Book 7, Chapter 89: Distinguishing Immortality and Divinity

In the blink of an eye, a year had passed.

During these past few years, the outside world had been incredibly busy. The kingdoms were still embroiled in warfare and the noble families were still fighting amongst each other, spilling a sea of blood.

The Barbarians had also made their move.

No one had expected the disorderly, savage Barbarians to have suddenly unified into a single large kingdom.

These Barbarians were both vicious and unified, and they posed a significant threat to the humans. Some even proposed to put the internal conflicts on hold and deal with the outside invaders first. Unfortunately, those nobles’ bloodthirst was insatiable, and they refused to back down.

As for the gods, that was even less likely. The system of divine worship that had been so clear in the past suddenly seemed muddled and unclear.

First, the Moon Goddess Church had forcibly annexed the Winter God Church. Even though they had seemingly done it for the proper reasons, it still incited quite a severe backlash, causing many people to worry about the Moon Goddess Church’s ambition.

Next came the appearance of the Shadowless Sky Church, which also stunned quite a few people.

What church were they supposed to be?

Where had they come from?

The Shadowless Sky God?

They had never heard of him before!

There were only supposed to be twenty-three gods still remaining. Where had this twenty-fourth suddenly appeared from?

If you claimed they were real, why had they never been heard of before?

But if you claimed they were fake, then what about the miracles their disciples were performing? It seemed that they were doing more than all of the other twenty-three gods combined.

Purely in terms of outward activity, the Shadowless Sky God appeared to be the only true god, and the other gods were all fake.

Naturally, the Shadowless Sky Church grew at an unprecedented rate.

This growth was also closely related to the way that the church had elected to expand. The Shadowless Sky Church would not actively proselytize, nor would they try and make any moves on another church’s territory.

But they needed manpower.

They would often go to a city and perform healing miracles there, relying on this tactic to capture the interest of many potential disciples. Then, they would leave with those disciples. By the time the church in the area caught on, those disciples would be long gone. Because they didn’t interfere in any way other than to heal the sick, their main constituents were the poor, suffering commoners of low status. As such, their societal impact was not particularly significant either, and many churches were happy to see this take place.

Not long afterward, however, these churches discovered that a new gathering location had been built in the wilderness not far away from an already-established city.

They were building their own city!

Based on what the civilians were saying, the Shadowless Sky God possessed an extraordinary power that could not only dispel pestilence but also confer life to inanimate objects, construct buildings, and dispense food.

The other churches were stunned. The commoners had always been the ones serving and sustaining the church, not the other way around. When had the status quo been flipped?

To Frost, the church’s mission was not important, and the beauty of the physical building was not important either. All that mattered was to garner faith. The more believers they had, the less faith would be supplied to the gods, and the weaker they would become.

Stealing their faith was equivalent to stealing their strength.

Was it really that surprising that Frost was willing to take care of the needs of the commoners?

Not only so, but he had done his best to limit the restrictions on the disciples’ behaviors. For instance, he kept sermons short so that the disciples could more easily remember the important prayers; he kept the core tenets simple – follow the Shadowless Sky God and you will be blessed, or else suffer a curse; and he increased the repetitious nature of many of their activities to try and strengthen the brainwashing effect.

Frost himself did not need belief, as it had no value to him. However, in order to maintain a grip on the hearts of those believers, he needed to establish a system that promoted stronger faith. On the other hand, if immortal energy could devour divine power, could he try to absorb faith?

Frost spent quite a bit of time pondering this question.

Actually, Su Chen had considered this issue even when he was back in the Origin Realm, but until now his guesses had remained inconclusive. Frost, however, was one degree less removed from the gods, and because he was actively attempting to siphon faith away from the other gods, he gradually began to gain some understanding.

Divine power and immortal energy were actually two distinct kinds of energy. One drew from the outside world, while the other drew from an individual themselves.

And divine power’s faith requirements were actually a reflection of a need for consciousness energy.

Faith was a kind of consciousness energy. When disciples worshipped a certain target, their consciousness energy would be transmitted to that target. If the target then possessed enough power, such as an innate comprehension of Method Power, they would be able to absorb that consciousness energy.

And when enough faith was being supplied to any individual over a long period of time, the connection between the physical body and the consciousness would not only give the individual a powerful consciousness but would also begin to affect an individual’s vitality.

In other words, offering sacrifices of faith supplied the gods with both consciousness energy and vitality. This would meet the gods’ needs and allow them to live forever. In other words, these creatures were perpetually offering up their lifeforce to sustain a god’s existence.

The gods relied on this method of scavenging to survive.

Immortal energy, on the other hand, was generated from within an individual. That individual would possess a power that was not dependent on the environment.

A philosophy that had once been quite prevalent in human society was the idea of the existence of two worlds: one outside of an individual, and one within. The path of cultivation primarily dealt with this inward world. However, such a philosophy was a little too abstract and simplistic, as it didn’t account for supplementing one’s cultivation base with cultivation resources.

Abstractions could never trump reality.

As such, this philosophy gradually faded from the public eye. By this point, no one even knew who the original conceiver of the idea was.

Su Chen’s discovery of immortal energy, however, had confirmed the accuracy of this perspective.

Though he had recognized it as a possibility in the past, only now was he beginning to understand it in a fuller way.

Because it came from within, immortal energy was extremely compatible with the human body. Even though it was not as majestic as divine power, it was far more refined. This was also why immortal energy could devour divine power.

It wasn’t because immortal energy was inherently of a higher tier, but because immortal energy developed a person’s body, while divine power forced an individual to rely on external help. The relationship between immortal energy and the human body was like that of childhood sweethearts, while divine power was like a bought maidservant. Though both were equal in terms of humanity, their statuses were far different. The maidservant getting pushed around was an inevitability.

But just because the childhood sweetheart could push around the maidservant didn’t mean that she could prevent her husband from being unfaithful. As such, it could sometimes seem as if there was no end to the number of maidservants that the childhood sweetheart needed to push away.

Divine power might not be able to defeat immortal energy in an even competition, but its one saving grace was that it typically came in much larger quantities.

The childhood sweetheart needed to constantly eradicate these outside homewreckers in order to establish her superiority and drive them all away……

This was the process by which immortal energy could grow.

Upon realizing this, Frost suddenly discovered that it was not impossible for immortal energy and divine power to coexist.

If after marrying the childhood sweetheart, the husband paid her most of his attention and only dabbled in affairs with other mistresses, it was possible that the childhood sweetheart would let things slide. After all, he was still treating her well, and if she tried to force him it was possible she would only drive him away even more.

According to this logic, it should be possible to absorb some divine power into his body without allowing the immortal energy to devour it.

In addition to growing his church’s membership and stealing away disciples from the other churches, Frost had spent some time studying this idea.

By toying around with it during the past few years, Frost had actually managed to succeed.

By now, he was capable of sustaining both in his body for an extended period of time.

Of course, the amount of divine power he could store in his body was extremely limited – virtually not worth mentioning. Normally, divine power vastly outnumbered immortal energy, but in Frost’s body this power dynamic was reversed.

The childhood sweetheart seemed to have a jealous streak after all.

There was nothing Frost could do.

Of course, he also knew that the beginning was the most difficult. By putting in work at the beginning, he would lay a foundation that would allow him to advance in leaps and bounds in the future.

The childhood sweetheart was too jealous at the moment, but once she got used to the existence of the other mistresses, perhaps she would warm slightly to the idea.

Of course, even if he was able to accomplish that, Frost’s strength wouldn’t change much.

Divine power was still nothing more than nourishment for immortal energy. The seeming equilibrium between the two in Frost’s body wouldn’t bring his strength up; in fact, it was very possible that it would make him weaker.

After all, Frost needed to keep a tight leash on the immortal energy in his body.

On the other hand, doing so had an alternate use as well.

This was to hide.

The Shadowless Sky Church’s influence was beginning to grow.

Soon, the gods would turn their attention upon him once more as their supply of faith began to dry up.

Even though Frost was doing his best to nab disciples equally from all the gods and decrease his footprint, he would eventually be found out.

This time, Frost did not want to hide.

If he did, the church he had poured so much energy into would be destroyed overnight. The disciples would return to their original belief systems, and the faith that had been siphoned away would return.

Frost didn’t want his efforts to go towards merely starving the gods of a single meal.

As such, he needed to continue the fight.

If he wanted to withstand the gods, he needed to convince them that this Shadowless Sky God was in fact one of them.

Bang!

A wave of golden light burst forth from Frost’s body. Suddenly, he was covered from head to toe in brilliantly shining golden armor.

Outwardly, it was true that Frost bore a faint resemblance to a god.

Very quickly, however, this divine power was totally consumed.

Thankfully, Frost could already accept faith and convert it into divine power. By this point, he had a steady enough supply that he could maintain the armor without it fading away.

But that was all he could do. Besides that, he was totally powerless.

“Ai, this is all just posturing. But at least the Divine Power is real. As long as I don’t have to fight, the gods won’t be able to tell what is hiding under that golden armor,” Frost said with a slight smile.

With the Eternal Treaty still in effect, the gods could not make moves against each other.

As such, it was theoretically possible for him to conceal his true identity from the gods without being discovered. What could possibly be better?

Suddenly, an idea flashed through Frost’s mind.

He glanced down at himself.

In that moment, he understood.

He understood how the Human Ancestor had managed to survive all these years, and how he had managed to trick all the other gods.

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