The divine hall knew no day or night.
Time was measured by the tides of faith. Wave after wave of golden power surged from countless subordinate realms, crashing against his Divine Spark, producing a vast, resonant hum. This was the sound Li Fan had once dreamed of—proof of power, the foundation of existence.
Now, it only felt like noise to him.
He sat upon the Starry Throne, his fingers unconsciously tapping the armrest. The armrest, forged from stellar cores, radiated a constant warmth, but it couldn't dispel the eternal chill deep within his Divine Spark. He tried, as he had in the past, to spread his divine consciousness and survey his kingdom.
He saw the Prayers singing amidst the sea of clouds, their souls molded into forms of perpetual joy; he saw Divine Envoys shuttling through dimensional barriers, performing miracles and gathering faith; he saw his Divine Generals leading the Celestial Legions, patrolling the edges of the "Abyss of the Fallen Gods," engaged in an endless war against the corrupted monsters of the old deities that occasionally crawled out.
Everything was… "correct."
A standard,prosperous, and steadily expanding divine kingdom.
Yet, Li Fan's "gaze" involuntarily shifted away from these grand narratives, settling on the extremely minute, almost imperceptible corners that any other god would overlook.
He saw that a portion of the faith current, just before merging with his Divine Spark, would deflect minutely, like light passing through a prism. That deflected portion vanished silently into the void, leaving no trace, as if it had never existed.
Not much, perhaps only a ten-thousandth, or even less.
Like a form of…tax.
That cold term—"interest"—resurfaced in his divine thoughts.
He closed his eyes, trying to block it all out. However, shutting off his vision only sharpened another "sense." Deep within the core of his divine soul, entwined with the memory of his sister Li Xiaoyue's death, a barely perceptible sensation of a "foreign object" had taken root.
It wasn't pain, nor sorrow, but a kind of… pulling sensation.
As if an invisible thread extended from that point, stretching into the endless void, connected to some unknown end. When he focused entirely on perceiving his kingdom, this pulling sensation was almost nonexistent; but when he grew still, especially when he recalled Xiaoyue's final words, "Brother… run," that "thread" would tighten slightly.
As if reminding him: You can't run away. Everything you have comes with a price.
"Your Majesty."
From the shadows, the figure of General Cang Xuan coalesced, kneeling on one knee. He was clad in dark, heavy armor, which still bore the faint, corrosive energy residue from a recent battle with the abyssal monsters, slowly being purified by the kingdom's laws.
"Report." Li Fan did not open his eyes, his voice echoing through the empty hall with the authority and emptiness unique to divinity.
"The disturbances from the Abyss of the Fallen Gods are increasing in frequency. The rituals of the old god remnants seem to have made some progress. We have detected an ancient consciousness awakening in the depths of the abyss. Its energy signature… surpasses any previous record."
Cang Xuan's voice was steady, but Li Fan could detect a hint of gravity beneath the surface.
"Acknowledged." Li Fan's response was flat.
Cang Xuan paused, seemingly surprised by his lord's muted reaction, but continued his report. "Additionally, the order of the three realms has been preliminarily stabilized. However, the faith conversion efficiency in seventy-six realms is below expectations. Should we dispatch divine envoy teams to conduct 'Purification' rituals?"
"Purification" rituals meant cleansing all doubters and heretics, harvesting faith efficiently through fear and bloodshed. It was a common tactic among many gods.
Li Fan finally opened his eyes and looked at his loyal general. Cang Xuan's eyes held only absolute obedience to command and a desire to enhance the kingdom's power. He could not see the siphoned "strands of faith," nor could he feel the suffocating "pulling sensation" deep within the Divine Spark.
In that moment, Li Fan suddenly understood that he was fundamentally different from them—these inhabitants of the divine kingdom, created or promoted by his own hand. They were born of this place, lived here, were part of its rules. He, however, was an "outsider," a debtor burdened with a mortal past and "marked" by some higher system.
"Not for now." Li Fan waved his hand. "Maintain the status quo. Enhance surveillance."
"...As you command." Cang Xuan bowed his head, his form slowly melting back into the shadows and disappearing.
The hall returned to "silence," save for the never-ending roar of the faith current.
Li Fan rose from the throne and walked upon the star-strewn floor. Step by step, he descended the dais and approached the invisible barrier at the edge of the hall. Beyond it churned the sea of luminous clouds and the glittering river of stars.
He reached out and touched the divine barrier separating inside from outside.
Then, he did something no other god would do, or could even comprehend.
He began to restrain his divine power.
Not merely holding back his aura, but attempting to control the vast, boundless flow of power that should have been his to command at will, much like a mortal carefully controlling their breath. Painstakingly, he pulled back the threads of his radiating divine consciousness, shrinking his perception from countless realms, to the hall, and finally, to his own body.
The process was incredibly difficult, like swimming upstream against a waterfall. His divine power instinctively wanted to surge forth, to answer the calls of believers, to display the majesty of a god.
But he forced himself to continue.
As most of his divine consciousness was forcibly withdrawn, the external noise finally diminished. The roar of the faith current grew distant, becoming background noise.
And the "static" that had been masked by this grand noise began to emerge clearly.
First, the "pulling sensation" connected to the wound of his sister's memory became much more distinct. He could even vaguely perceive the "direction" in which that "thread" extended.
Second, and what shook him to his core even more—
He "heard" another sound.
It wasn't a sound, but a stream of cold information, acting directly upon the very source of his Divine Spark. It was extremely faint, yet carried an indescribable authority that transcended everything.
It came intermittently, like a radio signal with poor reception, but a few phrases pierced Li Fan's consciousness like ice spikes:
[...Asset valuation...Stable...]
[...Current period interest...Accrued...]
[...Warning...Observation threshold...]
The information stream cut off abruptly.
Li Fan stumbled backward a step, as if struck by an invisible force, his face turning unusually pale.
"Interest… accrued…"
He murmured the words softly, each one seeming to be formed from the coldest ice of the abyss.
He lifted his head and looked out at the seemingly infinite, free, and brilliantly magnificent star river beyond the hall. In his eyes, which burned with divine fire, something was clearly reflected for the first time—
It wasn't the stars, nor the sea of clouds, nor the realms.
It was a cage.
Invisible, yet unbreakably solid. Built with faith as its bricks and laws as its locks, firmly imprisoning him, this exalted god, at the pinnacle of this glorious height.