<div>
The chaos still shrouds everything in eternal darkness, and the creator god Aether has yet to appear.
Oliver’s massive serpentine body is coiled at the center of a gigantic energy vortex.
The vortex stretches thousands of kilometers in diameter, resembling a colossal egg within the chaos, frantically devouring the surrounding chaotic energy. Those intangible energies gradually condense into a liquid form under the vortex’s compression, like an ocean of chaos.
Oliver opens his abyss-like maw, greedily swallowing these energies. His body and soul are transforming at an astonishing rate.
"Strength: 1 → 3 → 7 → 15…"
Watching the numbers on his data panel continuously jump and rise, Oliver’s heart fills with delight.
The feeling of growing stronger is just too good!
Power surges through his body, as if every inch of his flesh is cheering and leaping with joy.
Of course, it’s not just his strength—his defense, soul power, chaos power, and other stats are all constantly ticking upward too!
<hr>
Oliver Stark
Race: Deity
Deity Rating: 1
Attributes:
<ul>
<li>Defense: 20</li>
<li>Strength: 15</li>
<li>Chaos Power: 25</li>
<li>Soul Power: 50
…</li>
</ul>
Oliver Stark
Race: Deity
Deity Rating: 2
Attributes:
<ul>
<li>Defense: 50</li>
<li>Strength: 45</li>
<li>Chaos Power: 60</li>
<li>Soul Power: 100</li>
</ul>
He’s reached level 2?
Oliver’s heart grows even more ecstatic. He can clearly feel his body undergoing earth-shattering changes.
And the transformation is still ongoing!
As his stats increase, Oliver’s body continues to expand.
What was once a mere 5-kilometer frame has now grown to 800 kilometers—a staggering 160-fold increase! His serpentine form stretches across the chaos like a vast, slender river.
Complex runes emerge on his scales, each one seemingly imbued with chaotic energy. Even the most violent chaotic currents can’t cause him the slightest harm.
"If the old me was just a juvenile snake, then now, have I entered my growth phase?"
And while Oliver is immersed in the joy of his growing power, a sudden, intense tremor ripples through his body. It’s a resonance from the depths of his bloodline, as if some ancient force is awakening.
"What… is this?" Oliver furrows his brow, sensing the changes within him.
A rune flashes through his mind. It’s intricate and mysterious. Then, more runes appear one after another, as if conveying some kind of message to him.
"These runes… are they skills?" Oliver’s heart stirs, immediately grasping their meaning. They represent new abilities.
Oliver closes his eyes, sinking his consciousness into his body. He feels the energy in his bloodline resonating with the runes.
<hr>
Skill 1: Concealment
The meaning of the first rune surfaces in Oliver’s mind. With a thought, his body and soul’s aura instantly meld with the chaos, silent and traceless. His form gradually fades, as if vanishing into the void.
Even other deities would struggle to detect his presence.
Skill 2: Poison!
The meaning of the second rune fills Oliver with even greater delight. Of course, as a snake, how could he not have venom?
He feels his fangs sharpen, a deep black toxin brewing within them. It’s a primordial poison, capable of corroding not just flesh but souls as well.
"If someone were bitten by my venomous fangs, even a divine being wouldn’t be able to withstand this lethal damage!" Oliver muses to himself.
<hr>
He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but Oliver feels his rate of growth beginning to slow.
He has to stop, and at this moment, his data panel has undergone a world-shaking transformation compared to the beginning!
Oliver Stark
Race: Deity
Deity Rating: 2
Attributes:
<ul>
<li>Defense: 100</li>
<li>Strength: 150</li>
<li>Chaos Power: 100</li>
<li>Soul Power: 300
Skills: Devour, Concealment, Poison</li>
</ul>
"My soul power is actually twice my physical strength!" Oliver is thrilled. He senses that his soul can detach from his body, existing independently in the chaos. With a thought, a massive serpentine soul phantom appears in the air, radiating a noble, ancient, chaotic aura.
Oliver swings his tail, instantly stirring the chaos and unleashing terrifying force. His tail lashes out like a whip of destruction, tearing through the void with a deafening sonic boom. The once-silent chaos trembles from his actions.
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"Concealment!" Oliver activates the skill, and his body and soul’s aura instantly blend into the chaos. He becomes a hunter in the chaos, ready to strike a fatal blow at any moment.
Clearly, Oliver has made tremendous progress now. He wonders how Alex and those other guys are doing.
Logically speaking, Oliver’s rapid advancement comes from his ability to devour chaos. Those guys’ progress shouldn’t be able to match his!
If he encounters them again now, Oliver will definitely teach them a harsh lesson—or even kill Alex outright!
<hr>
And while Oliver is basking in the joy of his power boost, his heart suddenly stirs, sensing powerful divine auras approaching from the distance. Those auras are laced with hostility, closing in on him.
"What’s this…"
Name: Bloodthirsty Fish
Race: Deity
Deity Rating: 1
Attributes:
<ul>
<li>Defense: 10</li>
<li>Strength: 20</li>
<li>Chaos Power: 10</li>
<li>Soul Power: 5
Skills: Unknown
Possessions: Unknown</li>
</ul>
A long string of data appears before Oliver’s eyes.
The source of this data is none other than the Book of the Chaos Era!
Thanks to this special book, Oliver has the ability to view the panels of other deities and monsters.
However, some data seems incomplete, like the skills and possessions sections, which are marked as unknown.
This might be related to the target’s strength, Oliver’s own strength, and various other factors.
Even so, being able to see their basic attributes is already an incredibly valuable ability!
It gives Oliver even more of a video-game-like feeling.
But right now, he doesn’t dare relax. With his powerful soul perception, he quickly discovers more monsters entering his sensory range!
Thousands of kilometers away, terrifying bloodthirsty fish begin to appear. They seem to have locked onto Oliver and are rapidly closing in!
Their appearance resembles some kind of piranha, their bodies unimaginably huge, with diameters of at least several hundred kilometers. Though they’re smaller than him, their numbers are vast—dozens, maybe even a hundred.
"This world really isn’t safe. In the endless chaos, there are plenty of deities like me and Alex."
Oliver quietly reflects.
This chaotic world is truly boundless, and the number of deities within it might far exceed what he’d imagined.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be encountering over a hundred of them right now.
Of course, these deities are clearly somewhat like pack creatures, which is why so many have appeared at once.
By that logic, beings like Oliver and the others are called deities, but in the chaotic world, so-called deities are as common as ordinary creatures on Earth in later eras.
And when the creator god Aether forged the universe, the vast majority of these deities died. The surviving beings, compared to the weak new lifeforms that emerged, seemed overwhelmingly powerful, which is why they were revered as gods.
Oliver realizes he’s likely uncovered the truth of history.
And it seems deities aren’t exactly friendly with one another.
Just like animals in a jungle preying on each other, these hundred piranha-like deities have now caught Oliver’s scent and want to devour him, to eat him.
Just like how Alex once devoured a classmate, these piranhas could probably grow stronger by consuming him too.
The weak are meat, the strong survive.
That’s the chaotic world!
But what puzzles Oliver is this: since all deities can devour each other to grow stronger, why does he have a Devour skill in his skill list? Is there something special about it that he hasn’t discovered?
And right now, as he sees those monsters charging in, Oliver certainly isn’t afraid of them!
Through the Book of the Chaos Era, he’s already checked the stats of these bloodthirsty fish.
Just level 1 small-fry monsters!
Every one of his stats is nearly ten times theirs, if not more!
These bloodthirsty fish want to devour Oliver, but Oliver can just as easily devour them!
Their bodies clearly contain a ton of chaotic energy. Devouring them directly would be way faster than slowly absorbing energy from the chaos on his own!
<hr>
Oliver’s massive body glides slowly through the chaos, as if blending into the surrounding darkness. His scales glimmer faintly under the dim light, like a moving planet or a shifting mountain range.
The swarm of bloodthirsty fish closes in, their eyes filled with greed and madness, as if they’ve already marked Oliver as a lavish feast.
Oliver remains calm, his body curling slightly before he suddenly opens his mouth toward the bloodthirsty fish!
Roar!
Accompanying his deafening roar is a torrent of venom shooting out!
Oliver’s body is terrifyingly enormous, and the venom he spews might seem insignificant compared to his size, but in the chaos, it’s a series of river-like, horrifying streams!
This venom instantly engulfs the swarm of bloodthirsty fish!
At first, the bloodthirsty fish flash a look of disdain, thinking the venom Oliver sprayed was some kind of water-element attack.
They’re fish—how could they fear water?
They flick their tails, swimming even faster through the venom, rapidly closing in on Oliver. Their teeth gleam with an eerie chill, as if they can’t wait to tear into his flesh!
But the next second, the fish start letting out shrill screams, writhing violently in the venom, in unbearable agony!
Soon, the swarm completely loses all signs of life, turning into clumps of flesh easily digestible and absorbable!
In the end, all that remains in the chaos is Oliver’s massive body and the floating remains of the bloodthirsty fish around him.
Oliver slowly closes his mouth, a trace of surprise flickering in his serpentine eyes. "I won just like that? My poison skill is actually this powerful?"
The victory came so easily it shocked even him.
He’d originally prepared for a fierce battle with these creatures, but who knew that with one full-powered strike, he’d wipe them all out with a single swipe?
With a stat gap of ten times or more, the difference in combat strength is actually this massive?
Still, these piranhas were pretty dumb. They couldn’t even tell how powerful he was and still dared to try hunting him?
No, Oliver quickly realizes it’s probably not that these piranha deities were too stupid, but rather that they didn’t have something like the Book of Chaos in his mind.
This book gives him the ability to see the stats of other deities.
It’s exactly because of this data panel that he could easily tell these piranhas’ stats were ten times weaker than his own!
Plus, Oliver has the soul of a human, with a mature intellect.
Many deities, newly born in the chaos, are ignorant and clueless, acting purely on instinct like true animals.
Thinking about it this way, what just happened isn’t so strange after all.