Chapter 1055: Chapter 1042: 20 Years Later Chapter 1055: Chapter 1042: 20 Years Later Radiant purple light enveloped the woman, bringing her down in the midst of a battle between the city’s guard and a Lord-level Native species. This scene immediately halted the firefight as all attention turned to her.

The woman, shrouded in light, looked confused at everything that was happening, especially when she noticed all the focus was on her, which baffled her even more.

Although she devoutly worshipped the Star Goddess for special reasons, this did not mean she could remain composed when faced with a creature that could easily threaten her life.

But just when the woman thought she would panic in the face of such a being, she discovered she didn’t feel even a hint of fear.

Then, she thought of the courage the goddess had bestowed upon her, but her reasoning told her that she would likely be easily crushed by the monster’s foot soon.

At that moment, the woman, still enveloped by the light, was surprised to find everything around her appearing smaller. No, that wasn’t it—it wasn’t that everything around her was shrinking, but rather that her body was growing, her perspective rising higher.

She found that within a short time, her body had grown to be as tall as the Native species facing her, and her growth spurt stopped there.

Even with just this much change, the woman felt a surging power within her, and simultaneously, the light enveloping her began to solidify into a magnificent suit of purple, gold-embedded armor.

“Roar!” The Lord-level Native species before the suddenly appeared giantess let out a roar, its eyes filled with wariness as it could feel the immense power emanating from her, a power that posed a severe threat to its life.

The woman, seeing the Native species before her preparing to attack, panicked immediately. Although she felt a strong power within her, she did not know how to utilize it.

Right then, the woman suddenly felt knowledge about battle techniques flood into her mind, as if she were being enlightened.

Meanwhile, the monster charged at her. Finding herself with no room to retreat, she gritted her teeth and began to fight but soon realized that fighting wasn’t as difficult as she anticipated, seeming rather simple, in fact.

Boom!

The woman, transformed into a Valkyrie, punched the Native species that had maligned her teleportation into the city. Her divinely powered body released a forceful blow, lifting the monster’s body and smashing it to the ground, causing dust to billow.

This sight was observed by the surrounding armed forces. To the soldiers combating the Native species, they saw only an orb of light suddenly fly out from a building, later forming into the heroic giantess before them, much like a Valkyrie from legends.

“Look at the emblem on the giantess’s armor, she’s an apostle of the Star Goddess, she must be a Valkyrie sent by the goddess to help us.”

Barely moments into the fight, a sharp-eyed soldier noticed an emblem on the giantess’s armor that blended seamlessly with the surrounding armor designs—so inconspicuous that it was hardly visible unless one was observant.

“It does seem so!”

Soon, more and more Star Armor Masters noticed that the patterns on the giantess’s armor matched the emblem of the Star Goddess. Thus, without further thought, these soldiers began assisting the giantess in attacking the Lord-level Native species.

“Hey, it’s truly a gifted opportunity for me to showcase a miracle. After this battle, my following in this city should increase a few points.”

All that was happening in the city was clearly visible to the Golden Dragon Mother, who watched with a pleased smile.

During this time, she had fully appreciated the convenience of being a deity. Although gods did not possess the freedom of epics, within specific domains, they could exert unimaginable power, having extraordinary control over their main areas of worship.

For instance, in this city, she could randomly select a devout believer and funnel strength into them at a cost, and then remotely guide them in battle.

After this battle, without even having to think about it, she knew her following in the city would indeed dramatically soar—a low investment with high returns.

…

“It looks like their development is going well. Indeed, they don’t need me to worry about them. I just need to mind my own business.”

Muria, using her family’s connections to gather news about the Golden Dragon Mother and her own father, speculated about her parents’ general situation after reading the report, stretched lazily, and tossed aside the document.

They just needed to wait now—the passage of time was on their side. The further they went, the more powerful they became, and when they reached a certain peak, the three of them together would be capable of changing the entire world.

…

Twenty years later
The reincarnated body of Muria, now looking increasingly mature, was handling routine government duties. Over the years, he had completely suppressed all dissenting voices within his family; at the very least, 60% of the clan members were absolutely obedient to him.

This was just within the family. Externally, Muria had completely subdued the other three families within the federation, gaining the greatest power of speech, and the government had been rendered powerless by him. Whenever he wished, he could cause the federation’s government to collapse.

Under his leadership, the Douglas family was more powerful than it had ever been. He accomplished what no head of the family had done before, creating a regime where the Douglas family’s word was law within the alliance.

As Muria was quietly handling his family affairs, a beautifully carved idol of a deity, no more than 30 centimeters tall, suddenly burst into a radiant light on his desk. When the brilliance faded, an elegant, intellectual blonde lady was sitting on Muria’s desk, looking down at him from her elevated position.

“Muria, it’s time to proceed to the next step!”

In the church, the faith had completely taken dominance, effectively completing the usurpation of that unconscious deity, the Golden Dragon Mother, who was now eyeing Muria, who did not even look up.

“The next step, what do you plan to do?” Muria asked, lifting his head to look at the avatar of the Golden Dragon Mother formed from the idol.

Over the years, as the Golden Dragon Mother’s power expanded, she had gained more divine authority, and the number of her followers had steadily increased.

The church controlled a plant deity, simply a deity wiped of consciousness, akin in some ways to a vegetative human who couldn’t move in bed.

A vegetative human can only lie in bed; although alive, they can only react instinctively to external stimuli, similar to a consciousness-wiped deity.

How could a deity that needed stimulation to react compete with a deity-experienced existence like the Golden Dragon Mother in terms of faith? Thus, no matter how the upper echelons of the Stars Congregation struggled, they were progressively losing ground to the Golden Dragon Mother and were now merely struggling to survive.

Moreover, the faith of the Golden Dragon Mother was no longer limited to within the church. Her alias, the Star Goddess Laya, was spreading her faith to small countries around the church, and even to the Empire and the federation.

Due to the unique centralized power system of the Flash Silver Empire, the expansion of the Star Goddess’s faith was extraordinarily slow because of the official suppression by the empire.

In the federation, because of the presence of Muria, the spread of the Golden Dragon Mother’s faith was remarkably swift, to the extent that she could nearly project avatars anywhere in the federation.

And it was for this reason that the Golden Dragon Mother could appear before Muria at any time to converse, while dealing with his father was a bit more troublesome.

“What’s the next step? Do you still need to ask me that? Of course, it’s to integrate human forces! Besides the Flash Silver Empire, the Stars Congregation, and the Zijing Federation, there are forty-five other nations. Don’t you think this number is too much?”

“So, the next step is to obliterate these small nations’ governments?” Muria nodded in agreement, sharing the same thought as the Golden Dragon Mother; he also intended to peacefully unify the surrounding small nations.

“That’s only half the step. After completing these, we need to start integrating the three major human forces. Only when they are united as one entity will it truly be a step. A fist only deals the most damage when clenched together.”

“Overthrowing the governments of the surrounding small nations to achieve peaceful evolution is simple, but merging the three overlord-level powers into one will probably be quite difficult,” Muria frowned slightly. Although within the alliance, the Douglas family was preeminent, they still weren’t in a position to act recklessly.

“The difficulty is with you and your dad; I don’t have such problems. The Stars Congregation can be integrated at any time.”

“It’s different with us; yours is a nation of faith. As the object of everyone’s worship, a command from you naturally faces no issues. But here, it’s a loose federation, and my father deals with a more centralized feudal imperial system, which is more troublesome.”

“Yours is relatively simple. It would be more troublesome for Ansol. He’s too rigid. Now the legion under his command has become the strongest in the empire, and sidelining the emperor isn’t really difficult at all.” The Golden Dragon Mother scoffed, very dissatisfied with her husband’s achievements.

“Asking my father to do such a thing would be too much for him,” Muria laughed.

“Why too much? Do you think he lacks the ability? He is just too lazy to bother with these matters; he’s waiting for me to worry about them.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read