The People's God: Sacrificing Trillions to Ascend

When Han Wu received the notification that the difficulty was increasing, he was thrilled. The current difficulty was like water to him: bland, tasteless, and easy. He desperately wanted it cranked up, preferably with even more creatures.

As if answering his prayers, a massive horde of creatures came rushing toward his territory.

The portal opened, and creatures poured out in a continuous stream, practically squeezing against each other in their rush forward. Some of the smaller ones were wedged so tightly between larger creatures that their feet didn’t even touch the ground. The surging horde simply carried them into Han Wu’s zone.

Facing this tsunami of invaders, Han Wu finally felt the excitement. The original six Microcosm locusts, along with a newly merged seventh, tore into the horde and devoured creatures one by one with savage efficiency.

Naturally, Han Wu’s Energy Points skyrocketed.

With all ninety-five remaining waves converging at once, there was no longer any break between waves. He had to direct his units while simultaneously drawing new ones.

His luck hadn’t improved since entering this civilization. Over eighty percent of the units he drew were locusts, and the remaining twenty percent consisted of other types, generally of low rank. Thankfully, he had Merge, which allowed him to combine units of the same type to strengthen them. Under his efforts, the quality of his defending force gradually improved.

Drawing units with Energy Points was simply too slow, though. His real powerhouse was Sacrifice. As the invading creatures grew stronger, Sacrifice’s rewards started to change. Instead of receiving only locusts, Han Wu started obtaining other varieties of his core race.

It was precisely those units that allowed him to keep pace with the rapidly escalating difficulty of the exam. With all ninety-five waves flooding in at once, the challenge had spiked enormously.

Before he could deploy enough units to hold the line, a wave of extremely powerful life forms came crashing through. They were the creatures intended for the 100th wave: 10,001 Virus Drakes.

An Earthsunder Virus Drake King led the charge, followed by King Virus Drakes. Thanks to their Drake bloodline, these creatures were inherently stronger than other life forms of the same rank.

As the boss of the 100th wave, the Virus Drake King had certain stats boosted tenfold.

[Virus Drake King: Earthsunder life form. HP: 2,000,000. Movement speed: 1,000. Attack type: Bite (single target). Attack range: 100. Damage: 10,000. Attack interval: 1 second. (Invading creatures only target the host.)]

[Skill 1: Virus Infection. Bitten areas become infected. The host takes 1,000 virus damage per second for 10 seconds. It stacks up to five times.]

[Skill 2: Tail Slam. After five attacks, the Virus Drake King unleashes a tail whip that deals 1.5 times its bite damage and reduces the host’s defense. Deals double damage to structures.]

[Skill 3: Wild Rush. The Virus Drake King charges at double its movement speed and deals quintuple damage. After the charge, it requires 2 seconds to recover from the impact.]

Facing the monstrous boss, Han Wu immediately deployed the Iron Abyss Bug he had just merged. It was the pinnacle of the defensive evolution line. Its massive frame occupied a significant amount of space, and every stat and skill it possessed focused entirely on defense.

[Iron Abyss Bug: Earthsunder life form. Attack type: Summon Shield (single target). Attack range: 100. Durability: 5,000. Attack interval: 3 seconds.]

[Skill 1: Iron Shield. It grants the shield an iron attribute, rendering it immune to physical damage below 1,000.]

[Skill 2: Abyss Shield. It grants the shield an abyss attribute, rendering it immune to magical damage below 1,000.]

[Skill 3: Shield Reflect. When the shield takes damage, it counters with a force equal to 30% of the damage received. If the shield shatters while absorbing an attack, it releases a shockwave that deals 40% of the damage received to all creatures within range.]

The Iron Abyss Bug bought Han Wu some breathing room. Even so, the sight of the Virus Drake King shattering shield after shield still made his heart race. At that rate, the boss would reach him in less than three minutes.

Under the Will of the civilization’s restrictions, Han Wu couldn’t fight back directly. If the Virus Drake King broke through the Iron Abyss Bug’s defenses, he would die.

I need to figure something out, and fast. Han Wu realized the danger and immediately searched for a solution.

The Will had locked all his Divine Aspects, Divine Authority, Divine Jurisdictions, and personal strength, along with most of his abilities. After some testing, he discovered that only those with the Exclusive grade, such as Merge and Sacrifice, still worked.

His mind raced. He had more than just those two Exclusive abilities. He also had Replicate and Avatar Creation!

He immediately tried using Replicate to copy the Iron Abyss Bug’s attributes. If it worked, he could deploy shields himself and slow the Virus Drake King’s advance.

It worked. Exclusive abilities were indeed exempted from the Will’s restrictions. In an instant, Han Wu went from a helpless host incapable of doing anything to someone who could summon shields just like the Iron Abyss Bug.

Then he remembered his Avatar Creation. What will happen if I combine Avatar Creation with Replicate?

He tried it, and it worked again, though only partially. Normally, he could easily create tens of thousands of avatars, but now he could only create four, one for each of his Exclusive abilities.

Thankfully, Replicate was versatile enough that even after he split it off into a separate avatar, it could still copy abilities for the other avatars. As a result, all four avatars became humanoid Iron Abyss Bugs, each capable of summoning shields.

Han Wu went from a defenseless punching bag to four shield-generating copies of himself. The four Han Wus threw up shields in rapid succession to block the Virus Drake King’s advance and reinforced each shield with skills that made them tougher and extended their duration.

Every time the Virus Drake King shattered a shield, the reflection shockwave damaged it in return. Its normal attack dealt 10,000 damage, meaning each reflected shockwave dealt 4,000 damage. When it used Wild Rush, the reflected damage spiked to a staggering 20,000.

Shield after shield appeared, stopping every attempt to advance. In the end, after smashing through more than 300 shields, the Virus Drake King died.

Han Wu looked at the Virus Drake King’s carcass and couldn’t help but marvel. Killed by its own power reflected back at it.What a way to go.