As angry as she was, the Overgod Life understood that for two reasons, now wasn't the time for her to challenge Aiden.
For one, she was here, effectively representing heaven. Even if you were to increase her courage ten times over, she still wouldn't dare do anything to oppose heaven's will. Second, and arguably most importantly, as it stood, even if her real body were to descend, she still wouldn't be a match for him.
It had to be remembered that because of his creating a whole new path, Heaven had blessed Aiden with the ability to increase his units of Willpower by 20 units – the same as that of a Lesser Sovereign – for every new Concept he comprehended and since becoming an Overgod, Aiden had comprehended nine full Concepts of Wind and one for a further five elements.
Where the average Overgod had a total of 200 units of will, Aiden had 481 – well over twice as many. Still, what made true Overgods so powerful was the fact that their Overgod Divine Power was a fusion of Willpower, Spiritual Essence, Divine Power, and the Faith belonging to that of their element, but that was only true for Overgods who had condensed their Overgod Bodies. Before that, their energy was merely a fusion of their Divine Power, Spiritual Essence and Willpower.
As it stood, for one reason or another, none of the newly ascended Overgods had even begun the process of condensing their Overgod Body; if they had, even Bluefire, who effectively had the weakest foundation, would be able to overpower Aiden despite his Willpower outstripped the others by so much.
As for the Overgods of the four Edicts, although they had begun the Body Condensation process, because of the amount of Faith they had managed to accumulate since gaining sentience, the process has taken an extraordinary amount of time. Even now, Aiden calculated that they would still need another few thousand years to complete it.
For that reason, despite the actions of him, Ace, and the others on their side, none of the Four Edict Overgods dared confront him. Until they finished, they wouldn't be able to match Aiden. As a result, even in the face of Aiden's blatant humiliation tactics, the Overgod of Life could only swallow her anger and do what she needed to so she could leave as soon as possible.
Turning to Linley, she commanded him to hurry up and state his wish. Although she did nothing to exert her pressure on him, Linley could feel her anger. Even so, he suppressed his unnecessary thoughts, knowing no harm would come to him and stated that he wished to become a four-way soul mutate.
His words came as a shock to everyone watching aside from the upper echelon of their Yulan Plane. Even the Overgod of Life raised an eyebrow at his request.
Since she and the other three Edict Overgods gained sentience, there had been a total of five completed Overgod Missions. While four of them had asked for Overgod Artifacts, one of them had asked to become a paragon of their second element. Still, what none had even thought to ask for was to become a soul-mutate – Linley was definitely a first.
She could also tell that Linley was a deity of four elements, meaning should she grant his wish, he would become the Universe's first four-way soul mutate. Even so, that wasn't what actually took her by surprise.
As an Overgod, her perception had reached a level that others couldn't even imagine. She was able to peer into the universe to understand its secrets, an ability that had only grown stronger whilst acting as heaven's envoy; as such, she should be able to see through the power that Linley would gain after his evolution in a fraction of a second, and yet, no matter how hard she focused, she couldn't do it.
In the end she simply told Linley to pick another wish. If she couldn't see through his future, she wouldn't allow it to come to pass. Her actions now were technically opposing Heaven's Will, but she couldn't afford to care so much – one Ace was already too much, and she couldn't allow another anomaly to be born.
Linley's eyes widened in surprise. Of all the possible responses, outright denial, with no explanation, was not one of them. Still, Linley was far from stupid; in fact, he was incredibly astute.
He knew that although he and Ace were rivals, they were still allies above all else. For the Overgod of Life to reject his wish in such a direct manner… the only reason he could come up with is that she was scared of what his future potential would be afterwards.
When he came to that realisation, it made him want that power even more.
It had barely been a second since the Overgod rejected Linley's wish, and all the spectators were shocked by the sudden development. Still, nothing could've prepared them for the shock they would feel from Linley's response.
A wide grin could be seen on Linley's face as he stared the Overgod of Life directly into her eyes and simply replied, "No!"
It was one word, one exceedingly simple word, and yet that word caused the jaws of all those watching to drop. First it was Ace attacking her, and now it was Linley directly refusing her command. It was like the two rivals were in competition to see who could piss off an Overgod first.
And when they heard Ace burst out in laughter, they couldn't help but shudder uncontrollably as they came to the realisation that whether it was Ace or Linley, both were the very definition of complete and utter lunatics.
Hearing Linley's response, followed by Ace's laughter, had the Overgod raging inside. It was the first time since she gained sentience that she had ever felt so many emotions, and for them all to be negative brought about by three men, two of whom were weak enough to be seen as ants… her anger could only be imagined.
Her fists clenched as she fought to suppress her anger before she did something she would regret when Aiden's voice entered her ears.
Aiden told her that she was way too old and far too ugly to be such a busybody and stick her nose into other people's business and that, as an envoy of heaven, her only duty was to grant the wish of the one who completed her mission, provided that it hadn't surpassed heaven's jurisdiction.
Aiden was more than capable of sending messages telepathically, so only she heard them, but he didn't. He made sure to shout so that everyone could hear. In fact, it was almost as if he wanted to make sure heaven heard him.
She turned and glared venomously at Ace and Aiden, who leisurely stared back. Understanding that they were going out of their way to antagonise her at every turn, she knew that arguing against them was futile.
Aiden was right; she had no right to force Linley to change his wish. Even though she was incapable of seeing what Linley's potential would be after his mutation, it wasn't outside of heaven's scope.
In the end, the Overgod of Life snorted and waved her hand at Linley, causing him to lose consciousness.
Even though they knew deep down that the Overgod had only granted Linley's wish, and Aiden had already told them that, unlike the usual process, Linley wouldn't face any dangers in the process, all of his family and friends hurried down from the void to his side.
Seeing that so many deities had suddenly approached her, but none bothered to pay her any attention, the Overgod of Life snorted in frustration. She was one of the Overgods of the Four Edicts. There had never before been anyone who dared to hold her in such disregard, but those from the Yulan Plane were, without a doubt, the exception to the rule.
Taking one final glance up at Ace and Aiden's hateful faces, she willed for her energy projection to dissipate, fearing she would be angered to death if she dared to stay any longer. Unfortunately, it appeared Aiden hadn't finished trying to anger her.
Her energy projection had barely begun to dissipate when she heard Aiden's voice, but this time, his voice was projected directly into her mind. It wouldn't have been bad if Aiden was just speaking to her, but she could tell from the expressions on the faces of the Sovereigns, not on the side of the Yulan Plane, that he was projecting his voice into their minds as well.
A look of horror appeared on her face as she suddenly understood his plan. To confirm her worried suspicions, the Overgod of Life spread her senses through the universe only to see the shock, disbelief, as well as the growing awe and reverence on the faces of the inhabitants of their universe.
As the Overgod of Life was leaving, Aiden delivered the final blow to their enemies that he, Ace, and the others had already planned.
In that moment, whether they were the Overgods, Sovereigns, Deities, or even mortals, Aiden transmitted the video of the battle between Linley, Wukong, and their group against the army of Commander-level experts gathered from across the universe. He even went so far as to explain the levels of each of the enemy's experts.
Even if all ten were paragons, hearing that a group of ten deities were able to slaughter an army filled with peerless experts, where the weakest were Commanders, and many were Paragons… the shock everyone was experiencing could be imagined.
It was then that Aiden explained that aside from the bloodlines and unique constitutions of the ten experts, a big part of the reason they were able to come out on top was that each of the ten had cultivated a new path outside of the comprehension of the natural Laws, and that path was the path of Concepts!
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