After a living being ascends to godhood, their strength will no longer increase.
But these newly ascended gods haven't finished converting their power yet, so they can't be considered true deities. Also, until they've created divine abilities that suit themselves, their strength can't reach the peak.
And as for battle experience, these combat gods are far inferior to the veteran deities.
The god Ian Song killed had only just become a deity, and was just a low-tier god. Even so, it was enough to intimidate the others—didn't you see the wary looks on the faces of those four gods?
"Do you four want to see if my sword is sharp or not?"
Ian Song's gaze slowly swept over the other four gods, faintly tinged with killing intent.
Hearing this, the four gods all showed anger on their faces. To be threatened in front of so many people—where was their divine dignity?
But they also feared Ian Song's strength, so for a moment they hesitated, unable to decide.
"I'll give you ten breaths too. If you don't get lost in ten breaths, you'll have to bet on whether I can cut you all down together!" Ian Song added, sounding even more aggressive.
One of the gods spoke up: "You only killed Demon God Feng by ambush. Now that we're on guard, there's no way you could pull that off again!"
"Oh, really?"
Ian Song chuckled lightly, then swung his Azure Flood-Dragon Sword again.
"Not good!"
The four gods were all startled and immediately launched a counterattack. Four streams of energy, brimming with divine might, swept toward Ian Song.
"Slash!"
The Azure Flood-Dragon Sword surged like a divine dragon leaping from the sea. In a flash, it sliced straight through the four energy streams, then Ian appeared right in front of one of the gods.
"No!"
That god could only let out a short, unwilling roar before Ian Song cut him cleanly in two with a single sword strike.
For a moment, blood rained from the sky again, and heaven and earth mourned.
The three remaining gods scrambled to put distance between themselves and Ian Song, their eyes full of terror and dread.
Seeing this, everyone—whether on Ian Song's side or the enemy's—secretly sucked in a breath. Their gazes at Ian were now full of shock, awe, reverence, and fear.
"Are you going to retreat, or die?"
Ian Song looked at the remaining three gods again.
"We're leaving!"
The three gods shot Ian Song a look full of unwillingness, then quickly took their people and fled.
"Boss, you're incredible! Slaying gods is like butchering dogs for you!"
Liu Long couldn't help but shout excitedly.
Prince Rowan Vance chimed in: "Brother Chu, your name is going to resound across the whole Manggu Continent. You're not even a god, but you've killed two in a row—even Ao Tian and Feng Jiu can't compare!"
"If we wait, things will change!" Ian Song waved his hand. "Hurry up and pick the Divine Shell Fruits."
Everyone shivered at his words and quickly picked all one hundred and eight Divine Shell Fruits.
"I'll take twelve of these Divine Shell Fruits. Anyone have a problem with that?"
Ian Song asked the group.
"No problem. If it weren't for you, Brother Chu, we wouldn't have kept these Divine Shell Fruits at all. I think you should take eighteen!" said Prince Rowan Vance.
"I agree!" said Princess Myra Vance.
"I agree too!"
The foreign god sensibly voiced his agreement as well.
Ian Song didn't stand on ceremony and took eighteen Divine Shell Fruits.
Princess Myra and Prince Rowan each got five; Drake Liu, representing the Dragonfolk, received six; the Blood Demon prodigies got five; and the rest were split among the other teams.
With the loot divided, the temporary alliance was set to dissolve.
Just as Ian Song's group was about to leave, the foreign god said he wanted to travel with them. Two Human teams quickly spoke up too, hoping to join Ian's coalition.
After consulting everyone, Ian Song agreed to their request. After all, the closer they got to the Creation Sky Monolith, the more dangerous it would be.
Originally, with all the elite deaths in the Scarlet-Scale and Myriad-Phenomena Armies, the group should have shrunk, but instead it became even stronger.
The foreign god was named Cato, from a small race. His ascension was pure luck—he found a special exotic fruit in the Creation Forest.
As for the two Human leaders, both had strength close to godhood, and after eating the Divine Shell Fruits, their power should increase even more.
That night.
Everyone rested inside an array Ian Song set up.
Cato and the others felt incredibly lucky.
The Creation Forest was full of danger, and at night the exotic beasts would go berserk for no reason. Normally, everyone had to be doubly cautious at night, but with the array's protection, they could finally rest easy.
Ian Song handed out Divine Shell Fruits to Lynne Ward, Chloe Snow, Cici, Lena Wei, Bella Bai, Yanna Zhou, Flora Thrall, Rosie Ning, Wes Wei, Holly Hong, and Conrad Wu, leaving seven fruits.
The Divine Shell Fruits were incredibly potent. After just one hour of painful transformation, everyone had forged their own divine bodies. With a divine body, even ninth-tier War Generals could no longer truly kill them.
However, except for Cici, their overall combat strength was still rather weak.
Ian Song took a Divine Shell Fruit, bit down and swallowed it. Instantly, a powerful remodeling force surged through his body.
But Ian didn't want to be remodeled into a standard divine body—once he had a fixed divine body, his physical potential would be hard to improve further. So he quickly activated his Body of Ten Thousand Stars and integrated the remodeling force into it.
After fifteen minutes, all the remodeling force was absorbed, and his Body of Ten Thousand Stars showed a slight improvement.
So he simply swallowed the remaining six Divine Shell Fruits.
Half an hour later, a satisfied smile appeared on his lips. Seven Divine Shell Fruits together pushed his Body of Ten Thousand Stars to the middle stage of the fourth layer.
For a moment, Ian marveled at the Creation Sky Monolith's wonders—so many miraculous spirit medicines and divine fruits had appeared in such a short time. He wondered what benefits he'd get from seizing all forty-nine strands of Creation Divine Light.
With his divine body advancing, his Nine Stellar Transformations and Time-Reaving Blade also improved significantly.
But these two divine abilities were specifically prepared for ambushing high-level gods—when it came time to seize the Creation Divine Light, they'd be devastating.
The next morning.