Chapter 474 - 473: Pantheon of Ten Thousand Gods
With the ultimate evolution of his Spirit Eye martial soul, aided by the power of Electrolux and the Skydream, Huo Yuhao finally took that crucial step. He attained the divine seat of the God of Consciousness, earning the right to enter the Pantheon.
There, he clearly saw the true, vast, and terrifying form of the Haiyuan League, hidden beneath the iceberg and the surface of the water.
Huo Yuhao's footsteps finally halted before the teleportation array in the central plaza of Haiyuan City. For a moment, he gazed out at this dreamlike city floating in the sky. In the distance, children chased and played amidst a sea of holographically projected flowers, their laughter pure and clear. Closer by, people basked in the afternoon sunlight, their faces peaceful and content. It was a perfect, almost utopian world.
But Huo Yuhao understood that any form of perfection inevitably required an even greater, absolute power. And it was existences like himself who formed the very foundation of that perfection.
He hesitated no longer, retracting his gaze and quietly reciting his personal authorization code in his heart. He stepped forward.
This step did not land on solid ground. Instead, he entered a strange void, woven with streams of data and lines of law. The real world rapidly rewound like a videotape in reverse, blurring and shattering, finally dissolving into primordial darkness.
He did not walk with his feet, but with his will and divine essence, traversing the gap between reality and illusion.
When he stepped down once more, the scene before him had transformed into an endless, eternal starry sky.
This was the Pantheon.
It did not exist in any corner of the material world, but rather as a gigantic tumor parasitizing a higher-dimensional space, endlessly absorbing the faith, laws, and energy of the entire Douluo Star to grow and expand.
There was no sky, no earth, no sun, nor moon—only a deep, eternal darkness so profound it made one's heart race.
Countless luminous bands, as bright as the Milky Way, flowed slowly through the darkness—like chains of law binding Douluo Star.
At the center of this vast starfield floated a gigantic circular table, crafted from indescribably pure black crystal. Around its edge stood magnificent altars of varying forms, each exuding a unique sacred aura.
Huo Yuhao's gaze settled on one in particular—a sacred throne of icy-blue crystal and swirling gray mist.
He stepped forward and, traversing countless lightyears in a moment, quietly sat upon the sacred throne.
The moment he sat, the entire throne seemed to come alive. Four ancient scripts, condensed from pure spiritual power and inscribed with law, slowly lit up on the back of the throne—"God of Consciousness."
Here, this throne belonged to him.
Huo Yuhao closed his eyes, feeling the wonderful resonance of being perfectly united with his sacred seat.
This was a true technological artifact, created by Herta and Ruan Mei. At its core, it was a hyper-miniature godhead backup and amplification system, connected to the Pantheon's main server.
Each sacred seat was bound to the deepest, quantum-level divine position of its respective god. As long as this throne existed and the Pantheon's main server was intact, the god seated here was, in theory… immortal.
Even if he were to fall in battle outside, his godly body destroyed, divine status shattered, and soul annihilated, the Pantheon's server would quickly restore his godhood data from backup into this sacred throne.
By sacrificing immense energy, he would be resurrected unscathed.
This resurrection was not merely the reconstruction of the body, but a true restoration of divine status, soul, and memory.
This was the greatest guarantee—and the strongest shackle—bestowed upon these allies by Lu Jingming.
After all, the authority to resurrect ultimately rested in the hands of Lu Jingming.
At the same time, through the sacred seat, Huo Yuhao could submit requests to the Pantheon's main system, temporarily borrowing the vast majesty of the Pantheon to amplify his own combat strength exponentially.
Of course, the more power borrowed, the higher the price owed to the alliance.
In this era of mighty gods, only Huo Yuhao was alone in this way.
He sat quietly, like a sculpture, waiting.
How much time passed, he did not know.
Suddenly—"KRAKA-BOOM!"
A purple-black thunderbolt, filled with destruction and tyranny, tore through the eternal silence of the Pantheon.
Amidst the thunder, a figure suddenly appeared and landed heavily upon the sacred throne opposite Huo Yuhao.
It was the Demon Empress.
Like Huo Yuhao, she too had joined the Pantheon.
"So you're here as well," Huo Yuhao opened his eyes, calmly meeting the Demon Empress's gaze and offering a slight greeting.
"Of course, I had to come," the Demon Empress replied with a twisted, bloodthirsty smile. Her voice was filled with madness and hatred, all the suppressed emotions of years ready to erupt. "I've waited for this day, for so long... Every particle of my being has yearned for it—to tear apart that hypocritical, despicable man and his so-called divine realm."
She was speaking of the Sea God, Tang San.
At that moment, atop the grand central throne at the very head of the round table, formed from a swirl of countless stars, a figure quietly materialized without warning. It was as if he had always been there, as if he was the starry sky and the temple itself.
This was the Lord of Gods and Supreme Commander of the Haiyuan League—Lu Jingming.
The instant he appeared, the violent, almost uncontrollable aura radiating from the Demon Empress was instantly suppressed by a deeper, unfathomable will.
"It's time," Lu Jingming's calm gaze swept over Huo Yuhao and the Demon Empress, getting straight to the point.
"I will open the path to the Divine Realm for you."
"Whether you seek vengeance or to save, go now."
His words shattered the deepest desires in both their hearts.
The Demon Empress burned with the desire for vengeance upon the Sea God Tang San.
As for Huo Yuhao, he entered the Divine Realm to rescue his mother's soul, forcibly bound by Tang San's Asura God status.
Huo Yuhao rose from his divine throne, bowing deeply to the inscrutable being seated at the head.
"Thank you," his voice was sincere and solemn.
He knew Lu Jingming was not helping out of goodwill. In that man's eyes, he and the Demon Empress were nothing but pawns.
But so what?
Lu Jingming's goals did not conflict with his own. That was enough.
"Prepare yourselves. The Stargate will open in three days," Lu Jingming declared. With those final words, his figure slowly faded away from the central seat, vanishing just as he had appeared.
It was as if all that had just happened was an illusion.
As he left, the Demon Empress could no longer suppress the ecstasy and murderous intent in her heart, letting out a mad, jubilant laugh that shook the entire temple.
"Tang San, this is your end!"
Huo Yuhao ignored the crazed Demon Empress. Silently, he turned away, stepped forward, and vanished among the gods.
…
When Huo Yuhao and the Demon Empress departed, the will of Lu Jingming did not truly disappear from the now-vacant main seat.
His gaze pierced the endless void, resting on the faintly glowing Divine Realm.
In his eyes, the Divine Realm of Douluo was like a thatched cottage ravaged by a storm, while he himself sat aboard a cosmic warship capable of shattering stars, watching the futile resistance from afar with indifference.
To destroy it?
It would be simple—just one command, and a hypothetical collapse beam would fire from Douluo Star's orbit, wiping out the Divine Realm and its gods both physically and conceptually in 0.3 seconds. This was the Starrail Stellar Annihilation Cannon, the strongest anti-galactic strategic weapon created by Herta.
But that would be a waste.
A complete Divine Realm was an incredibly precious resource. The immense faith energy, unique planar laws, and the many gods within were the best nourishment for Lu Jingming to enhance his system of gods.
His ambition was not only to build a new divine domain to replace the old, but to accomplish the ultimate feat—the very thing that even the Dragon God, the mightiest God King in history, failed to achieve:
To evolve the Pantheon's demi-plane, through devouring, fusion, and sublimation, into a true divine star—a supreme cosmic being with self-awareness and infinite power.
The former Dragon God had harbored the same ambition, seeking to sublimate his self-created Divine Dragon Realm into an immortal divine star.
In the end, for various reasons, he failed, died, and the dragon clan collapsed.
But Lu Jingming did not believe he would fail.
Why? Because his team was unimaginably beyond even the wildest dreams of any God King.
He had Ruan Mei, a genius who had reached the pinnacle of cosmic life sciences, transcending flesh and blood, whose research encompassed all forms of life—carbon-based, energy-based, even conceptual. The principles of birth, growth, and the ultimate form of the cosmos—making a plane into the shell of a divine star—had long been thoroughly researched by her.
He had The Herta, a genius who had reached the apex of physics and imaginary numbers, pondering how to stably fuse two different planes.
How to construct a hyperdimensional, stable structure to support the existence of a divine star?
How to write the logical system that would allow gods to evolve and upgrade themselves?
To the gods, these were mysteries as impenetrable as the heavens; to The Herta, they were nothing more than mind games over afternoon tea.
The difficulties that the Dragon God faced and ultimately failed, in the face of their research, were as laughably simple as kindergarten math problems.
The so-called divine star, its mysterious veil, had long been stripped away by this group of scientists.
Now, all Lu Jingming had to do was follow the construction plans, gather the necessary materials, and begin the work, step by step.
And the Douluo Divine Realm was the last and most crucial primary resource to be collected in his plan.
He aided Huo Yuhao and the Demon Empress, sending them as vanguards to wreak havoc within the Divine Realm and devour the last divine powers to smooth the final steps.
At the same time, the last grand scene—the splendid and beautiful vestige of the old era—was about to play out.
The curtain was about to fall.
"Then, let the play begin,"
Lu Jingming's will slowly withdrew from the gods, leaving only the eternal, vast starry sky.
….
Divine Realm
It is a plane floating in a higher dimension.
It should have been the very embodiment of order, eternity, and light.
But now, it was a battlefield.
"BOOM——!!!"
A pillar of crimson divine power and a blood-colored demonic sword, condensed from pure killing intent, clashed boldly above the center of the Divine Realm.
There was no sound at the moment of impact, yet tens of thousands of miles of space twisted violently and silently, like ripples on water struck by a stone, layer upon layer, until even light itself was swallowed by pure black void.
Ma Hongjun's thin figure retreated half a step from the void.
Opposite him stood Sea God Tang San, wielding the Asura Demon Sword, his long white hair flowing despite the absence of wind, his eyes burning with the crimson ferocity of the Asura God. The power of the God King radiated from his entire being, an indescribably dangerous and powerful aura.
Elsewhere, the sky rang with battle cries.
A colossal Dragon King, over ten thousand feet tall and clad in radiant golden scales, fought desperately with a handsome man wielding a shining divine sword.
All across the vast battlefield, the fighting was even more chaotic.
The God of Emotions melted ice, the God of Destruction fought with the Goddess of Life, the God of Evil Ji Dong and the God of Kindness Lie Yan battle with the Heavenly Emperor Tian Hen and Zither Emperor Ye Yinzhu of another world, plus the Immortal Emperor, the Mad God Lei Xiang, and the Death God Ah Dai were all locked in inseparable combat…
In their respective worlds, all had once been supreme existences dominating their eras. Now, they were like beasts trapped in the same colosseum, locked in a long and ultimate battle, tearing the Divine Realm apart for the sake of their beliefs, factions, and personal grudges.