Rays of light passed through the window, waking up Arianrll and Aurel from their deep slumber.
A shadow cast across half of Zick's face, as the rays fell on him. He had been meditating and training the whole night, checking his soul and body for any abnormality.
As expected, Zick could continue strengthening himself normally now.
Only that, the method to strengthen his quasi-Divinity was different.
Instead of enhancing the soul using the quasi-divinity, Zick had to merge the two of these right now.
The requirement for the fusion of the soul and Quasi-divinity was mainly tied up with the soul.
The soul has to be fully tempered with quasi-divinity thoroughly, only then can merging these two different entities be possible.
An immense amount of concentration is needed in this process. It brought many risks with it, just a little carelessness could lead the soul to be damaged.
This led many people to die before stepping into godhood. This showed the difficulty of this process, intense perseverance and time are needed for this process to be over. There is also the chance that the soul might reject the fusion, leading to instant death.
'The chances of my soul rejecting me are close to zero. Unlike others, I was able to use the mist of annihilation to cleanse any unneeded element.' Zick opened his eyes, revealing tiredness deep within them.
Though he might be able to think at a speed comparable to a human brain, Zick was still a living being.
Fortunately, Zick had another advantage that gave him an edge compared to others. The regenerative powers, recovering from exhaustion in a blink of an eye.
A mysterious change happens when the soul and Quasi-divinity merge, bringing about a qualitative change in the person's strength.
Zick could feel the immense amount of power held by the quasi-divinity, that perfectly fused with the soul. It was more than 20 times stronger and condenser than before.
Zick breathed out slowly while looking at Arianell and Aurel waking up slowly too. He had decided to rest yesterday and check himself, deep down he felt nothing but urgency.
The world that Zick was in right at the moment was like a hot potato, which was being advertised everywhere.
Soon, many would come running to grab a piece of it too. And Zick did not want a single piece of it, instead, he wanted to gobble up the whole thing for himself.
For this, Zick had to get moving as soon as possible, trying to grab the world core once many forces gather is dangerous.
The coordinates of this world were not hidden anymore, the giants reached this world at last from the portal and finally found the coordinates.
Zick had originally thought that the giant race did not want to share this world core. However, that was not the case, he seems to overestimate the giant race's strength.
Just them alone was not enough to defeat the gods of this world.
From the information that Zick gathered in the first timeline, the gods seem to have been divided into two factions, dark and light.
Zick already collaborated with the dark faction, so it would almost be impossible to join the other side.
The gods of this world were not totally helpless, reinforcement would arrive from the light faction too. The future was quite predictable after that, nothing but death would cover this planet.
"Do you remember what I said yesterday?" Zick seriously questioned Arianell, she had the biggest role in his plan. If she failed, he had already made up his mind to run away and hoped that he would be able to deal with whoever appeared on the planet he went to.
Arianell nodded her head firmly, she would have not been confident before. But now it was different.
Rising to the grandmaster rank, Arianell could teleport anywhere on this planet. With the space core, there was nothing that could block her either.
"Alright, let's get going." Zick and the two began moving towards the hall at once.
Reikel and Yuriel were already waiting in the hall by the time Zick arrived.
Sitting on the couch, Zick asked a question aimed at Reikel: "How did the negotiation go?"
The atmosphere was blanketed by solemnity at once.
"It was a success, but he only agreed after I offered that we will give half of the world core to him." Reikel felt cold sweat forming on his back. He had made a bind, a form of contract with another god, and if he failed or betrayed him, he would die.
The giant race was not the first one to get this world it seems. A certain god had his eyes on this world for a long time but did not make any move as it was not possible to take over by himself.
This god was named the god of the weaver, Kheixer. He was quite self-centered, not willing to share such a thing with others. He had been bidding his time, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
However, now it was different, with the appearance of the giants' race, many other forces would be heading toward this world too.
Kheixer accepted the deal presented by Reikel as there was nothing for him to lose.
Anyone who was able to rise to the god realm was talented and astute. Or they had a strong background that supported them.
Reikel tossed a purple crystal to Zick, a space core!
Reikel took a space core as an advance payment from Kheixer. And demanded coordination for a world ruled by a weak god after half the world's core is handed over.
Space cores might be rare, but they have very little use. It was because there were very few people who could wield the power of space. Mostly this was used as a material for a long-range teleportation array, used to go from one galaxy to another.
Zick did not even bother considering using these coordinates. He was not foolish enough to trust such intel so easily.
Zick was lucky to have someone who could manipulate time and another who could control space.
Right now, both of them were sitting on Zick's lap. Aurel stuck closely to Zick as if she would never let go, while Arianell sat upright, acting like a mature child.
Zick eyes moved to Aurel: 'She doesn't have any important role in this mission, but I am sure she will be quite useful in the future.'
'And if Arianell becomes a god, I am sure no one would be able to ever catch me. If I was ever given a choice, I would have chosen the space element over the others.' Zick evaluation of space elements was very high in his head.
Yuriel could manipulate space elements too, so she was the last resort if anything were to happen to Arianell.
"Here take this, use them in emergencies." Zick passed black cubes to everyone.
"Just what is this obnoxious thing?" Reikel spoke with a frown.
"Souls," Zick spoke indifferently, not keen on explaining. These cubes were made by the souls of billions of people he killed in the eastern and middle continents.
These cubes were the highest-rank wraiths that Yuriel made just a while ago.
Zick was planning on using this against Reikel, in case the sealing technique did not work. Though at that time, he had a weaker version.
"This thing is more than capable of distracting a god for a few seconds. Use it to escape or attack, as you see fit." Zick had tons of this in his space ring too.
"I guess, it's about time that it begins." Zick was aware of the giant races' true intentions, though they might show an image of only wanting a piece of the world core, in reality, they too wanted to hoard it for themselves.
Though, how they were going to achieve that was a mystery.
The ground began shaking as time went by, within a few minutes it turned into an earthquake, shaking the whole republic.
.....
The world invaded by the giants was named — Igmorous, a middle-grade world.
It was a world that suffered one disaster for another. The universe was never safe, many strong creatures can attack the world at any time.
The wraths that attacked this world were a good example. The leader of this species was at the god level, giving a headache to the sun god and the others.
Most of the dragon race was sacrificed to deal with this disaster too.
This creature of chaos was mostly attracted to the world's core. After all, these beings grow stronger by leap and bound after absorbing the world's core.
This incident made the gods, who were appointed to take care of this world resolute, create a barrier around the world's core. Then, unless someone was already aware, they would never be able to sense the core.
But this led them to be stuck in that barrier too, though they were capable of breaking the barrier and going out, they did not do so.
Their job was to take care of this world for 100,000 years, after that other gods would be assigned here. Therefore, they decided to not go out until someone threatening appeared.
In the first timeline, these gods had to turn back the time after the demon races won.
For this, they had to use a little of the world's core energy and sacrifice some of their own, well they all agreed to do it themselves.
It was because some of them were not in this world in their real body. In other words, they were great gods, and losing a puppet did not matter much. It was nothing compared to the reward of completing the mission.
People who were able to climb up to the great god rank had high authority anywhere they went. They did not have to come personally to such a remote world.
Time could have been turned back using just the world core. To fix the chains on the red portal, some of the puppets were sacrificed.
Right now, the giant's race was attacking the barrier directly, trying to destroy it.