The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 425 The Spark of True Divinity
As Hela was obliterated by the chaotic power, the underworld, which had been formed from the nascent divine kingdom, began to slowly dissipate.

This time, Hela is truly dead.

Although in the later stages of the battle, from the moment Hela's defenses were breached by Chaotic Power and Deepwater Devour, Wu Chang realized he could win.

But when he actually killed Hela, he still couldn't quite believe it.

He actually killed a real god.

This wasn't the first time he had defeated a god, but the Hela who appeared here was incomparable to any of the god projections he had encountered before.

Whether it is a divine projection or a divine avatar, both are restricted by the rules of the Desolate Realm and cannot exert abilities that exceed the limits allowed by the Desolate Realm.

They could easily bully ordinary players by relying on the divinity within their projected bodies, but when facing Wu Chang, the divine projection could not pose a threat to him and could not be considered a true god.

The same is true of the original gods of the Desolate Realm. They were born from the faith of the original inhabitants of the Desolate Realm and were born with divine power. They knew how to use faith to transform divine power, and when they faced the power of origin in the Desolate Realm, it was like a dimensional reduction attack.

Deities evolved from faith do not need to be grounded in reality, comprehend their divinity from the power of origin, nor do they need to inherit other forms of divinity.

In return, their existence is strongly tied to the followers who believe in them.

The believers of the Desolate Realm have completely limited their potential, preventing them from exceeding the boundaries of the Desolate Realm. In terms of true strength, they are at most demigods.

Unless they can lead the plane to ascend and enter the realm of reason, or break free from the bond with believers through acquired cultivation, they are no better than projections of gods.

Hela's existence is different from theirs.

Hela cannot enter the Desolate Realm, but she is a divinity condensed in the Intermediate Realm. Here, she is not restricted and is equivalent to a complete god who can use her full power.

Of all the enemies Wu Chang encountered, Hela was second only to the Lord of the Deep Sea.

The fact that he was able to defeat such a powerful enemy shows that he could fight even a god-level being on his own.

Although Hela's condition was not perfect, her divinity was flawed, and she was mentally unstable due to the experiment, he still held back and did not use the ultimate skill, the Dissidia Knight transformation.

Moreover, he defeated Hela without finding any resentment in her, without using his supernatural abilities to read her information, and in a completely fair situation.

This result greatly encouraged him.

Wu Changgang relaxed, when an incredulous voice rang out from behind him.

"You little brat, you actually managed to beat that monster!"

Wu Chang turned around and saw He Yi standing behind him, looking at the collapsing Underworld and sighing.

Judging from his tone, He Yi was more surprised than Hela about his victory over Hela.

Wu Chang shrugged and said:
“I demonstrated this power when I was dealing with the Mother Goddess of Desire. I thought you already knew about it.”

He Yi withdrew his gaze from the underworld and asked:

"Can I learn this power?"

“I’ve been observing Xiaoyun lately, and she seems to possess a similar power.”

Wu Chang looked at the drone possessed by He Yun and said, "You shouldn't be asking me this question."

He Yun continued:
"Yes, Anthem Corporation possesses a technology called Psionic Awakening Surgery, which can unlock a person's potential and grant them extraordinary powers."

“I have been preparing the details of your surgery. It won’t be long before I can take you there to activate your supernatural powers.”

Seeing the joy on He Yi's face, Wu Chang thought to himself, He Yi's combat talent is already heaven-defying enough. If he completes the level nine spiritual energy activation surgery, I really don't know what he will become.

He could already imagine that in a battle with a certain god, He Yi's Tyrant was destroyed, and facing a smug opponent who believed he had victory in the bag, He Yi climbed out of the cockpit and finished him off with a few punches and kicks.

Then I'll add that, besides mecha, I'm also somewhat skilled in hand-to-hand combat.

He Yi is a ruthless person who can wield the mecha's longsword with his bare body and cleave the mecha alive, so it's not impossible.

Wu Chang let out a breath, condemning He Yi and his sister for cheating on behalf of the other beings in the Abyss, and then turned his attention back to Hela.

As the group spoke, the underworld completely vanished, revealing the original research institute.

After Hela's death, the first thing to deal with was the enormous number of wandering souls.

Having lost Hela's control, the souls within her surged forth, coalescing into a whirlwind of gray energy.

The sound within the airflow was shrill and desperate, like the screams of torturers from the depths of hell.

He took out the Soul Cleansing Flag and walked towards the flow of souls.

With his current power, it wouldn't be difficult for him to drive the Soul Cleansing Banner to deliver the souls of the dead. However, Hela released too many souls after her death. In order to add some ritualistic elements and following the guidance of his inspiration, he took the same steps he used to drive the Soul Cleansing Banner before he added energy attributes.

He followed the trajectory of the Big Dipper, slowly circling the vortex of the dead souls, while chanting incantations and waving the Soul Cleansing Flag in his hand.

To ensure the successful passage of the deceased's souls, he used landmines in conjunction with waving the flags to expedite the process.

The ritual lasted for ten minutes before he had completely released the souls from Hela's body. As before, some of the soul power turned into white light that shot straight into the sky, while some was absorbed into the Soul Cleansing Flag by the Soul Nourishing Flag.

As a large number of souls entered, the Soul Cleansing Flag grew from a small flag of twenty centimeters to fifty centimeters in length. The flag became thick and heavy, with silver-white patterns appearing on its pure white surface, and a layer of hazy precious light emanated from its surface.

In addition to nurturing the Soul Cleansing Flag itself, the Soul Nourishing Technique also allocates soul power to increase the soul strength of Wu Chang's physical body.

Soul strength is a hidden attribute that cannot be directly described. It is not displayed on the attribute panel, nor will increasing it directly increase any attribute.

Only Wu Chang himself can truly understand the changes that have occurred.

A vast amount of soul power entered his body through the Soul Cleansing Banner. The soul power transformed into a cool sensation, circulated within his body, and finally gathered at the center of his brow.

As the power of his soul condensed between his brows, he faintly heard a crisp cracking sound, as if something inside his head was shattering.

The next moment, he felt his consciousness surge suddenly, rushing out of his body from between his eyebrows.

That feeling was similar to, yet not entirely the same as, when he used the evil spirit to enter the spirit body in his early days.

At this moment, his consciousness left his body, but he did not feel unsteady. Instead, he felt as grounded as when his consciousness remained in his body.

Guided by inspiration, he simultaneously opened up the spatial realm and the mystical realm, and his consciousness expanded rapidly, instantly filling the space where the two realms overlapped.

In this state, he discovered that the spatial and mystical realms were no longer his skills, but rather a part of his body.

His consciousness resonated with these two fundamental forces, leading to a profound realization.

Previously uncertain knowledge about spatial magic and mysticism became clear in this enlightenment.

Moreover, the image of the "divine script decipherer" made by Shi Ning flashed through his mind, and he vaguely understood a part or two of the mystical knowledge belonging to the divine level.

There is a legendary ritual called "enlightenment," which refers to the process of imparting wisdom to people to achieve complete enlightenment.

The feeling Wu Chang is experiencing now is like the enlightenment described in the text.

When the sense of enlightenment weakened, he withdrew his consciousness back to his physical body. At the moment when his consciousness and body merged, he saw two tiny sparks deep within his body.

He was very familiar with the aura emanating from the fire; it was the aura of divinity.

The elevation of his soul allowed him to see scattered sparks of divinity within his own source of power.

As long as the soul continues to improve, or the power of origin increases further, these divine sparks will continue to burn, becoming true divinity.

The divinity that he himself embodied.

Thinking of this, Wu Chang's breathing became somewhat rapid.

Condensing divinity through one's own power is something that is extremely rare, not only among players but even among the native gods of the Abyss Plane.

He had inquired about the condensation of divinity with the Omniscient Crystal.

Even the gods deep within the abyss possess a divinity that comes partly from inheritance and partly from being directly enhanced by stronger beings through special methods.

For mid-level deities like the Great Mother, or even lower-ranking deities, the divinity they inherit may only be the remnants of a powerful divinity that was shattered.

He then asked, since the forms of the gods all came from inheritance, where did the original gods come from?

The omniscient crystal's answer is: the Primordial Spiritual Pivot.

When a plane is first formed and the primordial spiritual core is still abundant, it is the period when gods are most likely to be born.

Some of the primordial spirit cores will directly transform into innate deities based on the faith of intelligent beings.

For example, the Sea God of the Silent Route was able to become a god through the faith of the fishermen because the Sun Immortal Seal preserved in Takagi Country contained a large number of Primordial Spiritual Pivots.

Beyond the innate deities formed from faith, powerful cultivators can also spontaneously attract primordial spiritual cores by refining their bodies and souls to their peak, thereby awakening their divinity.

They then formed the earliest gods in the abyss.

As the Primordial Spiritual Pivot gradually thinned, the requirements for becoming a god became increasingly difficult. Great evil gods like Lyman and Christine resided in the third layer of the Abyss, beyond the comprehension of the Omniscient Crystal.

Among the other beings who possess divinity that Wu had seen, only Joy was a divinity that awakened on its own without relying on external things.

Joyfully, he called it true divinity.

He still remembered how Joy had defied the odds during their battle, managing to withstand his chaotic powers through her own true divinity.

Although his chaotic powers were not activated by divine power and were not fully developed, powers are still powers.

Even a deity of Hela's caliber would have been able to eliminate the projection of Joy's Descent, demonstrating the immense power of true divinity.

Now, as Wu Chang's inspiration increases, he has also touched the edge of true divinity.

When he attains true divinity and they meet again, he will see if Joy can withstand his chaotic power.

After clearing away the spirits blocking the door, Wu Chang and his group entered the research department.

The research department was undamaged by the battle and was brightly lit, making its interior layout easily visible.

The entire research department is a large laboratory, divided into multiple areas for conducting different types of experiments.

At the very center of the laboratory is a circular workbench, and judging from the seating arrangement, operating these instruments requires hundreds of researchers simultaneously.

In the center of the workbench is a circular area of ​​over 100 square meters. The floor in this area is transparent, and beneath the transparent floor is a specially treated underground space.

Lying inside the space was a surface girl, about three meters tall, with the same appearance as Hela. The left half of her body had returned to normal that of a subterranean person, while the right half still retained the grotesque appearance of a surface person.

She was covered in tubes of various colors, which connected to the surrounding walls and transmitted information to the control panel on the ground.

In Wu Chang's eyes, the underground space was a huge blood well, a pool of blood that filled the entire secret research institute, with the blood gushing up from underground.

The girl trapped underground is the experimental subject that incubated Hela's divinity, and also the core of the resentment.

The moment his gaze fell upon Hela, his consciousness was pulled into the depths of the Blood Well. His vision blurred, and his consciousness entered a state of resentment.

Once the scene before him became clear, he had already entered the realm of resentment from a first-person perspective.

The resentment within the secret research institute was formed from the collective resentment, but the center of the resentment was Hela, so he entered Hela's perspective.

When he entered the realm of resentment, Hela was still a little girl, only 1.8 meters tall.

For people on Earth whose average adult height exceeds three meters, a height of 1.8 meters is indeed still that of a little girl.

Back then, everything on Earth still had color.

Severe pollution only creates a large amount of toxins and radiation; it does not completely rob the earth of its life.

Many plants and insects have adapted to this harsh environment and survived.

In the post-apocalyptic environment, the body size of all survivors has changed. Dangerous mutated insects that can grow to one or two meters, or even four or five meters, become the staple food of the surface dwellers.

Hela, whom Wu Chang possessed, was the daughter of the surface human leader and had access to a plentiful food supply.

Wu Chang attached himself to Hela and sensed the scent of the mutated insect.

Although the worms don't look appealing, and the meat inside resembles small tumors, after processing, 90% of the fishy smell can be removed. Once cooked, they become a unique food with a grassy aroma, a slightly bitter taste, and a juicy, crispy exterior and tender interior.

To be more specific, if you're yawning outdoors in autumn and a stink bug flies into your mouth, and you happen to chew it up, that's most likely what it will taste like.

It was disgusting, but better than Wu Chang had imagined.

Hela's tribe, centered around the city of Colette, is a large tribe that brings together all the surface dwellers in the surrounding area, numbering over ten thousand.

In addition to hunting and raising larvae, they also ambush the surrounding subterranean people.

If there are few of them, they will kill everyone and steal the supplies.

If their numbers are roughly equal, they will try to do business with the subterranean people, trading the parts they find on the surface for clean water and food, or other things.

If there are too many people, they will run away.

It sounds brutal, but that's the law of survival on Earth.

It all started with a hunt.

The surface scouts, relying on their enhanced eyesight after their mutation, spotted a group of underground people dressed in mechs passing by.

The group of underground people were well-equipped and escorting a large amount of supplies. The markings on their mechs indicated the number 87, suggesting they were a caravan from Underground Shelter No. 87, transporting goods and conducting a major business deal with another underground shelter.

According to the scouts, if they hijacked that shipment, it would be enough to sustain the entire tribe for at least a year. If they sold the mechs, they wouldn't have to worry about food for at least two years.

More importantly, the group was small in number, and if they made a move, they could completely wipe them out.

After a brief discussion, the surface dwellers of Colette City poured out and charged towards the escort team.

To facilitate the transfer of supplies afterward, all surface dwellers taller than 1.5 meters participated in the operation, including Hela.

The looting plan went very smoothly. The underground people who delivered the goods were novices. Their accompanying patrol planes only circled within five or six kilometers of the area, and in order to save energy, they did not issue warnings continuously, but instead flew once every half hour.

This allowed the surface dwellers to seize the opportunity and quickly set up their formation, encircling the group in a pocket-like shape.

As the sun set, they set up camp to rest. To ensure their safety, they deployed all their drones to hover over the camp, guarding against any potential attacks.

Using the cover of night and a special keratinous layer that allows them to regulate their body temperature, the people on the ground made their way to the area around the escort team.

They launched a preemptive attack, destroying all the drones in a single salvo, leaving the underground people without any view of the high ground.

They then quickly approached and threw several "Suffocator" grenades into the camp.

The "Suffocator" grenade is a weapon developed by surface scientists specifically to target subterranean mechs. When the grenade explodes, it creates a strong electromagnetic pulse field that can penetrate the shielding layer on the surface of the mech, destroy its high-powered weapons, and even paralyze it.

As the "Suffocator" grenade detonated, all the energy sources representing the mechs in the camp went dark, and everything went incredibly smoothly.

However, when the surface dwellers rushed into the camp, preparing to attack the escort team, they didn't see any panic on the faces of the escorts, but rather a strange mockery.

They quickly noticed that these subterranean people were different from the subterranean people they had seen before. They were covered in blood, their eyes were full of cruelty, they were hungrier than them, and they were more like hunters.

Just as the surface dwellers were in a daze, three underground dwellers, who weren't even wearing protective suits, stepped out from the crowd. The leader of them was dressed in a neat suit and had a fake salesman's smile on his face.

He turned on the translator, and it transmitted a voice that surface dwellers could understand.

"Hello everyone, I am Mercury, and I would like to make a deal with you."

The next moment, the malfunctioning mechs on the display started up instantly. Not only that, another group of mechs ambushed the surface people and surrounded them.

The mechs of these underground people were extremely powerful, having undergone special modifications, making it difficult for the surface people to fight back.

What troubled them even more was that the underground people used some unknown means to continuously weaken their bodies.

The battle lasted only half an hour before all the people on the ground collapsed to the ground, unable to struggle.

After subduing all the surface dwellers, Mercury took out a contract and had everyone sign it by swearing an oath.

The contract stipulated that they should cooperate with the Light Society in a god-making project. This required them not only to contribute all the selected test subjects to participate in the project, but also to cooperate with them in capturing other surface people in the surrounding areas to continuously replenish the test subjects.

Initially, several leaders of the tribe disagreed with signing the agreement, so several underground people tortured and killed the leaders in front of all the surface people, including Hela's father.

The leader of Underground Shelter No. 87, who was executing tribal chiefs, brandished his mecha sword, looked at Hela sitting on the ground, and asked Mercury in a tone that seemed to hold lingering satisfaction:
"Old Mo, can I kill two more?"

Mercury shook his head and said, "They are all important test subjects. We need to kill them after the test subjects are screened."

The shelter leader pointed his knife at Hela and said, "She looks a lot like that dead surface dweller. She'll be sad because her family died, so I'll reunite them."

Mercury sighed, "She has excellent potential and is a key target I have my eye on."

The leader said, "Killing one more won't make a difference, it's just one..."

Before he could finish speaking, the mech's cockpit suddenly exploded, and he turned into a pool of blood.

Mercury said helplessly, "I hate inefficient communication and hope that everyone will not waste each other's time."

The leader's death caused an uproar among the underground people wearing the uniforms of Underground Shelter No. 87. They wanted to attack Mercury, but often before they could even raise their guns, they were killed by the two men who were with Mercury.

Wu Chang saw divine power in the two men who were fighting; they were clearly members of the Light Society.

The chaos lasted only a minute before being suppressed by the three men. Their method was simple: they killed all those who tried to resist. At least a third of the subterranean people present were killed.

The surface dwellers who witnessed the three men's actions had expressions filled with fear of the unknown, exactly the same as when they saw Wu Chang use the Blind Abyss.

Facing the terrified surface dwellers, Mercury held up the contract and, with a standard salesman's smile, said:
"Time for consideration is up. May you sign now?"

(End of this chapter)