Late at night, in a cramped, rundown rental room, a young woman hunched over a desk, burning her own divine power to inscribe obscure, cryptic runes. Once the final symbol was set in place, Ava Gray stretched, leaning back in her chair, her mind drifting to memories of her past life.
She couldn't pinpoint exactly when things had become this way. She only remembered that her soul had wandered for countless years, forgetting her former self, until it descended into this strange world. Early on—before her God's Domain awakened—she often went hungry.
The beings called "gods" in this world were said to be the supreme lifeforms of the universe, having rightfully claimed the title "deity" due to their ability to accomplish feats no mere mortal could. They could construct a Divine Kingdom out of the void, sow seeds of life within it, and harvest faith from the newly born creatures, condensing that faith into crystallized divine power—thus granting themselves virtually infinite vitality.
Yet, for all their might, gods also had their limitations. At the age of eighteen, each god had the chance to open their own God's Domain and draw resources from it to grow stronger. But only a select few truly succeeded. Moreover, every god had to ensure their God's Domain was safe from void invasion; their own lives were inextricably tied to the domain's survival. Should their domain be destroyed, the god would suffer grievous harm and be reduced to a "divine servant."
A "divine servant" referred to a god whose domain had shattered—or who had never awakened a domain at all. While they retained more power than typical subordinates, they were forced to seek refuge under a stronger deity, just to stay alive.
Because gods required a steady supply of divine power crystals to stave off the corrupting forces of the void, life as a god wasn't simple. Once their supply of crystals ran out, they risked falling from the divine realm and being devoured by the void. The stronger the god, the more divine power was needed. A Tier 1 god might survive ten days per crystal; Tier 2 needed one crystal per day; Tier 3 might need ten crystals per day, and so on. A divine servant would require only about one-tenth as much as a full-fledged god at the same tier.
Ava Gray had already reached Tier 2 and was on the verge of breaking into Tier 3. The prospect, however, made her grit her teeth rather than rejoice. Where other gods might celebrate, she found it akin to the sky caving in.
She was an orphan, keenly aware that her power paled in comparison to the centuries-old monsters of the Divine Realm. All she wanted was to muddle through a quiet life. If worst came to worst, she could become a divine servant. Sure, the term sounded a bit humiliating, but if she found the right master, she could easily live for a few hundred years. Besides, the servant rank wasn't as lowly as rumors suggested; some were even granted entire planets to inhabit.
But an accident upended those plans, landing her—quite by chance—at a top-tier institution: Yanhuang Academy. As part of the great Yanhuang Empire, that school boasted some of the best instructors anywhere. A few years back, the empire discovered certain exploitative social hierarchies brewing inside its schools. After long deliberation, it concluded such a dynamic shouldn't exist on campus. So the academy forbade students from flaunting any family background. Violators would be expelled. The school also instituted special quotas: one slot for a "special admit" and five for "students in poverty."
Those five "poverty slots," to be drawn from the entire empire under the oversight of the emperor and major families, had always been more symbolic than practical. The reason? A combination of bloodline scarcity and the fact that few awakened a God's Domain at all—and if they did, their talent rarely proved high enough. Inevitably, they'd be dismissed for lack of credits.
Ava Gray was among those so-called impoverished students. Her domain was the lowest tier, D-level, and also a "dual-world domain." A domain's rating typically considered five aspects: barrier strength, initial territory, void corruption, resource abundance, and elemental power. Grades ranged from SSS down to D. Any domain boasting at least one "A-tier or higher" trait was considered top-tier, with the potential for its owner to become a supreme deity. Dual-world domains possessed such a high attribute. The breakdown of Ava's was as follows:
Barrier Strength: D (so fragile that a minor void disturbance could shatter it)Initial Territory: SS (enormous area, but half is a "Dark Realm," forcibly present, which increases racial conflicts by 2,000%)Void Corruption: D (half the realm is eternally cloaked in darkness, never seeing sunlight)Resource Abundance: B (not entirely barren, but nowhere near prosperous)Attribute Strength: A (relatively powerful inherent attribute)
She winced whenever she saw those stats. This was basically a catastrophic start. Though a dual-world domain offered excellent territory growth, half of it was a Dark Realm. Creatures born in that shadowy domain boasted fearsome combat instincts and a fierce longing for light—leading them to wage war on the "other half" of the world if they grew strong enough.
Under normal circumstances, a god might solve the problem by exterminating all life in that region, then sealing it off. But that required a costly "purge decree" card to eliminate thousands of creatures, and mass slaughter would shut off the entire domain's faith supply for a while. That alone was expensive enough to starve her. Meanwhile, specialized "god decree cards"—capable of terrain alteration, species creation, or other domain tweaks—were astronomically priced.
Hence, following the conventional route would bankrupt her. She had tried all sorts of ideas, ultimately deciding to keep the Dark Realm. She invented something called "sun trees," which required soil, water, and certain energies to emit heat and light, balancing the warring halves of her domain. That averted total annihilation for now.
But the real crisis was faith—she had too little. Population soared with that second realm, but her overall faith dropped by 60%. Worse, her domain barrier was so fragile that once a week (domain time: once every seven years) she endured a void incursion. On the upside, those void invasions became a crucial meat supply, since devouring the invaders prevented her domain's populace from starving. The invading void energies also fertilized plants in that harsh environment.
Yet the bigger headache lay in her diverse subordinates. She had six major races: demons, elves, humans, dwarves, darkkind, and dragons. All told, they needed resources her domain simply didn't have. Their only advantage was a forced alliance against the void, including the Dark Realm dwellers. Gazing at her sprawling domain, Ava Gray fell into brooding silence.