---Viktor's POV---
In those decades during the Age of Gods, I had learned quite a lot of valuable things.
I even reached the level of Archmage! Why would I abandon all of that?
With a rookie brain from another world, facing a church that was about to go all out to hunt me down?
I probably wouldn't survive even a year!
I lifted my head at a relaxed angle.
"If you manage to possess me successfully, just go to any crowded town, and you'll hear the little stories I've compiled about the private affairs of the gods. I don't have any taboos that gods can't mention or think about."
Aureal's eyes deepened slightly. "But I've awakened now. Your past experiences are irrelevant!"
I nodded again. "That's true. But do you really think… this is your first time waking up?"
Aureal stared at me expressionlessly.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing much."
I stretched lazily and strolled to the edge of the island. Beyond a layer of semi-transparent white barrier, waves continuously crashed against the space just one meter in front of me.
I looked on with interest.
From this angle, I could easily see everything beneath the surface of the sea. But of course, this wasn't a real ocean. Beneath the surface, there was nothing but deep blue water, countless bubbles and splashes.
My tone was extremely casual.
As if asking someone who just woke up from a 600-year nap whether they wanted something to eat.
"I'm just curious why you haven't taken the final step of possession, erasing the original owner of this body, me?"
The god floating midair didn't respond.
I squinted and stated plainly, "Because you can't, right?"
"Insolence!"
Suddenly, a stern shout echoed from midair.
Like a giant mountain-sized palm slicing through the air, it came crashing down toward me. Yet I simply raised a flimsy umbrella of mental energy, and blocked the attack that came down.
I gave the umbrella a shake.
As if what loomed just inches above my head wasn't a god's mighty palm, but merely an oversized light bulb.
"All bluff and bluster."
I calmly walked out from beneath the palm's range and looked up again.
"I've been wondering why the other divine essences helped you ascend to godhood. Now it seems… you're not entirely unaware of your situation."
All divine essences had their own ways to sense the outside world. Just like how Aureal knew that the Age of Gods had ended 600 years ago.
Others could naturally sense it too.
Gods weren't fools, just by the amount of divine power they could mobilize, they could deduce their current circumstances.
I couldn't really blame them either, I had been too lax these past two months while raising players.
I had accidentally triggered some memories related to the gods and hadn't isolated my current space in time.
Sigh, a comfortable life really did dull vigilance.
I picked up a broken chain from the ground and toyed with it.
"Of all the gods I've met, you're among the most fond of bluffing and intimidation. The power you have… it's fake, isn't it?"
Though phrased as a question, my voice was full of certainty.
Aureal narrowed his eyes. "You're welcome to test it."
"Gladly." I spread my arms, the chain clinking in my hands. "Let me try!"
Whoosh!
Countless beams of light transformed into tangible blades, piercing me straight through.
I didn't even have a chance to struggle. My entire body was shattered into fragments by the innumerable beams of light, disappearing without a trace.
Aureal's grim expression finally relaxed a little, and he uttered, "All bluff and bluster."
"That was my line, and what are you staring at? I'm right here."
He spun around, pupils contracting sharply.
I was leaning lazily against an unclaimed cross just one step away, still holding the same broken chain from before.
"You're still alive?"
"This is my inner sanctum. You didn't actually think you pulled my real consciousness in here, did you?"
I toyed with the chain.
"In my own domain, and with your fake power, you thought you could kill me?"
Aureal glanced at the slumbering gods behind him, his expression turning grave.
"Becoming the vessel for our resurrection is your inescapable fate. It's been 600 years, are you still trying to resist?"
I cut him off, "Stop wasting time. If you want to revive, then do it. If you can't kill me, then crawl back to your cross and go to sleep."
Aureal's voice grew more forceful. "I am an Archmage now!"
"Mhm, a poser who can only leak a bit of Archmage-level aura," I replied flatly, nodding without interest.
"Since you're not in a hurry to strike, let me tell you about all the lovely things your original self did. For starters, the place we're in is located in the southeastern forests of the Kingdom of Yoan, in the eastern part of the Frostwind Plains. I know you don't recognize the name, because this forest only formed and gained notoriety after you gods all died. The predecessor of the Kingdom of Yoan was made up of the Torik and Isola peoples. Two great empires that were among the first to be sacrificed during the fall of the gods."
"Over a thousand divine corpses piled up on the continent of Aeltia, bringing unimaginable chaos to the world. Monsters ran rampant outside. Even real Archmages couldn't survive the tides, I know this from personal experience. And you, in your current state, think you can possess me and come back to life?"
My tone was slow and steady, like someone recounting an unrelated tale, well, I tried to sound like that. I even slowed down my speech deliberately, considering my audience was a fossil from the Age of Gods.
"Even if you somehow deceive the world's laws and manage to resurrect like this, you'll forever lose the identity of the God of Light, and be cut off from the Radiant Church. From that point on, all the faith power from the Radiant Church followers will only go toward reviving the 'perfect' God of Light. Could you, with your disdain for mortals and poor adaptability, really cower in some stone fortress with the common folk, working for the powerful church just to survive? Even if you could adapt, can a born god like you guarantee that you'll become a god again?"
"Because the one with the potential to ascend… is me, not you."
With each word I spoke, the light around Aureal flickered more visibly, and it became more and more intense. Eventually, it reached the point where it could be seen clearly without any effort at all.
Then, just as I finished my final word, the divine light around Aureal blazed again.
But this time, the attack was aimed not at me, but at the island beneath my feet.
Crack, crack!
A blinding light slashed down like a sword. Accompanied by a deafening roar, the island began to tremble violently. Huge boulders broke off from the island, sending clouds of dust and smoke into the air.
I tapped my toe and leapt into the sky.
Looking down at the chunks of earth and the divine cross sinking into the sea, my voice carried a trace of regret.
"Hm, plan failed."
Behind me, Aureal's five fingers curled into claws, striking straight at the back of my head.
His tone was lofty, full of pity.
"Die…"
"Hm?"
A look of shock appeared on Aureal's face as silver-black chains wrapped around him and shook violently.
I turned around and pointed with the hand holding the other end of the chain, straight at his back, as if I had expected this all along.
"You're wrong. The one who should die is you."
As my voice fell, the sound of ocean waves, blocked until now, suddenly returned. A flood of chaotic noises surged into Aureal's mind.
He uncontrollably turned his head. Behind him stood a towering sea wall, blotting out the sky. Like two pieces of land split apart by the island's barrier, one high, one low.
The next moment, the translucent barrier around the island shattered like thin spring ice, dispersing completely with a crisp crack.
Whoosh!
The sea wall, carrying an overwhelming pressure, surged toward him.
His eyes widened, his body seemingly frozen. He could only watch helplessly as the waves engulfed him completely.
Splash!
Whether it was the island or Aureal in mid-air, both vanished without a trace under the torrent of seawater infused with solidified spiritual energy.
I hovered in the air, watching everything unfold. My body flickered like a glitched signal feed, until it fully stabilized.
Gazing at my skeletal hands, I sighed slightly.
"The human trial card expired… As expected, divine power from someone else's domain is much more effective."
The sea beneath still surged restlessly. Like an uncontrollable sea monster, it dragged everything, along with the shattered island, down into the deep.
Soon, the dark blue sea lay calm, with nothing left but layers of white waves of varying heights.
I touched my jawbone.
"Ah… all that smiling for nothing."
As an undead who hadn't felt muscle in ages, did anyone realize how much energy it took for me to keep smiling?
But Aureal's clone had put on quite the show. All that glowing and growing in size, yet in the end? No real moves, just empty talk!
As for how to deal with these divine essences, I knew better than anyone. When they were implanted into my body, most gods had only met me once. They didn't know who I really was.
But me? I held over 600 years of informational advantage.
My original plan had been to wipe out any accidentally awakened divine essence the moment I regained consciousness. It was only the rare sight of gods working together that made me pause and talk this long.
After observing for a while and analyzing the God of Light's state as he absorbed divine power, I quickly came to a conclusion: The divine power they gave was fake.
Well, not exactly fake, it just wasn't from the God of Light.
The gods hadn't offered purified, ownerless divine energy. And I never intended to convert it for my own use. That's why he could emanate the pressure of an Archmage, but couldn't unleash attacks of corresponding power.
Borrowed power, in the end, was never truly yours. You couldn't control it freely.
I had guessed correctly.
When it came to resurrection, the gods were always in competition. How could they all be selfless and willingly give up the chance of revival to Aureal?
Their "help" was only because they feared the 600 years that had passed in the outside world. Their goal was to let him, the first to break free from the chains, deal with the body's original owner, that was, me.
Once I was dead, the divine power they had lent would turn into a sword from within, allowing them to seize control of the body. That was also why Aureal had been so reluctant to convert the divine power. He couldn't isolate and remove all the hidden traps the gods had embedded in it.
As long as he didn't convert it, once everything was over, he could strip away the polluted power entirely.
Unconverted divine power was like picking out chocolate chips from cookie dough. But once converted, it would be like trying to separate cream from coffee after stirring, the difficulty of separation was on a whole different level.
And my goal was simple: force Aureal to convert that divine power.
Why? Easy.
Damn it, I'd been a vessel for godly possession for almost 700 years, I was done with it!
Possession wasn't like buying cabbage at the market in Aeltia.
The gods had shifted their plan from directly possessing me, to letting Aureal possess me first, and then possessing Aureal. That shift alone lifted more than half the pressure off me.
At least now I didn't have to raise twelve layers of mental barriers just to think about the past, to keep the divine essences in check, which existed in my mind as spiritual entities like divine avatars.
And yet, even after I mocked Aureal's character, flaunted my information advantage, and hinted at outside dangers... This Aureal essence remained unmoved.
That final attack of his wasn't even aimed at killing me, just heavily damaging my inner sanctum.
That way, I would fall unconscious. And an undead falling unconscious wouldn't die so easily.
As long as he could gather enough divine power during that time to ascend, he could successfully resurrect, assuming nothing unexpected happened.
I sighed with regret. "Expecting a cowardly god to take risks... was never realistic."
The other hesitated for a long time, and in the end, chose what he thought was the safest route, based only on the small portion of intel he'd managed to gather. If it had been a different god that woke up first, the ending might have been very different.
"All in all..."
My vision began to blur, my body flickering with glitch-like static, until it gradually became transparent.
"Let's hope nothing major happens out there in the next few days..."
The final syllables of my words faded along with my body, like a single bubble rising on the ocean surface.
The inner sanctum was the embodiment of spiritual power. Unleashing a tsunami harmed not only the invading spirits, but also me. And so, my consciousness fell completely silent.
---Third POV---
In the Mage Guild, LootGoblin led NeverShowOff and the others through the side door into the hallway outside the main hall.
Peering in through the door, only one person remained at the reception desk: a beautiful female mage with wavy wine-red hair.
He jerked his chin in her direction.
"That's a Level 19 witch named Susan. Specializes in Spring Magic. Her combat ability is basically non-existent. Surveillance skills are average. As long as you keep things quiet and don't use a translator, she probably won't notice anything. I've already made arrangements on the first floor. It's not a full lockdown, but chances of anyone showing up in the next hour are low. That's as far as I can help. Keep your investigation clean, don't drag me down with you."
"Also…"
NeverShowOff cut him off, "Relax. We'll share any intel we find."
LootGoblin's eyes showed some satisfaction. He tossed over five star-shaped badges.
"Here, your Mage Guild badges. See you in an hour."
With that, he turned and slammed the side door shut behind him.