Goddess Kaleidoscope

Before leaving, Kumirard specifically reminded Rud that as the Pantheon continued to grow and its fame spread across the continent, other gods had gradually begun to notice their existence, and these old gods were not all friendly towards the new gods.

Lude was well aware that what he was doing was undoubtedly a challenge to the old gods, an attempt to break the old order. Moreover, he possessed the primordial fire, and the proverb "possessing a treasure is a crime" still held true even if it was moved from Earth to another world!

Therefore, time is really running out for Ludwig.

So, during the casual conversation, Lud also humbly asked Kumirad, who was at least on their side for the time being (probably), for some questions.

First, there's the current situation of those established gods, especially the three founding families and the Earth Mother Goddess. Even now that the Pantheon has already taken shape, if these three were to suddenly attack, they could still deliver a devastating blow. They are the kind of formidable figures that you absolutely cannot afford to provoke in the short term, and you should try to avoid provoking them in the medium to long term.

Fortunately, none of the three top-tier families have made any moves so far.

Among them, the Holy Lord of Light, Karius, can be considered the "conscience" among the old gods. He is upright, kind, and loving, and is said to be extremely handsome, making him the object of affection for many gods and goddesses.

However, this guy also has a flaw: he's too straightforward and often does things in a rigid, inflexible way.

Therefore, Kumirard emphasized to Rude that if he had the opportunity to contact this guy in the future, it would be best to leave a good impression on him. As long as he thought you were a good person, then if the Pantheon were to encounter difficulties in the future, the Lord of Light would definitely be the first to stand up and support them.

But if you accidentally leave a bad impression and make him think you are the embodiment of evil, then you can only pray for the best.

It should be noted that the true strongest among the three families was never the God of War who shouted loudly and claimed to be invincible, but rather the Holy Lord of Light who, during the God War, shouted "Stop fighting!" while charging into the battlefield and indiscriminately defeating all the participants.

This old man is definitely an otherworldly version of Kira Yamato, and he doesn't even need to pilot a Gundam, because he himself is the Gundam!

Of course! The Holy Lord of Light is the Holy Lord of Light, and the Holy Church of Light is the Holy Church of Light. The latter believes in the former, but this huge organization is ultimately composed of tens of thousands of mortals. Karius does hope that all his followers will be drawn to the light, but just like mortals firmly believing that gods are omnipotent, it is nothing more than wishful thinking on their part.

The other two great gods are not a major concern for the time being. The God of War is a battle maniac whose head is filled with muscles. If this guy knew that the Pantheon was trying to challenge the old order, he would be overjoyed. Therefore, the two sides may eventually have a battle in the future. However, before the Pantheon becomes powerful enough, even if the God of War knew of their existence, he would not have thoughts like "This kid is terrifying and must not be allowed to live".

As for the Goddess of the Four Seasons, all signs indicate that she has reached the crucial moment of breaking through from the eighth to the ninth rank. For high-ranking gods above the sixth rank, each rank advancement is a hurdle, and even if everything goes smoothly, they will have to slumber for three to five years. During this time, there is no need to worry about her suddenly attacking.

The only problem, however, lies with the Earth Mother, who is jokingly referred to as the "guardian of the higher ranks." She is the strongest of the mid-ranking gods, and because Aina has undermined the "Fertility" position from her, coupled with the increasing number of dwarves converting to the Three Goddesses of Craftsmanship, led by the Steelwhip Clan, there is a direct conflict of interest between her and the Pantheon.

However, the Earth Mother also has a weakness: this flat-chested little bean sprout isn't very bright. Although she's willful, capricious, and prone to misbehavior, she's also extremely easily fooled. Kumirad frankly admitted that during the height of the divine war, she was the one who acted as an intermediary, tricking the opposing side into betraying the dwarf kingdom. Afterwards, this little fool even thanked her!

Besides these four most threatening beings, other lower-ranking gods, and even those evil gods and demons lurking in the shadows, will likely also make tentative contact with them.

Therefore, the current situation is not optimistic. If Ludwig chooses to be content with the status quo at this critical juncture, he will definitely suffer a great loss.

In light of this, Lud asked Kumirad another, more crucial question: was there a trick to breaking through to the fourth level?

Currently, in the Pantheon, apart from Hume, who is still asleep and is a mid-level god of the fourth tier, all the other goddesses are stuck at the third tier. Among them, Aina is the closest to breaking through. The divine power within her body is already close to saturation, and her previous dream trials were quite effective, but she is still just a little bit short of breaking through. It feels like a download is stuck at 99.9%.

Lude, however, hardened his heart and used a vicious sacrificial method, using other gods as "materials" to help Aina break through.

Regarding Lud's predicament, Kumirad smiled and said that his thinking was correct. Aina was indeed unable to break through because of her mental state. However, Lud made a mistake and used the wrong method.

"Gods are called gods because mortals call us that, and they unilaterally believe that gods must be perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent beings. So, once they discover that gods do not match their imagination, their faith collapses. Although you know some of the secrets of the gods, you are still subtly influenced by these misconceptions. The evolution of gods has never been about transcending mortals. Aina, whom you raised, is indeed a good child, but she is too naive..."

Like a riddle teller, Kumirard only spoke half of what she wanted to say, leaving the rest for Lud to figure out on his own. Then, the next day, she left without saying goodbye, leaving only a note saying that she would come to Pine Town to bother him again when the autumn harvest fell, and that Lud should prepare wine and food as "tribute" in advance.

Disgusted by such a shameless request, Lu De crumpled the note into a ball and threw it into the trash can. Then, he silently took out his notebook and wrote it down in case he forgot about it over time.

After Kumirard left, Ludwig remotely directed Trin to reorganize the Brotherhood while awaiting Hume's awakening.

What made people increasingly anxious was that Hume, who was expected to wake up in two or three days at most, remained in bed like Sleeping Beauty for a whole week without making a sound, which made Ludwig a little panicked.

End of this chapter

In the innermost room on the second floor of the tavern, Hume lay motionless on the bed, his expression serene, as if he were simply asleep. But no matter how much they called out to him, he showed no sign of waking up, nor did he seem to be about to break through, with surging energy fluctuations emanating from his body.

Seeing that she remained unconscious, everyone became anxious.

So, under Lude's influence, everyone started using the method from the other side of the earth to wake up people in a vegetative state. They arranged for people to take turns talking to Hume at her bedside every day, hoping that through the "call of friends," Hume would open her eyes as soon as possible.

Before we knew it, ten days had passed.

That day, Luther returned from running errands at the theater. Seeing that it was still early and she wasn't feeling very tired, she went to Hume's room, sat on the edge of the bed, and told her about what she had been doing recently.

Servis's Rainbow Dance Troupe has now completely replaced the Flying Clouds Dance Troupe, becoming the undisputed number one troupe in Flamewood City, while Katie has become a thing of the past, forgotten by the fickle audience.

Faced with this situation, Katie did consider fighting back, and even had the idea of ​​taking a risk. However, her two backers ran into trouble one after another. First, the Navarro family met with misfortune. The local authorities announced that a meteor shower had destroyed the manor, but the people in the city were spreading rumors that it was divine retribution.

Immediately afterwards, Bishop August, who had originally intended to take action against the Rainbow Dance Troupe, also suddenly changed his attitude. This greedy and lecherous old charlatan seemed to have suddenly changed his nature, and began to engage in large-scale charity work in Flamewood City, ordering his priests to chase after the poor and bring them food and drink every day.

At first, everyone was quite puzzled, but soon some well-informed people learned the reason. It turned out that the headquarters of the Holy Light Church had sent an inspection team, which was expected to arrive in Yanmu City soon to audit and investigate the local church personnel. In order to deal with the inspection team, August naturally had to make last-minute efforts and rely on throwing money around to shut the locals up.

As for dealing with the Rainbow Dance Troupe, that can only be postponed for now, until the inspection team has left.

Katie was surprised to find herself suddenly all alone, with no one to rely on. Not only had she lost her two major backers, but even the Heavenly Opera House, with whom she had always had a good working relationship, wanted to sever ties with her. Meanwhile, Servis was riding high, surrounded by powerful figures who would not ask Servis to do anything in return for betraying them, unlike Juan and August.

Knowing she had no chance of winning, Katie chose to leave in disgrace, terminating her cooperation with the Heavenly Opera House, and then quietly left Flamewood City with her troupe. Servis didn't learn until the next day that her nemesis had fled overnight.

After Katie left, Servis became the top figure in the entertainment industry of Yanmu City. However, unlike Katie, Servis did not like to suppress dissent, and she also had Lude by her side to give her advice.

Driven by the Rainbow Dance Troupe, the performing arts industry in Yanmu City has ushered in a round of industrial upgrading due to the emergence of projectors and cameras.

Everyone initially thought that the appearance of these two magical items would allow the Rainbow Dance Troupe to dominate Flamewood City, monopolizing every stage and taking away the livelihoods of other small and medium-sized dance troupes. However, Lude, as the technology promoter, had already prepared a brighter future for these practitioners.

The Black Hand Brotherhood, which had completed its initial reorganization, funded the establishment of a new company called "Brotherhood Films," which brought all the opera houses and dance troupes in Yanmu City under its control.

Ludwig was initially worried that some theaters or dance troupes might be unwilling to participate, and that the Brotherhood might resort to violence and intimidation. However, the anticipated conflict never occurred, because the wealthy Brotherhood offered a price that was hard for them to refuse.

In fact, Ludwig's worries were almost unnecessary. Most of the lower- and middle-class song and dance troupes were not wealthy, and their performance income was very meager. The performers often went hungry, and some actresses were even forced to sell their bodies outside the stage to earn extra money.

Therefore, when wealthy individuals wanted to recruit them, offering not only a significant increase in salary but also free room and board, only a very small number of them chose to refuse.

In Ludd's plan, the Black Hand Brotherhood's main development direction will lean towards the catering and entertainment industry, with the film company being just one sub-project. The opera house, after being incorporated, will be upgraded and renovated according to the standards of the Sky Opera House, funded by the company, while the thirty-odd dance troupes will be integrated into one place for unified "business retraining".

Since all these song and dance troupes combined had less than 800 people, less than half of the planned staff, Lud had to recruit additional people and even asked Jad and Sherry for some Brotherhood members to temporarily fill the gaps.

Everything is progressing smoothly, and Ludwig expects to officially begin filming his first real movie next month, rather than a recording of a stage play.

Once Ludr truly gets this industry going, it will deliver an unimaginable blow to the world's old missionary model! And movie theaters will replace temples as the best place for the Pantheon to harvest faith.

"Oh, by the way! I used your silhouette as the logo for the film company, and you also appear in the script for the first movie we're about to start filming. If you woke up now, I might consider letting you appear in the film, playing yourself!"

Sitting on the bed, Lude told Hume about the hodgepodge of film scripts he had prepared, occasionally gesturing wildly and striking a pose.

Just then, Ludwig, who was engrossed in his conversation, suddenly heard a soft hum. Startled, he quickly looked toward the head of the bed and noticed that Hume's expression seemed slightly different from before. The corners of his mouth, which were usually flat, seemed to have turned up slightly.

Noticing the change, Ludwig slowly moved closer, frowning as he stared intently at Hume's face. As if he had discovered something, he reached out and pressed his hand against Hume's soft lips, gently rubbing off a bit of white residue stuck to the corner of his mouth. He then held it under his nose and sniffed it twice, and surprisingly, he could smell a faint aroma of butter biscuits.

Realizing what was happening, Ludwig's expression immediately fell.

"Hey!"

"..."

"Stop pretending! I know you're awake."

"..."

"You're not getting up, huh? Fine! Then don't blame me for being impolite."

As Ludd spoke, he got up and moved to the foot of the bed, lifting the thin sheet covering Hume to reveal his smooth calves and bare feet. Then he took out a white quill pen from his pocket and held it to the soles of Hume's feet.

Just as I was passing by the fallen leaves by the door, before I could even reach out to open it, I heard a familiar yet earth-shattering burst of laughter coming from inside.

"Hahaha...Are you fucking crazy?!"

End of this chapter

After lying in bed pretending to be asleep for ten days, Hume finally got up.

The people who remained in the tavern rushed over upon hearing the news. While offering their blessings to Hume, they were also very curious about what heinous thing Lord Lu had done to her in the room that would cause her to be kicked so far away.

Regardless, Hume's awakening was good news, finally putting everyone's minds at ease.

So Aina suggested that they have a barbecue that night and celebrate properly. This suggestion was unanimously agreed upon by almost everyone, since they hadn't really relaxed in a while.

And so, everyone happily began preparing for the banquet, while Hume, after waking up, spent a little time readjusting to the feeling of using divine power. Freed from the curse, Hume was currently the only mid-level god under the entire Pantheon, but having been sealed away for three hundred years, his application of divine power was inevitably somewhat rusty.

It is important to know that mid-level gods of the fourth rank and above not only experience a significant increase in strength, but their divine power also undergoes a qualitative change, acquiring some more distinct characteristics and beginning to possess true "secret techniques" rather than just special skills in certain areas.

To give a simple example, because Aina is the Goddess of Medicine, her divine power is indeed outstanding in healing-related divine arts, making her unique. However, other gods can also use healing arts, but because of the different divine positions they control, they may not be as good as Aina.

The secret techniques possessed by mid-level gods are truly unique skills that only they can use, and are fancy maneuvers that other gods cannot perform.

As the God of Thieves, Hume's special skills are basically all related to theft, with two secret techniques: "invisibility" and "flash step".

Lude had seen the secret technique of invisibility before. Hume could make his presence disappear completely. Now that the curse was lifted, Hume's "invisibility" in his complete form was so strong that it could even deceive the eyes and senses of the gods.

Hume once used this trick to sneak into the palace of the god of war, attempting to steal his divine weapon. He was almost there when the god of war infused his own divine soul into the battle axe. Thus, although Hume, in his stealth state, successfully slipped into the inner chamber right under the god of war's nose, he was discovered the moment he touched the axe.

So if Hume hadn't gone to steal the axe, the God of War might not have been able to catch Hume sneaking into his house.

Another secret technique, "Flash Step," is a short-range teleportation skill. Unlike the "Descent" skill possessed by all mid-level gods, Flash Step's teleportation does not require a divine idol as a beacon. As long as she is within a certain range of Hume, she can teleport to any location at will. Moreover, its activation speed is extremely fast, almost instantaneous, requiring no "casting bar" or "cooldown." Most impressively, this skill completely ignores any magical or divinely constructed defensive barriers.

Logically speaking, with just those two amazing escape skills, even if Hume failed to steal the axe of Ares, he should have had no problem escaping. But Ares also had his own secret technique: anyone he challenged to a duel and called out the name of was absolutely unable to refuse.

This ability is somewhat conceptual, a bit like the "brainwashing techniques of the Communists" imagined by some amphibians and foreigners. Once you watch the news broadcast once, all you can think about is building a new socialist China, and you can't think about anything else.

Thus, Hume, a fourth-order god, was forced to confront the eighth-order god of war head-on, and naturally, he was beaten to a pulp by the other.

Hume is now arguably the strongest force in the Pantheon and the only mid-level god at this stage. However, just as Kumirad had specifically warned him before, the real challenge has only just begun. They are no longer unknown figures; the veteran gods have already taken notice of them.

At this moment, Hume appeared directly from the training ground, while Shanis and the five Heroic Spirits who were sparring with her were still looking around in a daze, searching for their opponent. They had just had the illusion that all six of them were surrounded by Hume alone.

Seeing Hume's relaxed expression, Ludd couldn't help but joke.

"How does it feel to be free from the curse?"

"That's wonderful, of course. I haven't felt this kind of energy for over three hundred years. It's like I've been reborn."

"That's good. Speaking of which, I've already fulfilled my promise. Now, isn't it your turn...?"

"Ah! I suddenly remembered there's something I haven't done yet, I'll go first."

"Hey……"

Before Ludd could finish speaking, Hume teleported away, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye. Ludd looked around, and the others around him were equally bewildered.

"Is she... hiding something from me?"

Over the next two days, Ludwig could clearly sense that Hume was deliberately avoiding him. It was like a game of hide-and-seek; Hume would spot Ludwig from a great distance and immediately flee, running faster than a Hong Kong reporter, much to Ludwig's frustration!

If it weren't for the fact that the film company was in its early stages and he had so many things to handle personally that Ludwig was too busy to leave for the time being, he would have loved to mobilize his entire family to launch a large-scale attack on Hume and get to the bottom of things.

Under Lu De's management, the entire corporate framework of Brothers Pictures has been successfully established, and the filming of the first movie has entered the preparation stage. The script used is based on "Seven Samurai," with localized adaptations and some appropriate "personal touches" added.

For example, each of the seven warriors worships a god belonging to the Pantheon, which corresponds exactly to the seven goddesses around Rud in the present.