Humanity's Genetic Locks and the Awakening of the Ancient Gods' Divine Bodies

Inside Domnar's tent, Rosen examined the Lionheart War Drum in his hand, a hint of joy flashing in his eyes.

The Lionheart War Drum was a treasured artifact of the Lionkin tribe and a Sequence 1 miraculous item. Even more noteworthy, it was one of the rare miraculous items capable of enhancing the overall strength of an extraordinary army, increasing their combat effectiveness by more than threefold.

If this artifact weren't restricted to being usable only by Lionkin, the tribe wouldn't have been able to hold onto it for long.

Although the one Rosen held was merely a Sequence 3 projection and a single-use item, it was still incredibly valuable.

Using the True Concept of Final Flourish he had mastered, Rosen planned to use the projection of the Lionheart War Drum as a reference. While the drum he painted wouldn't reach Sequence 3 in power, achieving Sequence 4 capabilities wouldn't be a problem.

Rosen immediately utilized Time-Sketch Acceleration to focus on meticulously replicating the Lionheart War Drum.

A few days later, the time to enter the Sacred Lion spiritual realm arrived.

During this period, Rosen had also managed to lower the aura of his disguised Sequence 2 presence down to Sequence 3.

His disguise as Domnar appeared flawless, though his expression was deliberately dark and brooding. After all, anyone forced to fall from Sequence 2 to Sequence 3 would hardly wear a pleasant expression.

The Sacred Lion spiritual realm was located on the Spirit Realm's surface, right at the border between the Lionkin and Elephantskin tribes' territories. Since the Beastmen's exploration of the Spirit Realm was still in its early stages—and with the upper echelons of both tribes working together to keep the news under wraps—there was no need to worry about other opportunistic factions showing up to claim a share.

The gods from both tribes stationed to guard the spiritual realm weren't their true bodies but rather Sequence 1 divine avatars.

Even so, when Rosen followed the Lionkin chieftain to stand before these two beings, his heart pounded with unease.

Thankfully, everything proceeded without incident. The Lionkin deity never suspected that someone would dare disguise themselves as a Sequence 2 member of their tribe. After all, entering the spiritual realm was just the beginning. Upon exiting, individuals would be subjected to various inspections to prevent the smuggling of treasures. Under such stringent circumstances, who would go to such extreme lengths to sneak in?

Rosen, of course, wouldn't have dared to enter the spiritual realm either if he hadn't had Data Transmission to ensure he could escape safely. Without such an option, attempting to infiltrate only to be ambushed at the exit would have been suicidal.

Rosen didn't dare look directly at the Lionkin deity but instead spent some time sizing up the Elephantskin demigod on the opposite side.

Like him, the Elephantskin was also Sequence 3, but Rosen's Seventh Sense flared, warning him of a strong sense of danger.

Clearly, this Elephantskin wasn't an ordinary Sequence 3—at the very least, they were no weaker than a titled demigod.

Around midday, a vortex suddenly materialized in the void not far away.

"Be careful," the Lionkin chieftain said to Rosen with a nod. Rosen immediately strode toward the spatial vortex with long, deliberate steps.

When the teleportation ended, Rosen found himself in the Frenzied Lions' camp within the spiritual realm.

This local skirmish between the royal families of the Lionkin tribe only involved members of the Sacred Lions and Frenzied Lions.

The Frenzied Lions had brought two thousand elite warriors and over a dozen Sequence 3 Frenzied Lion demigods.

In contrast, the Sacred Lions only had six members, but all of them were Sequence 3. Additionally, there were a thousand Lionkin subordinates whose combat strength was negligible. The outcome of the war hinged almost entirely on the six Sacred Lions.

Historically, the Frenzied Lions had successfully ambushed the Sacred Lions, but even then, they had suffered 80% casualties to achieve a Pyrrhic victory.

Now, with the Elephantskin tribe feeding intelligence to the Sacred Lions, ambushes were impossible. The six Sacred Lions, as a collective, were stronger than the Frenzied Lions' two thousand elites and their dozen demigods. Unsurprisingly, in the past few iterations of the spiritual realm, the Sacred Lions had consistently turned the tables and won.

The worst outcome for the Sacred Lions in those iterations had been the deaths of five members, while the best outcome had been the loss of only two.

If not for the considerable disparity in power, the Lionkin chieftain wouldn't have agreed to grant Rosen the Sequence 3 projection of the Lionheart War Drum.

Rosen activated the God-Hunting Magic Eyes, immediately locking onto one of the Sacred Lions in their camp. The Lionkin tribe had gathered extensive intelligence on the six Sacred Lions, including their names and appearances, making it easy for the God-Hunting Magic Eyes to monitor them.

Standing three meters tall, the Sacred Lion radiated a holy aura, its platinum fur shimmering with sacred light.

Its presence exuded an undeniable majesty. Most adult Sacred Lions were naturally Sequence 3, and with minimal effort, many could become titled demigods. This was the advantage of their powerful racial bloodline. Yet, despite their strength, lifeforms like the Sacred Lions had nearly gone extinct throughout history.

The reason was simple: the fewer their numbers and the stronger their individuals, the more likely they were to face extinction.

The Sacred Lion population barely exceeded one hundred. During times of peace, they could slowly increase their numbers. But once a powerful enemy appeared, each loss was irreplaceable, inevitably leading to their demise.

Thus, the Frenzied Lions replacing the Sacred Lions was a predestined outcome.

Rosen couldn't help but recall how, in his previous life on Blue Planet, humanity had nearly 8 billion people, yet there were 20 billion rats and a quadrillion mosquitoes. Many had joked that even if humanity were wiped out, rats and mosquitoes would continue thriving without issue.

The reason was simple: rats and mosquitoes reproduced so prolifically that exterminating them was impossible. Humanity had never truly won a war against pests.

This same principle applied in the extraordinary world. Powerful lifeforms with small populations and low fertility might dominate for a time, but once they encountered calamity and failed to replenish their numbers, they were doomed to the same fate as the Sacred Lions.

The World Government had many methods to enhance humanity's overall life force, but it had never pursued them aggressively for this very reason. Humanity's low floor but high ceiling ensured it wouldn't follow in the footsteps of species like the Sacred Lions.

Inside the Frenzied Lions' camp, all the demigods were waiting for Rosen to arrive.

Though the Frenzied Lions had failed in the previous iterations of the spiritual realm, their god had not been idle. Using certain methods, their demigods had retained their memories from the previous resets. As a result, they were fully aware that they were inside a spiritual realm.

Their goal was simple: defeat the Sacred Lions in this iteration and secure victory for their deity.

Even if they could never leave the spiritual realm afterward, they could still enjoy wealth and glory within it, living another lifetime in splendor.

When Rosen entered the camp, he saw that the main seat had been left vacant for him. Without hesitation, he sat down.

"Time is precious, so let's get straight to the task," Rosen said sternly. "I've fallen from Sequence 2 to Sequence 3, but I can still handle the Elephantskin demigod and one titled Sacred Lion. The remaining five Sacred Lions will be your responsibility. On the battlefield, our worst-case scenario must be to hold the line and avoid outright defeat."

"This time, the Frenzied Lions will triumph!"

"We'll slaughter those arrogant Sacred Lions who always look down on us!"

"If we die, we'll drag at least one Sacred Lion down with us! Anyway, when the spiritual realm resets, we'll resurrect fully healed!"

The Frenzied Lion demigods roared one after another, completely dismissing the Sacred Lions as a threat.

Their bravado might have seemed like arrogance to other lifeforms, but for the Frenzied Lions, it was a source of power. Their racial talent dictated that the more brazen they were, the stronger they became. Demigods like Domnar, who were relatively cautious, were considered anomalies—another reason the Frenzied Lion chieftain looked down on Domnar.

The Sacred Lion spiritual realm spanned a modest thousand kilometers, its landscape dominated by grasslands.

A single river served as the only water source, originating from Mount Momella.

The mountain was home to a unique resource: Momella Stones.

In the previous Age of Transcendence, these stones were primarily used for purifying water.

But in the current era, Momella Stones had a new application: they could significantly reduce the hallucinations and whispers caused by consuming potions. In fact, by incorporating Momella Stones into a potion, even if a user's divine essence was slightly weaker than required for ascension, the stones could help fill the gap, enabling successful advancement.

The value of Momella Stones was self-evident, especially since they were tied to the only water source in the spiritual realm. However, the mountain was sealed by an enchantment left behind by the Sacred Lion deity.

Not only could the Frenzied Lions not easily mine the stones, but even the Sacred Lions themselves would have to use force to break the seals.

Neither side would allow the other to start mining. Whoever tried to take the first step would face an attack from both sides—directly confronting the Sacred Lion deity's seals from the front while being ambushed from behind. This double assault would result in heavy losses. The one time the Sacred Lions lost five of their own was during a failed assault on Momella Mountain.

The two thousand Frenzied Lion elites began marching away from Momella Mountain, heading in another direction.

At the same time, the six Sacred Lions, along with their subordinates, also moved away from the mountain.

The Frenzied Lions were brash, and the Sacred Lions were proud, but neither side was foolish.

With two deities overseeing the spiritual realm, the bottom line for both tribes was to avoid harming Momella Mountain.

If anyone dared to cross that line, the two deities would quickly put them in their place.

As Rosen traveled toward Momella Mountain, his God-Hunting Magic Eyes revealed that only four Sacred Lions were heading to face the Frenzied Lion elites. The remaining two Sacred Lions, both titled demigods, were accompanying the Elephantskin demigod.

It was clear they intended to deal with Rosen—the biggest threat—first before turning their attention to the Frenzied Lion elites.

Three titled demigods. Even Rosen felt a headache coming on.

The Two-Dimensional Ash Wasp could take care of one. The Metallic Slime, crafted through his dimensional artistry, could hold off another. The last one, however, Rosen would have to handle personally.

With the Belt of Death boosting his speed fourfold and his ability to use Void Blink with no cooldown, he was confident in his agility.

Rosen rushed ahead to a position near Momella Mountain, intercepting the three enemies. There, he deployed the Void Shadow Realm. Thanks to the concealment enhancements from the Wolf Totem, even the Elephantskin demigod, with their heightened senses, failed to detect the ambush.

As soon as the three entered the coverage range of the Void Shadow Realm, the Elephantskin demigod was pulled into it.

Rosen immediately withdrew from the Void Shadow Realm and fled to a safe distance, leaving behind only the Two-Dimensional Ash Wasp and the Metallic Slime to hold the line.

Once at a safe location, Rosen entered his Divine Secret Library through the window opened by his self-portrait doppelgänger, bringing the Void Shadow Realm along with him. He teleported the realm to the Dark Continent and stopped in front of the World Tree.

In the presence of the World Tree, which granted him unparalleled access to world authority, Rosen's control over the powers of the realm increased tenfold.

The Elephantskin demigod, who had been on the verge of breaking through the nine layers of the Void Shadow Realm, was forcibly trapped once again as the spatial intensity within the realm surged.

At that moment, Rosen re-entered the Void Shadow Realm to face the Elephantskin demigod directly.

Years ago, using a divine blood awakening potion, Rosen had successfully acquired the Ancient God's Divine Body, an ancient Sequence skill.

This was a body-based Sequence skill and did not consume any of his extraordinary source material capacity.

The Ancient God's Divine Body allowed Rosen to temper his physique with the bloodline of the ancient gods, gradually transforming his body into that of a true ancient god.

However, despite years having passed since gaining this ability, it felt almost non-existent in practice.

While his physical body had indeed been significantly strengthened—and he had consumed vast amounts of extraordinary ingredients daily to continuously enhance it—the effects of this improvement were underwhelming. Compared to the destructive power of his spiritual abilities, his physical strength fell noticeably short.

After extensive research conducted by Paradise Pharmaceuticals, Rosen finally understood why.

At the end of the day, he was still just Sequence 4. His spirituality, thanks to the Ancient God's Relic, could easily transcend its level.

But his physical body was different. The path to enhancing his physical form had far fewer shortcuts.

Moreover, although he had acquired two immensely powerful bloodlines, his life's genetic blueprint still fundamentally remained that of a normal human.

This was a restriction imposed by the World Government. If a human's genetic blueprint underwent a qualitative change before reaching Sequence 3, their offspring would inherit this transformation, raising their life essence closer to that of species like the Sacred Lions.

While this would be a tremendous boon for the individual, it posed a potential threat to humanity as a whole.

Humans were only permitted to undergo such genetic transformations after reaching Sequence 3.

At that point, they would be considered demigods, no longer human in essence.

Demigods couldn't produce human offspring. From Sequence 3 onward, the offspring of extraordinary beings were all classified as "godborn." Theoretically, godborn could only be conceived if at least one parent was Sequence 1.

However, godborn were fundamentally not human, and they themselves could not reproduce.

This was because all human true gods had placed a curse on the godborn. At best, godborn could only give birth to monstrosities known as "godspawn," which were far from healthy progeny. Humanity had used this method to limit the uncontrolled escalation of their species' life level.

Yet, as with all rules, exceptions existed. The World Government's restrictions were not foolproof.

If someone could break the genetic locks imprinted on humanity by the World Government before reaching Sequence 3, they could forcibly elevate their life essence. Such individuals would possess the potential to advance both physically and spiritually in tandem.

These beings, upon ascending to Sequence 3, would already rival titled demigods and could quickly evolve into forbidden lifeforms.

Forbidden lifeforms represented extraordinary beings who had reached the pinnacle of both physical and spiritual development.

Not all Sequence 0 beings were forbidden lifeforms, but all forbidden lifeforms could, at a minimum, ascend to Sequence 0.

Rosen's physical body had long since met the criteria for forcibly advancing his life essence.

What he lacked was sufficient pressure to awaken the latent potential buried within his genetic code.

When he faced Chinon's divine avatar in the past, he had a chance to advance his life essence.

However, the risks of confronting Chinon had been too great, and Rosen hadn't dared to gamble.

By comparison, the threat posed by the Elephantskin demigod was far more manageable. This time, Rosen was fully confident he could successfully advance his life essence.

"Human…"

The Elephantskin demigod, seeing Rosen appear, felt his boiling blood cool in an instant.

To dare disguise himself as a Lionkin under the noses of two deities, infiltrate the spiritual realm, and ambush him—this human was either insane or had the power to back up his audacity.

Clutching his twin war hammers tightly, the Elephantskin demigod stomped his massive foot into the ground. With a Groundquake Strike, he shattered the very fabric of space. Though his entire right leg was reduced to mangled flesh from the backlash, he succeeded in obliterating all nine layers of the Void Shadow Realm.

The Elephantskin demigod forced one leg out of the collapsing Void Shadow Realm, only to be met with the sight of an unimaginably colossal, awe-inspiring tree.

The sheer grandeur of the World Tree triggered a primal urge to worship deep within the Elephantskin demigod.

As the origin of all life, the World Tree instinctively commanded reverence from every living being, its presence etched into the very fabric of genetic memory.

Rosen seized this opportunity. In an instant, he blinked forward using Void Blink, aiming a punch directly at the demigod's spine.

He had no formal training in martial arts or combat techniques and relied purely on raw, brute strength. He didn't even activate enhancement skills like Ashen Armor-Piercing. As a result, his punch only managed to leave a bloody fist mark on the Elephantskin demigod's armor.

Rosen failed to injure the demigod and instead ended up injuring his own fist from the impact.

But he didn't care in the slightest—his goal wasn't to harm his opponent but to push his own body to its limits.

The Elephantskin demigod shook off the involuntary reverence toward the World Tree, turned around, and swung his twin war hammers in a pincer strike. Rosen raised his arms to block the attack. Although his arms were pulverized in the process, the demigod didn't give him a chance to retreat and immediately unleashed a Shockwave Slam.

Rosen's entire body was wracked with countless internal injuries from the attack, yet within moments, all the damage completely healed.

With nothing but his bare fists, Rosen had forcibly blocked the demigod's hammers, each weighing over 100,000 pounds.

Though the Elephantskin demigod was clearly overpowering Rosen, he felt no joy in his dominance.

This human was a monster. His shattered arms regenerated in an instant, broken bones mended themselves immediately, and even his head, once smashed to pieces, reformed in mere moments.

At one point, Rosen had been reduced to a mass of pulverized flesh—and yet he still managed to return to perfect form.

No matter how the Elephantskin demigod attacked, Rosen refused to die. He didn't even show any signs of lasting injury.

Pushed to the brink of despair, the demigod's mental state began to unravel. Meanwhile, Rosen's condition only improved.

Yet, despite his growing strength, Rosen found himself unable to break through to the next stage.

The reason lay in the conflicting bloodlines within his body.

Flowing through his veins was the Primal Human Bloodline, while the Ancient God Bloodline was fused with his noble extraordinary source material.

If he allowed the blood in his veins to be replaced by the Ancient God Bloodline, awakening the Ancient God's Divine Body would become much easier.

However, Rosen had already resolved to keep the Primal Human Bloodline as the foundation of his body. He wasn't willing to change course so easily. Instead, he planned to leverage the Primal Human Bloodline's unparalleled adaptability to forcibly integrate the Ancient God's Divine Body into it, turning it into a part of the human bloodline.

This meant that the pressure brought by the Elephantskin demigod still wasn't enough.

Realizing this, Rosen immediately released a swarm of Ashen Wasps.

Instead of attacking the Elephantskin demigod, the wasps drove their stingers into Rosen's own back.

Using the True Damage inflicted by the wasps, Rosen suppressed his overwhelming healing ability, which originated from the Crown of the Holy Grail.

For the first time, Rosen was genuinely injured. The damage he was taking now finally outpaced his regenerative capabilities.

Faced with the threat of death, every cell, every gene, and every drop of blood in Rosen's body began to unleash their latent potential. Under the immense pressure, the genetic locks imprinted by the World Government on humanity's DNA shattered one by one.

Finally, as the last genetic lock broke apart, Rosen's Ancient God's Divine Body seamlessly fused with his Primal Human Bloodline.

Where he had been overwhelmed before, Rosen's physical strength now began to surge, enabling him to counterattack.

Without any spiritual enhancement, Rosen's fists alone could tear through the sky and split the earth.

His punches grew faster and more devastating, his body transforming from mere mortal iron into divine steel. His vitality skyrocketed a thousandfold, and he felt that if he channeled his strengthened psychic energy, even a casual punch could unleash destruction on par with a nuclear explosion.

(Chapter End)