Chapter 66
Messiah jolted awake from a nightmare.
He touched his pillow—it was drenched in cold sweat.
That voice in his head was still calling out to him, but he ignored it.
Lately, its presence felt weaker.
Had it… grown a conscience?
Impossible. Gods had no such thing.
That could only mean it had found a new target, leaving him alone for now.
Messiah wasn’t sure if he should cry or laugh at that thought.
The reason a god had fixated on him wasn’t his looks or personality—it was his constitution.
Gods didn’t share human aesthetics. To them, strength was the only beauty. Their forms varied wildly, each shaped purely by power.
And Messiah’s class ability was extraordinary, defying normal categories.
It was called [Universal Resonance].
The name itself said it all.
At its peak, he could harmonize with anything in existence—making him the perfect vessel for divine descent. At first, though, the ability was weak; he could barely morph a finger into a key to open doors.
In his second dungeon run, he and his teammates were nearly wiped out by divine cultists. The cultists twisted the dungeon with a statue, trying to sacrifice them all for a god’s descent.
In desperation, Messiah burned a high-tier item to temporarily boost his ability to the maximum—redirecting a fragment of the god’s soul into himself instead of the statue.
The statue shattered, and he became the vessel. With that power, he controlled a divine NPC and cleared with an S+ rank.
But shortcuts have costs.
That fragment remained inside him, growing, pulling the god’s attention to him.
A perfect vessel, with top-tier player talent.
What better offering could there be?
But the god couldn’t fully revive, nor act freely under the Main System’s restrictions. And Messiah’s mind was strong—his resistance to divine corruption matched his capacity to host it. The god had no choice but to form a contract with him.
Yet gods couldn’t grasp human emotions. To it, Messiah’s full acceptance meant love—just as countless believers professed. So it chose to declare a divine marriage.
Illogical, baseless, but gods needed no reason. To choose a human was justification enough.
For the god, it was everything. Human protests were mere noise.
And so the harassment began.
Anyone who approached Messiah or tried to help him was driven off or killed. The god feared losing such a perfect vessel to another deity—protecting and monopolizing him at once.
It was obsessed with binding him forever.
Divine marriage meant fusion.
The chosen partner would live eternally within the god’s being, while the god gained their body to walk the world.
No separation. No escape.
It was a disgusting fate.
Once achieved, the god would ascend further—using the player’s body to become a true high-ranked god, no longer limited to low-ranked god.
But lately, it had grown quiet.
Messiah didn’t see that as good news. If anything, it meant a new scheme was underway.
When Edith came on duty at the palace again, Messiah warned her:
“Edith, tell Cynthia and Lu Chuan—the god haunting me is moving again. They must be ready.” For once, his face showed urgency. “Don’t come near me. When it notices again, it’ll act.”
Edith wasted no time, contacting Lu Chuan and Cynthia immediately.
The system had banned most low-grade tools under A-rank, especially communication items, to stop players from cheating.
But the higher the Dao, the higher the Devil.
After Lu Chuan discovered that the churches could bless and enchant weapons, he wondered if they could also use divine power to enchant and enhance their originally low-level communication tools.
After a few simple experiments, it worked.
He and Cynthia split up, letting different churches test enchantments on the tools. After a few failures, they finally succeeded. Once the system reclassified the communication tools as “Grade A Items,” they could be used again.
This greatly improved their team’s efficiency.
At last, they didn’t have to waste time cramming together for face-to-face meetings.
Sometimes, just a little ingenuity was enough to bypass the game’s restrictions.
Unfortunately, the only exception was with Messiah.
There was no helping it—Messiah was surrounded by divine power, which interfered with the enchanted tools. For him, Edith still had to act as a human messenger.
Soon, Lu Chuan and Cynthia received Messiah’s words relayed by Edith.
“Messiah’s relationship with the gods is closer than ours. If he says this, there must be a reason,” Cynthia said after a pause. “I’ll have Shen Li and Lilus return. There’s no point wasting more time searching for the divine ritual. We’ve found no clues for so long—the other side must be using some special means to hide it.”
“What should we do next?” Edith asked worriedly.
“For now, follow Messiah’s instructions—avoid direct contact. Agree on a place to exchange written notes. If one day Messiah can’t even use words properly, retreat immediately. Don’t linger,” Cynthia warned. “At that point, Messiah may no longer be Messiah.”
“…Alright.” Edith understood the gravity of the matter.
Turning away, Cynthia immediately contacted Lu Chuan.
“Half a month is too long—we need to shorten it. Get to the capital’s vicinity as soon as possible, find an excuse, and prepare to go to war with the Church of Light,” Cynthia decided firmly. “Once Starry Shasha and Shen Li return, we’ll unleash Xing Shasha’s power, force the plot forward, and compel the hidden gods to reveal themselves.”
If they gave themselves more time, they could be better prepared.
But the same went for the gods—the longer the wait, the more complete their revival.
That would be even worse.
Better to provoke them early and stir the waters while they still could.
“Alright,” Lu Chuan nodded. “My knights and I are already marching toward the capital. About five days more. By the way, as a former No.1 on the Newcomer Rankings and someone aiming for the Master Rankings, you should have weapons capable of dealing with gods, right?”
“Of course,” Cynthia smiled. “And you?”
“I do, but the side effects are troublesome.”
“As long as we survive, side effects don’t matter.”
The two shared a knowing look. Both carried weapons capable of fighting gods.
But their drawbacks were daunting.
Even so, there was no other choice.
They’d just have to bite the bullet.
Elsewhere, Lilus and Shen Li had already scoured the divine church from top to bottom without finding anything useful. They had long been eager to return.
When Cynthia’s order finally came, Lilus was overjoyed, dragging Shen Li along to head back.
Fighting on the same side as his sister was far better than braving the wind and rain with this “uncle.”
“…I may be uncle-aged, but at least show me some respect,” Shen Li sighed helplessly. He wasn’t actually old—just worn down from endless dungeon runs with this energetic group.
But really, who wouldn’t look weary after all this?
“You’re not even in our guild. I’m already respectful enough,” Lilus said bluntly. “We’re doing all this so you can climb the Master Rankings.”
“That’s not fair. Your sister’s bound to make it too, and my divine challenge dungeons give her valuable experience,” Shen Li countered. Besides, these were his challenge instances, and he had willingly handed over command. What more did Lilus want?
In truth, Lilus was just sulking, not wanting to leave his sister’s side.
Such a child—didn’t even bother to hide it.
“Quit whining. Let’s go.” Lilus, exposed, grew irritated.
Shen Li was about to reply when he suddenly grabbed Lilus.
“What are you doing?” Lilus asked impatiently.
The next instant, Shen Li activated his ability. Countless earthen walls rose before them, blocking an aerial strike.
Lilus reacted instantly. His right hand transformed swiftly, a deadly scythe materializing with an aura of destruction.
A miniboss? To show up so recklessly before them?
Lilus narrowed his eyes, gripping his weapon tighter.
“Careful,” Shen Li warned, his experience showing. “It’s not just one enemy. Looks like divine servitors.”
Black specks began raining from the sky.
When they landed, they took on distorted human forms—crooked stances, misshapen features, like twisted noodle-men.
That wasn’t the alarming part.
What made Shen Li’s eyes narrow was their clothing.
“Lilus, isn’t that the same outfit worn by the Pro-God faction player we tracked earlier? The one in the middle,” Shen Li pointed. There were five or six creatures, but the one in the center wore distinctive clothes, even if its face was unrecognizable.
He and Lilus had tailed that player to the Pro-God faction camp, only to find nothing.
They had interrogated him but let him live.
Now, this creature wore his exact clothes.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Lilus confirmed. “Five monsters, each dressed differently, but their faces are ruined. Damn… so these are Pro-God faction players? What did they do to end up like this?”
Their mission had been to help the gods revive and complete the divine marriage.
So this was what “helping” meant.
They had staked their bodies and lives.
“We couldn’t find any revival rituals or altars… they must have hidden them,” Shen Li muttered. “Looks like their ritual went wrong. They’ve been possessed by a ‘divine descent,’ but a low-level one. These expendable servitors can’t even hold human form.”
Lilus’s expression grew grim.
To become a Master-ranked player, fighting gods was inevitable.
And the Resurrection Guild had taught them the basics.
There were many kinds of “divine descent.” The best vessels were always players.
Expendable ones like these burned bright before dying—bursting with destructive force before collapsing. The safest strategy was to keep distance and let them burn out.
Reusable vessels that could retain human form were called divine servitors. They usually only appeared in later stages, always accompanied by sacrifice and mass death.
As for the so-called perfect vessels—they were even rarer.
Gods and players existed on different planes of existence.
Only with the game system’s modifications could a vessel perfectly match divine power.
That was why the gods never left Messiah alone.
But now, they couldn’t avoid this fight.
Sensing the threat, the gods had sent these expendable vessels early—hoping to eliminate them before full revival, clearing the way for the divine marriage with Messiah.
“Uncle, I’ll take three, you handle two,” Lilus cracked his neck, brimming with battle intent.
“Don’t get cocky, kid,” Shen Li replied, unusually firm. “I can take four. You can have the last one for practice.”
He hadn’t fought seriously in a long time.
Running dungeons with Lu Chuan, they had solved everything bloodlessly, leaving Shen Li feeling useless.
He was starting to forget that he had once been famed for his combat strength.
