Chapter 565: The Path to Becoming a Deity

"This is impossible."

Hearing Yan Jing say that he hadn't dodged, Fear Bird instinctively denied it.

It was impossible for an existence below the Tenth Tier to possess such terrifying restorative abilities, capable of reverting everything back to its original state in an instant.

Yes, everything. Not just wounds, but his status, the concentration of Weird Energy, his aura—it was as if her attack had never even happened.

"It's true."

Yan Jing smiled slightly. "I simply reversed time just a little bit."

"That's even more impossible!"

Fear Bird's eyes went wide.

"Do you have any idea what reversing time means? Even a Demigod Realm expert who governs time couldn't turn it back more than three seconds, and the range wouldn't exceed a medium-sized domain."

Three seconds.

It sounded short.

But that was three seconds across an entire domain.

It meant that every living creature, every single object within that domain—even a speck of dust—would revert to how it was three seconds prior.

It wasn't a pause, nor was it a deceleration. It was a direct temporal reversal.

The sheer amount of Weird Energy and the level of control required to achieve that were astronomical.

And now, Yan Jing was claiming he had reversed time.

That meant he would have had to rewind to before she threw her punch, while also leaving enough time to knock her away. A conservative estimate put that at nearly half a second.

Yet Yan Jing didn't walk a time-based pathway at all.

That was exactly why Fear Bird couldn't believe a word he said.

"Is that so?"

Yan Jing wasn't very familiar with the abilities of existences on the time pathways.

But after thinking about it, he found her reaction quite reasonable.

"I can only reverse time by about 0.005 seconds. Give or take. It might even be shorter than that, and it can only affect whatever hits me."

Fear Bird's eyes bulged even further.

She suspected that Yan Jing had lost all concept of time while adrift in the River of Time.

0.005 seconds.

It took two hundred increments of 0.005 just to make a single second.

Suppose her tentacle hit his face, and he reversed time to 0.005 seconds before impact. No, even if he went back 0.01 seconds prior, what could he do? Could he dodge?

She believed Yan Jing could throw two hundred punches in a second, but striking and dodging were two completely different matters.

Yan Jing chuckled. "Logically speaking, such a brief window of time is useless."

"But it holds some use for me."

"Because I have another ability related to time."

"Another—" Fear Bird froze, her mouth slightly ajar.

It was that divine ability to insert a separate sliver of time between two moments.

Therefore, the 0.005 seconds here wasn't a pure duration.

Instead, he reversed time first, then inserted the divine power known as 'February' to provide Faster Time.

During this Faster Time, everyone else was essentially in a temporal void frame relative to Yan Jing.

Yan Jing could do whatever he wanted.

He could even—

He could even use that ability to pause time.

The loop was closed.

The air suddenly grew quiet.

Fear Bird felt cold sweat dripping down her back, sliding against her skin drop by drop.

She lowered her eyes, her eyelashes trembling slightly. She wanted to speak but couldn't utter a word, as if an invisible hand had gripped her throat.

It was all because she sensed that Yan Jing was walking a path toward becoming a Deity.

Not reaching the Summit. Not standing at the pinnacle. But becoming a Deity.

A Deity.

No matter which domain or world one was in, it was an inescapably heavy word.

The previous Yan Jing had been strong, and not just ordinarily strong.

Fear Bird knew this, of course.

Setting aside the time spent in the River of Time, no one had stayed by Yan Jing's side longer than she had.

That fool who sold mantou, that idiot with fox-like eyes, that moron in the emerald dress with her hair in buns, and this newly arrived, gentle-looking lunatic—none of them could compare to her.

She had genuinely watched this man take every step to get where he was.

She knew just how absurd he was, both in terms of sheer power and the desperate lengths he would go to in a fight.

But exactly because of that, she had never imagined Yan Jing would become a Deity.

Did you know what a Deity looked like?

Did you understand Deities?

Those fools out there preached day in and day out about how incredibly powerful Deities were, but in reality, they hadn't even caught a glimpse of one's shadow.

But she was different. She had actually seen one.

Back when she was first born.

That was a very, very long time ago.

Most of her memories from that day had blurred in the wind. She vaguely recalled that the sky was overcast.

Or perhaps the concept of an overcast sky didn't even exist there.

She couldn't even remember where it was.

She only remembered the gloom overhead, looking like vast expanses of gray fog.

She opened her eyes and looked up. Beneath that fog lay a patch of pitch black.

She couldn't see what was hidden in that darkness. She could only faintly hear a sound: "Blub, blub, blub."

"Blub, blub, blub—"

At the time, she didn't know how to describe that strange noise, but later she realized it sounded like boiling water in a pot.

That existence stood there silently, unmoving, unspeaking. It simply emitted that bubbling sound, so quiet it was downright eerie.

Yet she could feel its immense power.

It was like a bug gazing up at an elephant.

An elephant wouldn't intentionally step on a bug to kill it.

But it could casually crush a whole swath of them at any given moment.

Her feeling at the time was even worse than that.

So, even though the being before her was the one who had created her, the only thought in her mind was born of pure survival instinct: run.

But she couldn't move her feet.

If she moved and it noticed her, she knew she would be finished.

It wouldn't even need to lift a finger. It just had to think it; the mere birth of that thought would spell her end.

That was exactly how she felt back then.

And right when she was shivering in terror, a man suddenly approached.

He wore a long robe woven from pale gray feathers. The top of his head appeared cracked open, and from it sprouted a withered tree with dead branches.

He gave Fear Bird the same sensation of overwhelming power.

While he couldn't compare to the entity looming in the shadows beside him, he was still tens of thousands of times stronger than her.

Then, the man bowed respectfully and spoke. "I welcome my Lord's return, and celebrate your great achievements. From this day forth, any existence who speaks your title must first pray and beg. They will beg for your pity and forgiveness, pleading for even the slightest shred of mercy from you as a Deity."

Right after the man finished speaking, Fear Bird saw a brilliant, golden path manifest behind that pitch-black shadow—so blindingly bright she couldn't even open her eyes.

Deity—

It was the first time Fear Bird had ever heard the word, yet it was permanently seared into her mind from that day onward.

Later, she left with the man.

She never again saw the Deity that had "manufactured" her.

But that was enough.

She had come to understand exactly what kind of existences Deities were.

And precisely because she had such a direct encounter, she possessed her own framework for judging the potential of any existence.

Take Yan Jing, for example. Even with all the heaven-defying feats he had displayed before, she had always felt there was a vast gap between him and that existence. She would subconsciously compare Yan Jing to the level of power she imagined that entity would have possessed at his current stage, and she always concluded that Yan Jing fell short.

But what Yan Jing revealed today thoroughly shattered her assumptions.

Her normally indifferent state of mind was suddenly struck by an intense wave of shock.

The moment she realized that the temporal logic had formed a perfect closed loop on Yan Jing, she fell into a daze. In that trance, she suddenly saw a path manifest behind him.

A brilliantly golden path.

It was nowhere near as broad as the path back then, nor did it exude the suffocating pressure of that entity.

But the path was real. At the very least, it was vividly real in her mind.

And once again, that familiar sensation crept over her.

The same familiar feeling she had when she faced that Source of Mutation.

Incomprehensible. Unfathomable. Invincible.

She couldn't even conceive of a way to break through it.

She couldn't muster a single thought of resistance.

Even though it only lasted for a fleeting instant, Fear Bird's instincts told her that the man before her had already stepped onto that path.

She lost her footing and nearly tripped over herself.

Yan Jing reached out in time to steady her.

He frowned. "I didn't hit you too hard just now, did I?"

He was completely unaware of the psychological turmoil Fear Bird was going through, so naturally, he couldn't grasp why she was acting this way.

Fear Bird simply waved her hand.

She looked at Yan Jing, wanting to speak, but her throat was so dry she couldn't make a sound.

Only after resting for several minutes did she finally regain her composure.

During those few minutes, Yan Jing had been rather excited. "Could it be that this ability still holds some untapped potential?"

He wanted to find someone else to test it on, wondering if Fear Bird's current state was the result of some secondary effect attached to his ability.

Watching Yan Jing behave like this, Fear Bird, who could barely speak to begin with, only wanted to roll her eyes.

Weakly, she raised her hand and waved it. "Let's table this for now. I came looking for you because the preliminary voting intentions have been tallied."

"That fast?"

Yan Jing nodded in satisfaction. "How is the situation?"

"Not great."

Fear Bird shook her head.

"Those guys from New Sin City spent a massive amount of effort pulling strings in private. They've been trying desperately to absorb Old Sin City back into their fold."

"Luckily, some of their rival domains have been pushing back. Otherwise, Old Sin City might have already been handed over to them."

"The ruling for Old Sin City was supposed to happen a long time ago. It's exactly because of this conflict that it's been delayed until now."

"But because of some other matters, the higher-ups have issued an absolute ultimatum. The issue must be resolved within a week, so it ended up being scheduled right alongside the ruling for the Cat Ship."

Yan Jing nodded. "Who can we win over? Or do you have a better plan?"

Fear Bird sighed. "If you want Old Sin City to be independent, we need more than half the votes from domains excluding the First Level Domains."

"That means you either need to win over the big bosses among the Second Level domains, or grease enough palms to secure half the votes."

"Both options are incredibly difficult."

"Of course, there's another option—gaining the public endorsement of a First Level Domain."

"Every First Level Domain possesses a One-Vote Privilege once a year, allowing them to instantly approve or veto."

"But securing that is much harder than the first two methods."

Yan Jing frowned.

He had heard of these methods early on, and he had been working toward them all along.

But gathering support from so many domains wasn't easy.

Tallying up the domains he had on hand, the only ones he was certain would support him were the Peace Heavenly Kingdom, a few neighboring nations, and the Cat Ship.

He had a few contingencies prepared, but he couldn't guarantee their effectiveness.

"Could the Cat Ship be promoted to a First Level Domain?"

He looked at Fear Bird.

Fear Bird shook her head. "A First Level Domain requires a Divine Envoy. A true Divine Envoy, not just someone with the combat power of one."

Yan Jing's brows furrowed tightly as his thoughts raced.

In an instant, several plans took shape in his mind.

He immediately listed them out one by one to verify them with Fear Bird.

As Fear Bird listened to Yan Jing's strategies, her eyes widened further and further, until she was staring at him in horror. "Do you really care that much about that stuttering girl who sells mantou?"

It wasn't her fault for blurting that out—it was just that Yan Jing's plans grew increasingly horrifying with each iteration.

They included, but were not limited to: actively seeking out Tenth Tier existences, starting right at Hermit, and beating them until a First Level Domain used its One-Vote Privilege to back Old Sin City. Another was relying on Xiao Xin to deploy all of their current Ninth Tier combatants for war, sweeping across the majority of the Second Level domains after they drank his blood.

Even if they couldn't force them into total submission, they just needed to inflict enough losses that the cost outweighed their desire to vote against them. They just had to make the opposition feel that casting their vote was the easiest way to make the problem go away.

Or else there was—

Recalling the last plan Yan Jing had proposed, Fear Bird drew a sharp breath of cold air. "You're crazy. You've completely lost your mind!!"

Yan Jing's eyes darkened. "I have no other choice."

He knew from Xiao Xin that Mantou had been preparing for Old Sin City's independence for a long time. She had been clutching books every day, practicing the speech she would give at the trial.

If they failed when the time came—

Fear Bird sighed. "Even if you actually follow through with these plans, I believe you have the strength to handle the fallout."

"But that's only looking at the immediate future."

"Have you thought about the consequences?"

"Later on, to defend against the retaliation from those domains, you'll have to face a horde of Divine Envoys. And even if you manage to fight them off, there might be Demigod Realm experts waiting behind them."

"Say you're that incredible and you beat the Demigod Realm experts. What comes after them?"

"I'm not afraid you'll lose this time, but I am afraid you aren't leaving yourself enough time."

"You and I both know your potential. If you just lay low and wait for Advent Day, who would dare object when you declare that Old Sin City should be independent?"

"As for that silly girl... She tried her best. But there are countless people in this world who try their best."

"If Old Sin City gets absorbed into another domain, she'll definitely suffer some grievances and hardships, but there are countless people in this world who suffer grievances and hardships too."

"She was just lucky enough to cross paths with you, that's all."

It was incredibly rare for Fear Bird to speak so much to Yan Jing.

Yan Jing lowered his gaze to the floor, his eyes profound.

"You make a fair point."

As if he had figured things out, he stood up and walked toward the door.

"You'd better hurry up and set off with Tang Ran and the others to quell the riots in the Pure Blood Heavenly Kingdom."

"If Hermit comes back out for blood, he'll make an example out of you and Luo Zheng first."

Yan Jing returned to his room.

In truth, he still had a few other methods he hadn't mentioned.

But he couldn't bring himself to use any of them.

Like trading the Cat Ship's autonomy for a First Level Domain's support of Old Sin City, or seeking out Chen Nian...

But the people on the Cat Ship also wanted independence.

And Mao Si was the captain of that Ship, while Wen Xu was its director.

As for Chen Nian...

To him, Chen Nian and Mantou were roughly equal in importance.

The same went for Old Man, Wen He, and Fei Yu.

He had no right to trade one person's desires for another's.

But he wasn't planning on giving up either.

"When will the grapes finally ripen—"

For the next day, Yan Jing didn't step out of his room.

Fear Bird observed his behavior and assumed he was simply digesting his emotions. She sighed silently, and that night, she left the station alongside Tang Zai and the others.

And just like that.

The next day arrived.

The trial of the Gods' Association finally commenced.