Epic of Caterpillar

As Smirkes and Gravern introduced themselves and the many things going on within the Lower Realm, they were finally able to communicate to Kireina that several groups of Demon Gods residing within the Lower Realm had decided to target her.

As a complete stranger within this place who could even be considered an "invader", Kireina had already become someone that every God within this place was watching over.

Although they had decided to not do anything aggressive against her as long as she didn't mess with them nor provoked them, in the end, she did.

Indeed, and she was shameless enough to admit that it was completely within her plans.

The more fools came towards her like moths attracted by light, the better.

After all, she had the strength to deal with an entire Pantheon of Gods, and with her newly acquired power, she should be capable of even annihilating this entire area of Gods.

If she were allowed to feast in all these delicious Gods, it would be for the better, which could strengthen herself and all of her family and allies!

She was already hungry for more Divinities, it seemed that becoming a Goddess only made her hungrier towards these entities.

She had deliberately conquered and stolen three Dungeons from three different Gods that belonged to the "Mad Gods Pantheon" as Smirkes and Gravern called it.

They did not know the exact numbers, but there were a dozen of God Realm Entities within such a group, and at least another dozen of Demigod Realm ones, all of them packing with unique Divinities, large amounts of resources they had stockpiled through these long and lazy lives without many conflicts, and tons of hidden powers and artifacts.

All of them seemed like tasty treats to Kireina and her family, however.

Nonetheless, she wanted to be cautious and prepare a million trump cards before even fighting them anyways, and decided to ask the Gods more about them.

She knew that they were still dangerous on their own things, but after having acquired such a large amount of power as her, she could be allowed to be a bit more secure of her victory, at least… right?

But Kireina was overly cautious and perhaps paranoid.

Although she knew that they could be weaker than her and simply treats to her, they could still be hiding special abilities, skills, spells, divine techniques, artifacts, or even more… allies from the surface.

One of Kireina's theories about Zeus' plans was that he would come down here somehow through the help of an "insider" that lived within the Lower Realm… perhaps one of such Gods within this pantheon or the other two was planning this.

However, she knew that Smirkes and Gravern would not know such a thing even if she asked them everything they knew or even checked their brains through her Illusion Divinity.

It would certainly be an unknown factor, one she needed to be very wary of.

Perhaps if the Gods came to raid her and she intercepted them carefreely, Zeus could emerge in the middle of the battle and use his family's prowess to defeat her.

Even as strong as she was, there was always a chance of being killed.

And even more now that everyone had the power to eat divine souls through Divinity Devouring, which was available to everyone after just one click.

Zeus was known to have defeated Great Gods with his family, when they all joined together, they were able to exert great amounts of power…

However, it seemed that they were wary of her and decided to use vessels… so perhaps not everything was going to be as predictable.

Perhaps they had a million other ways of killing her, they were an old and cunning family, and from the info, she got from Apollo and Hephaestus memories, he was always a man several steps ahead of his opponents, despite his personality being rather beastly and savage.

However, Kireina decided to stop thinking about the God of Thunder and moved on, asking the two Fire Gods, Smirkes and Gravern, to tell her anything they knew about these Gods…

"Well, tell me more about these Gods, whose their leader?" asked Kireina.

"The leaders of the Pantheon of Gods that you have provoked are three, which are known as the Three Dark Flames… They are triplets, Gods who were born as siblings and had to keep up since then into godhood… Compared to us they are true bros," said Smirkes.

"They are Zogthal, the God of Purple Flames, Trarzanar, the God of Blue Flames, and Mekoroz, the God of Black Flames…" said Gravern.

"They're Gods that have existed since before the Ragnarök, they were the ones that created the Purple, Blue, and Black Flame Spells, which were assimilated by the System and later granted to certain types of Undead-type creatures…" said Smirkes.

"Oh? I have seen such flames being used by powerful Boss Monsters within Dungeons, yes. I can also wield them as a result of having eaten such monsters… Each flame is capable of burning through something," said Kireina.

"I see that Kireina-sama is already familiar with the divinities of such Gods…" said Smirkes.

"Well, those Gods are pretty mad. They were born as some kind of fire-type monster long in the past, and their natures were always chaotic and uncontrolled, like an actual fire that consumes it all… They are only wary of enemies they cannot defeat, but everything else that dares cross their path is usually burned by them until nothing remains," said Gravern.

"They are quite the insane trio, and they also lead several wild Demon Gods and Demigods…" said Smirkes.

"Hm, this already reminds me of Thanatos, there are just way too many Gods in this world, huh?" wondered Nesiphae.

"Well, the vast quantity of Divine Beings in this world is because this world was filled with resources to take, alongside being enormous… however, overpopulation of our existences is what also ended the world," sighed Agatheina.

"And in fact, it shouldn't be attributed such title of gods to us in the truest sense of the word. Such a thing is but a name of the stage of cultivation we have reached. We are not really Gods, we are simply beings who had acquired a different level of strength than mortals, we have simply entered a new pace. But we are still weak to many things, and we can even die with enough methods…" said Smirkes.

"Indeed. Our names before this were Immortal Cultivators after all. Those who had acquired ageless bodies and divine souls," said Gravern.

"Zogthal, the God of Purple Flames, Trarzanar, the God of Blue Flames, and Mekoroz, the God of Black Flames are also such beings, Immortal Cultivators who emerged from monsters, which are called Demon Gods now," said Smirkes.

"I still believe that being called Gods is fitting to an extent, as we also create our own unique worlds within our Divine Realms, which we slowly nourish to make them grow larger and larger," said Kireina.

"Well… Indeed, I suppose that it could be said so…" said Smirkes, Kireina was not the best example of a God, as she was very different in many aspects, her Divine Ream was absurdly big and her powers too many, she was already more comparable with a Great God than anything below it.

"Anyways, these Gods have been governing this place for very long, they possess strong magic-type divine techniques and are wonderful masters of magic conjuration… Their bodies are also made entirely out of divine flames, so it is hard to deal physical damage to them," said Smirkes.

"And that's without even talking about their ability to combine and become incredibly strong too…" said Gravern.

"We don't know their exact God Realm Ranks, but I believe they must be around Rank 3 or 4, but when they all fuse, they can reach the pinnacle of God Realm, reaching Rank 8 or 9…" said Smirkes.

"Oh? They might indeed be a good challenge…" said Kireina while rubbing her chin.

"The difference in between the Ranks of a Realm is very vast, rather overwhelming, in fact, but Kireina-sama is easily able to ignore such things with her powers," said Agatheina.

"Nonetheless, we need to properly prepare and investigate more about these things," said Kireina.

"Indeed," said Agatheina.

"Well, aside from these three, their entire Pantheon is filled with crazed Demon Gods, but they are too many for us to know them completely… But we do know that they live to the south of the Lowe Realm, their pantheon, a zone where all these Gods deposited their Divine Realms and constantly exchange resources, and more are located in such an area…" said Smirkes.

"Much like what we had heard about the central continent Gods, these Gods also created what's called a Divine Area. A place formed by Gods who severed a piece of their Divine Realms and combined them into such a place. Often fixed into a certain space without being able to move away, these spaces harbor a lot of Divine Materials and Divine Beasts that these Gods had nurtured together. Each new God usually has to offer a piece of their Divine Realms if they want to join the Pantheon…" said Gravern.

"Divine Areas… I see. I do know about them from the memories I have consumed… Although there are none around the Border Continent due to its dangerousness, in the Central Continent there are a few very big ones made even with pieces of the Divine Realms of Great Gods and even Supreme Gods, they are enormous treasure troves which I would love to get my hands into…" sighed Kireina. Although Kireina had a ton of Divine Materials which had formed inside her Divine Realm, her Divine Realm could still be considered "empty" by its sheer size alone, and there were tons of places for more of such Divine Materials to fit inside and give her Attribute Particles, or even be used for the crafting of artifacts or be sold in the Interdimensional Merchant Shop.

Divine Materials were after all "the money" of Gods, their greatest resources which they used to strengthen themselves and nourish their inner realms.

Although every God she ate had their Divine Realms fused with hers, which gave birth to such a big one such as her current Divine Realm, Kireina was incredibly greedy, and wanted more resources, as many as she could.

This precious treasure trove of materials that had been nurtured for thousands of years was a big one, if she could assimilate this entire place, her power would soar.

Kireina was already constantly using Divine Materials harvested from her Divine Realm to construct and reform the mechs they all used in battle, which were mostly destroyed and needed new upgrades for the new challenges to come.

She was also able to somewhat "replicate Divine Materials to an extent through the weapons and other material she could generate through her Creation Skills.

The bad thing about this was that if she wanted to give such materials the same power and value as divine materials, she would have to sacrifice her own Attribute Particles and pour them into them.

If she did not, the materials and legendary weapons she replicated through her Skills wouldn't be as good, but could still be used to fight and as moves, of course, but not as materials to craft higher and better equipment.

In resume, various of Kireina's Skills was getting outdated, even her creation ones which she had made into Path Jewels were still more offensive than focused on the creation of valuable materials.

What she could create at most without having to waste her Attribute Particles was what was called

"Pseudo Divine Materials", her own body was also considered something like this, and as she grew stronger, the better such materials became.

Compared to true Divine Materials harvested and found inside Divine Realms, they paled in comparison.

However, this did not mean that they were useless, in fact, they were very useful, incredibly useful, and it was something she could do that many Gods could not (yet).

As such Pseudo Divine Materials were still pretty useful and could replace certain parts of ingredients within the recipes and blueprints of Artifacts, halving the requirement of True Divine Materials!

This was yet another of Kireina's great cheats, which hastened her creation of new Artifacts, as she was aiming to create not Heavenly Rank Artifacts, but Divine Rank Artifacts!