At this moment, the five gods had only just finished using divine power to restore their divine bodies—but the law force clinging to them like bone-deep poison continued to ravage their forms, forcing them to spit out mouthful after mouthful of blood.
Under such circumstances, none of them dared to stop expending divine power.
They had to use their own laws to resist the residual law force within their bodies, while simultaneously sustaining their divine forms with divine power.
If they were given a few hundred years, they might be able to grind away the law force Locke had left behind and fully recover from their injuries.
But did they really have a few hundred years to spare?
Thump. Thump…
Measured, rhythmic footsteps echoed through the area, and despair appeared on the faces of all five gods.
Although they were gravely injured, their senses had not degraded to the point where they couldn't detect a magical beast approaching.
More than that—the aura overlapping with that Saint Domain magical beast was unmistakably that of a god.
"A god?"
"Heh…"
The five god bandits exchanged glances and let out bitter smiles.
Someone who had nearly crippled all five of them with a single move—and you're telling us he's a god?
If that person was a god, then what were they?
demigods?
A Highgod disguising himself as a god—what was that supposed to mean?
They didn't understand.
But they were thoroughly shaken.
At this moment, they felt as though their pure, innocent hearts had been deceived.
"Oh? Not bad. None of you died."
Little White—now over three meters tall—hopped over and landed beside the gigantic handprint Locke had blasted into the ground.
Locke lowered his gaze, peering into the crater more than ten meters deep, where the five half-crippled gods lay.
He had to admit—these five were fairly strong.
In the Coiling Dragon universe, strength was defined very simply.
If two sides were evenly matched, they could fight for thousands or even tens of thousands of years without a decisive outcome.
If one side was twice as strong, they could gain the upper hand, but victory would still take time.
If one side was five times stronger, the outcome could be decided quickly—but killing the opponent was still difficult.
If one side was ten times stronger—
An instant kill.
Locke's Thousand-Mile Heaven-Piercing Palm was a move that almost perfectly fused the Essence of Water Law and the Water Body Art, unleashing power that brushed against the lower threshold of Highgod might.
An ordinary god struck by that palm would have their divine body almost completely shattered.
In that case, even if Locke didn't follow up, the residual law force left behind would drag them to death all on its own.
Yet judging by the current state of these five, even the weakest among them had only lost half of their divine body.
If Locke simply left them alone, they might actually manage to erase the residual law force within a few hundred years.
"Senior, this time… we acted recklessly."
"These are all of our spatial rings. The soul bindings have already been removed."
"Please, for the sake of our knowing our place, spare us this once."
Locke had only just raised his hand when the least-injured bandit tossed several spatial rings up toward him, pleading for mercy.
"Oh?"
"It seems you really do know your place."
The god's actions genuinely surprised Locke.
Over the years, Locke had encountered hundreds—if not thousands—of bandits.
But this was the first time he had ever seen bandits voluntarily remove the soul bindings from all their spatial rings before being killed, in hopes of surviving.
After all, if these people had divine clones, then even if Locke killed them, he wouldn't be able to open their spatial rings or obtain their contents.
And if one forcibly destroyed a spatial ring, its contents would likely be swept into spatial turbulence—best case, you'd recover a few items; worst case, you'd get nothing at all.
Now, with the rings willingly handed over after their bindings were removed, even if these bandits still had other divine clones, Locke would be able to take everything they owned after killing them.
"Haha… we had no choice. To stay alive, we had to be sensible."
Locke noticed that while the other four wore grim expressions, none of them interrupted the speaker.
Clearly, this man was their leader—and one with considerable authority.
Not only strength, but character as well, had earned him the recognition of the others.
Otherwise, what kind of bandit would hand over fully unbound spatial rings while still alive?
"You're not bad."
After nodding slightly in approval, Locke flicked his hand.
A drop of blood shot from his fingertip and quickly fell onto the eight spatial rings.
The moment he established a connection, a sweep of his soul power revealed everything inside.
"Hiss—"
Even Locke couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath.
Just how many merchant caravans had these five looted to amass such wealth?
And now that all of it had been taken by him… would they truly accept it?
Should he simply kill them all and eliminate future trouble?
"…This is bad."
Seeing Locke fall silent, the bandit leader's heart jolted.
"I forgot just how shocking the amount of wealth we've accumulated really is."
"If this lord believes we won't be willing to let it go—and worries we might seek revenge later—he might very well wipe us out here."
Regret flickered through the bandit leader's mind.
Too careless!
But in that moment of mortal danger, handing over all the spatial rings had been the only way to leave even the slightest chance of survival.
"I'm sorry, brothers."
"This time… I'm the one who dragged you into this."
Having concluded that they might not survive this ordeal, the Midgod leader apologized directly to his companions.
"No, Big Brother, this isn't your fault."
The youngest of the five shook his head.
"If I hadn't attacked this lord earlier, then judging by his conduct, he probably wouldn't have bothered with people like us at all."
"I'm the one who brought everyone into danger."
"Nonsense!"
The leader smacked the youth on the head and scolded him with a laugh.
"As your big brother, if I didn't keep you in check, that's on me."
"And besides, at the time, I didn't think your attack was wrong either."
"If you'd succeeded, we'd each have gained at least a god level divine spark."
"That's worth at least ten thousand inkstones."
(End of Chapter)
⭐ Enjoying the story?
You can read ahead and support the translations by joining my Patreon! Your support helps me update faster and take on more projects. Thank you for reading!
Read up to 50 chapters ahead!
patreon.com/AminaSims
Bonus chapter at 150 powerstones