That said, all of these metal lifeforms were extremely well-behaved.
They took off and landed only outside the four city gates of Nightblaze Prefecture, and their flight paths deliberately skirted around the prefectural capital itself.
(T/N: I was reading through the wiki for the infernal realm and then realized there isn't actually a place called Yemu prefecture, it's most likely what I've been calling Yemu prefecture is actually just the Nightblaze prefecture.")
"Metal lifeforms…"
Standing before Nightblaze Prefecture, Locke gazed at the metal lifeforms around him, a trace of envy flickering in his eyes.
If he possessed a metal lifeform, the time needed to reach the Violet Thorn Mountain Range would be reduced by at least seven or eight times.
This wasn't because metal lifeforms flew seven or eight times faster than Locke.
In fact, most metal lifeforms were only a little over twice as fast as gods.
The real difference lay elsewhere.
Metal lifeforms never felt fatigue and could maintain long-distance flight indefinitely.
With nearly triple the speed, plus the time saved from not needing rest—especially compared to a god's need to recover divine power—Locke felt that even a seven- or eight-fold reduction in travel time was a conservative estimate.
Of course, although Locke's soul had yet to reach its absolute limit, after being replenished by eight violet crystals, it was no longer in a weakened state. He could now cultivate and comprehend profound mysteries normally.
With that in mind, Locke was no longer in such a desperate rush to reach the Violet Thorn Mountain Range.
If he could find a well-paid job and purchase enough violet crystals, then there would be no need for him to go all the way to the mountain range just to search for them.
After lining up to enter Nightblaze Prefecture, Locke once again confirmed that at this point in time, Hell had yet to see the appearance of Fiend Castles, nor was there any ranking system of stars.
Strength classifications were simple and brutally direct:
demigod, god, Highgod, Prefecture Lord!
As one of the one hundred and eight prefectures of Hell, Nightblaze Prefecture possessed far more experts than Locke had seen during all his years since entering Hell from the material plane.
Outside Nightblaze Prefecture, Locke had hardly encountered any Highgods at all.
But within the prefecture, demigods were numerous, gods could be seen everywhere, and even Highgods appeared from time to time.
In Locke's eyes, the prefectural guards of the capital city were hardly inferior to the armies of the Sovereign Gods.
Of course, there was an important reason for this.
The Sovereign Gods had dispatched most of their legions to the material planes to harvest faith. As a result, the forces remaining in the divine planes and supreme planes naturally appeared weaker.
Yet to those lofty Sovereign Gods, this made little difference.
In the divine planes and supreme planes, the Sovereign God legions represented the Sovereigns' dignity itself.
If anyone dared to slight that dignity, the next instant, an enormous Sovereign projection would descend to "give them a proper ending."
Before anyone other than the Sovereign Gods reached the Great Perfection realm, all beings before them were nothing more than ants.
Under the might of Sovereign will, even Prefecture Lord–level experts could only perish instantly.
…
Unfortunately.
After wandering through Nightblaze Prefecture for a full circuit, Locke failed to find a job that satisfied him.
To the inhabitants of Hell, time was the cheapest thing of all.
As a result, most jobs paid out only once every ten thousand years.
And the wages were generally low.
Even as a god, the highest offer Locke received was two thousand inkstones for ten thousand years of work.
Compared to the fifty to one hundred inkstones typically earned by demigods, this was already considered generous.
But for Locke, it was still far too little.
He had asked around at Violet Thorn Castle—one Amethyst crystal cost over one hundred and fifty thousand inkstones.
In other words, Locke would need to work for nearly a million years just to exchange for a single Amethyst crystal.
At that point, Locke no longer found it difficult to accept why there were so many bandits outside the city.
Everything came down to personal choice.
Working within the city meant stability and safety, with little risk—but the rewards were the lowest tier imaginable.
At best, it barely covered one's own expenses.
Unless you were a Highgod.
Highgods were welcomed by many merchants, who were willing to pay exorbitant prices in exchange for their protection.
Outside the city, however, completing just a single "deal" could be worth tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of years of city work.
But business naturally came with profit and loss.
If you ran into a hard target, there was a very real chance you'd lose not only your life, but also the savings you'd accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years.
After purchasing a violet crystal within Violet Thorn Castle, Locke left Nightblaze Prefecture.
Looking up at the metal lifeforms soaring through the sky, he made a decision in his heart.
With his current strength… perhaps doing a bit of "business" wasn't impossible after all.
…
Whoosh—
Locke's figure skimmed through the low skies.
After refining that violet crystal, Locke's soul force could now radiate across a radius of one hundred kilometers.
Within that range, he discovered three separate bandit groups.
Slightly adjusting his direction, when Locke came within ten kilometers of the first bandit group, he was immediately noticed.
After all, Locke had made no effort to hide himself.
"On guard!"
The bandit leader roared. In an instant, seven or eight divine-level experts gathered around him, divine power surging as the aura of profound mysteries coiled around their bodies.
Whoosh!
Before Locke even arrived, his Divine Domain had already enveloped them.
Divine Domains were only effective against those of lower rank.
A god's Divine Domain—even after being partially offset by a demigod's—could still suppress a demigod's strength by nearly twenty percent.
Between gods of the same rank, Divine Domains completely canceled each other out.
That was why, unless it was a higher-rank god fighting a lower-rank one, gods of the same level almost never deployed their Divine Domains in battle.
But this time, the bandits suffered a rude shock!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Reflexively, as they were enveloped, everyone expanded their own Divine Domains.
In that confined space, various elements blossomed and collided, bursting into fireworks of light.
This bandit group consisted of three gods and five demigods.
Among bandit groups, they were bottom-tier.
In the current era of Hell, a Highgod only needed to sit in one place to enjoy a steady flow of resources sufficient for cultivation.
It was the gods and demigods who, for the sake of a few scraps, had no choice but to risk their lives outside.
If a bandit group didn't have enough gods, they generally didn't dare to rob caravans guarded by gods.
Groups like this one—only three gods strong—would at most target caravans protected by a single god.
What filled them with dread, however, was this:
Although their Divine Domains had broken free from the restraining force of Locke's domain, only now did they realize—
Within the Divine Domain that had enveloped them earlier, there was not only elemental pressure…
…but also the might of profound mysteries of the laws!
(End of Chapter)
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