# 981
Chapter 981
Chapter 982: Volume Summary 3
"To Rule Over Evil" has finally come to an end.
As usual, let me summarize this volume. If you don't want to read it, feel free to skip it~~ (winking face).
Originally, this volume was planned to end at around five or six hundred thousand characters, but before I knew it, I wrote nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand characters, making it the longest volume so far.
It's not that San Jiu wanted to pad the word count; there's just so much content to cover in this volume.
Entering the Human Enclosure, the Night Watch reassembling, slaying divine authority, returning to Great Xia, training new recruits, the red moon's arrival, the Mask's fall, the Oath Society's world-ending scheme, Takamagahara's god's fall, Heavenly Court's descent... All these events may seem unrelated on the surface, but they're closely linked. Under the layout of the God of Time and Great Xia's gods, they led to Takamagahara's destruction.
To simplify, the core of what San Jiu wanted to write in this volume can be summed up in two words: Pioneers, Inheritance.
Let me start with the first one—Pioneers.
So far, the most representative quality of "To Rule Over The Gods" is the Night Watch's sacrifice and protection. After two volumes of continuous portrayal, San Jiu hoped to depict something different through the unique setting of the "Human Enclosure."
This volume has a significant portion set within the "Human Enclosure," and the story of the "Human Enclosure" is essentially one of awakening, rebellion, sacrifice, and victory.
Yuzuri Kurotetsu, Amemiya Haruki, and the Yuzuri siblings are all awakenings born under divine rule, pioneers who personally destroyed the old era and led the beings of the Human Enclosure into a new age.
The wisdom, reflection, perseverance, and bravery that exist within them—this unique ideological awareness—is a quality distinct from the Night Watch's, yet equally brilliant.
Perhaps this quality isn't as straightforward or blood-pumping as the Night Watch's, but San Jiu still wanted to write about it. This is an attempt, and also a form of respect.
The second one—Inheritance.
At the end of the previous volume's summary, San Jiu already explained that the first volume's core was "gods," and the second volume's core was "humanity can overcome fate"—represented by five Human Apex from ordinary professions.
This volume's core, however, is growth and inheritance.
I wonder if any of you noticed that in this volume, everyone who truly shone was from the younger generation.
Not gods, not Human Apex, but the brand-new generation symbolizing hope and the future—the "seeds" that Ye Fan scattered at the end of the previous volume.
Wu Xiangnan, Wang Mian, Lin Qiye—three young people symbolizing different special squads, bearing their own missions, slaying the sole god within Takamagahara...
Unlike Zhou Ping's single sword slaying a god in the previous volume, these three's journey to slaying gods was incredibly tortuous. Because they're young, because this is their growth—and growth is destined to be difficult and bumpy.
As Wu Xiangnan's transformation into the Dao completed, [Blue Rain] was completely destroyed. As Wang Mian step by step waged war against time, [Mask] wasn't entirely annihilated either. [Night Watch] inherits [Blue Rain]'s designation and is rising forcefully. At the same time, in the new recruits' training camp, young and hopeful seeds are slowly growing.
These four processes form a cycle.
This is inheritance.
Now that I've covered this volume's core content, let me address some of the voices San Jiu saw in the comments for this volume.
The biggest one was about power scaling breaking down.
"..."
Actually, San Jiu finds this somewhat perplexing. (??_??)?
Looking at it broadly, the complaints about power scaling breaking down mostly focus on a few core issues. San Jiu will give a brief reply here.
First, in the "Human Enclosure," how was Qiyue able to fight evenly with a Klein-realm oracle envoy, or even kill one?
Lin Qiye's own realm at the time was only the Sea realm—this is indisputable. But the key point is... he has the Magatsu Blade!
The Magatsu Blade itself is a weapon that allows ordinary people to wield tremendous power. Their combat strength comes from the blade itself. This was previously described through Yuzuri Takishiro's eyes: Yuzuri Kurotetsu, when not wearing the Magatsu Blade, had a level of lv18, but after equipping the blade, his level reached lv69.
Amemiya Haruki, Hoshimi Shota, Yuzuri Nana... they were all ordinary people who, with the Magatsu Blade, could battle oracle envoys. Lin Qiye, as a Sea-realm combatant wielding the Magatsu Blade, defeating an oracle envoy isn't difficult at all. Besides, oracle envoys vary in strength—they can't be lumped together.
Second, there's the protagonists' heaven-defying performance during the Sunken Dragon Pass battle.
After careful review, only Jiang Er and Lin Qiye could truly be called heaven-defying.
As for Jiang Er, San Jiu mentioned when she first appeared that [Spirit Field] can ignore spiritual power realm restrictions. Its limitation is the target's emotional fluctuations (Chapter 490). So Jiang Er could possess a Klein-realm "mystery" beast for one second, seize the opportunity, and use its prepared terrifying blow to strike another Klein-realm beast beside it, instantly killing it.
This process had nothing to do with Jiang Er's own realm.
As for Lin Qiye... after fusing with the God of Magic, he was indeed overpowered, but this was still a cross-realm feat within reasonable parameters. Moreover, he only used it once throughout the entire third volume, so it shouldn't count as power scaling breaking down, right?
Finally, there's Wu Xiangnan, Wang Mian, and Qiyue working together to kill Susanoo.
Honestly, with two divine artifacts, three forbidden curse formations, one Human Apex, one solar law, and a Lin Qiye amplified to god-realm by the Prayer Mat—such a lineup killing a mind-controlled, heavily injured Susanoo who had lost Ame-no-Murakumo seems quite reasonable, doesn't it?
Furthermore, Ame-no-Murakumo and [Divine Calamity] didn't fall from the sky. The former was brought out by Qiyue at the cost of multiple near-death experiences from Takamagahara, while the latter was the product of the Nine Magatsu Blades merging. They align perfectly with the plot's progression. The only thing that could be considered external was the Prayer Mat left by the Celestial Venerable.
This process cannot be replicated or repeated.
Here, San Jiu wants to say a bit more. "To Rule Over The Gods" was never a simple story of level-up and monster-slaying. Unlike traditional fantasy novels where you break through and suddenly everyone you meet is at the same realm, forcing you to fight enemies at your level in a straightforward progression with minor cross-realm kills...
From the very beginning, this book's power system has been multifaceted. The roads aren't filled only with people at the protagonist's realm. When the protagonist was still at the "Lantern" realm, he could encounter enemies at the "Pool," "River," "Sea," "Klein," or even god realms. He could have fierce battles with "Measureless" realm enemies, then return to the training camp to crush some greenhorn new recruits.
If crossing realms to slay gods counts as power scaling breaking down, then at the end of the first volume, when Lin Qiye bore the Miraculous Power of the Seraph and solo-killed Loki's avatar, it was already completely broken.
Perhaps there are some minor fluctuations in certain details, but San Jiu believes this is far from what could be called "breaking down."
Finally, there are questions about the Cthulhu Mythos.
At the end of the first volume, San Jiu already stated that because the book involves too many divine pantheons, it won't strictly follow the original mythological power rankings—in other words, there will be a rebalancing of power levels.
The Cthulhu Mythos itself is an exaggerated tale of狂想 (wild imagination). If it were simply transplanted into the book as-is, it would definitely cause issues. So San Jiu won't write it like other Cthulhu novels do. Instead, changes will be made while preserving its style and characteristics.
Just like with Hindu mythology, Norse mythology, and Great Xia mythology, and so on.
By now, this book's content is already past the halfway mark.
The next few volumes definitely won't be as long as this one, and there won't be large-scale "Human Enclosure" arcs anymore. At most, it will exist as minor side dungeons. Starting from the next volume, we'll be writing about full-scale divine warfare.
Well, that's the end of this volume's summary.
I hope everyone won't put the book aside, keep following the updates. If you like it, feel free to recommend it to people around you, or perhaps give a little support... cough.
Bibi~~~
ヾ(^Д^*)/
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