In the control hall, as Shi Feng produced the Eye of the Ancient God, everyone present was stunned — not just Shi Feng himself, but even Han Guang Shiying, who stood beside him, had her beautiful eyes widen in disbelief, her gaze filled with an indescribable shock. She looked at Shi Feng as though he were some kind of aberration.
Ancient Gods!
As the oldest deities in the Divine Realm, they had existed since the very beginning of creation. The countless gods that appeared in later ages were all born from the legacies left behind by the Ancient Gods.
However, after the Divine Realm entered the Ancient Era, the Ancient Gods vanished without explanation. The records that remained were exceedingly scarce. But according to the texts currently housed in the Library, humanity's rise during the Ancient Era was largely thanks to the Ancient Gods' legacies, which gave birth to a great number of human deities.
The Eye of the Ancient God before them — though called an eye — was in truth a legacy of the Ancient Gods.
A legacy that could lead all the way to the sixth-tier god rank!
It was far superior and far more powerful than any other divine legacy in the outside world!
"No wonder that mysterious man wanted to deal with the Fallen Angel. A single Eye of the Ancient God — forget fifth-tier Classes, even sixth-tier gods would be green with envy at the sight of it," Shi Feng murmured, a wave of clarity washing over him as he gazed at the item in his hand.
Eye of the Ancient God, Holy-grade consumable. A relic containing the legacies left by the Ancient Gods, encompassing a vast array of their teachings. Each activation of the Eye requires one thousand units of Seven Luminaries Crystals. It can be used a maximum of nine times, after which the Ancient God's legacy memories within will dissipate. (Currently used: 0 times.)
Even among legacies that could both reach the sixth tier, there were differences — just as gods varied in strength. Take the Human Saints, for instance: though their Classes were only fifth-tier, they had attained the absolute pinnacle in certain aspects, leaving even sixth-tier gods unable to compete.
And the Ancient God's legacy was, without question, the most powerful legacy in the entire Divine Realm. Anyone who could grasp even a small portion of it would find the sixth-tier god rank no great difficulty. If one could master the greater part of it, attaining godhood was practically guaranteed.
He could safely say that this single Eye of the Ancient God was worth more than ten Legendary weapons combined. Compared to the loss of the Dragon Summoning Flute, he had come out far ahead.
But Shi Feng quickly suppressed the excitement surging within him and turned his attention to the remaining three items.
These three items did not radiate a presence quite as overwhelming as the Eye of the Ancient God, but the divine might they exuded was still formidable. Even Huo Wu and the others present felt a wave of oppression pressing down on them, to say nothing of the various fourth-tier experts.
"After this, that mysterious young man is going to be out for my blood for sure," Shi Feng said, glancing at the three items with a wry smile.
The three items were extraordinary in their own right. Two were sub-Holy-grade materials, and one was a sub-Holy-grade consumable. Among the materials, one was a Source of Divine Power — something incredibly rare throughout the entirety of the ancient Divine Realm.
As for the sub-Holy-grade consumable, it was the astonishing Blood of the Ancient God, capable of enhancing a non-player creature's potential and elevating its very plane of existence. It was, without exaggeration, the most potent enhancement item Shi Feng had ever encountered in the Divine Realm.
The spoils from this single expedition to the Ancient Ruins could rival — or even surpass — the rewards of killing three or four sixth-tier gods.
And these were exactly the items the mysterious young man desired most. Now that Shi Feng had claimed them, the young man would likely stop at nothing to come after him.
After the brief shock and silence in the hall had passed, Huo Wu stepped forward and reported, "Guild Leader, according to the intelligence Liang Jing sent over, the NPC armies from the outer worlds have fully entered the Divine Realm's Eastern Continent. They've split into six columns, each consisting of over thirty thousand fourth-tier NPCs and more than four million third-tier NPCs, all at level 150 or above — just as we predicted. One of those columns is headed straight for the Twin Towers Kingdom and the Star Moon Kingdom. That army should reach the vicinity of the Twin Towers Kingdom in three or four days at most."
"Right now, the major superpowers from the outer worlds have already massed outside the Twin Towers Kingdom and have dispatched numerous advance scouting parties to infiltrate it. The various factions within the Twin Towers Kingdom have already clashed with those outer-world experts. Neither side has gained a clear advantage yet, but it's only a matter of time before the Twin Towers Kingdom falls back."
"According to what Melancholic Smile uncovered, Star Ring and the other superpowers organized large numbers of players well in advance, sending many independent experts to the Nightfall Empire and the Black Dragon Empire. They plan to make their final stand against the outer-world forces there. As a result, a great many experts from the Twin Towers Kingdom and the Star Moon Kingdom are planning to abandon both kingdoms."
As Huo Wu finished speaking, Han Guang Shiying's crescent brows furrowed. "How foolish! Holding the imperial defensive line might be a decent strategy, but giving up resistance in the kingdoms means losing an enormous number of NPC troops — handing the outer worlds an advantage for nothing!"
NPCs were not players. Once killed, they were extremely difficult to resurrect, and the outer-world NPC armies were not inexhaustible. Abandoning the kingdoms to make a final stand in the empire was nothing short of idiocy.
Shi Feng, however, showed no surprise at this. He said calmly, "It's to be expected. Sure, players who die can make up the lost levels easily enough, but the weapons and equipment they lose are far harder to replace. Naturally, they'll choose the safer way to fight. And with Star Ring and the other superpowers steering the narrative, those independent players will gravitate toward the empire and abandon the kingdoms without a second thought."
In the previous life, during the great wars between kingdoms and empires in the Divine Realm, the most devastating factor was never player deaths.
It was the equipment players lost. Kingdoms — even empires — fell in large part because the player factions' equipment reserves had been depleted. The players grew weaker with every battle until they could do nothing but watch as their territories were seized, losing one NPC city after another that various powers had spent ages developing, until entire kingdoms and empires were wiped off the map.
The current war between worlds was no different.