Chapter 626: The Coming

The so-called divine kingdom refers to the dwelling place of a deity, as well as the destination and abode of the souls of those who believe in that deity.

In essence, it is a product centered on the deity's divine nature, gathering the spiritual power of many believers. To some extent, it can be said to be the embodiment of the believers' fantasies after being indoctrinated with the deity's teachings.

Looking back at the ancient Greek and Aesir pantheons, one can see that the deities of that era had no so-called 'divine kingdom.' This is a product that emerged after Zoroastrianism and the Radiant Faith, originating from Ahura Mazda.

However, the divine kingdom is not merely a collective of spiritual consciousness. Generally, deities absorb temporal-spatial energy from the Astral Plane within their divine kingdoms, striving to form a stable demiplane. This can reduce the burden on the deity's divine power and allow the divine kingdom to acquire more resources.

Currently, these divine kingdoms generally reside in the interlayer between the Prime Material Plane and the Outer Astral Plane.

The divine kingdom established by Li Mochen is also located in this position. Due to his mastery of the Chronos divine office and his considerable skill in spatial matters, his divine kingdom became a stable demiplane less than half a year after its formation, with a diameter of over two hundred kilometers and continuously expanding.

After Li Mochen ascended to the top of the Coral Sea and established his own 'Destiny' pantheon, the deities under his command spontaneously moved their divine kingdoms closer to his Destiny Divine Kingdom to seek his protection.

Even the Goddess of Magic, Diana, was no exception, moving her Magic Divine Kingdom extremely close, forming a pincer formation with Li Mochen's divine kingdom to support each other.

This time, the target of the Zoroastrian pantheon was a goddess named Carolina, who had pledged allegiance to Li Mochen after the Coral Sea battle. She held the divine office of 'Brief Love and Joy' in America and was worshipped by many white women.

She was only an intermediate deity, not powerful in combat, even virtually zero, and her divine office was not particularly important.

However, Li Mochen understood the principle of nipping problems in the bud. His Destiny pantheon was still unstable, with hearts scattered, and he could not afford to lose trust and credibility at this time, or it might collapse at any moment.

Fortunately, Goddess Carolina responded to his call and moved her divine kingdom near the Destiny Divine Kingdom, at the edge of the pantheon's gathering area, which greatly reduced his defensive pressure.

Li Mochen did not participate in the first instance; the current situation did not require his personal presence.

Although the Zoroastrian pantheon came aggressively, deploying five angel legions at once, the Second Divine Will Legion under Ludendorff's command effectively completed the initial defensive operations.

Fighting within the divine kingdom gave them a certain advantage. The suppression of external forces by the Light World allowed Li Mochen's Divine Will warriors to hold the upper hand even when outnumbered three to one.

The 'Sunrise-Light Demon' alliance provided gunpowder weapons specifically designed for ghosts and deities from the real world, further empowering the Second Divine Will Legion.

They fought fiercely around Carolina's divine kingdom for seven full days, with casualties on the Destiny pantheon side alone reaching 120,000. According to statistics from the God of Intelligence and Spies, Heydrich, the casualties on the opposing Zoroastrian pantheon side should be nine times that of their own.

However, for the Zoroastrian pantheon, these casualties were a drop in the bucket. The opponent's four angel legions had nearly sixteen million combatants, and they were continuously replenished, putting increasing pressure on Ludendorff.

And the Zoroastrian pantheon likely had twelve to sixteen more such angel legions.

Moreover, according to Li Mochen's prediction, the angels Ahura Mazda took from the Light World thousands of years ago numbered at least two legions. They were not subject to the Light World's rejection and could fully exert their strength, and they had grown sufficiently through thousands of years of warfare.

Therefore, the First Legion under Garcia·Feren remained in a state of readiness, never deployed even during the most intense and dangerous phases of the war. They were on alert for further moves by Ahura.

Li Mochen speculated that Ahura would not be willing to expend his precious military strength on his side. There was only one chance to achieve the 'God Above Gods' in the Light World, and the contenders were the Radiant Lord, Gaia, Nyx the Night Goddess, Eris the Goddess of Freedom, Zeus, Odin, Ahura, and Lucifer—these eight.

As for Li Mochen, although he had established a pantheon, his lowly major deity-level cultivation did not yet qualify him to enter the game as a player.

Moreover, in the eyes of those deities, Li Mochen was likely still seen as a powerful deity, making the distance to 'God Above Gods' and the Gate of Truth even greater.

Expending too much power on his side would be unwise. This was also why the Olympian and Aesir pantheons repeatedly made concessions to him.

Theoretically, he should even be courted by all sides.

But things are unpredictable; who can be sure of a god-king's thoughts?

After all, the 'Divine Sky Fortune Purple Gold Tower' in his hands, and the many deities under him with new-era divine offices, were also targets of these pantheons and god-kings.

In his time, Ahura Mazda almost unified the faith from the Persian Empire to the Kushan Empire. Yet at the peak of his sect, he abandoned it to seek the whereabouts of the 'Wishing Tower' of Moshra.

In any case, this man must be guarded against. Li Mochen, though not overreacting, was always fully alert to this enemy.

After seven days of fierce fighting, although the Zoroastrian pantheon did not deploy more troops, many Angel Kings appeared on the battlefield.

There was the 'Beast-Taming Angel' Vahman, who controlled divine beasts, animals, and the reproduction of all creatures including humans; the 'Flame Angel' Atar; the 'Metal Angel' Shahriyar; the 'Earth Angel' Spandarmat, who shared the title with the Moon Rabbit; and the 'War Angel' Bahram.

Their divine power was immensely strong and vast, capable of killing tens of thousands of warriors in a single strike.

However, the Destiny pantheon countered tit for tat. The Sea Goddess Tethys, the protector god of adventure and mercenaries Field, the god of storms and floods Wood, the leader of the Phoenix clan Anfield·Phoenix, the 'Earth Dragon God' Magnus, and Hela, who with Li Mochen's permission was condensing the divine offices of 'North Wind' and 'Ice' and about to shift her main office to the Winter Goddess, all appeared on the battlefield to fight the enemy. Most of them, except Tethys, were no match for these Angel Kings, but with the power of the divine kingdom and the Prime Material Plane, they could barely hold them back.

The Goddess of Magic also tacitly moved her divine kingdom slightly closer to the Destiny pantheon's gathering area.

She was a Law God with a divine rank of 19, and her Magic Divine Authority had entered pseudo-truth, making her a force equivalent to a sub-god-king. Only two or three on the Zoroastrian pantheon side could contend with her.

After that, Ahura did not invest more power. It seemed he was merely testing, and the intensity of the war on both sides gradually decreased, nearing a ceasefire.

This made Li Mochen breathe a sigh of relief. At this point, his Destiny pantheon was nearly at its limit. After all, it was an army assembled by gathering various deities; the Second Divine Will Legion's combat effectiveness was passable, but its tolerance for casualties was extremely limited.

Normal armies can generally withstand about thirty percent casualties; well-trained elite forces can withstand forty to sixty percent.

But the Second Divine Will Legion was close to collapse with less than one-tenth casualties. The deities were deeply pained by the deaths of their petitioners and were indignant at the First Divine Will Legion's standing by.

After this, everyone's attention was drawn to the impending 'World Three.' At the end of June, the immense gravitational pull between the two worlds triggered massive tsunamis worldwide, sweeping across the coasts of various countries. Although governments had been preparing for disaster for months, the tsunamis still caused 1.7 million deaths. Rivers reversed, causing widespread flooding in coastal areas.

At the same time, earthquakes became frequent. Although none exceeded magnitude 7, aftershocks were incessant, with over seven hundred occurring in a single day at the peak.

According to observations by the 'First Source' Paracelsus, the two worlds would collide within at most seven days.

Li Mochen did not know if this was the reason Ahura Mazda temporarily withdrew, but he had already devoted all his attention to the coming world.

Referencing the commotion of world merges in the Original Dome Realm, and considering that 'World Three' was even larger than the complete Original Dome World, it was foreseeable that without sufficient power to intervene, this would be a catastrophe and shock affecting the entire world!

For the next two full days, Li Mochen, along with the 'Truth Master' Bethel·Einstan, the 'First Source' Paracelsus, the 'World Destroyer' Lafitte·de·Robespierre, the 'Silent King' Consul, and Angela, calculated the collision point of the two worlds.

It would most likely be in the southern part of the world. The 490 small transport ships of the Sunrise Shipping Company, all engraved with magical arrays, were already adrift in the southern Pacific Ocean.

But they needed to further determine the exact coordinates.

Everyone present was among the top mages in the world. Even the youngest, Robespierre, possessed the strength of an intermediate deity. As for Angela, her computational ability before becoming a deity was already comparable to Robespierre's.

Two months ago, after Li Mochen transferred his divine offices of 'Data Network' and 'Games' to her, Angela's computational ability skyrocketed, making her the best among those present.

These two divine offices, which Li Mochen considered of little use, had been developed by Angela into something remarkable. She not only connected all large and medium-sized computers in America and Europe via telephone lines and cable networks, gaining unparalleled computational power.

She also used the network to collect the fantasy power of game players, enabling her to manifest heroes and bosses from games with considerable combat effectiveness.

Fifteen days ago, Angela even attempted to manifest a demon army of 500,000 in the Underworld, all derived from a game called 'Diablo.'

Their combat effectiveness was quite strong, equivalent to one-tenth of the 3,333 Hell Legions under the Sloth Demon King Belial. Unfortunately, the game had just been released with fewer than 30 million players. Their spiritual power was insufficient to sustain this demon army for long. Moreover, the telephone network's collection of these people's mental power was problematic, with losses so huge that less than thirty percent could be used by Angela.

In view of this, the Sunrise Group had formulated a plan to invest massive funds in developing a global magical fiber optic network and promoting various classic games and related films and TV shows, especially online games. This should further enhance Angela's utilization of these two divine authorities.

This made Li Mochen lament that his growth experience in the Original Dome Realm had constrained his imagination. Those were clearly two immensely powerful divine offices, but limited by his fixed thinking, he could not utilize them.

Of course, Angela's future development direction was unrelated to the current event. However, her extraordinary computational power could indeed help Li Mochen and the many mages present.

"According to the information provided by Professor Einstan, the initial impact point should be this location without error. Then it will spread from there—"

After calculating the coordinates, Angela frowned: "But this is at least a magnitude 14 earthquake. Can we really withstand it?"

Currently, the highest earthquake magnitude is only 12, equivalent to an energy impact of 15.6 trillion tons of TNT, comparable to a 10-kilometer asteroid hitting the ground.

But this time, according to their calculations, the collision of the two worlds would release 1.8 × 10^17 tons of TNT equivalent energy.

Calculated by earthquake magnitude, this would be a magnitude 14 earthquake affecting the entire world.

"We'll do our best. My idea is to use a large amount of seawater as a buffer during the impact."

A strange light flickered in Li Mochen's eyes: "As long as the seismic waves reaching Australia do not exceed magnitude 9, I can ensure that the vast majority of my believers in Australia survive safely."

This world impact would directly hit the Antoria Continent, the Bolivia Continent, South America, Antarctica, and Australia. Australia was slightly better off, being the least risky among the five continents. But this country and continent still faced the risk of being directly destroyed by the seismic waves.

Fortunately, Li Mochen had never extended his hand to the southern mist continents. Even the few hunting groups left by Michelle had been recalled to mainland America.

"It's still feasible. I have carefully studied the magical array designed by Your Majesty. With the full help of the Sea Goddess Tethys, She can accomplish it."

Einstan reassured Angela: "But the investment is huge. The magical materials consumed this time will be worth at least 120 billion, plus a large amount of divine shards."

"As long as it can quell part of the seismic waves, this investment is worthwhile."

Li Mochen thought this was an excellent opportunity to gain merit. Whether he could gather another Purple Qi of Merit in the near future depended entirely on this operation. How could he be stingy?

Moreover, the vast majority of the magical materials came from the collection of the Mountain Giant Skadi, and the divine shards came from the Feathered Serpent Kukulkan. His financial burden was actually not heavy.

"I must also try. You know, many churches are now preaching to my believers that the apocalypse is coming, and that if they continue to believe in me and the gods under me, they will end up with nothing in the coming disaster, or even die without a burial place."