Chapter 101: Becoming Your God (IV)

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Chapter 101: Becoming Your God (IV)

“Come over. Let’s have a chat.” The red-haired man beckoned Shang Ke over, his smiling eyes curving into crescents.

The red-haired deity had enclosed the room within his divine domain. With Shang Ke’s current strength, there was no way he could force his way out, so he had no choice but to walk over and sit between the two men.

“What were you looking for when you were messing with Yitamo’s hands just now? Don’t tell me you were looking for a mole on his palm?” the red-haired man asked jokingly.

“Pfft, did I guess right?” Laughing, the red-haired man raised both hands. “Look. Yitamo doesn’t have one, but I do.”

Not only did the red-haired man have palm moles, he had one on each hand: blue on the left and red on the right.

Shang Ke: (ˊДˋ)

“Hahahaha!” He pointed at Shang Ke’s masked face and doubled over laughing.

Shang Ke no longer needed a mirror to know that the damned Perfect Expression Pack was once again destroying his image. Other people wore masks to conceal their expressions; his mask existed solely to expose them. Was he not even allowed to complain silently in his own head anymore?

Yitamo gave a light cough from beside them. “I think I know which clan he belongs to.”

The mask on Shang Ke’s face was simply too distinctive to overlook.

“I never expected the Shu Clan’s god to be so entertaining.” They had already asked the innkeeper about the group and knew they belonged to the Shu Clan. Wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, the red-haired man asked, “What’s your name?”

Shang Ke (ˋ︿ˊ): “What about you?”

The red-haired man smiled. “My name is Neil.”

Love God Neil?! Why is he with Yitamo? Could he have something to do with Yitamo and Tima ending up together in the future? According to the information the System gave me, Tima wasn’t supposed to meet Yitamo until she reached the royal capital. It looks like events have already deviated slightly from the original course.

Shang Ke had not realized just how greatly the skills he taught the Shu Clan over the past few years had improved their lives and made them relatively prosperous. In the original timeline, the evil god had merely given them a reasonably stable place to survive. Poor and inconspicuous, they had never attracted Yitamo’s attention at this stage. But now they had escaped poverty and begun radiating new vitality. From their clothing to their ornaments and tools, everything about them carried a distinctive charm.

That was precisely why they had come into contact with Yitamo ahead of schedule.

“My name is Uno,” Shang Ke introduced himself as well.

“Why were you looking for a mole on the palm? Does it have some special meaning?” Neil asked, his peach-blossom eyes curved with amusement.

“I just thought it would be fun.” <(╯︶╰)╭

Neil: One look and I can tell he’s lying…

Yitamo: One look and I can tell he’s lying…

Shang Ke sensed none of that familiar aura from Neil, so despite the moles on his palms, Shang Ke did not pay them much attention. Yitamo, on the other hand, gave him a faint sense of familiarity—but he had no mole.

“Can I leave now?” Shang Ke stared at Neil, using the sincerely pleading expression on his mask to signal that he should remove the barrier.

“Haha, go ahead.” Neil waved a hand and smiled brightly. “I’ll come play with you again next time.”

Shang Ke rejected that enthusiasm with every fiber of his being.

The next day, just as Tima and the others finished packing, Yitamo and Neil came over to strike up a conversation. After a few pleasantries, the two smoothly joined their traveling party.

Their gazes lingered briefly on Tima’s chest, where the wooden figurine of Uno hung.

The group left the city and continued toward the royal capital.

The Shu Clan had sent a dozen or so people on this journey. Aside from two older members, the rest were unmarried young men and women. Faced with the handsome and widely knowledgeable Yitamo and Neil, the Shu clansmen showed varying degrees of fondness toward them.

Yitamo and Neil, in turn, were quite astonished by the Shu Clan’s many talents.

The weapons they forged were exceptionally sharp, the food they cooked possessed distinctive flavors, they could perform beautiful music, and with nothing more than grass and vines they could casually weave all kinds of intricate patterns… Yet every one of these skills had supposedly been learned from their God Uno.

The endlessly expressive mask they had seen the previous night appeared simultaneously in Yitamo’s and Neil’s minds. They truly found it difficult to reconcile the revered God Uno described by the Shu Clan with the little deity they had met. A divine spirit’s innate gifts varied greatly in quality and strength, depending on the devotion and fortune of those who originally created its idol.

Judging by Shang Ke’s current power, Neil guessed that he was probably a newly born god whose number of worshipers was still too small for him to have properly developed.

With his apparent gifts, once he accumulated enough worshipers, his rank could quickly surpass that of a mid-tier god.

Yitamo and Neil were mistaken about one crucial thing: they assumed Shang Ke followed the wholesome, simple path of an agricultural deity. In reality, his domains were the heaven-defying powers of slaughter and curses, making him an evil-aligned combat god. Every practical skill he had taught the Shu Clan came from Shang Ke himself, not from the evil god’s innate divinity. If he wanted to raise his divine rank, he could only do so by continually strengthening the evil god’s power through slaughter and curses.

That power was exposed before everyone for the first time during an accident three days later.

“Watch out! A pack of beasts!” a Shu youth standing guard shouted in warning.

The moment he finished speaking, dozens of beasts resembling mandrills burst from the undergrowth, shrieking as they charged toward the group.

Everyone immediately formed a defensive circle, placing the girls in the center.

The mandrill-like beasts were extraordinarily fast and agile. In their very first exchange, several people were injured.

Yitamo stood forty or fifty meters away, dealing with the beasts attacking him with effortless ease. He did not appear to have any intention of rushing over to rescue the Shu Clan.

Neil simply leaned against a tree and watched the show. The beasts completely ignored him, racing straight past as though he were not there.

The Shu Clan generally had very little combat ability and relied almost entirely on brute force. Against agile wild beasts like these, they were practically helpless. It was not that Shang Ke had never taught them martial arts. Unfortunately, most simply had no talent for combat: they could remember every movement perfectly, yet the moment a real fight began, everything fell apart.

For an evil god, ending up with such hopelessly untrainable worshipers was truly miserable.

Still, an evil god was ultimately a combat deity, and his innate abilities could provide an enormous boost in battle. Given enough enhancement, he could probably even send a rabbit into a berserk rampage.

Shang Ke separated his consciousness from the wooden idol and activated the evil god’s innate ability, bestowing a berserk heart of slaughter upon his worshipers.

A crimson light flashed. Their formerly clear eyes were instantly flooded with bloodlust, and the expressions beneath their masks twisted into savage grimaces. Their once-clumsy movements suddenly became lightning-fast. Blades rose and fell, spraying blood across their heads and bodies until they looked like malevolent ghosts.

Surprise flashed through Yitamo’s eyes. A moment earlier, the Shu clansmen had been as clumsy as drunkards; now they had suddenly become fearsome warriors. Their technique, footwork, speed, and strength had all increased dramatically. More than that, their attacks were brutal and vicious, every strike aimed to kill, leaving no survivors. Yitamo himself fought decisively, but compared with them, his methods seemed positively gentle.

Do they worship more than one god?

Humans were allowed to worship more than one deity, but doing so greatly weakened the blessings they could receive. No god liked followers whose faith was divided, and some short-tempered deities would refuse to grant any blessing at all.

Judging from the sheer variety of skills the Shu Clan had received, however, it seemed unlikely that they worshiped a second god.

Could this combat power also come from Uno?!

Yitamo found the possibility incredible.

Love God Neil was just as astonished. He was a high-tier god and could clearly sense fluctuations in divine power. He had distinctly seen Shang Ke bestow power upon his followers, and that power carried an unsettling aura and the scent of blood. It certainly did not seem to belong to any benevolent or light-aligned domain.

Neil frowned and thoughtfully regarded the divine spirit floating in midair.

A quarter of an hour later, the battle ended. Shang Ke withdrew the heart of slaughter from his followers and remained hovering in the air, eyes closed as he slowly absorbed the evil god’s power generated by the recent killing. As that power merged into him, the expression on his mask became increasingly ferocious.

The Shu clansmen returned to their senses and stared blankly at the mandrill-like corpses covering the ground, unsure what to make of what they had just done.

“Are you all right?” Yitamo and Neil approached one after the other.

“We’re fine,” an older Shu clansman replied awkwardly.

“Was the power you used just now also granted by God Uno?” Yitamo asked directly. After several days traveling with them, he knew the Shu Clan was straightforward and sincere, so he saw no need to probe indirectly.

“Yes,” the same older clansman answered.

Yitamo asked uncertainly, “Isn’t your God Uno a creation-type deity?”

“No,” Tima answered this time. “God Uno is a combat deity.”

Yitamo: He really is a combat deity? A combat deity who knows every imaginable domestic skill?

Neil: I already confirmed it just now, but I still don’t want to believe it.

Having finished absorbing the power, Shang Ke floated majestically down from the air wearing a viciously grinning mask. He stood tall atop a boulder, hammer in hand as he gazed into the distance, his animal-hide skirt fluttering gently in the wind. The pose somehow managed to be both imposing and flamboyantly masculine.

At the sight of him, the trace of wariness that had just arisen in Neil instantly vanished without a trace.

That night, physically and mentally exhausted, everyone settled down to sleep.

Shang Ke had absorbed a fresh surge of power and was still highly energized, so instead of immediately returning to the wooden figurine, he sat beside the fire hugging his hammer and let his mind wander.

At that moment, two people sat down on either side of him, and his spirit form once again manifested beyond his control.

Shang Ke did not even need to look to know who they were. He remained motionless and continued staring into the flames.

“Uno, you were truly impressive today.” Neil gave him an approving thumbs-up.

Shang Ke remained completely unmoved inside, and the expression on his mask stayed ferocious.

“Let me tell you a secret.” Neil suddenly leaned close to his ear and whispered, “I think that girl named Tima has feelings for you.”

What?! Shang Ke whipped his head around: (⊙Д⊙)!

“Pfft!” Neil doubled over laughing.

Shang Ke: (—_—+)

While Neil was busy laughing, Shang Ke wisely seized the opportunity to escape, disappearing from their sight in an instant.

Neil’s laughter abruptly stopped, and something strange flashed through his eyes. He had set up a barrier around them and had assumed thirty percent of his power would be more than enough to trap Uno, yet Uno had escaped effortlessly. It had only been a few days, and his strength had already increased this much. Was it because of that day’s battle?

“Neil, what kind of combat power do you think Uno governs?” Yitamo asked.

“I’m not sure.” Neil shook his head. Although he had sensed something faintly sinister, every time he approached Uno he had felt no warning of danger whatsoever. Either Neil’s instincts were wrong, or Uno was exceptionally good at hiding his true nature.

One thing, however, was definitely true: the girl named Tima had developed romantic feelings for her god. Neil had seen the pink aura around her that represented love. As the Love God, there was absolutely no chance he could misread that.

At that thought, Neil instinctively looked toward Yitamo.

“What?” Yitamo looked at him in confusion.

Neil patted him on the shoulder and said earnestly, “Brother, when it’s time to make your move, make it. Don’t wait until someone else plucks the beautiful flower before you start regretting it.”

Yitamo: “?”

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