Four-Armed Divine Emperor

This kind of information flow that worships him.

All these will push Al towards a "great, extraordinary, unique" but no longer his original ethnic heart. So it is not so much that he chose this path of billions of people becoming one, but rather that he, as the supreme father of the ethnic group, was pushed onto this path by the fanatical, spontaneous, and inherently unstoppable "loyalty" of his billions of descendants, which cannot be stopped or suppressed by any external force. His choice of the ethnic heart was just a matter of going with the flow.

After all, even if Al was a licentious and cruel tyrant, stupid, greedy, and evil, a more disgusting and perverted guy than the most disgusting male character that appeared in the most disgusting book he had ever read in his previous life, his descendants still supported him unconditionally and without reason. This kind of loyalty, which was purer than faith, was not obvious in the past, but as the size of the tribe expanded, the faith would gradually change and transform him, just like enhancing his psychic power.

But on the other hand, those believers rather than his descendants, who despite their fanaticism still have all kinds of "selfish desires", pray to him for benefits, for requests, for not being excluded by the public...etc., can provide him with an endless supply of emotions and desires, allowing El's "divinity" and "mortality" to be combined.

Maintaining a relatively balanced state between the celestial beings and mortals, he will not be delayed or even seriously damaged by the defects of a mortal soul, nor will he lose his "old self" because of the strength and uniqueness of the divinity, and eventually become the transcendent [Heart of the Clan].

He chose to temporarily suspend the crazy expansion of his tribe because of this concern.

If Ai'er doesn't make any changes, his expanding tribe, as long as they defeat the enemies of the floating city, will soon include all intelligent life in the entire Ai'er world into one tribe. This will bring him huge feedback, and similarly, the changes it will bring to him will also be huge.

At that point, he will undoubtedly follow the path that the Returners once took, becoming a powerful hive consciousness, the ultimate life with no other pursuit except "integrating everything into the swarm."

This was obviously unacceptable to Al, so he had no choice but to choose another path:

One is billions, billions is me!

Al doesn't want to be a natural god. He wants to retain his humanity, despite his flaws. Even though he knows his shortcomings, since the Unifier has not deprived the heir of the right to choose, Al is willing to go on.

To put it in a positive way, he wants to take a pioneering "new path".

137: The True God

As his power grew, Al's perception and predictive abilities reached new heights.

His perspective and his will can reach higher and farther places, the floating city that was once obscured by fog and feared by El, those mysterious and powerful white-robed wizards, their secrets, and the property they left behind, which can be regarded as "treasures" to the people of this world, have also entered El's sight in full view.

Although he still couldn't fully understand the secrets of the floating city and completely realized that he should be the last and biggest group of enemies in the El world, but El had already had a certain grasp of these existences through the power of psychic prediction.

At least now, he could not sense that there was anything in this world that might pose a threat to him. This was enough for Al to let go and let his descendants do it without worry.

His power is growing every second, and now the only thing that can threaten him is

Chapter 276

The most important thing is the return of the White Tower wizards, but according to his prediction, that time will not come, at least in the short term.

And when that moment comes, El's power will far surpass its current strength...

The "Cult of the Gods" founded by the descendants has penetrated deeply into the Alan Empire and the surrounding areas of this old empire. Although they themselves possess extraordinary powers, they used to act as secret behind-the-scenes manipulators. Now they are gradually expanding their influence. The descendants who have become "heretic missionaries" have begun to use their power to control people's hearts to spread the esoteric religion. After developing believers, they are as efficient as their subversive activities against this ancient empire. From high-ranking officials to peddlers, those who are regarded as having a role to play in the ethnic group and the sacred cause of honoring the father are often mortals with special talents in some aspects, or fanatics who have nothing but dedicate everything including their souls in pursuit of greatness. They are discovered by the descendants and then included in a glorious path that has never appeared in the Tartarus continent and the entire Il world.

Following Ai'er's instructions, his tribe no longer blindly seeks expansion among direct members. Although every converted descendant, no matter whether they were saints or villains, good-for-nothings or geniuses, will have 100% fanatical loyalty to their father, and the enthusiasm to contribute everything to the cause of their father - tribe change.

But it is undeniable that there are differences in potential among the offspring. Although being the same genetic offspring can largely erase the old differences, Ai'er refused the path of the billions of tribes uniting into one, so he could not achieve unity of thousands of people, integrate the power of the tribe together, and give birth to an "all-powerful" hive master. Then all offspring are his continuation and part of the master. There will be no difference between people, beasts, and all members of the tribe.

Therefore, all beings are no longer equal, both to themselves and to others.

Talent, potential, and the even more mysterious "destiny", something that even gods cannot fathom, even if the blood of the tribe gives new life, it cannot completely level it out.

Chapter 127: Ardabil (58)

The offspring are almost the same when they are born, but as time goes by, the differences between them will gradually widen. However, because everyone has the heritage of the tribe and the characteristics of the King of Rolls, the average ability is up to standard and not low, so there is no obvious difference between them.

Some of the heirs with endowed blood are able to catch up later and soon show expertise in certain areas after being incorporated into the tribe. They are in no way inferior to those heirs who have been quickly trained and educated in the tribe since childhood.

After Al chose the "path to becoming a god" for himself, his descendants were no longer just individuals who practiced the will of their father, but also possessed a "sacred" characteristic, that is, they walked on the earth as "apostles" of a god, becoming the true continuation of His power and will, and at the same time, truly realizing the dignity of "sons of God".

A glorious opportunity to "become a god" will naturally no longer open its doors unconditionally like in the past, and accept all offers of service. Strictly speaking, the threshold for transforming offspring has been raised, and only those outstanding "talents" are qualified to be given a new life through blood.

In the past, when ethnic group expansion was still secretive for fear of being exposed, this threshold also existed, but it was not particularly strict. As long as the descendants concealed their identities and disguised their actions, meeting a suitable person did not necessarily mean there would be a suitable opportunity for transformation. Things like potential and talent were also relatively intangible and could not be felt intuitively. If they thought the person was capable and there was a suitable opportunity, they would "accept" him/her. When recruiting new members to the ethnic group, they would not be particularly picky.

Also, anyone who sees the descendants displaying supernatural powers will be forcibly transformed, and no one will be left out.

But now, with the "semi-publicity" of the activities of the descendants, they have begun to spread, blossom and bear fruit on a large scale in the form of esoteric beliefs, and have moved from underground to above ground - but are still active in the shadows. A system to manage and govern mortal followers is very necessary.

Al wants a world of mortal followers to maintain his "humanity" or "irrational" side.

But the prerequisite is that he must take over the world of Il and seize the homeland of the White Tower wizards who have wandered into the star realm, so that it can become the starting point for his conquest of the stars.

It is not simply relying on the violent expansion of genetic seeds that are ten or a hundred times more terrifying than the zombie virus, but turning all intelligent life in the world into two types of people:

Al's son;

Al's daughter;

In this case, the role of mortals cannot be ignored. At least, on some levels, Al wants them to "think" that this is the case.

The descendants improved the worship of the four-armed god that had been spread for hundreds and thousands of years in the barbarian-mixed border areas at the junction of the Kingdom of Bleio and the Kingdom of Xerxes, and eventually evolved it into the semi-state religion of the "Roman Republic", a monotheistic religion that worships the only redeeming god, the "Four-Armed Father". In this process, the sons of Ai'er who were in charge of this borrowed a lot of "traditions" from the civilized world, that is, religious beliefs. The most recent one is naturally the tradition of Zoroastrianism, and to this day, the "traditional power" Zoroastrian Church has a great influence on the Alan Empire, regardless of social status.

In the "Holy Father Religion", the positive image of light and flame, the various descriptions of the redemptive gods ending the spread of darkness and extreme cold, and the descriptions of hell and the desperate doomsday as endless darkness and endless winter all come from this kind of "borrowing".

Chapter 277

The descendants have talents and execution abilities that surpass those of ordinary people, and the latter is often more important. When they stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, "absorb" the valuable experience of history, and undergo continuous improvement and innovation, the "Father-honoring Religion" which has various advantages over the local Zoroastrianism in terms of doctrine and system is transmitted back to the interior of the Alan Empire, and soon they gain the private allegiance of many powerful people.

The "Honor of the Father" is a layer of skin that the descendants wear in order to expand their influence among mortals according to Ai'er's orders. It is the core layer. Only a very small number of people can come into contact with the magic of this "secret religion", including but not limited to their ability to grant extraordinary powers to mortals. On the public level, the Honor of the Father is a heterogeneous Zoroastrianism founded by "rebels" from the north. It is regarded by all the Alan forces who know about it as a tool used by the northern rebels who first launched the rebellion and the people behind them to expand their influence and at the same time to clearly establish their own program.

There are people who actively contact the latter, and only when they go deeper and come into contact with the great mystery behind the curtain of the Father Respect Church, will they understand the true meaning of the existence of this sect. It is not the nonsense of the fire servants, but they actually serve a real "God".

138: Conceiving the Divine Fetus

At those secret ritual gatherings, those nobles who had thought they would never have any connection with magic or the supernatural in their lives bathed in the glory of their father, and were pleasantly surprised to find that they really "possessed" the supernatural and had the power to release magic. From then on, they were branded as subordinates.

The ultimate dream experience brought by the power of psychic energy combined with the cooperation of some mortal objects can make these powerful people who have briefly embraced the extraordinary become obsessed with this power and never want to let it go. They will fanatically pursue power, and power can be obtained by serving the only, great true God and following the orders of His apostles and His descendants.

There are many believers who secretly associate the magic of "Honor of the Father" with the old master, the ruler of the last era - the Witch King, just like the female knight Ansuna did when she learned that her daughter, Aisha, was born with the ability to cast spells.

The descendants did not prevent this view from spreading among believers, but they did not allow it to spread publicly.

Because as a "true god" that has never appeared in the world of Il, and who controls a power system that is completely different from that of this world, he can easily be associated with "outsiders" and "foreign forces". And if people associate him with those who are also part of the world of Il and were once the rulers of the world, it will be easier for people to surrender and soften their psychological defenses.

After all, wasn’t the greatness of the old days also great?

Although the Floating City announced that it had wiped out the influence of the "Witch Kings" in the world, the White Tower wizards never claimed that they had completely defeated and eliminated all the "Arcane Emperors" (a neutral term for the Witch Kings).

If you have a little understanding of history, it is not difficult to know from the black and white records:

At the end of a certain battle, a certain French emperor (same as above), under siege by the conquering heroes, had no choice but to open a space passage, and fled into it with his lackeys and followers, and disappeared from sight ever since;

To put it bluntly, the others are not dead at all!

Only a few Witch Kings were killed directly by the siege of wizards, and most of the descriptions of their "endings" are terms such as "missing", "vanished", and "disappeared forever".

You never know when he will come back.

You mages go to the Star Realm, so couldn't the Witch King also go to the Star Realm when he escaped?

It is normal to recuperate and accumulate strength outside, and then counterattack the home world when you feel you are ready.

Fire worshippers have the characteristics of admiring the strong and serving the powerful, so they have to think a little before worshipping the evil gods from foreign lands to obtain gifts (although there is no room for "consideration" as long as they know this situation), but if the old masters return, there is no need to think too much.

In addition to the direct effects on individuals, the descendants disguised as pagans also opened up another path to glory for these powerful people who served but could not make any contribution and gained extraordinary power for themselves:

You are old (your growth is almost complete) and it is not easy for you to develop.

But your children are still okay! The next generation, and the next generation.

"Offer" your daughter to the Father and accept the gift of "pregnancy". In less than a year, you will be able to "get" a "offspring" from your daughter who is gifted, grows rapidly, and is born with extraordinary powers and supernatural powers!

If there is no daughter, you can let your wife or concubine take her place and offer your daughter to your father to get a divine fetus. You must know that sometimes a talented person or a magician can make a family prosperous for a generation, not to mention a genius heir who possesses multiple qualities at the same time!

In comparison, what does chastity mean?

The believers naturally do not know that when the "offspring" they have been waiting for, conceived by the women in their family, are born, they will receive spiritual enlightenment from their "brothers" and understand their mission - the mission does not need to be enlightened later, they know who they are serving and why they are serving since they were born.

The offspring of these "divine fetuses" will grow up in their respective "families" and disguise themselves as normal. Except for the children of famous families with extraordinary talents, they will use their innate strength and the "intelligence" gradually revealed in the process of growth to give great surprise to the heads of families who pray for offspring, and regard it as the hope of sublimating their own bloodline. From then on, their family bloodline will continue to "evolve", and eventually, under the blessing of their father, become a unique family with all extraordinary members. This is a glory that can be compared with any famous family or any thousand-year-old noble family.

Chapter 278

Shine a hundred times brighter.

And the price paid—no, it’s not even a price!

They are just some playthings, some women. Even if they are daughters of powerful families, their future role is nothing more than marriage and marriage to pass on bloodline. How can they compare with a natural spellcaster and an extraordinary offspring with "divine grace"?

In early examples, these extraordinary offspring "born of inspiration" and entrusted to other families would pay great attention to slowing down their growth rate so as not to shock the "elders" by being too monstrous. But because their supernatural powers were too extraordinary, how could a baby grow up from nothing to something in a year, with all the skills in literature and martial arts and strong learning abilities?

There are some wizards who are obsessed with body transformation surgeries, and they have had crazy ideas of "cultivating supermen" and "new human races", but in the end, all those involved in this aspect have ended in failure, except for one case that I don't know how to describe, which "gave" the trolls some wisdom.

In the end, the mages had to declare that wisdom was a creation of nature and could not be shaped or controlled by humans at present, so they gave up the idea of ​​creating a fast-growing, highly intelligent race.

The descendants of Ai'er absolutely surpassed what the mages could imagine in every aspect. They were a "perfect mortal race that could produce wise men (preparatory mages) in large quantities."

There are also some dignitaries who were absorbed into the Church of the Father earlier, who have been given new life through blood, or who have been given "supernatural powers" in other ways. They are used as guides and missionaries. Through private and family channels, they "speak from their own experience" in secret meetings, bringing real examples of supernatural powers to their acquaintances. All of this has allowed the Church of the Father, a heretical sect that develops mortal believers for Ai'er and uses the power of these mortals to find high-quality mother bodies for its "nest" in Thurso, to expand rapidly in the mortal world.

Chapter 127: Ardabil (59)

There are even quite a few spellcasters who have joined this sect.

There are many mages in this world who are like Grace, unable to roll up their books, or are intimidated by the "heavy academic workload" that can take several years or even decades, but are unwilling to stop at the present. Although most of them eventually either give up on moving forward, choose to lie down and enjoy themselves, accepting a future that will end in the mortal world and turn into a yellow dust after a hundred years, or... uh, roll up their books, climb up again, and earn themselves another fifty or a hundred years.

Now that there is a shortcut that even though their rationality would tell them that it is an "evil path" under normal circumstances, many people will not be able to resist the temptation - of course, the same thing applies.

Once you see a "pirate ship" coming towards you, basically, you can't escape the fate of becoming a sailor on the ship.

139: Usurping the State

While the "Father Honoring Church" was constantly expanding its influence and had spread throughout the Alan Empire, "infiltrating" it from the inside out, "Rome" was also expanding its influence from a more conspicuous secular level, and soon pushed the situation to a magnificent climax.

A young man from an exiled family, who was also from a well-off family, after a series of "power struggles" and "games", seized the highest power of the rebel forces in the five northern provinces and became the first leader of the rebels to clearly declare his existence.

It attracted the attention of countless people. Shortly after he came to power, the young rebel leader named "Amon" directly tore up the "non-interference" secret agreement signed with the Iskhan throne and went south to attack other provinces that were still loyal to the core of the empire.

Amon's actions made the emperor furious. The agents of Ashes went to the north countless times, trying to assassinate this rebel who publicly exposed his existence, but there was always no news. It was as if the north was some kind of ogre cave, and outsiders disappeared without a trace once they entered.

The northern rebels advanced rapidly. Wherever they went, the enemy either surrendered or were unstoppable. Their army was extremely elite and their bureaucrats were both virtuous and talented. Whenever they arrived at a place, they would summon local dignitaries to a banquet and hold a meeting. After that, they would take over all the power, sweeping away the decadent governance of the past, and there was a sense of changing the dynasty and establishing a new policy.

In order to curb the rebels, Iskhanfa had already deployed troops in many places outside the five provinces. Among them, he transferred a lot of the Changsheng Army that had guarded the Alan Plateau for generations to the north. However, the rebels were unpredictable, especially the emperor had been investigating them up to now. After investigating again and again, he had not caught anything in reality. Instead, as he rummaged through boxes and kicked doors and broke into houses, he got more and more dirty and secret things in his hands. At the same time, he made more and more enemies. This "conspiracy group" was even more terrifying.

It has grown to such a huge scale within the empire.

The Changsheng Army was deeply infiltrated by them. Not only did the heavy defense line to block the northern rebels fail to work, but internal rebellions emerged one after another. They suffered a series of defeats within a few months, and all the military supplies and defeated soldiers were seized by them!

The Amon rebels continued to expand, becoming bigger and stronger, with great momentum, and they kept snowballing, and they actually had the potential to take control of the center and unify the world.

With the "rebel leader", or should we say the "first uprising army" taking the lead, and the instigation of the descendants of Ai'er, the ambitious people within the empire could no longer sit still, and began to fight openly, following the law of the jungle, swallowing up territories and strengthening themselves.

Of course, there are already many Zoroastrian princes who seem to be independent and autonomous, but in secret they have already become Sons of Aiur or believers of the Father.

Only then did Iskanfar realize that the situation was not good.

The building is about to collapse and collapse is imminent.

The eastern Qiexue army had already split up, and Shafasha wanted to strengthen the central power.

Chapter 279

In order to transfer this elite force to the central government, the powerful bureaucrats and border defense corps in the eastern capital Samarkand were naturally unwilling to let go of this elite force of the empire. They tried every means to "retain" it. In the end, the Qiexue Army was forced to split up. The corps loyal to the Iskhan law and willing to move maintained the Qiexue Army's number and went west to be incorporated into the central government. Most of the Qiexue Army who were unwilling to leave were reorganized on the spot and formed into a new army, which was divided up by the powerful and warlords.

The Western Parthian Legion was being used to defend the west, pacifying the north and south, and was already exhausted. The Immortal Army had suffered a defeat, severely weakened. The center of the entire empire, Artaxes IX, the King of Kings, was distressed and angry at the increasingly deteriorating situation. He was shocked, angry, and felt powerless when he discovered:

Such a huge empire, the master of the glorious and noble Zoroastrian throne, is actually almost in a situation where he has no soldiers left!

So no matter how unwilling and humiliated he felt, the emperor had to try to use "peaceful" means to resolve the threats he was currently facing.

He sent secret envoys several times to contact the northern rebels, trying to "negotiate" again and promise them the right to freedom. However, for the rebels who had already torn their faces and started to use force to assert the authority of the empire, they already had the opportunity to get involved in the entire empire, so why should they be confined to a corner?

Even Shafasa himself knew that peace talks were a fantasy, but he had to try.

Every time an envoy was sent to the north, it simply meant that the emperor had more potential "enemies". He did not know this, but for Artasis IX, everything that had happened during this period seemed like a long nightmare, waking him up countless times in the middle of the night, unable to tell whether he was in a dream or reality, and unable to tell which was more cruel.

From the moment he ordered Prince Ahmed to lead his troops north to attack the barbarians of Sirso, it was as if Pandora's box had been opened, and bad things happened one after another.

After Shafasha defeated and treated his enemies with "mercy and forgiveness", he did not even have the chance to use his prestige to implement the reforms he wanted. The northern army was defeated and destroyed. Then the five provinces rebelled, and the usurpation of the throne was rampant, shaking the entire empire.

Later, in order to clean up the government, he began an internal purge, which inexplicably caused a huge storm, with major cases and prisons following one after another.

The empire was shaken.

The powerful enemy in the west is eyeing them covetously, and the princes in the east are ambitious and want to split the land and establish their own...

Everything seemed like a dream.

The emperor even reflected on his operations over the past few years from beginning to end and could not find any mistakes.

When the prince was transferred north, who could have imagined that he would accidentally run into a foreign puppet supported by a conspiracy? The enemy seized the opportunity to raise the banner of rebellion and harm the army, which was a crime without war.

Ishaqhan ordered a major investigation. Those rebels had ulterior motives and were plotting something nefarious. Some even went so far as to attack the Imperial Guards preemptively. If this were tolerated, wouldn't the central authority be destroyed?