NOVEL NEXT Chapter421-Common Materials
In the vast realm of the Backworld, Daniel's figure streaked across the endless horizons with astonishing speed, his silhouette nothing more than a blur of motion.
Although he had already braced himself for it, the sheer number of God-ranked beings he encountered in this place still far exceeded his expectations.
No matter how prepared he thought he was, reality proved that the Backworld was a domain that constantly defied imagination.
During his time here, Daniel had gradually pieced together some of the underlying rules that governed this strange and ancient world.
He had begun to understand the laws of survival that differed so greatly from those of the Land of Origin.
In the Backworld, every region represented a specific domain. Each stretch of land was tied to a particular aspect of existence, and the rules of that aspect dominated all life within it.
Here, the creatures that rose to the God Rank automatically manifested a godhead corresponding to the domain of their region, so long as they achieved the necessary level.
These godheads were not of the modern pantheon Daniel was accustomed to.
Rather, they belonged to the Ancient God system, a primordial order that felt alien to him, steeped in archaic traditions.
At this moment, Daniel was traversing a zone that belonged to the Devouring Domain.
All beings that ascended here and acquired godhood automatically became gods of Devouring.
Yet what surprised him even more was the behavior of the Demigods within this region.
Contrary to Daniel's understanding, they were not locked in endless duels, fighting tooth and claw to seize each other's godheads.
Instead, these Demigods knelt in reverence, bowing with absolute devotion to a single, stronger Demigod who presided over them.
This was entirely different from the way Daniel understood the God Rank system.
In his eyes, beings of equal domain should be tearing each other apart, each vying to usurp the other's divine seat.
But in the Backworld, the paradigm was different.
Survival was dictated not by domination through slaughter but by faith and submission.
The Demigods here gained strength not by devouring their peers but by deepening their faith in stronger beings.
The more devout their faith, the greater the power they acquired.
Thus, the rules of the Backworld formed a system wholly different from anything Daniel had known. If one wished not to be destroyed, the best course of action was to submit to a greater power, offering faith in exchange for shelter.
It was a hierarchy of shelter: Demigods sheltered by Fake Gods, Fake Gods sheltered by true Demigods of higher rank, and so on in endless chains.
The mighty fought not for godheads, but for believers, tearing away each other's flocks of worshippers.
Overall, the Backworld felt less like a realm of chaos and more like a fossilized remnant of ancient law—a direct continuation of primordial jungle law, where survival meant submission and dominance meant commanding faith.
Through his perception, Daniel noticed that around the wreckage of the Fake Gods whom Luna had destroyed earlier, a great crowd had gathered.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Demigods now swarmed around each shattered divine corpse, and even more continued to arrive from all directions.
They came not out of respect but hunger.
Each sought to absorb the power lingering in the Fake God's remains, and more importantly, to claim the followers that had once worshipped the slain.
Since Luna's wrath had targeted the Fake Gods specifically, many of the Demigods had survived the purge by sheer luck.
Now, sensing opportunity, they rushed in like vultures circling carrion.
Fierce battles erupted all around, the desperate clashes of Demigods shaking the land.
The chaotic aftershocks spread, sweeping up countless ordinary creatures who had the misfortune of living nearby.
Daniel watched for only a moment before raising his hand without hesitation. With a thought, he unleashed [Meteor Arrow Rain].
At his current level of strength, he no longer needed to fuse skills to achieve devastation.
The skill alone, in its base form, carried enough destructive force to wipe out Demigod ranks en masse.
In an instant, the heavens lit up.
Arrows of light, countless as falling stars, rained down upon the battlefield.
The Demigods locked in combat froze, their gazes instinctively turning skyward.
Their expressions shifted from confusion to sheer horror as they recognized the threat bearing down upon them.
Beauty, Daniel reflected, often concealed cruelty.
Each glittering meteor carried within it a destructive essence that could pulverize worlds.
The rain fell.
Explosions cascaded across the land.
The earth trembled as shockwaves rippled outward, scouring everything within reach.
Demigods screamed—then were silenced as their bodies disintegrated, their very souls torn apart in the brilliant inferno.
The scene before Daniel's eyes reminded him vividly of the detonation of the Primordial Core Weapon he had once wielded as his trump card.
For a long time, that weapon had been his most reliable safeguard, the ace he could rely on when all else failed.
But now, looking back, he realized its power was far less overwhelming than he once believed.
Compared to the destructive capacity of Meteor Arrow Rain in his current state, the Primordial Core Weapon was almost tame.
The only drawback was that Meteor Arrow Rain covered a smaller area—barely one-tenth of the weapon's catastrophic range.
High damage, yes, but limited coverage.
He sighed inwardly.
Power always came with trade-offs: when the output increased, the area of effect naturally diminished.
Without pausing, Daniel raised his hand again.
A second Meteor Arrow Rain screamed down from the sky, annihilating everything that remained.
Within just a few minutes, Daniel had collected thirty-six sets of Fake God remains and souls.
This was no small harvest.
With these alone, he could attempt the synthesis of multiple God Rank Skills.
The one he intended to craft first was the [Blade of the Betrayer].
But the materials required for this particular skill were unusually troublesome.
To create it properly, one needed Godcore Power extracted from those who had been betrayed—betrayers of Demigod Rank or higher.
At least ten thousand portions of Godcore Power were needed for the core material.
The problem was, Daniel had no idea where to obtain such resources.
His avatars had scoured the Land of Origin and countless other planes, but none had ever uncovered so much as a trace of this Godcore Power.
To this day, he didn't even truly understand what it was supposed to be.
Unable to solve the mystery, he had no choice but to make substitutions. He turned instead to the remains of Fake Gods, melting their essence to stand in place of the elusive Godcore Power.
Fortunately, he possessed the dagger of the God of Thieves, an artifact capable of transmuting these remains into suitable components.
Without it, the notion of synthesizing so many materials from Fake God corpses would have been laughable—nothing more than a fantasy.
But even this immediate problem did not overly concern Daniel.
His gaze was fixed far further into the future.
His ambition was simple yet staggering: to one day synthesize every single God Rank Skill listed in the God Rank Skill Compendium.
At present, his standing among the rankings was still below the seventy-fifth tier.
But he knew with absolute certainty—so long as his strength continued to rise, his position would climb. It was only a matter of time.
Shaking his head, he dismissed the distractions clouding his thoughts.
Without further hesitation, he turned and left the battlefield behind.
Yet even after his departure, the devastation lingered.
Explosions echoed, aftershocks rolling outward, instilling terror in all who remained.
The sheer scale of his onslaught had exceeded what any ordinary Demigod could withstand. Only a handful of the luckiest had managed to escape with their lives, clinging to survival by the slimmest of margins.
Those beneath the Demigod level, however, had been utterly annihilated.
Daniel felt no remorse.
The Ancient God system, he knew, twisted its followers. Their souls were effectively sold to the godheads they worshipped, making them less rulers of their domains and more puppets bound to divine thrones.
Their entire existence was slavery to faith. Killing them was not the destruction of free beings—it was merely shattering the husks of those already lost.
With this logic in mind, Daniel had no burden in cleansing them from existence.
At last, as the final meteor fell and the light of the storm faded, silence reclaimed the battlefield.
Daniel glanced into his spatial inventory, where the spoils of his slaughter were neatly stored. He gave a small, satisfied nod.
From this single barrage of Meteor Arrow Rain, he had harvested no less than five hundred portions of Demigod-grade Common Materials.