Chapter 540 (3): Elohim x the Man Who Fell to Earth

The five goddesses noticed Wayne’s grave expression and stepped forward, looking down at Elian, who was on Her knees. Their gazes were either cold or mocking; none showed Her any sympathy.

Elian refused to look up at those She had defeated. She struggled to stand, but Her limbs wouldn’t listen, and Her body kept collapsing and reforming because She kept cursing them out in Her head.

Those were minor issues. The real problem was the blow to Her pride. Wayne had knocked it down, and now the five goddesses were trampling it. She was driven to the brink of madness.

“Bastards, let me stand up!!” She roared.

“How dare you speak to your masters like that? You have no manners...” Aztimor sneered as She stepped forward, Her scythe of Death hovering over Elian’s neck. “Let me teach you the rules that a vassal must follow.”

A peal of laughter followed, accompanied by Elian’s furious howls. It was such a terrible sight that Wayne couldn’t bear to watch. He closed his eyes and silently prayed that Kaleb wouldn’t learn from them.

He sifted through the fragments of memories he had acquired from Elian, and at that moment, he figured out who Elohim and Elian were, where they had come from, and what the box was.

Elohim was an alien!

The Earth in Wayne’s original world belonged to an isolated independent star system in a corner of the universe. It was a discarded box.

The creators, or rather the inventors, of the box hailed from a galactic empire in a distant galaxy—the Randal Empire. Beyond the box was a vast universe teeming with godlike beings as numerous as stars. They had established their own faith systems and formed a pantheon akin to Wayne’s newly formed Divine Realm, ruling over various parts of the cosmos and monopolizing information resources.

The Randal Empire was one such dominant force, boasting both a dazzling technological civilization and an elven magical system with a divine system of Life. The two prongs advanced in tandem, forging the empire’s reputation of being unbeatable.

Originally, the Randal Empire, with its own divine system, was destined to exist eternally in the universe, but the gods of the divine system and the imperial family were discontent with ruling only a fraction of the cosmos. They craved more; they craved dominion over the entire universe.

Who could blame them for being greedy? Evolution is like rowing against a current. If you don’t move forward, others will. If you refuse to progress, others will smash their heads just to overtake you.

Unable to find a path forward, the Randal Empire chose suicide between death and waiting for death.

They boldly summoned the ancient gods, seeking to trade with Them for greater and more complete knowledge!

The ancient gods weren’t as merciless as the rumors would suggest. Tales of Them razing everything to the ground wherever They went and bringing indiscriminate destruction were greatly exaggerated. The ancient gods were reasonable, approachable, and incredibly charismatic. Whatever the Randal Empire wanted, They gave—as much as they wanted, for free!

Then, the Randal Empire imploded like an overfilled cream puff.

To be more precise, the star systems that the Randal Empire had conquered went mad. The thoughts of the divine system’s deities crumbled, merging with knowledge and the cosmos itself. Only one in a hundred million people barely escaped.

Elohim and Elian were among the lucky few survivors. The former was a technology priest, one of the top-tier researchers in the empire, while the latter was the Imperial Princess, a chosen heir destined to become a god.

They fled aboard the same starship, carrying the empire’s gene bank for the divine system and its greatest masterpiece, the Box of Wisdom. As long as the two artifacts existed, Elian had a chance to rebuild the empire and the divine system.

The gene bank stored the bloodlines of the gods of the divine system. The members of the former Life Alliance, including the humans of the Chosen Land, all originated from the gene bank. So did great dragons, but their bloodlines were obtained through trade with the powerful dragon clans in the cosmos rather than from the empire’s divine system.

The divine system of Life followed the path of elves, with strict limitations. They had only collected the great dragons’ genes for research into other possibilities, not as a genuine attempt to adopt their evolution.

The Box of Wisdom was the empire’s technological masterpiece. It functioned as a sandbox independent of the Astral Plane, but closely connected to it. The Randal Empire put an entire star system inside and captured and stored countless Astral Beasts inside to simulate the environment of the greater universe.

This allowed the lifeforms inside the box to develop a new divine system with minimal interference from the outside.

It was ‘minimal interference’ rather than ‘no interference’ because of the ancient gods. Their information was everywhere. As long as the box was connected to the Astral Plane, it was impossible to keep out the ancient gods’ gazes completely.

That explained Thoggua, an ancient god’s vassal, and the Sea God, the ancient god on Dragonheart Island. Even the fortune-telling house in the Frozen Land, a conduit of communication with the world outside the box, was a result of the ancient gods’ influence.

Regular living beings, including the gods of the divine systems in the cosmos, would never encounter an ancient god in their whole life, unless they actively sought Them out. However, in reality, the ancient gods were everywhere. Wherever there was knowledge, Their tendrils were sure to follow.

The ancient gods were the ultimate lifeforms. Whether They were the aggregations of information or the creators of it remained unknown. One thing was for certain, though: the ancient gods existed at the beginning of the universe itself.

They were the very first primordial gods. All subsequent gods were classified as new gods.

New gods might be gods with eternal life, but it was hard to say whether the ancient gods were gods.

If they were gods, why did they easily overpower the new gods? If they weren’t gods... what were the new gods?

The new gods were immortal and commanded divine systems. To deny them the title of god would be difficult to justify.

The relationship between the ancient gods and the new gods could be likened to the Seventy-two Demon Lords of Hell. While both were demon lords, the Seven Demon Lords dominated all, known as demon gods.

The analogy was imperfect, but the idea was sound.

Anyway, Elohim and Elian had arrived at the ruined box of the Solar System after much wandering. After a brief rest, they entered the box and created the Chosen Land.

As a researcher, Elohim was tasked with creating the sandbox that would become the Chosen Land. For convenience, He replicated the European continent and guided the sandbox’s evolution, transplanting the same history into the Box of Wisdom.

With genes for the divine system, ordinary humans were also needed. A tower could not stand without a foundation, and a divine system needed followers. Elohim collected bloodlines all over Europe and filled the Chosen Land.

To Earth, Elohim and Elian were a man and a woman who fell to Earth, but the Randal Empire, which the two represented, was the source of Earth. In a sense, there was no racial divide between them.

As for why the original Solar System and the box had become ruined, Elian’s memories didn’t contain the details.

During the climax of the War of Faiths, the ancient gods came for the box, and the beings who had yet to become gods were wiped out. Humanity pivoted to a technological path.

Since entering the box, Elian had been eagerly constructing the divine system of Life, determined to restore the empire’s former glory. Everything went according to Her plan so far. After all, She was the Imperial Princess, and Elohim was merely a researcher. There was no way He could outsmart Her.

The divine system of Life was one that had been proven feasible by the empire. There was no need to study a different evolution. They could just copy it and be done with it.

Elian had a significant advantage. Ascending from princess to queen, She felt like victory was already within reach.

Or so She thought until the end of the War of Faiths. It was what Elohim had been feeding Her.

Elian didn’t know that Elohim had been hiding something. The divine system of Life could be replicated. Given enough time, Elian would be a wise empress who restored the empire, the new Empress of Randal.

But what would be the point?

Without reaching the ultimate life and becoming ancient gods, the empire had been nothing but a house of cards even after dominating the universe. The ancient gods could topple it with a swing of their tentacles.

Elohim kept his condition a secret. He was no longer a regular human. In his fervor for the ancient gods, He had opened His mind to the ancient gods’ gifts on the day the empire fell. He was the luckiest of them all.

He had not gone mad!!!

Perhaps it was because of His years of research, perhaps it was because of another unknown reason, or perhaps it was simply luck. Whatever the reason, Elohim had succeeded. He sifted through the knowledge granted by the ancient gods and watched as Elian joyfully built Her little alliance of Life. He dove headfirst into the evolution path of the ancient gods, referencing the Church of the bygone era and mass-producing angels, all for the one-in-a-million chance of becoming a true ancient god.

During the War of Faiths, Elian’s Life Alliance met a crushing defeat. When She confronted Elohim, the researcher kindly shared the possibility of becoming an ancient god with the princess—the Final Judgment.

No rush, Princess. Let me show you how it’s done first!