Chapter 11: Fragments of the Divine Kingdom
A force field of energy enveloped the wilderness.
This is an overlapping phenomenon between the Divine Kingdom and the Material Plane. The Divine Kingdom, having lost the dominance of its deity, has transformed into a semi-plane form, currently attached to this piece of land in the Material Plane, creating a strange principle of resonance. Soren moved along the trail of Adventurers and soon began to discover signs of battle; many beast corpses surrounded him, indicating that there had been an attack not long ago.
God of the Hunt – Mara.
According to Soren’s understanding of Him, the core of this deity’s domain should be the “Wise Beast,” with Beastmen, hunting, and other divine professions serving this field. The power of the Divine Kingdom has begun to alter the surrounding area; Mara himself is a highly intelligent beast, and the energy emanating from His kingdom will gradually change the nearby beasts, eventually evolving them into intelligent magical creatures. They would resemble dangerous winter wolves, capable of using spells and language abilities, and would be quite cunning and cruel.
The intelligence of a common wolf is 2, that of a winter wolf is 9, while the intelligence range for an average human is 9-11.
This change in intelligence is terrifying.
If beasts become capable of thinking and learning like humans, it would be a disaster for the nearby humanoid races.
Traveling deep into the wilderness for several dozen kilometers.
Soren soon discovered something; he sensed a rift in the plane.
“This is it.”
By now, it was afternoon, and Soren found a narrow spatial rift amid a desolate pile of rubble.
With a diameter of only about two meters, it led into deep darkness, surrounded by beast corpses and some humanoid footprints, indicating that an Adventurer team had already passed through this rift into the Divine Kingdom.
—“Change Reality!”
The divine power Soren mastered was activated, causing strange distortions in the nearby space. Changing reality theoretically can alter any phenomenon of reality, but it requires a hefty amount of divine power.
…………
As he passed through the narrow plane rift, Soren’s vision suddenly opened up.
Before him was a piece of land approximately several dozen square kilometers in size; to the left was a vast grassland and to the right, a dense forest. With Soren’s divine-level sight, he could clearly see the edge of this small plane gradually fading into nothingness. The entire space was gradually shrinking. The most outer edges led into a chaotic void, with the divine kingdom’s plane collapsing; the space here was shrinking, and everything on the edges was being pulled into the distorted void.
The space is not large.
Soren rose into the air and quickly calculated the scale of this place, muttering, “This should just be a part of the collapsed fragments of the Divine Kingdom.”
“Legendary Wizards’ semi-planes can reach hundreds of square kilometers in area.”
“This space is too small.”
Soren did not possess extensive knowledge about semi-planes, but he had visited the large semi-plane of the Northern Witch Council. Though that semi-plane was unusually desolate, without a trace of life.
However, its size was almost comparable to a continental shelf of the Overseas Islands.
True Divine Kingdoms are quite vast.
Some ancient deities’ domains are even similar in size to the Material Plane, while others’ domains generally reach the scale of a continent.
This is merely a fragment of a Divine Kingdom.
Of course, it is also possible that the God of the Hunt’s domain has collapsed too severely, with most of its space already entering temporal turbulence.
“There’s fighting over there!?”
Soren quickly noticed some traces. Others had entered here before him.
The space of the Divine Kingdom fragment was rapidly shrinking, and there seemed to be no energy support here. At the current rate of contraction, this semi-plane would completely vanish within three days at most.
However.
Since this fragment of the Divine Kingdom has not been directly extinguished, there should still be some internal support. Soren estimated that there was a temple dedicated to the God of the Hunt – Mara, and the deity would also patrol His domain. Temples sometimes function like royal palaces and serve as energy hubs within the Divine Kingdom. If a Prayer Weaver were to die, their soul’s power would be converted by the temple to expand the area of the Divine Kingdom. Relying solely on divine power to construct a Divine Kingdom is highly exhausting; if they cannot split off planes, they can only depend on the souls of Prayer Weavers to compensate.
The battle occurred at the edge of the forest.
By the time Soren arrived, it was almost over.
There were many corpses on the ground, some of beasts, some of humans, with only three survivors: an elf, a half-elf, and a halfling.
The nearby beasts were not Prayer Weavers.
They were magical creatures from the Material Plane; indeed, several winter wolves had entered this Divine Kingdom plane as well.
Weak Prayer Weavers had mostly perished as the Divine Kingdom collapsed.
At this moment, the enemies these individuals faced were a twisted beast resembling a giant ape, its body neither flesh nor blood but in a semi-energized form between the physical and spectral.
—“Holy Spirit!”
The monster before him was an apostle of the God of the Hunt – Mara, responsible for managing His Divine Kingdom.
If a believer is exceptionally pious and fervent in their faith toward a deity, they may be promoted to a “Holy Spirit” upon their death; of course, mere faith is not enough, as one needs personal potential and recognition of the deity’s teachings.
Holy Spirits are generally at the Legendary Level.
As Holy Spirits, they can wield a trace of power granted by the deity; even if the God of the Hunt – Mara has fallen, the beastly Holy Spirit before him can still channel power from within the Divine Kingdom.
These Adventurers have decent combat power.
Most are High-level Professionists, but facing a Holy Spirit capable of using divine power, they have little advantage.
Many beast corpses around were torn apart.
It seems that the Holy Spirit’s targets were not solely the Adventurers; even these beasts were included.
Behind the forest was a massive altar.
As a divine being spreading faith in the wilderness, the God of the Hunt – Mara’s kingdom is not constructed into a civilized realm like those of other deities; the entire Divine Kingdom is a primitive and savage environment. It resembles the kingdom of the God of Conspiracy, filled with various schemes; the Prayer Weaver believers plot against each other with caution, while the kingdom of the God of War is in constant turmoil, with Prayer Weavers engaged in significant disputes among themselves. Within the kingdom of the God of the Hunt – Mara, the dominant theme remains related to “Hunt.”
Hunting and being hunted.
Mara, as an evil faction deity, does not treat the lower Prayer Weavers well; believers must be strong enough to draw His attention after entering the Divine Kingdom.
Moreover, evil gods are not very patient.
If Prayer Weavers die of old age, the cycle is simply too long; while maintaining the number of Prayer Weavers, evil gods often resort to more violent means to harvest a batch of souls regularly.
Of course.
They wouldn’t get their hands dirty personally, but they certainly have their ways, right?
…………
(To be continued ~^~)
