Inside the Divine Space, Cedric observed the destruction happening in the Crystal Cube world while having a headache.

  After the ants dug complicated tunnels under the city, the building standing on top of those tunnels began to collapse from pressure.

  The ants have also risen from deep underground and dealt massive casualties to the humans.

  Although more than half of the civilians have already evacuated, the remaining who haven’t left the city are basically facing certain death.

  He also checked Lacius’s location and found he’ll need a long time before he could arrive at the city.

  So, all Cedric can do for now is watch and study the demon king’s ability.

  His mental power spread deep into the ground and reached the complicated tunnel that has been dug by the giant ant colony

  Cedric checked the tunnel and saw many humans have actually been captured inside the tunnels.

  The humans tried to resist, but the sheer difference in strength caused their resistance to be futile.

  The ants passed through many tunnels before finally arriving at the queen’s location.

  Compared to the other tunnels, the location the queen stayed at is much bigger and is filled with a lot of ants and trace of flesh and bloods.

  Once they arrived, the ants proceeds to tear the human’s limbs while ignoring their scream.

  The ant queen saw the humans writhing in pain and released a screeching sound before killing and eating the loudest human.

  The moment that person is killed, NE appeared from his corpse, which is mostly absorbed by the queen while the remaining part is absorbed by the guards around the ant queen.

  After absorbing the NE, the ant queen continued to kill the remaining humans before eating their corpses.

  After eating this batch of humans, the queen stopped at a corner of the room and began to lay eggs.

  She fertilized some eggs while also imbuing them with some of her power.

  Soon, the eggs that have been fertilized began to hatch into giant ants and left the queen’s room.

  The recently hatched eggs mostly consisted of Mid Level 0 ants, while a select few are of much bigger size and have reached Peak Level 0 or Early Level 1 the moment they’re born.

  Meanwhile, some of the unfertilized eggs hatched and began to surround the queen.

  At this time, another batch of humans arrived which make the queen repeat the same movement of screeching, eating, and giving birth.

  In the Divine Space, Cedric feels nauseous after watching such a brutal scene. Compared to the ant queen’s brutality, Lacius’s human experiment seems much more humane.

  But now isn’t the time to think about useless things. Especially after Cedric checked through the ant nest once more and saw that one of the bigger Peak Level 1 ant has actually shed its carapace several times and evolved into a five meter long ant at Lower Level 2.

  That means there are now 8 Level 2 ants and 1 Level 3 ants in the nest.

  “They’re multiplying too fast!”

  Cedric looked as the ant continued to collect humans, whether dead or alive.

  The dead ones are stored inside an area that seems to be a food storage, while the living humans are brought to the ant queen to be tortured and killed for the sake of generating NE.

  By the time Lacius finally arrived, the city had been thoroughly pillaged by the ants.

  Occasionally, some ants exited from the hole and crack inside the city to scout the surroundings to look for some food.

  Every time Lacius saw such ants, he immediately killed them.

  After killing a few ants, Lacius followed the trail of humans and arrived at open plains nearby the city.

  On the plain, he saw a settlement that had been erected in a hurry, and walked toward them to ask for further details.

  The moment he arrived, Lacius immediately walked toward the center of the settlement where the biggest tent was erected. The tent is surrounded by people wearing city guard uniforms and temple knight uniforms.

  The moment he approached the tent, a few guards blocked his path. “Halt! This is the city lord’s tent. Identify yourself!”

  Different from the tense guard, the surrounding temple knight looked at Lacius with wide open eyes.

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  Some occasionally rubbed their eyes as if in disbelief.

  “The god of alchemy…”

  It’s unknown who spoke first, but the surrounding temple knight woke up from their daze.

  “Is this the god of alchemy?”

  “Hasn’t the god ascended to heaven?”

  “Has the god descended to help us tide through this difficulty?”

  Finally, an experienced temple knight who seems like the captain commanded, “Call the head priest!”

  A temple knight ran toward a nearby tent that’s equally massive and soon brought the old head priest outside.

  The moment the head priest saw Lacius, he immediately kneeled while his eyes turned red as pea sized droplets of tears continuously fell from it.

  “O.. the great god of alchemy, be praised shall your name, may your glory shine far and wide for eternity!”

  The surrounding priest, temple knight, guards, and civilians, who has heard the head priest’s word, immediately kneel to the ground and greeted Lacius.

  Seeing such exaggerated greetings, a corner of Lacius’s eye slightly twitched. But he quickly controlled his expression and gently patted the head priest’s shoulder. “Pray tell me, what happened to the city?”

  “Sob*, the demon ant appears *hiccup* underground city, *2ahhh* *sob* killed the civilians *boohoo* *weep*”

  After the city’s destruction, his short meeting with the creator, and now seeing the god of alchemy himself in the flesh, the head priest’s turbulent emotions make him unable to speak properly.

  Lacius felt his headache and his lifespan decrease from just listening to the old guy’s voice.

  Luckily, the city lord who has heard the commotion outside the tent has silently exited it.

  “Greetings, your holiness the god of alchemy. This one is the city lord of the fallen city. Please permit me to describe what has happened to the city as your servant, the head priest, seems to be in an unfit condition to do so.”

  City lord Hendrick spoke with utmost respect to Lacius.

  No matter what, the god of alchemy is a god whose legend and power has spread far and wide

  Compared to the more mysterious creator that gives off an amiable feeling during their meeting, the god of alchemy in front of him gives off a much more dangerous feeling.

  It’s a widely accepted fact that the god of alchemy is the one who has taught alchemy to humans. Some people have even theorized that the god of alchemy might have absolute power over alchemical items.

  City lord Hendrick didn’t want the god of alchemy to change every reinvigoration potion he drank to keep an all nighter into poison simply because he talked to the god of alchemy in disrespect.

  Lacius stared at City Lord Hendrick.

  “Please explain the situation as thoroughly as possible.”

  City Lord Hendrick nodded and described the situation from the beginning. Starting from when Cedric has sent him a message about the demon king’s appearance and how he has doubted the message which leads to his meeting with the creator.

  Listening to it, Lacius’s mind became active. ‘The creator is too generous. If someone were to doubt me, I would’ve directly obliterated them from this world.’

  Then, he thought of something, ‘Now that I think about it, I don’t recall the creator ever making any direct move to the world. They will only send revelation through a dream or that floating screen. The most fearsome warning the creator has ever shown is merely the sight of utter destruction through the means of a dream. Is there some sort of reason for this?’

  While he listened to Hendrick’s explanation, Lacius’s mind became full of conspiracy theories about the creator’s lack of activity.

  Finally, City Lord Hendrick finished his explanation, and Lacius fell into deep thought.

  “First and foremost, you need to send the survivor to the nearest city as soon as possible. There might be another wave of attack from the demon ants soon.”

  City Lord Hendrick’s expression fell when he heard Lacius’s word.

  Even the head priest who has calmed down also looks serious.

  ‘’Then, let’s immediately start our journey to the neighboring city!”

  “” Yes!”” The guards and knights replied in unison as they prepared the civilians to continue their travel.

  Due to the sheer amount of people involved, everyone only started to leave an hour later. That means they probably need another two to three hours before the entire group leaves the plains.

  While watching the survivor walking in line to leave, Lacius’s extremely high earth sensitivity sensed movement from deep underground.

  He quickly told the head priest and city lord who still stood behind him. “Both of you need to leave first. As expected, the demons has launched another attack from deep underground.”

  The city lord’s eyes widened in shock as he questioned without even caring for formalities, “What about the remaining people?!”

  “I’ll buy as much time as possible.” Lacius calmly replied while looking at a message that Cedric had just sent.

  ***

  Inside the Divine Space, Cedric knew that while Lacius is in his psychotic state, he might have got some ridiculous head breaking idea. But when he is in a calm state, Lacius is someone he can depend on.

  Just as expected, even without his command, Lacius has met the survivors and helped them to migrate.

  Now that the survivor has been mostly handled, and the ant has actually started another attack, it’s time to finish off the ant queen.

  Cedric sent a message to Lacius through his [Basic System Screen].

  [Let me assist you in killing the demon king.]

  Cedric copied the data regarding the ant nest, location of the ant queen, and the current distribution of ants to Lacius by using [Divine Intervention: Image] and [Divine Intervention: Word] to write the explanations.

  When Lacius saw the message Cedric sent, which was accompanied by a 3D image of the nest and surrounding area, he became a bit confused before he finally understood how to read the map.

  Lacius looked at the jumbled dots which show the ants that almost attacked them and clicked his tongue, “Tsk, killing this much demon ants is going to be quite troublesome.”

  Then, he looked at the location of the ant queen, which is marked with the word ‘Lower Level 3 demon king’.

  ‘I am excited to meet this new demon king.’ Lacius thought in interest. ‘I wonder how I fare against someone at the same level?’

  After understanding the map that Cedric sent, Lacius calculated the distance before walking to a spot and stopped.

  “This should be the right place.” Lacius said as he placed his right arm into the ground and channeled his power to the ground. “The demon king should be located around 100 meters underground. So, let’s open a hole directly to that place.”

  Accompanying his blessed power, Lacius spent approximately 40% of the faith energy he has gathered for centuries. It’s a new method of using faith power that he has found during an experiment. It allows him to amplify his blessed power to an unreasonable degree.

  As his body begins to glow and slightly crack from the pressure, a massive amount of faith energy is channeled underground.

  “Open!” With a shout from Lacius, the surrounding earth trembled as a vortex appeared on the ground a few meters in front of him.

  The vortex slowly widened and showed a deep hole that seemed to lead straight into hell.

  Deep in the ground, the ant queen raised its head upon feeling a warmth coming from the ceiling of its nest, “Screech?”

  There seem to be traces of confusion hidden in that screech.