Chapter 158: The Death Of A God

Boom.

The water from the Great Sea continued to pour across the land with enough force to tear through everything in its path. Villages disappeared beneath the waves, roads were ripped apart, and ancient forests were flattened as entire territories that had stood for generations were swallowed beneath the rushing flood.

For many, this was the absolute end—homes built by ancestors vanished in an instant, centuries of accumulated treasures dissolved into the current, and families were torn apart by the torrent, leaving nothing behind but shattered timber and floating corpses.

Yet for others, the cataclysm marked the beginning of an entirely different era. A new age had dawned.

Several kilometers away from the epicenter of the divine battlefield, Ethan lay motionless along the muddy bank of a newly formed river. The brown, frothing water rushed past him with terrifying speed, carrying uprooted trees and crushed debris in its wake.

A shattered section of his vessel rested nearby, half-submerged in the silt. Twisted metal brackets, runic plating, and splintered timbers were scattered across the riverbank—the battered remnants of what had once been a masterwork of divine forging.

Ethan slowly opened his eyes, every muscle in his body feeling as though it had been beaten with an iron mallet. His soaked clothes clung heavily to his skin, and wet hair matted across his forehead, dripping cold river water onto the mud.

For several seconds, he simply stared at the clearing sky before letting out a long, ragged exhale. His hands, which had remained locked in a white-knuckled grip even while unconscious, finally uncurled.

A familiar golden glow illuminated the edge of his vision as system notifications cascaded across his interface.

[Glorious.]

[You have survived a cataclysmic flood capable of ending this world.]

[You have successfully completed your evolution requirement.]

[All summons under your command have successfully evolved to Tier 5.]

Ethan stared at the glowing script. For the first time since the deluge had breached the horizon, he allowed the tension to bleed from his shoulders.

He had actually pulled it off. The requirement that had sounded completely absurd when he first received it was finally marked as complete: *Survive a cataclysmic flood.* Not evade it, not hide behind an artifact, but endure its full fury head-on—and the system had judged the world-drowning flood of a dying god as more than sufficient.

Ethan closed his eyes again, muttering weakly, "Finally..."

The sheer weight of exhaustion threatened to pull him under. Over the span of mere weeks, he had survived the Bamboo Mirage Dungeon, fought and claimed the kill on a sovereign Demi-god beast, barely survived its retaliatory strike, watched Davos burn, triggered the resurrection of the Son of Nezha, raided four major clan strongholds, and survived a continent-shattering deluge.

Even for someone with his endurance, his body screamed for rest.

Unfortunately, reality gave him no such luxury.

"Hey, kid."

Ethan’s eyes snapped open, and he turned his head toward the voice.

Standing several paces away was a man with drenched robes and an unusually solemn expression: the King of Bark.

Ethan slowly pushed himself upright, noticing that the king’s usual regal composure had been replaced by sharp, calculating vigilance.

"We need to get out of here," the King of Bark said, his eyes scanning the stormy horizon.

Ethan wiped the mud from his face. "Right now?"

"Right now. We’ve accomplished our objective—lingering any longer is asking for death."

Ethan understood immediately. The assault on the Flood Lands had never been an attempt to annex territory; it was a targeted, merciless execution. The Blood Serpent God had spent centuries raiding the Kingdom of Bark, secure in the arrogant belief that humanity lacked the strength to strike back.

He had finally paid his debt in full, but the fallout of slaying a living god was something neither kingdom nor empire could ignore.

"I understand," Ethan said, forcing himself to his feet. His knees wobbled, but he steadied his balance and took one final look at the shattered ship before shaking his head.

There was no time to salvage rare materials. "Let’s go."

The King of Bark gave a single nod, and with a soft distortion of space, both figures vanished from the riverbank.

*Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.*

Barely minutes after their departure, several massive auras descended from the sky.

They were the elite reinforcements dispatched from Divine Beast Mountain, but they had arrived far too late. The floodwaters had already broken past the inner valleys, sweeping mud, ancient ruins, and thousands of casualties deep into the interior.

The six Angels were gone, Ethan was gone, and the strike team had vanished without leaving a trace of their retreat path.

The devastation left in their wake, however, would scar the land for generations.

A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the ruined center of the Flood Lands.

Lying in the middle of the fractured basin was the colossal carcass of the Blood Serpent God. The once-mighty deity stretched motionless across the mud, its massive, armored frame partially submerged beneath dark, stagnant water.

Divine blood continued to seep from gaping wounds, corrupting the surrounding environment—vegetation withered into ash upon contact, the water turned a foul, oily black, and the ambient mana grew toxic. Even in death, the essence of a fallen god warped the laws of nature.

The Blood Serpent God was truly dead.

"Sigh."

A figure descended slowly from the upper clouds, clad in ornate golden armor forged from ancient dragon scales. His golden eyes looked down upon the massive corpse with complete detachment.

The Dragon God.

Behind him stood several core patriarchs of the Divine Beast Alliance, their expressions a mixture of shock, dread, and barely concealed avarice.

A god’s corpse was one of the rarest treasures in existence: its bones could forge divine armaments, its blood could brew supreme elixirs, its flesh could nourish beast evolutions, and its shattered god core could serve as the cornerstone for a new sovereign to ascend.

"We will host a proper ceremonial burial for him," the Dragon God stated calmly, his gaze never wavering from the dead serpent. "Ensure the surviving members of the Blood Serpent Clan are duly rewarded for their ancestor’s loyalty."

The lords behind him bowed low. "It will be done, Divine Lord."

The Dragon God turned his back to the crater. "Good."

He glanced one last time at the corpse of his supposed ally, spat into the bloody floodwater, and muttered under his breath, "Good riddance."

Without another word, his golden figure dissolved into light and vanished.

The moment he departed, the alliance leaders swarmed the carcass like vultures, coordinating retrieval arrays and securing every scrap of divine flesh. No one spoke of honor, and no one offered prayers; the Blood Serpent God was dead, and his remains were now spoils of war.

Within days, the shocking news spread across the four corners of the world. Within weeks, even the most isolated human outposts had heard the rumors.

The Blood Serpent God was dead.

One of the most ruthless deities of the southern hemisphere had been permanently erased, but the true shockwave came from who had executed the strike: the World Tree.

They hadn’t launched an open crusade or declared war. They had waited patiently until the Blood Serpent God was crippled, isolated, and abandoned before deploying six Angels to execute him on sight.

It hadn’t been a duel—it had been a calculated assassination.

The irony was not lost on the mortal realms. The World Tree had cultivated a reputation for neutrality, peace, and benevolence, yet its divine enforcers had just carried out a cold-blooded slaughter against a wounded deity.

Still, nobody dared criticize them openly. Levi had spent centuries terrorizing the borderlands, taking human slaves, and attempting to eradicate Bark. In the eyes of humanity, his death was long overdue.

Yet geopolitical power had never been about justice—it was about balance.

The equilibrium between the Human Kingdoms and the Demi-human Territories had endured for millennia on a razor’s edge. The death of a single god threatened to tip that scale, and the fact that it was executed by the World Tree promised to shatter it entirely.