The Land of the Undead was right before him, accessible with just a single step through the portal.
However, Chen Xu did not intend to cross over just yet.
Although he had an army of hundreds of millions of undead providing him with faith, and ascending to a divine throne should be no problem, the other side of that door was no land of benevolence.
The Land of the Undead had existed for countless eons. There was no telling which remote corner might be hiding a truly powerful undead being.
Furthermore, even putting those undead creatures aside, the mere competitors for the title of the Lord of the Undead would be enough for Chen Xu to have his hands full.
There was no room for compromise in a struggle over orthodoxy.
Until he was fully prepared, Chen Xu would not head over rashly. That place was not like the usual dungeons; he knew better than to be reckless and was perfectly willing to play it safe when necessary.
After staring at the portal for a few more moments, Chen Xu left the Undead Kingdom and returned to his dormitory, pulling out his smart terminal and the Soul-Inducing Token.
During his seven days of ascension, Chen Xu had received quite a few messages, especially from Xia Qiming, who had sent several in a row.
Chen Xu skimmed through them and replied one by one.
First was the message from Qi Xuanheng, stating that the one-time soul box had passed testing and its functions were exactly as Chen Xu had described.
Chen Xu first had Xuan Chu arrange for several skeleton soldiers to move the stockpiled one-time soul boxes from the Ghost Factory to the Yin-attribute secret realm in Xinwang City.
Then he sent a message to Qi Xuanheng, telling him to lead his people to the secret realm and ask Xuan Chu for them. As for the payment, he told Daxia to give whatever they deemed appropriate, using Yin-attribute materials or giant creature corpses for the exchange.
He was even open to credit.
Next was Xia Qiming. Over the past few days, he had finalized the roster for the special underwater operations team.
He wanted Chen Xu to help confirm the current situation of the sea race to see if it was suitable to intervene.
Thus, Chen Xu had Kunpeng establish another connection to Valira.
"Understood,"
Kunpeng replied. It then looked down at Valira below, and with a surge of divine power, a soul link was established.
Familiar with the process now, Valira reacted quickly despite the suddenness of the event, sensing the familiar aura.
"What an ancient and terrifying existence."
Feeling that the aura of the Lord of the Undead emanating from Chen Xu had grown even more profound, Valira could not help but marvel in her heart.
"Great Lord of the Undead, your favor fills me with trepidation. I wonder what someone as humble as I can do for you?"
At Chen Xu's signal, Valira described the current situation of the sea race to him.
After listening, Chen Xu was greatly shocked.
He had not expected that in just seven short days, the situation of the sea race would undergo such a world-shaking transformation.
First, Valira and Vashj had joined forces to overthrow the Merfolk Queen, Louise.
Louise and her Royalist faction had been completely purged.
Valira did not go into the details of the purge, only mentioning that Kunpeng and its subordinates had eaten very well that day.
With the fall of the Royalist faction, the Theocracy faction returned to the center of the stage. Combined with Kunpeng, the Sea God, backing them up, the Theocracy faction regained control of the merfolk in just seven days.
Valira, the holy spirit, became the High Priestess. The role of the new Merfolk Queen was taken by Vashj, the former High Priestess.
The upheaval within the merfolk also caught the attention of the naga.
The naga king, the "Tyrant" Nasra, had come to the Merfolk capital, intending to support his partner, Louise.
However, whether out of overconfidence or because the event was so sudden, Nasra had not brought many naga warriors with him.
Under the combined forces of Kunpeng, its subordinates, and a large number of merfolk priests, Nasra was beaten back and fled in a panic.
Unfortunately, they were unable to keep Nasra there forever.
Now, the naga army had finished mobilizing and was stationed just five kilometers outside the Merfolk capital.
Once Chen Xu understood the situation, he immediately called Xia Qiming.
"Ring... Ring..."
"Hello, what is it?"
"Teacher Xia, the merfolk and naga are about to go to war again. Now is the perfect opportunity you wanted."
Chen Xu then rattled off a long explanation, relaying Valira's words to Xia Qiming.
"Alright, I'll arrange for them to set out immediately and launch a sneak attack from the naga's rear. That is all for now, I'm hanging up. I need to notify the operations team members first. I'll call you back later."
After saying his piece, Xia Qiming hung up immediately, giving Chen Xu no time to speak.
Originally, Chen Xu had wanted to chat with Xia Qiming to see if there were any uncleared dungeons with high monster density so he could go stock up.
With hundreds of millions of believers, he would only be a god with low-tier divine power after ascending. A billion would make him mid-tier, and ten billion would be high-tier.
Chen Xu planned to pull the number of undead creatures up to a billion first, so he could directly reach mid-tier divine power upon ascending.
Then, skeleton heroes like Bone Guard One, whom Chen Xu had granted authority, along with the black knights, could directly be promoted to subordinate gods with low-tier divine power. This would cause the overall strength of his undead army to skyrocket.
It should be enough to handle the dangers within the Land of the Undead.
Of course, if there were a hundred dungeons like Black Anomaly for Chen Xu to stock up—uh, clear—he would not mind directly ascending as a god with high-tier divine power.
It was just that such dungeons were too rare; only a few were ever recorded.
In any case, since the space fragments had finished merging, Chen Xu had nothing else to do in his dormitory.
He decided to leave and head straight to the military base to find Xia Qiming, saving himself the trouble of communicating over the phone.
Stepping out of the dormitory, he summoned Sindragosa and flew toward the base.
At the Daxia Military Academy Dungeon Preparation Base.
As Chen Xu walked into the hall, he noticed the people around him looking at him one after another. Their eyes revealed a hint of strangeness, confusion, and even fear.
Chen Xu was puzzled. This was not his first time at the base. Why were the staff members looking at him with such strange expressions?
It made Chen Xu wonder if his clothes had been torn during his physical ascension.
He checked himself with mental strength and found no abnormalities. Then he walked quickly to a glass window and checked again in the reflection.
"There is no problem. My clothes are intact, nothing is torn or exposed. This face is still as charming as ever."
After confirming this, Chen Xu still could not understand what was happening.
"Forget it, I'll go find Teacher Xia first. It cannot be that some slanderous rumors about me spread during these seven days of seclusion."
As Chen Xu walked toward Xia Qiming's office, he wondered who might be defaming him.
He thought about it all the way to the office door but still could not figure it out. Fortunately, Chen Xu was not the type to dwell on things; since he could not understand it, he stopped thinking about it.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Come in!"
Xia Qiming looked up and saw it was Chen Xu. He was about to speak when suddenly, a threatening aura washed over him, making his hair stand on end. He stood up in a state of high tension.
Even his right hand under the desk instinctively clenched into a fist, settling into a combat stance.
"Who are you!"
Chen Xu also frowned. "Teacher Xia, what is this all about? I only went into seclusion for seven days. It is one thing for the sea race to change, but why is everyone acting like they have never seen me before?"
"You are really Chen Xu? Then let me ask you, what did you do on the plane from Linghai to Mohai?"
"The plane? We took a train back then, didn't we? Teacher Xia, you aren't trying to forge a receipt to embezzle Daxia's public funds, are you? In your position, there is no need to be that greedy, is there?"
Hearing Chen Xu's answer, that familiar tone, and that same old punchable attitude, Xia Qiming finally relaxed and slumped back into his chair.
"Whew. What kind of mantra or Daoist law did you practice during these seven days? The moment I saw you, I felt an instinctive sense of dread. Did Xiang Longwu go around spreading some messy techniques again?"
"Instinctive dread? Oh, I see."
Chen Xu slapped his forehead. He understood. He finally understood what was happening.
"Understand what?"
"I've reached mythic-tier. The fear you feel is likely just a biological survival instinct."
"What? Say that again!"
"The fear you feel is likely just a biological survival instinct. It is like how mice fear cats."
"Not that sentence, the one before it."
"I've reached mythic-tier."
Xia Qiming silently reached into his drawer and fumbled around for a long time before pulling out a box of cigarettes that had been sitting there for a while.
Then, with trembling hands, he opened the box and pulled one out, placing it in his mouth.
He searched his pockets for a long time before remembering that he had quit smoking ages ago; this half-box of cigarettes had been left behind by someone else.
So, he held two fingers in front of his eyes and snapped them, using his inner power to light the cigarette. He took a long drag.
After a long while, he exhaled the smoke and spoke slowly.
"I used to wonder if you were the illegitimate son of the World Will. Now I can confirm it—you're not. The World Will is your illegitimate son. You're its damn father! Advancing is easier for you than drinking water!!!"
Rate on N.U.
