Chapter 147: The God of Death’s Dark Web [Two-in-One]

Chapter 147: The God of Death’s Dark Web [Two-in-One]

The night deepened.

The village gradually settled into silence.

The occasional sounds of livestock stirring or a baby crying only made the darkness feel even more profound.

From a distance, the village lay shrouded in darkness, with only one or two scattered lights flickering like lonely beacons.

The faint glow seeping through the window of Young Fern’s side room stood out starkly against the night.

He was too excited to sleep.

Lying on his hard wooden bed, his bright eyes reflected the square-shaped virtual screen before him.

The prayer his father had taught him through a special method had opened a window to a whole new world!

No—not just a window, nor even a door.

It was more like a rainbow bridge leading straight to the divine realm!

It was dazzling, vibrant, and endlessly fascinating.

Young Fern could hardly find words to describe it accurately.

He was utterly enamored with every feature.

The Library, with its boundless knowledge, left him awestruck and obsessed.

Though his Points couldn’t unlock much, even the free content alone broadened his horizons beyond measure.

The online classes made his eyes burn with excitement!

Every day, he swallowed his pride and flattered the knights—what for?

Wasn’t it just to coax a few pointers on Battle Aura cultivation out of them?

Yet here, in the online classes section, there were countless people willing to share their hard-earned cultivation insights—something every practitioner treasured deeply.

All it cost him was a handful of Points.

A few days of casual check-ins were enough to earn the Points needed to unlock a lesson.

The Q&A community blew his mind even further!

Here, he found answers to cultivation problems that had long baffled him, along with countless bizarre questions he’d never even considered—some he hadn’t even heard of before.

Through this, he caught glimpses of noble life—even the royals.

For the first time, he learned that nobles used Wood Spirit Magic to grow berries in winter just to brew tea for pre-meal mouth rinsing.

For the first time, he discovered they poured boiling water on live calves to carve out the tenderest beef.

And for the first time, he understood how nobles exploited commoners and hoarded wealth.

Even the gods’ motives for spreading religion—what did they truly want?

The revelations left him shocked, confused, terrified, powerless, despairing—even furious!

Of course, there were also mundane, encouraging discussions that soothed his wounded heart.

And then there were sections like [Conquest of Subdomains] and [Music Sanctuary], which left him utterly spellbound!

Controlling an earth puppet from atop Duofei City’s walls, gazing at the towering temples and massive airships overhead—the sheer awe defied description.

Honestly, he wished he could spend weeks, even months, exploring every corner without sleep.

He’d gladly lose himself here forever.

There was too much fun to be had, too many rays of hope shining through!

Knock knock.

A soft rapping at the door jolted him back to reality, sending a cold sweat down his spine. He hastily shut down the internet.

"Mind the light—it’s too visible at night."

Old Fern’s warning drifted in from outside.

"And pace yourself. Looking exhausted will only raise suspicions."

Hearing his father's voice, Young Fern let out a sigh of relief.

"Understood, Father."

For a brief moment, he had almost thought the Wisdom Goddess's Faith had come to arrest him.

Listening to the fading footsteps outside, Young Fern exhaled deeply.

After some thought, he decided not to reopen the internet and prepared to rest.

Yet, the moment he closed his eyes, his mind flooded with images from the internet, leaving him too exhilarated to sleep.

The Internet God is truly a magnificent deity!

Compared to the Wisdom Goddess, he seems more like the true God of Wisdom!

Young Fern mused silently.

……

……

Unbeknownst to the Wisdom Goddess, her believers were gradually slipping away.

At this moment, far from noticing the loss, she observed a slight increase in the collection of Source Essence—an anomaly that naturally drew her attention.

However, when she turned her Divine Perspective toward the praying believers, she found herself increasingly disappointed, even disgusted and scornful of mortals.

Among the faithful she observed, only a handful expressed gratitude for the affordable fabric and bicycles bestowed by the Wisdom Goddess.

The majority merely begged for jobs or wealth.

Hmph!

Wretched humans—always driven by self-interest.

But the gods are no better.

Seated at the head of the long table in a side chamber of the Greg Cathedral, the Wisdom Goddess's projection cast a mocking gaze at the four deities flanking her.

They were:

The Goddess of Luck, dressed in a layered lace-trimmed Lolita-style pleated skirt, her youthful appearance belying her divine status;

The God of Dark Night, a figure as dark as a shadow;

The God of Fear, shrouded entirely in black robes, his features concealed;

And the alluring, seductive Goddess of Pleasure, whose bold attire accentuated her charm.

These four deities were essentially the gods who maintained churches and held sway over the Kaman Union, controlling its noble lords, great and small.

Today, they had gathered at the Wisdom Goddess's church for one purpose: the Internet God.

"We can’t afford to stand by any longer! Veronica, open your eyes! Not just commoners—even the nobles are being corrupted by the Internet God! Sooner or later, if he raises the banner of rebellion, I fear every noble will follow him!"

The Goddess of Luck snapped, her delicate face twisted in fury.

Rumor had it that the Luck Godhood originated from the Fate Godhood.

For unknown reasons, the Fate Godhood had split into two: "Misfortune" and "Luck."

One fragment had fallen into the hands of the God of Misfortune in the Plan Union Kingdom.

The other now belonged to the Goddess of Luck before them.

Her power was enigmatic—literally, she seemed to command good fortune.

Indeed, the Daulton Duchy under her rule had always enjoyed inexplicable luck.

Even when the fires of war threatened to consume its lands, some chaotic twist of fate would always save it.

One could say the Daulton Duchy and the Greg Duchy formed the backbone of the Kaman Union.

This was also why she dared to address the Wisdom Goddess by her true name.

"Not stand by? Then do you have a better plan?" The Wisdom Goddess sneered. "Shall we form a coalition and march on the Keville Empire?"

As the words fell, the side hall abruptly fell silent.

Attack Keville?

Are you joking?

If even the Five Great Righteous Gods couldn’t conquer the Keville Empire, what chance did they have?

If Keville had been an easy target, they would have taken it long before the Internet God began his preaching. Why wait until now?

"You jest, Veronica! The Keville Empire is no easy foe, but we can’t just sit back and let the Internet God erode the Kaman Union. Don’t you realize? The nobles are already forming teams and flooding into [Conquest], causing the internet to leak. Mark my words, it won’t be long before the internet becomes an open secret."

The speaker was the God of Dark Night. His preaching zones in the Kaman Union were small, and his control was weak.

Thus, the Internet God’s impact on him was the greatest.

However, this didn’t mean he was weak.

His main stronghold lay among the tribes of the Polar Snow Region in the northern reaches of the Azarea Continent.

The Polar Snow Region had bizarre geographical traits—half the year was shrouded in eternal night.

Deep within it, there was even a Land of Eternal Night.

That was his true lair!

Not even the God of the Sea, one of the Five Great Righteous Gods, dared to venture there lightly.

"This was inevitable. The Internet God has already shown restraint by not showering the Kaman Union with paper like he did with the Five Great Righteous Gods!"

The Wisdom Goddess remained calm.

She had long seen through the Internet God’s plan to erode the Kaman Union through commerce.

So why had she still agreed to trade?

Because she knew it couldn’t be stopped.

Beyond the benefits of trade, the Internet God’s method of gathering Source Essence was, at its core, the spread of divine techniques.

Divine techniques couldn’t be banned.

Unless they were ineffective or had alternatives.

The Wisdom Goddess’s words darkened the expressions of the gathered gods.

"So we just do nothing?"

"Why don’t you try attacking an airship to test the Internet God’s limits?" the Wisdom Goddess said with a straight face.

Truthfully, though the gods of Kaman often banded together against the Five Great Righteous Gods, the Wisdom Goddess looked down on them.

If she weren’t stockpiling Source Essence for a major move, she would have long since driven these good-for-nothings out of the Kaman Union in one sweep.

"Wisdom Goddess, have you already sided with the Internet God?" The Goddess of Pleasure’s voice was honeyed. "Otherwise, how could so many factories suddenly appear in the Greg Duchy?"

Her words sent a ripple of suspicion through the gods.

The production lines of the Dragon Factory—the Wisdom Goddess coveted them, but the others coveted them even more!

Yet despite their best efforts, they had only managed to scrape together a few "scrapped parts" to assemble three or five machine tools.

Like the Wisdom Goddess, they had tried to replicate the machine tools.

Unsurprisingly, the blacksmiths’ handcrafted replicas lacked precision.

They were useless for anything beyond farming tools.

The Wisdom Goddess shook her head, increasingly convinced these gods were just lucky good-for-nothings.

For the Godhood to fall into their hands was a waste.

"If I had sided with the Internet God, would you still be sitting here? Has Idith’s dragon-human consorts rotted your brain, Goddess of Pleasure?"

The Wisdom Goddess’s triple-layered insult made the Goddess of Pleasure’s face twist.

The other gods stared at her in shock, their expressions shifting between disbelief and suspicion.

Could it be that the Goddess of Pleasure has hooked up with that dragon Idith?

"You want a war, Wisdom Goddess?" The Goddess of Pleasure’s delicate face turned frosty, her eyes blazing with fury.

"Oh? Are you planning to form an army out of your male concubines?" The Wisdom Goddess was as sharp-tongued as ever.

"Alright, alright! We’re here to discuss countermeasures, not fight among ourselves. Everyone, calm down! Calm down!"

The God of Fear, shrouded in black robes, took the initiative to mediate.

The Goddess of Pleasure was seething with anger, but reason prevailed, and she stepped back from the brink.

The Wisdom Goddess also refrained from further sarcasm.

For a moment, the atmosphere in the meeting room grew stiff.

The gods’ expressions darkened, each lost in their own schemes.

The news that the Goddess of Pleasure had hooked up with Idith, that dragon, was hardly good.

Truly, misfortunes never come singly—when disaster looms, everyone looks out for themselves!

"Your Highness Veronica, you hold the Wisdom Godhood and are the wisest among us. Could you speak openly about your thoughts? Even if our strength pales in comparison to yours, every extra hand counts, doesn’t it?"

The God of Dark Night took the initiative to yield.

He didn’t want to lose his foothold in the Kaman Union.

Though he ruled the Land of Eternal Night, that godforsaken place was freezing, with scarce resources—barely enough to sustain a small population.

No one knew that the Source Essence accumulated over a century in the Land of Eternal Night paled in comparison to what he had gathered in the Kaman Union in just ten years!

Such was the disparity between barren lands and fertile regions.

"My thoughts? I have none. The Internet God’s erosion is too severe. All we can do is buy time. Of course, though his influence is pervasive, it’s ultimately just a divine technique—it can’t shake the foundations of our rule."

"As long as Believers continue their worship and we maintain control over the nobles’ lifelines, the spread of the internet might even benefit us. For instance, it facilitates large-scale weapon smuggling and helps train mages for us."

If Yu Sheng’an had heard the Wisdom Goddess’s words, he would have sighed in reflection.

History has seen the construction of great walls—their purpose was less about repelling invaders and more about controlling trade, preventing strategic resources like metals and salt from flowing into the vast grasslands.

The Keville Empire’s large-scale bilateral trade with the Kaman Union wasn’t purely advantageous for Yu Sheng’an—it had its downsides too.

Once capital took root, Keville’s mages would dare to sell anything for money.

Still, the Wisdom Goddess’s insight fell short.

She didn’t realize there was something called cultural invasion.

Once assimilation took hold, what difference would there be between inside and outside the wall? Everyone would be one big family!

"This…"

The gods exchanged uneasy glances.

Upon reflection, they truly had no effective countermeasures against the Internet God.

Fighting him was out of the question—they didn’t dare, nor could they win.

He wasn’t invading them outright either.

If they shut their doors to trade, what message would that send?

If they truly provoked the Internet God, forget about military invasion—just a wave of paper soldiers descending from the sky could undo all their efforts.

Then, like the Five Great Righteous Gods, they’d be left scrambling across their preaching zones, picking up scraps of paper.

Realizing this, the gods grew contemplative.

Their focus gradually shifted from "resisting the internet" to "how to exploit the internet."

Even several gods began discussing collaborating on the spot to solve the machine tools issue.

The Wisdom Goddess watched the gods scheming against each other, feeling disdain for their sluggishness but also a hint of helplessness.

The internet was truly a terrifying innovation!

One could say that even if the gods united to destroy the Keville Empire, the internet would still persist.

As the saying went—it was a divine technique, it had no physical form, it wasn’t a grand Church made of bricks and mortar!

As long as its functions remained, no one could stop Believers from yearning for power.

The meeting concluded, and the gods departed one after another.

The Wisdom Goddess stayed behind.

She sat at the head of the long table, lost in thought.

—She was contemplating her strategy.

The world was changing too fast!

So fast that she had almost no time to prepare.

From what she knew, traces of the internet had already appeared in many small and medium-sized domains, especially those occupied by beastmen.

She was deeply worried that her strategy would be stillborn before she could accumulate enough Source Essence.

"Your Grace, urgent report from the Corpse Guard!"

A figure clad in armor silently appeared beside her.

"Speak."

"The God of Death introduced the Dark Web divine techniques half an hour ago—its functions are similar to the internet."

"What did you say?"

The Wisdom Goddess abruptly stood up, her face twisted in disbelief!

Shock contorted her usually composed and valiant features!