Stepping into the doorway, Louie felt his divinity tremble slightly. He could tell that from that very moment, the laws governing the world around him had changed. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible difference, but it was there nonetheless. Likely only demigods could detect it.
The momentary unease subsided and soon he felt the solid earth under his feet. Eyes flashing with divine power, his gaze swept around the surroundings.
After a few moments, though, he relaxed. In her heyday, this would have been a suicide mission. Asides from facing another God on their home turf, the Goddess of Night had an especially strong hatred of intruders.
The world was silent and blanketed with a thick carpet of dark fog. The ground was layered in all directions with broken walls and tiles. And when the wind blew it whistled with a dreary tone.
Louie picked up an obsidian fragment by his feet. It was a remnant of one of the proud residences that stood here 30,000 years prior. Peering into the distance, he could see a shattered mountain peak pulsing with chaotic energy.
The elf queen walked next to him and spoke, her tone a mixture of several complex emotions, “The laws here seem to be converging with the laws of the Shadow Realm.”
“Normally, a divine kingdom has its own rules which increase the power of its master, but this kingdom has almost assimilated with the Shadow Realm. It is to the point that the rules of this realm have already been replaced by the rules of the Shadow Realm. This divine kingdom has already become useless.”
The Elf Queen closed her eyes slightly to sense the surroundings and said, “The size of the divine kingdom is no longer the same. In the past, the Goddess of Night’s divine kingdom reached millions of square kilometers, but now, it is so large that I can not sense the boundaries.”
She sighed in pity.
Louie replied, “You seem quite familiar with the Goddess of Night.”
At this, Carandia smiled and continued, “Even without her support, the Goddess of Night’s divine throne hasn’t completely fallen. Even if the entire divine kingdom has fallen into desolation, the divine throne still stands at the core of the divine kingdom. That is our target.”
The Elf Queen once again pointed at a direction in the distance. Louie looked and sensed powerful fluctuations of divine energy spilling from a tower.
Once that building likely housed the Queen of Night’s divine throne. It was a symbol of her immense might and could strike fear into the hearts of any other God. Now, however, it was in ruins.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He let the elf queen take the lead in this situation since she seemed more familiar with the Gods.
The Queen nodded her head and went forward first. At the same time, she said, “Normal divine kingdoms have various rules that prohibit things like teleportation or even flying. Even if the kingdom is in ruins, it is still better to follow the rules to prevent touching some prohibitions that may still exist. We are better off walking, Lord Louie.”
The two walked quickly side by side.
Suddenly—
“Lord Louie, be careful.”
From both sides, the darkness began to churn. A long-robed monster, reminiscent of the Grim Ream emerged from the cloudy fog. While distinctly humanoid, its body was extremely distorted. Its face was the texture of a willow tree’s bark, and its limbs appeared desiccated and thin.
Seeing Louie and the elf queen, the monster rushed in their direction. Its behavior was more akin to the ecstasy of finding prey than anger at its territory being intruded on.
“A divine creature?”
Louie could sense the faint divinity from this misshapen creature. Its divinity resembled the shard of the Goddess of Night that he had obtained from Noella.
“No, it’s a divine creature that has been freed from the control of the Gods.”
The Elf Queen denied Louie’s answer and explained further. Then she took a step forward and brandished a magic staff.
Louie waited for her to act.
To his astonishment, the staff began to shine with moonlight. Its head detached from the rest of it and rose in the air, growing till it became a gigantic, spiky ball. The lower part of the staff solidified into a bar of iron. A chain of light appeared to connect the two together.
This staff had actually turned into a morning star. This was a weapon that few people could wield properly. Most of those who did had burly figures and powerful muscles.
By contrast, the elf before him was thin and almost frail-looking.
Louie felt his scalp tingle.
‘C-could this be the legendary way to allocate points for a mage class? Adding one point to magic arts and the rest to strength?’