Chapter 150: Lizard Godmother (1)
The Golden Cavalry following behind abruptly halted. The Count of Mount Heidu, invincible in their eyes, was missing—his fate unknown.
Pulling their reins taut, the cavalrymen held their ground.
Above them, in a stretch of sky that was clearly empty, they somehow "saw" a fathomless ocean stretching over their heads.
"Kill!" the deputy captain leading them shouted. His face turned cold as he resolutely drew his longsword and charged forward.
"I smell something interesting. Interesting, truly so interesting~"
The eerie voice echoed in the knights' ears.
Crashing waves echoed as the azure deep sea suddenly began to churn like furious breakers.
The azure waters grew darker and darker, shifting from clear blue to a deep gloom that resembled churning black ink.
Fear swelled in the knights' hearts—a purely instinctive dread.
It was the primitive terror of prey encountering an apex predator.
A profound darkness was slowly rising through the water, drawing closer and closer...
Suddenly, countless tentacles erupted from the surface, fanning outward like a blooming chrysanthemum.
At the center of those writhing limbs was a pupil as deep blue as a gemstone, burning with the brightest hue of the ocean.
"Om—"
The mysterious, arcane tone echoed across the sky.
The charging horses slowed to a halt.
Tiny tentacles stretched outward from their nostrils, eyelids, and ears.
Their manes shriveled and curled into rings. Transparent membranes grew across the center of each ring and gradually hardened. As the sea breeze blew past, the dense scales emitted a crisp, clinking chime.
Beneath the heavy golden armor of the knights, muffled groans escaped, as though something were trying to burrow its way out of their flesh.
"Your faith hides in the ethereal depths, but only I am your true salvation. Now, kneel, and worship me!"
"It seems you have found something fun," Lynn remarked, sensing that Maesys was in a good mood.
"I have indeed found some rather nice toys," Maesys replied cheerfully.
"And these toys carry the aura of other gods upon them," Maesys added with a meaningful tone.
Maesys no longer cared about the kobold tribe, having set its sights on something far more valuable.
The battle in the sky had reached its finale.
The King of the Black Mountain was thoroughly suppressed by the green dragon, which rode upon its back with both claws embedded deeply into its spine.
The black dragon crashed into the cliffside like a falling aircraft, crushing a vast swathe of forest.
Amidst the rolling dust and smoke, the green dragon raised its head and roared.
It let out the long, triumphant cry of a victor.
Behind Lynn, a troop of the Golden Cavalry approached. Seeing these humans, some of the demons could not help but grow restless.
The horned demon closest to them stepped forward, blocking the cavalry's path.
It stretched out its thick-skinned arm. Based on past experience, dealing with such fragile humans required only a slight shove—bam!
The next instant, the horned demon felt as though it had collided with a solid statue, and it was instantly sent flying backward.
Yet the speed of the Golden Cavalry did not slow down by even a fraction.
They only halted when they reached Lynn's vicinity. The uniform Golden Cavalry stood tall before him, disciplined and immovable as a row of silent statues.
"I sense traces left upon these cavalrymen by another god, but I tampered with the fruits of those seeds," Maesys said with a low chuckle.
"What god?"
"I cannot be certain yet, but there are traces of a monster," Maesys said.
A deity related to monsters, then.
Lynn fell into contemplation. It was no wonder Maesys had found a new target.
Deities generally fell into two categories: those whose authority derived from specific divine portfolios, and those bound to specific races.
However, there was a rather special type among the gods—those who achieved divine status as monsters.
They did not belong to populous races; their numbers were scarce, and some monster bloodlines barely had any living members at all.
For such monsters, attaining divine status was exceptionally difficult. Lacking numerous kin, they found it incredibly hard to gather faith. They usually had no choice but to continuously strengthen their physical bodies, slowly accumulating their foundation by devouring Divine Beings until they could finally seize an opportunity to ascend.
Of course, there were also a few mad monsters that had pulled off astonishingly daring feats—directly devouring weakened deities to usurp their divine authority in a single stroke.
Such behavior was considered sheer madness across the entire multiverse.
And Maesys, right before him, was one such entity.
Lynn had reviewed Maesys's file. As an indigenous deity of the Continent of Vanquished Gods, and one who had been personally sealed away by wizards, Maesys's background was essentially laid bare, available for inspection with very little effort.
Maesys was originally just an ancient deep-sea giant demon-eyed octopus.
During the period of the divine war, the God of Tides and the God of Monsoons erupted into conflict. The God of Tides had half its body severed and fled back to its divine kingdom with the remains.
Maesys, lurking beneath the sea, seized the opportunity to plunder the severed half of the divine body, devouring the residual divinity and divine power within it.
During the divine war, the believers of the God of Tides suffered heavy casualties and were subjected to joint suppression by other churches.
Just as things grew critical, Maesys suddenly burst onto the scene, disguising itself as a new God of Tides to completely absorb the remaining followers.
By the time the God of Tides finally managed to recover, what it encountered was a divine kingdom reduced to utter weakness due to a lack of believers, alongside a divinity nearly squandered to heal its injuries.
Meanwhile, Maesys—having spent those years expanding its power base in the deep sea thanks to its innate racial advantages—led a massive horde of subjugated sea monsters, together with a multitude of converts from the New Tide Church, straight into the divine kingdom of the God of Tides.
The God of Tides was utterly bewildered, and what made it even more furious was that its former believers actually raised their voices together to denounce it as a false god.
Why does Your Majesty rebel? To wake from a healing slumber only to find oneself branded a false god?
Leading the numerous sea monsters in wave after wave of attacks, Maesys ultimately devoured the God of Tides, ascending in a single bound to the divine position of the God of Tides and Sea Monsters.
The most shocking aspect of this battle for divine authority was Maesys's performance, daring to face a deity head-on with a non-divine body and aggressively devour its godhood.
Even without the augmentation of a divine portfolio and godhood, Maesys's own power could not be underestimated; it had undoubtedly reached the level of a true deity.
And this time, encountering a deity connected to monsters meant that for Maesys, a monster god with a similar portfolio would be an absolute tonic.
Regardless of the specific domain of such a monster deity, consuming it would allow Maesys to further expand its divine portfolio, simply because monster-related deities were so rare.
Furthermore, since Maesys had disrupted the other party's plans, it believed that as long as the entity had not fallen into a deep slumber, it would definitely sense Maesys's aura.
At this thought, Maesys cast a traceless glance at Lynn.
Relying solely on its own strength, it certainly could not achieve its goals independently, which meant it still needed to rely on the power of these wizards.
Just as Maesys was entertaining its own private thoughts, a strange fluctuation of energy radiated from a hillside not far away, drawing its attention.