After visiting Margaret's grave, Daoist Lingyang threw himself into intense preparations.
The chaos of war had just ended on the ancient continent of Atalante, with the Church of Light being completely destroyed and the Dark Empire ruling the continent.
From then on, this place fell under the Dark Faction’s control.
This was the general trend of the World of Gods. Seven of the twelve greater gods were from the Dark Faction, and their strength was enough to crush the Light Faction.
If Austin hadn't saved the day by desperately supporting the Light Faction with his own strength, perhaps the World of Gods would have already lost sight of any light.
However, what Daoist Lingyang was doing at this very moment was to subvert the Dark Empire’s rule—to be more accurate, he was trying to subvert the rule of its imperial family.
Order after order was issued, team after team was dispatched, and a plan countless years in the making was now revealing the tip of its iceberg now that Atalante was finally unified.
"Gu Nan and Karina have come to Atalante," Xue Ren suddenly spoke up while Daoist Lingyang was writing furiously.
Xue Ren was responsible for receiving information from the Heaven-God Alliance, so he was the first to know.
There was a slight lurch to Daoist Lingyang’s movements, but then he said, "Gu Nan has taken in the God of Labyrinths. He’s most likely looking for some kind of ancient relic. It has nothing to do with us."
Atalante was very large. Gu Nan going on a treasure hunt didn't conflict with his own plans.
"You really won’t consider having the two of them do you a favor?" Xue Ren asked with a small smile.
This time, Daoist Lingyang’s movements didn’t pause as he casually replied, "I don't screw over my allies."
"So, I'm not one of your allies?" Xue Ren pretended to be angry, glaring at him.
"You jumped into this mess yourself."
……
Atalante was indeed huge. There weren't many main planes in the entire World of Gods to begin with, and this was one of them.
It was even rarer to find a main plane under the complete control of the Dark Faction. It meant this place could be managed and developed in a unified manner, with the power of faith being harvested with the highest efficiency.
Gu Nan brought Karina and David to a strange place.
This place originally seemed to be a small mountain range, but it was shrouded by a marvelous power, forming a garden.
"The first-generation Blacksmith God created the divine spear right here, and he used his own blood to water this divine weapon. His blood evaporated into mist and affected the surrounding laws," David's hollow pupils slowly returned to normal while he spoke.
"There are several Legend Rank humans occupying this place." Karina raised her head to glance ahead. The layer of mist outside the garden seemed completely useless against her.
Gu Nan, on the other hand, was no stranger to this place. "This is the Garden of Spirits… I didn't realize the divine spear was forged here."
Atalante produced countless missions because of its constant war, so Gu Nan was quite familiar with this continent.
Gu Nan took out the two broken spear halves, and sure enough, he saw a shimmering light emanating from them. This was the result of the item the Blacksmith God left behind back then resonating with the divine spear.
"Is this my spear?" Karina stuck her head over.
"It's mine now," Gu Nan emphasized.
Karina couldn't help rolling her eyes and raised the new divine spear in her hand. "It's merely a masterpiece of the first Blacksmith God."
True. If it hadn’t been bathed in the blood of countless gods, just in terms of the forging technique and materials, the first Blacksmith God was definitely no match for the current one.
Time passed, and gods also advanced. The belief that gods who existed in ancient times were more powerful than the current gods had always been nonsense.
But what Gu Nan cared about wasn't the weapon itself, but what it represented.
The first Blacksmith God was the Blacksmith God who had been in office the longest. In other words, he also amassed wealth unimaginable to ordinary gods.
After all, it cost money to seek him out to forge a divine weapon.
And according to the background in the game, all of his truly amazing goodies were left behind in the place where he forged this divine spear.
"Why did the first Blacksmith God do this?" Karina couldn't help wondering after hearing Gu Nan's narration.
She was born much later than the first Blacksmith God and wasn't the first owner of the divine spear, so she didn’t know much about it.
"This divine spear, which he called Muse, was the highest achievement of his life, although it doesn't seem like much nowadays," Gu Nan explained flatly.
This was the power of technological innovation, and even more so, the power of knowledge.
At least, the first Blacksmith God did not understand materials science, and his proudest divine spear was hard enough but weak in shear resistance, so it was easily smashed by Gu Nan.
"Go in," Gu Nan said without further elaboration.
The Garden of Spirits was nothing more than the stronghold of a few Legend Rank mortals, so the three gods weren't concerned about them in the slightest. They didn't even have any intention of hiding their tracks as they directly stepped inside.
A shadow instantly floated up to them the second the three stepped inside, lowering its gaze respectfully but uttering words that weren’t necessarily respectful.
"Your Highnesses, the Garden of Spirits is under the protection of Archmage Claude, and we are believers of the Tenebrosity Divine Kingdom."
The Tenebrosity Divine Kingdom was the Divine Kingdom of the God of Tenebrosity Lewis, and Archmage Claude was Lewis's spokesperson on this continent.
The laws of the God of Tenebrosity and the Goddess of Darkness were extremely similar. While this certainly caused Lewis to practically lose all hope of stepping into the greater god realm, it also gave him strength far beyond his peers.
With origin laws like light and darkness, as long as the person who obtained it wasn’t too stupid, they would always end up pretty well off.
"So this is Lord Lewis's territory." David nodded. His face didn’t betray anything, but he was already planning to retreat.
Main planes were very special existences where powerhouses at the greater god level couldn’t personally descend. At best, they could only launch a long-distance attack from another plane, so powerful gods like Lewis were the main force in raiding main planes.
In fact, on the continent of Atalante, the Dark Empire’s imperial family was none other than Lewis’s bloodline descendants.
So it wasn't at all unusual for Gu Nan and the others to run into Lewis's forces, as his faction was the most powerful people on this continent to begin with.
David only came here to look for treasure under Gu Nan's "coercion." He absolutely didn’t want to offend Lewis because of this.
Of course, this was also because the person in front of him was respectful enough. Otherwise, the dignity of a god was not something a mere Legend Rank could offend.
David was ready to retreat. Even if it was Lewis's territory, it was still fine for the three of them to sneak in.
However, he never could’ve imagined that Gu Nan wouldn’t even say a word before half of a divine spear was already embedded into the person before them.
Gu Nan was using Karina’s broken spear, which directly shattered the newly solidified shadow, and even the entire Garden of Spirits began to shake.
"It's going to collapse." Gu Nan raised his head nonchalantly, knowing that the one he just killed was most likely the garden’s manager.
"Your Excellency Gu Nan…" David’s mouth turned a little dry. "If you just kill him so directly, won’t it…?"
"It's fine. It'll be a while before news reaches Lewis," Gu Nan said while raising the broken spear in his hand. "And didn't I find a scapegoat already?"
Shifting the blame 2.0.
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