Chapter 345: The Terrifying Shadow Divine Power

"Greetings, Divine Envoy..."

"Keep talking," Su Mu interrupted. He didn't want to go through another cycle.

"Yes, Lord Divine Envoy. The key to breaking the time loop lies in the Shadow Divine Power. It is what shattered this dreamscape. As long as the Shadow Divine Power is eliminated, the cause of the destruction will vanish, and the loop will naturally break."

Su Mu looked thoughtful, spotting a blind spot. "Wouldn't a time reset also reset the Shadow Divine Power?"

The Pope shook his head. "No. Divine power is supreme. The closed loop of time merely traps it here. No matter how many times time resets, the divine power remains exactly as it was. Even if time flows backward, it cannot duplicate divine power that has already been destroyed.

"After all, this place was merely wished into existence by Supreme Heaven—a small-scale time reset. Unless the time of the entire world resets, encompassing the gods themselves, it cannot truly affect a God.

"If time were a river, this place would be no more than a small puddle. A God is like someone walking past that puddle—they might get their shoes wet, at most, but they could never drown in it."

Su Mu understood. The key to breaking the deadlock was eliminating the Shadow Divine Power. But how?

He had already witnessed just how terrifying the eruption of the Shadow Divine Power was. It wiped out the entire city in an instant. It wasn't destruction on the scale of an atomic bomb; at least after a nuclear blast, while people and buildings were annihilated, the sky and earth remained. The eruption of the Shadow Divine Power eradicated everything. Matter ceased to exist; only nothingness was left behind.

Even if he unleashed the Divinity of the Four Gods in its entirety, he couldn't withstand such power. After all, this was a God personally taking action.

Thinking it over, the only answer was Supreme Heaven!

Supreme Heaven was capable of trapping the Shadow Divine Power here, and it could even possess the Pope, who held Primal Divinity. The capabilities it displayed had long surpassed the level of a Gold King.

At the very least, a Gold King couldn't affect a God, yet Supreme Heaven could.

Su Mu suspected that Supreme Heaven wasn't as simple as just a Royal Power Artifact. Was it truly forged by that vanished King using the might of the entire nation?

To put it bluntly, the entirety of the Chiyan Empire combined couldn't match a single finger of a God. So how could the Supreme Heaven they created possibly affect a God?

Moreover, this clearly wasn't the limit of Supreme Heaven itself, but the limit of its user. The user simply didn't have enough to sacrifice to it.

Perhaps, if the sacrifice was large enough, Supreme Heaven truly could erase the Shadow Divine Power.

This was merely divine power, after all, not a true God.

Suddenly, Su Mu opened the God's Eye. A beam of holy light shot out, plunging straight into the Pope's body.

"Lord Divine Envoy, you—"

Boom!!!

The Shadow Divine Power was detonated by the holy light.

...

...

"Lord Divine Envoy, you wish to use Primal Divinity to erase the Shadow Divine Power. The method is sound, but the amount of Primal Divinity you can wield is too little. I understand—descending from Heaven to Hell is no easy task, and you couldn't bring much power with you. But this meager amount of divine power really isn't enough."

The Pope phrased it tactfully, but Su Mu caught his meaning. The Pope likely felt that the Primal Divinity Su Mu just unleashed wasn't even one percent of the Pope's own power at his peak—perhaps even less.

Su Mu replied indifferently, "This Divine Envoy's descent to the mortal realm required possessing a mortal vessel and crossing the Abyss. I exhausted far too much divine power along the way. As things stand, the only viable plan is to use Supreme Heaven to empower the God's Eye. Only then can the Shadow Divine Power be thoroughly crushed."

Saying that, he pulled out the Gold Crown and Gold Scepter of the Primal Divine Cult.

Seeing the familiar treasures, the Pope's eyes shot wide open. "These... these are... Lord Divine Envoy, have you already dealt with the Blasphemer?"

Su Mu didn't answer, asking instead, "Both of these supreme treasures contain Primal Divinity. If I sacrifice them to Supreme Heaven to empower this Divine Envoy's God's Eye, will it be enough to crush the Shadow Divine Power?"

The Pope smiled bitterly and shook his head. "It's not enough. Although these two supreme treasures have been passed down for many years and worshipped by believers day and night, if you were to actually use them, I'm afraid they still couldn't eradicate it."

This answer was completely within Su Mu's expectations. Two mere mortal supreme treasures were not enough to shake the power of a God.

"And if we add these?"

Su Mu swept his hand, and a shocking scene unfolded. Within the cramped confines of the alley, a veritable mountain of treasures appeared out of thin air!

Tens of thousands of treasures were piled high, practically filling the alleyway.

Such a massive commotion quickly drew the attention of nearby pedestrians. But after Su Mu cast an Illusion Technique, their faces went blank, and they all turned around and walked away.

The Pope was completely stunned. "This..."

It wasn't that he hadn't seen precious treasures before, but this was his first time seeing someone casually pull out an entire mountain of them.

The Pope took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "Lord Divine Envoy, although there are many treasures here, I'm afraid it's still not enough."

Still not enough?

Su Mu frowned slightly. He had emptied out every last treasure from the Blood Moon Treasury. Aside from Mirage, one of the Twelve Swords of Royal Power, everything he had was right here.

These treasures, plus the two Primal Supreme Treasures, were enough to buy an entire country, yet it was surprisingly still not enough.

At this rate, he might have to sacrifice the Divinity of the Four Gods. However, unless it was an absolute last resort, he wouldn't do something so drastic.

"How much are we short?"

The Pope silently calculated. "Adding all these treasures together, it should only be enough to eliminate half of the Shadow Divine Power."

Half?

This put Su Mu in a very tricky situation. His entire net worth could only erase half of the Shadow Divine Power. Where was he supposed to find the other half? Even if he threw in the Divinity of the Four Gods, it still might not be enough.

Should he try sacrificing his own dreamscape?

Setting aside whether he could even sacrifice it, once he succeeded and broke the Shadow Divine Power, he would lose the protection of his dreamscape. Without it, he would still die in the Abyss.

"What if we add the source of the Nightmare?" Su Mu asked, recalling that nightmare monster inside the mirror.

The Pope still shook his head. "It would be a drop in the bucket. Even if you sacrificed the entire city, I'm afraid it still wouldn't be enough."

Such a terrifying gap in power made Su Mu realize that frantically boosting his mental strength probably wouldn't do any good. He had originally planned to use his near-infinite mental strength to charge Supreme Heaven, but now it was clear he would collapse long before he could fully charge it.

Although he currently possessed an Undying Body, the moment his mental strength exceeded the critical threshold his body could withstand, he would be trapped in an awkward state of neither living nor dying.

His mental strength would rupture his body, then his body would regenerate, only to rupture again and regenerate once more. The two processes would cycle seamlessly, and he would permanently lose his human form.

It seemed... he couldn't just use this crude, brute-force method to wipe it out. He needed a different approach.

Su Mu fell into deep thought. Not much later, boom!!!

The Shadow Divine Power erupted, annihilating the city.

This time, he stood at the intersection without moving, still deep in thought.

Strengthening the God's Eye to clash head-on with the Shadow Divine Power wouldn't work, so he had to change his approach. For example, he could weaken the Shadow Divine Power.

It was simple logic: if he couldn't strengthen himself, he had to weaken the enemy.

But how could he weaken it?