"Why did you come back?" Eldridge slowly stood up, clearly cautious.
Negary could also observe the means by which Eldridge was remaining cautious.
His [School of God] could crystalize the faith directed towards him into Seeds of Faith, which he would then be able to grant to others.
Through the Seed of Faith, others would be able to skip through the process of stimulating their Metal Soul and become a supernatural Pugilist as long as their faith and constitution meet a certain level of requirements. This greatly lowers one of the stricter and more difficult requirements for Pugilists, enough that it could almost be considered a new path.
For that reason, many people who originally couldn't become a Pugilist had chosen to join the New Royas Kingdom in order to become one.
This was also one of the main reasons why the New Royas Kingdom was growing increasingly more powerful among the larger kingdoms in this world. Of course, as the center of the [School of God], it was necessary for Eldridge to continuously fall into slumber in order to adjust the [School of God], leading to the New Royas Kingdom's issues to grow together with its power.
Of course, the [School of God] itself was also very powerful, as each of the Seed of Faith that is distributed was actually a part of Eldridge himself. The reason why his believers could skip over the Metal Soul process was because they had borrowed Eldridge's own comprehension of the Metal Soul during this phase.
While his believers use the power of the Seed of Faith to strengthen themselves, they were actually strengthening Eldridge as well, since he had the ability to take a Seed of Faith away from them at a moment's notice.
The population of the current New Royas Kingdom numbered in the millions, and just a bit over a million of them were his believers. Although there were also quite a bit of low-faith believers, he had only managed to create over ten thousand Seeds of Truth over the past years, and over half of them had already reached the level of supernatural Pugilist, so their combined force wasn't inconsiderable.
Although Eldridge was silently mobilizing the force of these Seeds of Faith, Negary could see very clearly what Eldridge's intentions were, through his thoughts. His target was actually a certain believer among his network, whose body contained what was most probably the beacon of an Evil God who was currently at the level of demi-god. When absolutely necessary, it was possible for him to summon this Evil God to this world.
Negary's main body was currently clashing against the world spirit of the Supreme God world, so the one here was only his human aspect with various restraints on all of his abilities. If Negary truly does allow Eldridge to summon this Evil God, it would pose a not inconsiderable threat to him.
Of course, there was also the possibility of this Evil God's beacon not being Eldridge's real trump card. After all, he was the Grand Emperor who had unified the Flame world under him for 300 years, there's no telling how many secrets he had actually accumulated.
He was merely using this Evil God to threaten Negary. If Negary wanted to attack Eldridge through his true name or through other means, he would immediately use a chain reaction to activate that beacon and summon the Evil God.
〖 I've merely returned for a short visit to this world, and to a few old friends 〗Negary felt a bit more emotional than usual as his gaze passed through Eldridge.
Back in the Flame world, so many people had compared him to Eldridge, but as time went by, their statuses had become completely different. Eldridge now had to use what is essentially a means of mutual destruction to summon an Evil God, just to barely threaten a small aspect of himself.
This was about equivalent to an opponent using up all of their strength to leave a small paper cut on his hand.
The Evil God was indeed threatening to Negary's human aspect, but with Negary's expertise on summoning rituals, he could easily change the relative spatial factors right at the moment of Eldridge's summon to divert the landing point to another location; for example, the Supreme God world.
Or perhaps, he might display the main body's aura right as the Evil God was summoned. If that Evil God's head was still working properly, they would not try to seek death, and if the other party's head wasn't working properly due to being on the side of chaos, Negary had the means to make their minds even worse.
For example, distorting the beacon's ritual and hiding a non-partial agreement within it, if that Evil God truly does come, they would only become Negary's henchman due to the agreement.
Negary also had certain conjectures about Eldridge's other trump cards, but if he dared to use any of them, it would be the same as a death wish.
Not to mention the fact that Lan Shan was right by his side and Noah was still making preparations all over this world. Both of them were entities who had reached the point of manifesting their own Pathways, so an Evil God wasn't something they couldn't deal with.
In the past, Eldridge had left a considerable impression on Negary, who recognized him as a proper emperor and gave him quite a bit of respect.
But now that he looked at the current Eldridge, he felt that Eldridge was only at that level, at least right here and right now, he didn't receive any respect from Negary.
Perhaps Eldridge had never changed at all and the one who changed was Negary, as his power had grown far beyond what it used to be, so did his vision. An individual who managed to leave a deep impression on him in the past was now just a slightly stronger ant who could carry one grain of rice more than the others.
Among the ants, he was indeed very strong and great, but that was the extent of it.
〖 I'm merely here to take a look 〗Negary emphasized this point again.
He truly was here for no reason other than to take a look, as well as casually boasting of his achievements. The mentality of wanting to return to one's place of origin to show off one's success was something that anyone had. It wasn't a naïve notion, but rather the encouragement of one's own success, as long as one doesn't take it too far.
It was also this sense of encouragement that allowed Negary to further affirm that his path was correct. He would continue down this path and become more powerful, all the way until those he once considered terrifyingly strong with impressive means, like Eternal Light, or even the White Light and Black Abyss, would no longer seem so mysteriously terrifying.
Having satisfied this little bit of emotion, Negary stood up and bid Eldridge farewell. He meant what he said and only came to take a look at Eldridge, although he did draw a little bit of joy from Eldridge who reacted with the utmost precaution at the mere sight of him.
〖 And so, farewell 〗Negary turned around and left.
Negary was sure that after he left, Eldridge would start to reexamine himself like mad, trying to consider every possibility to discern his true intentions, come up with numerous plots and schemes, only to finally realize that the schemes he had thought up were all one-sided.
Perhaps to the ones at a similarly high perspective, their goal doesn't need to be so complicated, but those at inferior positions cannot afford to think in such a simple manner.
If Eldridge had really thought so simply, Negary could easily change his originally simple goal into a different one at a moment's notice. The weak don't get to choose, and their only choice was to ensure every loose end was covered to prevent any unexpected happenings.
For that reason, when Eldridge confirms that Negary truly hasn't planted anything on him, he would only be even more paranoid. He would either check again to see if he had been planted with something he couldn't notice before, or suspect that there was another ploy waiting for him.
The weak have no choice but to be paranoid, because not being paranoid could result in eating a bitter fruit, and this was exactly how Negary came to be.
…
Meanwhile, Ying had brought Adrian in search of the Dragon Warrior, preparing to hunt him down to turn him into material for resurrecting the Metal Knight, Alkors.
