The People's God: Sacrificing Trillions to Ascend

Chapter 821 - Demon King Transformation Stage Three

“How did you detect him?” Han Wu asked.

V turned to look at him. “I analyzed your perception earlier and found that it essentially works by scanning for living beings. Very few life forms can slip past it because of its sensitivity.

“My detection, on the other hand, works in two parts. The first part operates with the same principle as yours and scans for living beings. Meanwhile, the second part screens everything inorganic and inanimate within a certain range.

“The assassin’s power must’ve suppressed his presence entirely, which was why neither your perception nor my first scan located him. My second scan, however, works by filtering out anything inorganic and inanimate. Within a short window of time, I detected an anomalous shift in the area where he was hiding, something that defied normal physical logic. That was how I found him.”

V’s explanation impressed Han Wu. He had always had great confidence in his perception, but this encounter showed him its limits.

“Don’t worry too much about it. The precision and range of your perception mean it’ll work the vast majority of the time.” V smiled with his metallic face.

The expression stunned Han Wu. V seemed more and more like a person—or more accurately a life form—by the minute. This gave Han Wu another idea. If V was a Merge of machine and life, could Han Wu use his Replicate to copy V’s capabilities onto himself?

Wanting to try it immediately, he explained his idea to V. The latter nodded eagerly. He had only recently gained life and was hungry for more data to help him adapt and evolve.

The two of them clasped hands, and Han Wu activated Replicate. V’s unusual circumstances meant that progress moved at a painfully slow pace, so Han Wu activated Omniversal to boost Replicate's efficiency, but even then, it still took three hours.

Once the process was complete, Han Wu instantly triggered it. The transformation was immediate and total. Flesh turned to metal, and energy converted into power cells. His heart and brain also underwent changes that were difficult to describe.

Han Wu thus transformed from a cheerful, easygoing young Major God to an armored mech. Even his view of the world changed beyond recognition.

Everything lost its color and became clusters of swatches; his ears were filled with a chaotic stream of signals that had no obvious meaning; breathing became optional; and every part of his body became something he could consciously regulate.

It felt as though he had become the administrator of his own body, able to adjust countless parameters to shift between states. Even something as simple as raising his hand required at least 10,000 computation steps to execute, let alone anything as complex as an attack.

Despite the constant high-frequency calculations, Han Wu felt no discomfort at all. His brain-turned-core had tremendous processing power. Even while engaging in physical combat, its usage rate was a mere 10%.

That meant 90% of his processing capacity was left idle. This wasn’t because it couldn’t be used, but because Han Wu’s present range of instructions simply didn’t demand that level of processing.

“Fascinating...” Han Wu remarked, already experimenting with pushing the usage rate higher.

An all-out physical attack brought it to 10%. Activating his Divine Ring in V-form to summon his Microcosm brought it to 15%. Even in his strongest state, the True Black Dragon King form, the rate only increased to 25%.

Han Wu ran out of abilities to stack, yet 75% of the core remained completely idle. In other words, he could only draw on 25% of V-form’s true power.

What do I need to do to grow stronger? Han Wu wondered to himself.

In response to his thoughts, his core began cataloguing every Divine Jurisdiction, Divine Aspect, Divine Power, Divine Skill, and Divine Ability within Han Wu’s arsenal. It ran a full integration and calculation.

Han Wu watched as the core’s usage rate leaped to 90% during this process. Is the path to becoming stronger that difficult to calculate?

Three minutes later, the calculation was complete. The core presented Han Wu with an astonishing proposal. It suggested that Han Wu use the Demon King Transformation as the foundation upon which to stack the Seal Arts, the Divine Weapon Atlas, Replicate, Merge, Undying, Energy Materialization, the Conversion Jurisdiction, the Duel Jurisdiction, and several other abilities to construct an entirely new form.

The proposal was tentatively named the Demon King Transformation Stage Three.

This was easier said than done, however, as merging all of these different powers into a single ability was going to be absurdly difficult. It would require enormous resources, vast amounts of Divine Essence, and significant time, all while keeping the core running at 100%.

Even the wealthy Han Wu found himself drawing a sharp breath when he read through the list of requirements. Resources and materials were one thing; the issue was Divine Essence.

He needed the Divine Essence in his account to sustain the operation of his Microcosms, the ongoing construction of the Soul Microcosm, and several other projects. He had no leeway for a major withdrawal. Besides, the seven-figure Divine Essence he had on hand didn’t even cover the cost of completing the Demon King Transformation Stage Three.

Aside from that, there was the matter of time as well. The ongoing divine war meant every moment counted. Assassination attempts like today’s could also strike at any point, and guarding against them ate into his schedule considerably.

How could he buy time while also acquiring the large quantity of Divine Essence he needed? Han Wu set his V-form core to work on the problem. The conclusion he reached was... unorthodox.

It was simple. All he had to do was die.