Xi Wei felt his heart stop beating for an instant.
And then he realized two things.
One, he has no heart after becoming a ball.
Two, Aslan said ‘something terrible has happened’, and not ‘you’re in trouble!’.
‘Good’, Xi Wei thought inwardly. ‘Looks like I’m still in the game.’
“What happened?” he asked. “Do you want some coke?”
“It’s fine, I’ll have that drink that taste like tea from last time.” The Great Lion said as he lay down on the floor of Xi Wei’s divine kingdom, training a weird stare at the human-faced fish monsters that were emitting a fishy scent. “Your taste for collectibles is more and more curious lately…”
“Those are offerings from my believers.” Xi Wei replied as he brewed Aslan a cup of Oldenlandia Mineral Water. “And as you know, they have a wide range of interests.”
He wanted to brag a little and add ‘do you even get any?’, but fearful that the Great Lion would bellow back ‘You’re crazy and have a death wish!’ and beat him up, he decided to control himself.
Unaware of Xi Wei’s thoughts, the Great Lion licked the cup of Oldenlandia before saying, “Don’t be scared about what I’m about to tell you.”
“Relax. I won’t be; I’m more or less a god.” Xi Wei replied without any worry while plunging a bottle of cola into his ball form.
“Several lesser gods had fallen,” Aslan said slowly then. “And not due to natural causes, but by assassination.”
“Oh. And I thought what could it be… that’s so terrible…”
Xi Wei replied, leaning on a skull beside him as he waved his tentacles, completely unconcerned.
He had killed another god himself after all—Rotten Bones’ head was right here, and the rest of his corpse in the grinder.
Moreover, if anything happened to him here, he would fall anyway if it was either the Skull God or the Ocean Goddess…
“Then what if I told you that there had been four fallen lesser gods after winter ended?” The Great Lion added, already expecting that Xi Wei wouldn’t be so easily intimated since he had slain an evil god before.
“What?! So scary!”
“You’re not being serious.”
“What are you talking about! Do you have proof?!”
“‘Not interested’ is literally written over your ball in divine language.”
The Great Lion pointed at the ball of light, which had rows of text sliding over its surface like a scrolling ticker from right to left.
“…”
Fine.
As a matter of fact, Xi Wei really wasn’t interested in the matter.
Even though he was a third-rate god himself, there were still many other lesser gods in this world of innumerable deities. Even if some evil god or demon god was slaying lesser gods one by one, there’s not much chance for him to hit the jackpot.
Moreover, the location of the gods’ respective divine kingdoms was kept secret. Tracking down one would require tracing of the Churches’ saints or Chosen Ones divine attribute or some unique form of authority.
Even Aslan the Great Lion himself had spent a long time observing Xi Wei’s believers before eventually finding his divine kingdom.
Moreover, such indiscriminate slaughter of lesser gods would greatly affect the balance in the divine realm. In fact, even the Seven Divine Fathers would not sit idly by, which was why it was unnecessary for Xi Wei to get involved.
To put it simply, the higher-ups would actually prevent the skies from tumbling down, and now Xi Wei just had to focus on going below the belt…
But even if he conceded that what could happen would happen, he had no solution for countering. All he could do was do the same thing he did against Rotten Bones: strengthen his divine kingdom and set traps.
“Forget it, then. I’ve just came to warn you to be careful.”
The Great Lion’s focus waned when he saw that Xi Wei really wasn’t interested—he sincerely acknowledged Xi Wei as a new member of the Invisible Pantheon after he helped slay the Tsujigiri, which was why he thought of coming to help Xi Wei to find the enemy.
“By the way, you should warn your believers around this time.”
“What is it?” Xi Wei asked in curiosity. “Is it about what you mention before, that the Demonic Roes were appearing by droves?”
“No, that is important but I’m talking about something else.” The Great Lion shook his head, his mane drifting smoothly as if CGI was used and forcing an impulse on Xi Wei to touch it. “The last lesser god victim was Mossland Spirit, but when he was attacked, he appeared to have attempted descent to the mortal realm by damaging his own divinity.”
“Fleeing from his divine kingdom to the mortal realm, instead of asking other gods for help?” Xi Wei found it unusual immediately.
“To be fair, Mossland Spirit was a part of the pessimist fraternity of lesser gods called Rustic Life. Maybe he thought that finding a fellow god wouldn’t help.” The Great Lion replied.
That cleared things up: instead of dragging a friend along with him, it was better to flee somewhere the assailant would never expect. It would have the feel of ‘this is my real escape route, fool’ to it, and it was definitely the better choice in terms of success rate.
“But he must have failed,” Xi Wei said with certainty.
Being the only god who could transmigrate, Xi Wei knew better than anyone how that authority could prove unthinkable and how horrific the power that restrains the gods from crossing over was. Indeed, apart from himself, other gods would never experience the sensation of their true forms crossing the World Barrier to another plane.
“Yes. Be that as it may, his actions still surprised his assailant, which is why something else that stunned every other god happened.” The Great Lion replied, keeping Xi Wei in suspense while he made him another cup of tea.
Then, after having a sip, Aslan continued, “When Mossland Spirit was stuck at the World Barrier, his assailant seemed to have some powerful divine art… anyway, despite that bugger’s intentions to directly kill Mossland Spirit, something unexpected happened: Mossland Spirit’s divinity was shattered.
“…That’s it?” Xi Wei Ball wrinkled in a frown.
Divinity wasn’t unbreakable anyway—a past example was how the Aquatic Lord had his divinity shattered.
“No, that’s not news. What really surprised all the gods was that part of the shattered divinity had made it past the World Barrier down to the mortal realm!” The Great Lion answered somberly and composedly. “Many of them now believe that if they could find the divinity fragments down below, they could learn the identity of the assailant, and a solution to cross the World Barrier as well!”
“…”
Xi Wei Ball blinked, and thoughtfully charged his Divine Eye to look down upon the mortal realm, where the Players were about to blow up the Marsh Drake.
