Chapter 1973: A New God

The demons spared from getting hit by Volgroth's beam looked at the main underworld portal in trepidation. A sphere of light resulted from the impact. It covered the entire main underworld portal. The demons expected the corrupted mana to thin out at any moment.

The demons were not the only ones in a state of anxiety. Volgroth was feeling the same thing but for a different reason. The sphere of light resulting from the detonation of his ultimate attack should be larger than that. The last time, the resulting light from the detonation covered an area of almost one kilometer. This time, it only covered the main underworld portal. This made no sense. The power of his beam was more powerful this time.

The energy required to sustain the beam was finally exhausted. The beam ended. The light covering the main underworld portal continued to linger. Volgroth stared at the light with a wary gaze.

The light finally receded. To his astonishment, the main underworld portal was still standing. The light shrunk until it was a single dot. The light was held above the palm of a person floating before the portal. The light then died out.

Volgroth had a good look at the person. It was an ethereal.

"An outworlder...? No... You don't feel that way... What are you...?" Volgroth asked.

"A God," Master answered. He snapped his fingers.

Volgroth's body shook. He felt as if tremendous pressure had crashed into him from all directions. He lost all thoughts for that instant. When he came around, he felt disoriented. He then noticed alarmingly that his HP bar had gone down by half.

"Wha... What...?" He asked in confusion.

"Hm...," Master muttered in contemplation. "I expected to stamp you out with one move. It seems I am not used to this divine power yet, or maybe you are strong enough to resist my will."

Volgroth's mind cleared then. He understood what happened just now. He had been around God Hope for a long time to recognize the power of the divine. Not as powerful as God Hope, but it was still a divine power. He didn't know how this unknown ethereal got a hold of this kind of power, but the energy that assailed him was unmistakable.

Volgroth understood there was no point in trying to escape. Also, he still had a mission. He opened his jaws and unleashed the Celestial Soul Breath again. The breath this time was boosted by the Celestial Dragon Lifeforce. He could only hope this attack was enough to take out the portal.

The breath aimed at the portal but at a spot away from Master. Master scoffed at the attempt. He vanished and reappeared right where the breath was aimed at. A large oval shield appeared behind him.

The Celestial Soul Breath washed over him before hitting the oval shield behind him. The breath couldn't penetrate the oval shield. None of the breaths touched the main underworld portal.

Master could have positioned the oval shield before him, but he let himself get hit on purpose. He wanted to know if he could get hurt.

He noticed that damage numbers still appeared above him every second he was bombarded by the Celestial Soul Breath. However, all those damage numbers showed only 1 point of damage. He sneered upon learning this.

He put his open palm to the front. That palm clenched into a fist.

At the same time Master clenched his fist, Volgroth felt like he was having a heart attack. His body shook again. His Celestial Soul Breath was forcefully stopped. He then froze on the spot. Under that static pose, his body started falling apart.

In a short time, the broken pieces turned into dust. In less than ten seconds, Volgroth disappeared from there. It was as if he never existed.

"Hehe... Hahaha... HAHAHA...!!!"

Master's laughter echoed for miles. The demons who were still alive looked at Master with fearful expressions. They didn't know what to do. The ethereal had protected their main underworld portal from the fearsome dragon, but the maniacal laughter they heard now made them suspect this frightening ethereal might be insane. He might turn to attack their portal next. Should they attack? They were motionless in indecision.

Master finally ended his laughter and looked at these demons with a condescending expression. He waved his arm.

The demons shrunk away in fear that the swing just now was an attack, but they then found their HP fully refilled.

Master looked at the mountain of corpses. Some of those fallen demons died less than an hour ago. He opened his status window. Even after becoming a God, he still possessed these game features. While staring at the holographic status window, he sensed that he could do more than review his status.

He didn't have much time to experiment with his divine power. He absorbed the last of the divine treasures and became a God not long ago. As elated as he was, he didn't have the time to celebrate. He came to this place immediately. He didn't want the underworld forces to advance too fast and ruin the entire upperworld, but he also didn't want them to be expelled back to the underworld. He still had use for them.

While he tinkered with his status window, he found he could make changes. He didn't spend much time farming exp points to level up after gaining all the divine treasures. His five classes were still below level 90. At this moment, he learned that he could influence these levels.

He focused on the level of the Prime Demonologist and willed it to increase. The number increased following his will. It went up until it stopped at 99.

"Heh," Master chuckled. He guessed hacking was one of God's abilities in this world. He proceeded to increase all his classes to level 99.

He tried to do the same with his attributes. Unfortunately, he failed. The attributes refused to budge.

"Hmph," He harrumphed with dissatisfaction. Turned out that being a God still had limitations.

'Never mind,' He thought. As a divine, there was little use for the attributes, as had been proven with how he dealt with Volgroth just now. He didn't even need his classes anymore. His act of increasing his levels to the maximum was just his worldly desire for perfection rather than necessity.

He flipped the status window to the skill page. Similarly, he could also do some hacking here. He could open another page with a list of all the skills in this world. At least he thought so at first, but he soon learned it was not so. The standard skills from other classes were not available. This list only contained the non-standard skills and spells.

He could learn these non-standard skills, but not all. Some of them were grey. Upon further inspection, those grey skills were ones not learnable by his five classes. He again harrumphed with dissatisfaction at this limitation.

He didn't have the time to play around with these skills. He would do that later. He still had urgent business to take care of. So, he scrolled the list to where the mega spells were. He proceeded to learn a nine-rune mega spell, Restoration of the World. This mega spell was learnable by elite classes branched from the Healer class.

Master closed his status window and cast the newly learned mega spell. The gigantic spell formation formed almost in an instant. A colossal green tree with a crown spanning far into the distance materialized. Its leaves fell and flew to the dead demons who died less than an hour ago. Those demons returned to life with full HP. Even those who had their bodies vaporized were resurrected.

Xugguth was among the resurrected demons. He looked at himself in disbelief. He clearly remembered Volgroth's beam washed over him. He knew for sure he had died.

While the resurrected demons were confused, a powerful voice entered the minds of every

demon there.

"Guard the main underworld portal."

The voice possessed a telepathic power that pointed them to the owner. They all turned to Master. They did not doubt it was Master who had resurrected them.

Master didn't say anything else. He just vanished from there. Xugguth and the others looked at each other. They were still confused about what just happened.

"Damn you, all...!!!" Lucifer shouted as repeated shockwaves erupted from him.

He sensed his barrier disappear. Since he still could not leave this place, Volgroth would most likely be in the process of destroying the main underworld portal. This meant his time in this upperworld was numbered. The corrupted mana would soon thin. He and every demon would need to return to the underworld.

He was extremely angry. His dream of conquering the upperworld had ended. Not only did he fail, but he also lost his six devil subordinates. This venture had been a total loss without any gain. The most frustrating thing was that these vexing Gods were still hindering him.

Especially Pride, who traded direct blows with him.

"I will kill you all!!"

Waves after waves of energy gushed out of Lucifer. The obstructive veil formed by the

energies from the bad Gods diminished the power of these waves, but it didn't stop them. The waves slammed into the Gods and caused them to stagger. Only Pride, supported by Love and Serenity, could stay close to Lucifer and keep him on his toes.

"Does his power have no limit?" Fear asked. He felt himself getting weaker.

"Keep at it!" Greed encouraged. "We don't need to outlast him. We just need to outlast the time Volgroth needs to destroy the main underworld portal."

"That damn dragon sure takes his sweet time," Wrath said through her gritted teeth.

"He'd better complete his mission soon. Otherwise, I... Something is wrong!" Fear exclaimed. He sensed something approaching. However, he couldn't move. His energy was intertwined with Greed and Wrath. There would be backlash if he forcefully removed his, but he could still turn back. As he did, he saw a familiar face. "We meet again," Master said with a wicked grin.