The Angel God's Legend: A Puzzling Mystery
"The legend of the Angel God?" Zhou Qing wondered aloud after hearing the story. "If it's connected to the Spirit Hall, you'd think it would be heavily promoted, if not universally known, then at least very familiar, right?" Yet, he admitted, had Qingzhu Zhu not brought it up, he wouldn't have known such a legend existed.
"Maybe it's just a myth," Qingzhu Zhu's maid chimed in. While impressed by Zhou Qing's cleverness, she didn't seem too invested in the subject.
"Not necessarily..." Zhou Qing strained to recall details from the original story.
He remembered the Demon Whale King stating that gods always appear in pairs, not as romantic partners, but to keep each other in check. Disregarding the Whale King's personal opinions, her assertion implied that the Angel God and the Sea God likely existed in the same era.
The original narrative described Bo Saixi's Sea God as someone who spent a thousand years conquering the ocean, accumulating the power of faith, and achieving godhood independently. Therefore, the First Generation Angel God must have also spent no less than a thousand years gathering faith and forging her divine position.
But here's the catch—
The Sea God left behind his legacy on Sea God Island and ascended to the Divine Realm, but the First Generation Angel God isn't there.
What's the evidence? The Angelic God Armor from the original story—six 99,999-year spirit bones—was passed down through generations since the very beginning of the Spirit Hall. This means it was the First Generation Angel God's gear! In the original tale, when Poseidon chose Tang San as his successor, he only left behind the legacy divine tool. The Sea God's divine armor needed to be reforged by stripping Tang San's spirit bones. It was only because Tang San had an extra external spirit bone that the trial of "six desires" was transformed into "seven emotions."
Looking at the entire Douluo series, divine inheritances, even those of the God of Goodness and the God of Evil, at most involved leaving behind their divine tools for characters like Ji Dong and Lie Yan. God Armor? It's simply not something they'd leave behind. Yet, the First Generation Angel God left behind her Angelic God Armor and the Angelic Holy Sword. The implications are clear.
The Rakshasa God is portrayed as the Angel God's opposite, but the original story also describes the Rakshasa God as balancing the Asura God... How could a mere Rakshasa God balance the Asura God King?
Zhou Qing's Ambitious Theory of Divine Conflict
Putting aside the conflicting plot points in the original series for a more logical analysis, Zhou Qing considered a possibility: the First Generation Rakshasa God could very well have been the First Generation Angel God's mother!
First, the gods in the Divine Realm, with their nearly infinite lifespans, are generally quite bored, except during cosmic disasters like black holes or invasions from other Divine Realms.
The God of Goodness and the God of Evil, two powerful God Kings, made a wager over the definition of "love and desire," using Ji Dong and Lie Yan from the Five Elements Continent as pawns, subjecting those two "love-struck" individuals to immense suffering.
And the Asura God, seeking a suitable successor to shed his responsibilities, directly "snatched" Tang San, making Xiaowu bear some of the pressure of the Asura God's position to escape the Divine Realm, never to return.
So, among the Sea God and the Angel God, who both independently gathered faith on the Douluo Continent, why did only the Sea God successfully ascend, while the Angel God might have perished, leaving only her divine position behind?
Zhou Qing had a theory!
Based on the idea that gods appear in pairs, the Angel God, by unifying writing and language across the continent, clearly sought to conquer more territory. Setting aside the benefits of faith power for a god's cultivation, the sheer boldness of the First Generation Angel God—daring to replace her own language and writing with those of the defeated side for efficiency—shows her remarkable courage! Zhou Qing even suspected that the First Generation Angel God might have aimed to elevate the entire Douluo Star to another Divine Realm after unifying it.
How would she elevate it?
In the Douluo series, the Great God King Tang San's "ten-thousand-year plan" likely aimed to continuously elevate the Douluo Star's plane level to transform it into a Divine Realm. However, even after the Douluo Star in Douluo IV absorbed the Abyssal Plane, it still wasn't enough to become a complete Divine Realm.
The First Generation Angel God's methods were likely similar: finding the coordinates of other planes, attracting them, and then annexing them. The process would probably have been gentler than the Great God King Tang San's, as she viewed all humans on the Douluo Star as her divine subjects. In contrast, the Great God King Tang San treated the Douluo Star as his backyard, and the humans living there were merely insignificant beings whose lives he didn't care much about unless they were related to him or his children.
The First Generation Angel God's audacity to erase her own writing and language demonstrates her extreme arrogance. She was absolutely unwilling to be subservient, meaning she refused to submit to the rules of the original Divine Realm.
But the outcome was clear—the First Generation Angel God failed.
The gods in the Divine Realm generally don't pay attention to the lower realms unless divine power emerges there. Those who achieve godhood in the lower realms can stay for a maximum of one hundred years. After a century, they must ascend. The reason: a god's power is too immense and would interfere with the development of humanity in the lower realms. At least, that's the official stance.
The First Generation Angel God indeed interfered with humanity's development in this regard. At least after she achieved godhood, the meaning of life for everyone else, whether out of fear of her power or willing devotion, became singular: to serve the Angel God.
Therefore, in Zhou Qing's theory, the First Generation Angel God did not ascend after her century in the lower realm, which attracted the attention of the Divine Realm's enforcers. However, at first, the Asura God King didn't descend personally. Instead, he dispatched other Divine Realm enforcers, similar to Hypnos in The God of Wine.
After all, while the First Generation Angel God independently gathered the faith of all beings and formed a divine position, the lower realm lacked immortal spiritual energy, making cultivation slow. Even though the Angel God's position was at the level of a first-rank god, theoretically, within a mere century, her power level shouldn't have surpassed a second-rank god who had cultivated in the Divine Realm for many years, especially a God of Slaughter under the Asura God, who wielded killing intent and could even borrow the Asura God's power when necessary.
In this scenario, Zhou Qing believes the Asura God King miscalculated... The God of Slaughter sent down was killed by the First Generation Angel God!
This incident also caught the attention of the Divine Realm Committee. Then, these gods, considering that the Angel God achieved godhood as a human, didn't directly intervene. However, the Angel God had ultimately challenged the dignity of the Divine Realm, so—
The Five God Kings made a wager. More specifically, perhaps it was only Evil and Goodness who made a bet based on the question of "whether such an overbearing Angel God possesses familial affection."
Goodness chose to believe the Angel God still had familial affection. Evil, however, believed the Angel God would no longer trust familial affection.
Why does Zhou Qing suspect this? It's simple: the original text describes the Rakshasa God as extremely evil. If the God of Evil hadn't been involved, Zhou Qing wouldn't believe it. And the Angel God? Her benevolent nature alone would surely align with powers similar to the God of Goodness.
Furthermore, with no immortal spiritual energy in the lower realm, the Angel God's cultivation was slow. These God Kings weren't worried about things getting out of hand. Even if the Angel God truly reached the God King level, they had five of them and could gang up on her.
The Asura God, as an enforcer, also had to become a facilitator for this wager. For the sake of the wager's entertainment, he had to seal his cultivation and enter the game himself—the Divine Realm needs five God Kings present simultaneously to remain stable. So, the Asura God wasn't worried that the other four—Goodness, Evil, Life, and Destruction—would stand by if something truly happened to him.
After descending to the lower realm, the Asura God gradually unsealed his cultivation through training, regaining his original power. At the same time, he secretly guided a relative of the First Generation Angel God—someone who had gained a small portion of the God of Evil's power—in their cultivation...
PS: Read Advance Chapters at patreon.com/c/Xentronix