152: Chapter 152 The Destiny of Gods

Humans — the most prosperous race in the Primordial Domain;

Elves — the only race in the Primordial Domain capable of autonomously forming contracts with elemental spirits;

Dwarves — beings whose craftsmanship surpasses all other races.

Beyond these three races, which anchor the main trajectory of the Primordial Domain, countless other races exist here. But before the cultures of these races truly blossomed, two other races once ruled the Primordial Plane:

The first was the Loto Tribe, now revered by humans as gods,

and the second was the Patem Tribe, whose very existence has now been completely forgotten.

Two hundred thousand years ago, these two races waged a long war lasting over a millennium to vie for the rule of the Primordial Domain — a conflict the Loto Tribe later renamed the "Thousand Year War."

The scale of this war was the largest in human history, making the God-Demon War look insignificant by comparison. The goal of the war was identical to that of the God-Demon War between humans and demons: to annihilate the opposing race that posed a threat, a common goal for both the Loto Tribe and the Patem Tribe.

It is not difficult to see from the current situation, where the Loto Tribe is revered by humans as gods and the Patem Tribe is completely forgotten, that the Loto Tribe was the victor of the Thousand Year War.

When the greatest genius in the history of the Loto Tribe, "Margo," ascended to the position of Transcendental, the equilibrium that had lasted for a millennium rapidly collapsed — Margo crushed the powerful figures of the Patem Tribe with such nonchalance that the Thousand Year War itself seemed trivial in comparison.

After Margo crushed the powerful figures of the Patem Tribe, a genocide lasting over a decade began — rather than a war, it would be more accurate to describe it as a "slaughter."

The Loto Tribe used every means possible to search for and annihilate all hiding members of the Patem Tribe. Typically, after a war ends, victors treat the defeated in one of three ways: colonizing the defeated territory, signing treaties favorable to the victors (such as demanding war reparations), or turning the defeated into slaves. However, the genocide carried out by the Loto Tribe completely deviated from these common practices.

Of course, the Loto Tribe was not inherently more antisocial than the existing humans and other races — they were originally a group more compassionate and respectful of life than any other race.

However, the Thousand Year War had planted deep hatred, fear of war, and an unquenchable loathing in their hearts. To purify these evil emotions and avoid the recurrence of similar racial wars, they chose genocide.

If the Loto Tribe had to pay a huge sacrifice during the process of extermination, this proposal might never have been discussed. But thanks to the overwhelming presence of "Margo," the Loto Tribe did not shed a single drop of blood, beginning to purge all members of the Patem Tribe from the Primordial Domain like weeding a garden.

Once started, the madness could not stop on its own — the extermination of the Patem Tribe lasted over a decade, followed by another twenty years of searching. Finding no survivors, the Loto Tribe finally became convinced that the Patem Tribe had been completely wiped out in the Primordial Domain, and subsequently reined in their millennium-long resentment and madness.

However, no matter how small a prosperous organism is, it cannot be extinguished by natural forces alone — a truth the Loto Tribe failed to understand until the very end.

They slaughtered hundreds of millions of the Patem Tribe, but ultimately missed the last survivor. Until Margo created a new plane for the Loto Tribe and the entire race migrated, and even after the migration, the Loto Tribe never realized this fact.

After the Loto Tribe left the Primordial Domain, the last survivor of the Patem Tribe abandoned his original name and called himself "Patem" — so as not to forget that he was the sole representative of the Patem Tribe.

After accidentally achieving the initial goal of "escaping the threat of the Loto Tribe," Patem's next goal remained "survival," or more accurately, extending his lifespan.

Relying on his innate special abilities, Patem was able to evade the Loto Tribe's frantic manhunts, and thus concluded that there were no other survivors — without companions, a race cannot reproduce; if he wanted the "Patem" race to continue, he had to survive.

Having lost his family, friends, and even all his kin, Patem had originally lost the will to live, but his desire for revenge against the Loto Tribe sustained him in this world.

The method to extend his lifespan was simple — the Patem Tribe was born with the trait that "the higher the ability values, the longer the lifespan," so he only needed to continuously increase his ability values.

But the problem was that simply grinding monsters to level up had a clear bottleneck in increasing ability values: without decent equipment and skills, even if he hunted monsters, his lifespan would not exceed ten thousand years. Although ten thousand years was dozens of times longer than the average lifespan of the Patem Tribe, it was still a fleeting time for him as he craved immortality.

Not long after, Patem realized this worry was unnecessary — while traveling between various hunting grounds, he discovered the civilization left behind by the Loto Tribe.

Although the Loto Tribe had completely erased the civilization of the Patem Tribe, they had left their own civilization behind when they departed the Primordial Domain. Before giving birth to a genius like Margo, the Loto Tribe was able to contend with the Patem Tribe, whose lifespans far exceeded their own, entirely due to their advanced civilization.

Patem, monopolizing the civilization left by the Loto Tribe, actually survived for as long as one hundred thousand years, and even ascended to the position of "Creator" during this time.

Although his talent did not reach Margo's level, one hundred thousand years was enough to break through the barriers of talent. However, while becoming a Creator, he also fell into a growth bottleneck — which meant he could no longer extend his lifespan.

As Margo had hoped, by creating a new plane through the Creator's authority and migrating, the kin could obtain eternal life, but the Creator himself would lose all physical power (that is, the power accumulated throughout his life) due to the cost of creation. Even if one could exist eternally in the form of a soul, what is the point of living in a place other than the Primordial Domain?

If he had kin, it might be acceptable, but Patem no longer had any kin; eternal life was meaningless to him. More importantly, after migrating to a new plane, he would be unable to take revenge on the Loto Tribe — Creators cannot forcibly enter other planes, so revenge against the Loto Tribe remained a distant hope.

But Patem thought of a method to use other races for revenge.

During the one hundred thousand years he became a Creator, countless races emerged in the Primordial Domain, filling the void left after the disappearance of the Loto and Patem Tribes; the race he focused on was humans.

Humans inherited the parts of the civilization left by the Loto Tribe that Patem considered useless, and eventually even succeeded in obtaining authority from the Loto Tribe.

If the Loto Tribe had quietly guarded their own plane and not interfered with the Primordial Domain, Patem theoretically could not have taken revenge.

But the Loto Tribe became interested in humans, which gave Patem a glimmer of hope — if he could extract the traits that the Loto Tribe bestowed upon humans through divinity and Holy Power, he, as an alien race, might be able to enter the Loto Tribe's exclusive plane.

Just as Margo had turned the tide of the Thousand Year War with his own power alone, Patem also possessed the power to exterminate humanity single-handedly.

But before his lifespan ran out, he had not yet found a way to extract the Loto Tribe's traits from Holy Power, so he gave up on exterminating humans and turned to finding other avenues — at this moment, his gaze turned to another race: the demons.

To efficiently exterminate the Patem Tribe, the Loto Tribe turned their territory into a forbidden zone for life.

Originally, over time, the aura of death in this land would have naturally dissipated, but for some reason, the aura of death not only did not disappear but instead transformed into a special aura never before seen in the Primordial Domain, lingering in the former territory of the Patem Tribe, avoiding dissipation.

Although the nature of the aura changed, it remained ominous, and it seemed that no life could be born there. However, even Patem, as knowledgeable as a Great Sage, miscalculated — this land gave birth to two types of life: demons, who possessed wisdom, and monsters, who, like beasts, grew despite lacking wisdom.

Patem became interested in the life forms mutated from the Loto aura and began studying demons and monsters, discovering that they could accumulate the traits of the Loto Tribe within their bodies by killing human clerics who had obtained Holy Power or humans blessed by Holy Power, and these traits could be transferred to himself.

Based on this, Patem formulated a plan to use demons to exterminate humans — if the plan succeeded, he might be able to enter the Loto plane himself.

In fact, Patem's worries were unnecessary: over the one hundred thousand years, for unknown reasons, the number of the Loto Tribe in the Loto plane had plummeted to a few hundred, and their growth had completely stagnated, with no new Creators appearing.

As long as Patem could step into the Loto plane, the Loto Tribe would inevitably head toward extinction as he wished.

However, during the process of Patem sealing his flesh, planning to have demons exterminate humans, and waiting for one hundred thousand years, "Adventurers," an existence beyond specifications, appeared in the human world...