

The Divine Power inside Lin Yuan's body had already filled to an extreme point.

Six dazzling divine rings slowly rotated behind his head, and the phantom of the seventh divine ring loomed vaguely.

As long as his mind moved, he could immediately rely on the blood and bone Laws he had just mastered...

To condense his own Godhood Rudiment and step into the demigod 7th-turn.

But Lin Yuan forcefully suppressed this impulse.

"Suppress it a bit more; it won't be too late to impact the 7th-turn after completely digesting this batch of loot."

Lin Yuan suppressed the restless Divine Power within his body, letting the phantom of the seventh divine ring hide deep within the divine fire once again.

He moved his wrists, a playful smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

After fusing all the core entries of Blood Crow, in the judgment of the entire Universe's underlying Laws...

The Divine Power fluctuations and divine fire aura on Lin Yuan were now completely identical to Blood Crow's.

In other words...

The current Lin Yuan, in the eyes of the divine Domain, was Blood Crow himself!

Hum—

The plane repulsion force that previously enveloped this heaven and earth, caused by Blood Crow's death, vanished like smoke in thin air at this moment.

The remaining will of the entire broken divine Domain even actively opened its arms to Lin Yuan, respectfully offering the highest control right of the divine Domain core.

Lin Yuan suspended in mid-air, condescendingly overlooking this vast and boundless demonic cultivator land.

Although most of the cities had collapsed and the mountains and rivers were torn apart by the flames of war...

But this demigod 7th-turn divine Domain with a foundation of billions of people still had a total amount of matter and plane Origin that was huge to the extreme.

"Since it's all mine, don't waste it."

Lin Yuan raised his right hand and gently slashed in the Void Realm.

A spatial rift spanning tens of thousands of miles was torn open at the top of the firmament.

At the other end of the rift, the aura of the Wasteland Divine Domain gushed out like a raging tide.

A towering giant tree, pitch black all over and emitting Chaos currents, slowly emerged from deep within the rift.

Countless Demon Tree roots as thick as mountain ranges drooped down from the rift.

Like sky-covering wild dragons of world destruction, they plunged straight into the depths of the core of this demonic cultivator land.

The Demon Tree's will cheered in Lin Yuan's mind.

Lin Yuan came to high altitude, looked at the vast world below gradually being covered by black-gold roots, and spoke softly:

"Time to eat."