Douluo: Emerald Poison Emperor

"I'll keep that in mind," Chen Ming nodded, seriously taking Dugu Bo's advice.

Not to mention that he wasn't particularly fond of using this domain—most of the time, he simply kept it hidden as a backup option. Furthermore, for the sake of his future ascension to godhood, Chen Ming couldn't recklessly use this soul skill to cause excessive bloodshed across the continent.

On the journey to the Extreme North, Chen Ming not only followed Chrysanthemum Douluo to learn about pharmacology but also took the opportunity to inquire in detail about the legends of the Angel God.

As an elder of the Spirit Hall, Chrysanthemum Douluo's knowledge extended beyond just the stories circulating on the continent; he also possessed some truly secretive pieces of information.

Once, Chrysanthemum Douluo casually mentioned something to Chen Ming—that the Angel God wasn't called the Angel God because she became a god, nor was it because she proclaimed herself as one.

Rather, even as a young girl, she had saved countless humans, and her figure, shrouded in light and flames, appeared godlike. Hence, she was called the Angel God. Even before she fully grew up, people already believed that the Angel God could bring hope and a future to humanity.

Through his research during this time, Chen Ming also sensed something from the amulet carved from the sacred beast's skull that the Angel God had left behind.

The divine power hidden in the amulet wasn't something left behind after the Angel God became a god, but rather, it was divine power from before her ascension.

It sounded contradictory, but this was the truth. The divine power in the amulet was too weak and immature. Although it contained the attributes of light, flame, and holiness, they hadn't been fully fused.

Its quality was indeed higher than soul power and had some remarkable characteristics. However, to call it the divine power of a first-class god would be an overstatement. It was more accurate to describe it as soul power that had been partially deified through some means.

Chen Ming recalled that the Seraphim martial soul had appeared in many unique variants throughout the Douluo Continent series.

Leaving aside the basic attributes of angels—light, flame, and holiness—or the uncertain connection with martial souls like the Fallen Angel, even the clearly defined subtypes displayed several unique abilities.

For example, in Douluo II, the four-winged angel demonstrated the ability to slay evil soul masters and enhance soul power, while in Douluo III, the healing angel's martial soul showed the ability to enhance soul power through the power of faith.

As for abilities that were only briefly mentioned, like countering darkness, purifying souls, or absorbing the power of the sun, the number was even greater.

Chen Ming suspected that before the Angel God ascended to godhood, she might have already gathered human faith through her martial soul or other methods, unconsciously condensing a semi-divine persona or semi-divine position.

Because of this semi-divine position, the Angel God displayed combat power close to divine levels even as a Soul Douluo. Due to her divine-level performance, the Angel God brought more hope to humanity, which led to even greater worship and faith.

This positive cycle ultimately made the Angel God the first human first-class god in the history of the Douluo Continent.

Why did Chen Ming call the Angel God the first instead of the Rakshasa God? Without the Angel God winning humanity the opportunity to thrive and multiply, the Rakshasa God, also a human, wouldn't have been able to gather the faith necessary to condense a divine persona representing evil and chaos.

The only god explicitly stated to have ascended through the faith of soul beasts was the Sea God. However, even among the Sea God's followers, there was a significant number of humans.

As an ambitious person, Chen Ming did not intend to inherit someone else's god position. Instead, he planned to condense his unique divine persona and be ready to leave the God Realm with his family and friends at any time after his ascension.

After all, when you think about it carefully, the God Realm seems like an unpredictable and dangerous trap.

One day in the God Realm was equivalent to a year on the continent. Although the Angel God had ascended nearly 10,000 years ago—closer to 20,000 years now—in the God Realm's perspective, it had only been 60 years. Even for a Titled Douluo, that amount of time wasn't particularly long.

If gods truly had infinite lifespans, then from the God Realm's time perspective, the Angel God should have only just recently entered the realm.

But what was the reality now? The Angel God had disappeared, and the continent hadn't seen any divine miracles from her in ages. Only the descendants of the Angel God, the Qian family, seemed to maintain some connection with her.

The Angel God once worshiped as the faith of the entire continent, had lost the majority of her believers. For a god who ascended through faith, this should have been an utterly unacceptable situation.

The Sea God took thousands of years to gather enough faith to ascend to the God Realm and become a first-class god, second only to the five divine kings.

However, after less than thirty years in the God Realm (equivalent to 10,950 human years), the Sea God was already desperate to throw away his god's seat and leave the realm.

If the God Realm's rules didn't prohibit gods from directly abandoning their positions, and if there weren't restrictions on selecting successors, the Sea God would have likely disappeared long ago. When he left, he even threw down his Sea God Trident, which was the manifestation of his martial soul.

That trident was not only the Sea God's martial soul but also an extremely rare super divine weapon in the Douluo Realm. No matter how you looked at it, it should have been something incredibly important to the Sea God. Normally, unless he died, the Sea God would never have casually abandoned it.

But the problem was that he did.

If it were just the Sea God, it might have been an isolated case. But the number of gods in the Douluo series willing to abandon their positions and leave the God Realm was shockingly high.

From three of the five divine kings to countless nameless second-class gods, these deities were all desperate to get rid of their god positions.

It was as if the precious divine positions they had spent thousands or even tens of thousands of years painstakingly condensing were somehow poisonous.

Among the five divine kings, the only two who didn't seem eager to abandon their positions were the God of Life and the God of Destruction.

From a certain perspective, these two were so deeply tied to the God Realm that their fates were intrinsically linked to it—they rose and fell together. They had no choice but to stay, which was likely why the God of Destruction was always clamoring for God Realm expansion.

Adding to this was the completely different setting between Douluo III and Douluo IV.

As a reader, Chen Ming could have dismissed it as inconsistent writing. But now that he was part of this world, how was he supposed to face it?

Chen Ming was determined to become a god. But what kind of god, when to ascend, and how to ascend—all of it had to be under his control.

He couldn't work tirelessly to ascend to the God Realm, only to be stuck cleaning up someone else's mess once he got there.

Currently, even though he was just a quasi-Soul King, his combat strength was already close to that of a Titled Douluo. Thus, Chen Ming had to start thinking about his future path to godhood.