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"Children, the Great Lord of the Grey Mist, the King of the Endless Tide, the Master of the Seven Seas is watching over us!"
"It's time to show our valor and kill these heretics!"
On the broad shallows, Lin Xiao, standing about one meter seventy-eight tall, forcefully pushed off the ground, kicking up a ring of fine sand. He leaped high, each hand clutching a bone knife with a wooden handle, nimbly twisting midair to dodge an incoming bone fork. He then fiercely plunged a knife into the bulging eyes of a Lobster Man before him. His strength, far superior to that of ordinary people, buried the blade deep into the eye socket, cleaving through the shell. Instantly, the Lobster Man's head was split open, yellow and red brain matter splattered everywhere, soon washed into the sea by the rising tide.
With a kick, he sent the Lobster Man's corpse flying. Then, a strange cry came from behind him:
"In the name of the Lord of the Grey Mist, kill these heretics!"
A large group of Gray-scale Fish People, only about one meter twelve in height and resembling children, their bodies covered in fine grey scales... they brandished various fish and bone forks as they rushed past him, charging toward the remaining nine Lobster Men on the other end of the beach with loud cries.
Compared to the child-like stature of the Gray-scale Fish People, these Lobster Men were about one meter sixty-seven tall, their bodies encased in a thick shell. In both size and defense, they utterly dominated.
Unfortunately, they were vastly outnumbered—the seventy to eighty Gray-scale Fish People swarmed them. Even ants can kill an elephant when enough of them attack.
Lin Xiao didn't idle either. After catching his breath, he quickly followed. With a burst of speed, he charged to the front of one encirclement and shouted:
"Make way!"
A few Gray-scale Fish People intuitively parted for him. Lin Xiao used the momentum of his leap to lunge forward, brutally stabbing through the hard shell of a Lobster Man before quickly withdrawing and retreating. The surrounding Gray-scale Fish People swiftly closed in for the kill.
Without taking a breath, Lin Xiao immediately charged toward another Lobster Man. Midway, he suddenly turned, hurling his bone knife from a distance, hitting another Lobster Man that was being attacked and saving a Fishman who was almost impaled to death.
But the injured Lobster Man, in a frenzy, lashed out wildly with its fork, and incredibly struck a Gray-scale Fishman in the head, the bone penetrating more than a dozen centimeters into the skull.
"Fuck! Another one dead."
Lin Xiao cursed inwardly, despairing over the pitiful combat power of his Clan.
But cursing did him no good, and he steeled himself, pressing on with his fight. Leveraging his combat power and skills that far exceeded those of his kin, he killed two more Lobster Men, wounded two others, and rescued his comrades seven times. It took a full half-hour and the deaths of six plus eight more wounded before they managed to kill the remaining Lobster Men.
When the last Lobster Man fell, the many Grey Mist Fish People cheered and pounced on the Lobster Men's corpses. An impatient one grabbed a severed Lobster Man hand and was about to bite into it when Lin Xiao backhanded a punch that sent him flying into the sand.
He paid no mind to the Fishman, instead reaching out to hoist a Lobster Man's corpse high and roared up to the sky:
"The Great Lord of the Grey Mist grants us the strength to defeat our enemies, tonight we shall sacrifice these spoils to the Great Lord of the Grey Mist!"
Immediately, Grey Mist Fish People echoed the shout:
"In the name of the Lord of the Grey Mist!"
This was the big draw, the one with the highest level of faith among all the Clans.
Having said this, Lin Xiao dragged the Lobster Man's corpse towards the opposite end of the beach, while mentally summoning:
"Open panel."
Immediately, a screen that only he could see popped up in front of him, displaying a series of data.
Deity Interface:
Username: Lin Xiao (Citizen ID: txwd542154895147)
True Name: Cyberlex Meyer.
Divine Name: Lord of the Grey Mist, King of the Endless Tide, Master of the Seven Seas.
Divinity: None
Godhood: None
Divinity: 1.
Divine Fire: Unlit.
Divine Power: 1.
Superhuman Divine Power: Tide Call.
Divine Realm: Sea of Grey Mist.
Sects: Ancestral Fish God.
Believers: Grey Mist Fish People.
Occupation: None.
Faith value: 14425 points.
"Not bad!"
Lin Xiao's gaze skipped directly over the first few lines, focusing on the last item regarding faith value, which had increased by roughly seventy to eighty points from the previous 14347 points.
Then, with a thought, he turned to the panel below marked 'Sect Interface,' and with a flash, a second screen popped up.
Sect Interface:
Sect: Ancestral Fish God
Holy Sign: Fishman with a trident surrounded by seawater
Belief: Ancestral Worship (Primordial Religion).
Chosen: Not selected (requires 10 Divine Power points)
Divine Arts: First Level Underwater Breathing, First Level Speed Up in Water, First Level Seawater Essence.
Priest: Not selected
Believers: 1 Fanatic Believers, 14 Devout Believers, 33 True Believers, 59 Casual Believers.
```
"Two more True Believers, not bad."
Lin Xiao smacked his lips as he looked at another racial interface:
Racial Interface
Race: Grey Mist Fish People
Category: Sub-human Species
Grade: Low-grade Race
Profession: None
Talent: Underwater Breathing
Skills: None
Specialty: Basic Swimming,
Constitution: 0.6 (A grown human has 1 point.)
Strength: 0.5 (An eighty-year-old man's momentary burst of energy might surpass yours.)
Agility: 0.4/1.1 (Land/Water)
Spirit: 0.4 (Even with genetic mutation, there's no way to become a spellcaster)
Assessment: An extremely weak aquatic race.
There wasn't much to see in the racial interface; Lin Xiao had seen it countless times, with no changes over the years. However, on the troop statistics panel, there was a pleasant surprise. Out of a total of 107 Grey Mist Fish People, two showed yellow plus signs, indicating that these two Grey Mist Fish People had accumulated enough battle experience to level up.
He immediately focused his consciousness on these two fish people marked with yellow pluses, and instantly, a faint aura of light emerged behind the two fish people, setting them apart from the others.
"I'll promote them once we get back!"
Lin Xiao felt cheerful, which alleviated much of his frustration from the seven losses in his clan.
Life and death are predestined, and wealth is in the hands of Heaven; for such a weak race, dying in battle was commonplace. From initially watching over them carefully, fearing their death, to now treating it as normal, it had only taken Lin Xiao half a year.
Less than a thousand meters away from the battlefield, at the end of a sandy beach, there was a Fish People tribe. The Grey Mist Fish People crushed seashells and mixed them with sand, then added ground fish blood and flesh remnants from their catches to build their houses made of sand structures.
Of course, this was not thought up by the fish people themselves. With the Grey Mist Fish People's pitiful brain capacity, how could they possibly come up with this? This, of course, was the handiwork of the wise, valiant, handsome, and elegant Lord of the Grey Mist, Lin Xiao, who imparted it in the name of a god first to himself, then taught it to these Grey Mist Fish People.
Upon returning to the tribe, the dozens of remaining elderly and disabled fish people joyously welcomed them and carried the spoils back to the tribe. That night, under Lin Xiao's supervision, a 'grand' sacrifice ceremony was held.
"Great Lord of the Grey Mist, King of the Endless Tide, Master of the Seven Seas."
"Creator of all things in the world, the Supreme Being, Spread of Civilization."
"Creator of the Grey Mist Fish People, our Progenitor."
Even though he had read it many times, Lin Xiao still felt a bit of shame when it came to these lines.
But considering it was related to the faith of his clan, he still bit the bullet and continued reading with enduring embarrassment:
"Protect us, the great existence that allows us to survive and reproduce."
"Seborlex."
"Here we offer our sacrifices and our devout faith."
At this point, Lin Xiao's voice suddenly grew louder, and with a booming voice that common fish people could hardly muster, he prayed:
"Oh great Lord of the Grey Mist above, please accept our offering, and grant our brave warriors greater strength!"
With those words, he grabbed the body of a Lobster Man lying next to him and threw it onto the altar. Several more muscular Fish People warriors lifted the Lobster Man's corpse onto the altar, after which Lin Xiao grabbed a Bone Staff and began to fervently perform a self-invented Maori war dance.
Inspired by him, the Grey Mist Fish People around the altar also began performing their familiar war dance.
At that moment, much like a Fanatic Believer, the Fishman Leader, who was dancing zealously, suddenly stopped and returned to normal. However, on an unnoticed level, a golden ray imbued with a profound aura shot into the sky. Above the tribe, it transformed into a golden human silhouette, which resembled a handsome young human male.
This golden silhouette was shrouded by a layer of profound power, indistinctly obscuring the view.
Lin Xiao surveyed the surroundings; being able to see through his Divine Realm, which was five kilometers long, three and a half kilometers wide, and one kilometer high in just one glance. The vast Divine Realm was silent in the night, only this Grey Mist Fish People tribe held some light and sound.
This small tribe of just over a hundred members was all of Lin Xiao's clan, comprised of just twelve Level One Fish People warriors and ninety-five Level Zero Fish People.
Well, there was also him, the Lord of the Grey Mist doubling as Tribal Chief, a formidable Fishman standing at 1.78 meters tall, a giant in the eyes of the other Grey Mist Fish People.
"Open the racial interface!"
The familiar light screen popped up, and Lin Xiao expertly found the troop statistics interface, located the two Level Zero Grey Mist Fish People marked with a yellow plus, and tapped with a finger exuding faint golden light. Two hundred faith points disappeared, and the two Level Zero Grey Mist Fish People were thus promoted to Level One Grey Mist warriors.
This was merely a tap on his part, but in reality, it manifested as two streams of golden light flying out of the Holy Proof in the center of the altar and striking the two fish people cheering around the altar. In the next second, both Grey Mist Fish People emitted a roar, growing visibly larger.
In less than ten seconds, these two fish people grew from 1.1 meters to between 1.2 and 1.3 meters tall, a head taller than their kin, and even more robust with darker and tougher scales on their bodies.
After a brief moment of stupefaction, the two newly-promoted Fish People warriors realized what had happened. They were the first to kneel before the Holy Proof on the altar, representing the Lord of the Grey Mist, and began to utter words of adoration.
Above the Vault of Heaven, Lin Xiao filtered out the adulation he had heard countless times and had grown tired of. He was now focusing on the threads of faith representing these two fish people in his sea of consciousness, which had thickened, transforming from True Believers to Devout Believers, with their faith value contribution increasing from 0.2 points per day to 1 point, a fivefold increase.
Besides that, as they witnessed their own kin empowered by the Lord of the Grey Mist and promoted right before their eyes, fifteen more True Believers and three additional Devout Believers were born.
With that, the number of Devout Believers in Lin Xiao's clan jumped to nineteen, while True Believers reached forty-three, with the daily provided faith value rising once again.
This was the main reason why he didn't promote them on the spot but rather during the sacrifice ceremony. For what could be a better way to bolster the faith of believers than personally displaying a divine miracle?
Although this was no miracle, but a mere promotion of troops, for a professional player of the Divine Enthronement game, such maneuvers had already become instinct.
Satisfied, Lin Xiao closed the panel and took one last look at his own Divine Realm. With a thought, he transformed into a beam of golden light that shot into the sky and vanished.