It stood rigid in the starry sky, and yet it drew the eyes of countless beings.

The Moon getting bigger, people could accept.

But the Moon turning into a robot—

That was absurd beyond belief.

News reached Earth almost immediately,

and the planet exploded with excitement.

"This is the chief priest—he’s received God’s gift, and the Moon is his incarnation!"

"Oh my god, the reports said Optimus Prime’s home world, Cybertron, is a planet of vast mechanical transformations. I doubted it was all true. Not anymore."

"Buddy, the Moon just transformed. You think this is a dream?"

"Heh, I’d rather never wake up!"

...

Earth boiled.

The Transformers with Optimus Prime cheered as well.

Sam’s evolution

made them ecstatic.

It meant their own evolutionary path had been recognized by the Gods.

How could they not be thrilled?

The Moon’s outward appearance kept changing; once the surface was reconfigured, the internal transformation began.

There was divine power bestowed by God.

And an elegant operating system.

That saved Sam a great deal of time.

After a few days of stillness, the giant finally moved.

Its eyes brightened.

A gauzy sheen flowed across its body, and the divine-patterned core turned into the body’s energy furnace.

To ensure safety, it ceased the external metamorphosis there.

Sam chose dual propulsion.

One, the energy furnace; two, the body’s energy-absorption circuits.

Any attack—

would be drunk up by the thin exterior film and then fed into the internal divine-pattern array.

Technology plus magic had its rewards.

And as Sam accepted the new messages, he grasped space transition and the technique of freezing space-time.

They operated in a half-technological way,

but as long as they boosted fighting strength,

it was all upside.

"Alright... let’s test your combat power."

After a sequence of adjustments, an energy sword formed in Sam’s hand.

After watching group videos for so long,

he’d developed a taste for sword-like weapons—though artillery was fine too.

The external armory could shift into anything.

It could even deploy an AT energy field,

and an anti–cosmic strike defense shield.

Those high-tech tricks that had seemed like fantasy?

Not here.

"Hah!"

Sam simply raised the long sword and slashed at a colossal meteorite.

He scarcely moved—

yet a terrifying arc of power

was already cutting into the rock.

That meteorite was about the size of old Earth—Liu Che had prepared it to test him.

Not only was it fast,

its toughness carried a Star-God-level force.

Hiss—

The devastating edge bored through the meteorite,

then flashed on into the dark.

The next moment, the meteorite disintegrated to dust, completely undone by the energy release.

"Whoa... a star, cleaved with one sword."

Sam stared, stunned.

So he’d become an extraordinary figure, too.

Shattering a star, in itself, was nothing.

The key point was that he’d done it casually,

without exerting much strength at all.

Through the broadcast,

Earth saw Sam’s strike.

The world fell silent—and then erupted into a sea of cheers!

Their chief priest was that powerful.

Surely, in the Gods’ eyes,

they now carried a bit more weight.

...

Inside the Eternal Temple,

after watching Sam’s flourish, Liu Che waved away the sky image.

Standing by him, Bai Suzhen murmured in surprise, "So technology’s power is actually pretty good. At full attack, it should be at roughly a three-star goddess level."

Generally speaking, after a chief priest became a god,

they’d wield god-level two-star strength.

The strongest rarely exceeded three stars.

The young man before them clearly had three-star might.

Tiamat lowered her head in thought and said, "I think it’s more than that. If you treat that big fellow as a weapon and fight with additional loadout, he could hit four stars in combat power."

"But that would test the user."

Yaoyao had just advanced to goddess, so she had a say.

Piloting something that massive was bound to consume staggering mental energy.

Splitting attention in two—

that wasn’t something ordinary people could do.

Her assessment drew nods from many.

God-level chief priest or not,

some people simply couldn’t handle such fine control.

After all, they’d be facing peers at the same rank.

Yu Xiaoxue added, "Although tech is powerful, it’s unwieldy in places—some methods are cart-before-horse. For mortals it’s fine; against higher gods, less so."

She hit the nail on the head.

Goddesses and sons of god

all carried certain divine authorities.

Even if Sam hid in the core,

there were still ways to attack him:

curses, tampering with the body, seals—

all could affect Sam.

The women finished, then looked to the God together,

hoping for His view.

Liu Che smiled faintly and said, "You’re all right. Technology’s convenience comes with drawbacks—it’s true of every pathway. The so-called limitation is that technology can’t grasp laws; that is the critique."

The world of gods

is supreme because it rests on laws.

No matter how strong technology gets, it cannot command law.

It can only bear law’s power passively.

Without divine-pattern integration,

Sam’s strength would drop at least seventy percent—

down to a single star.

What use is that?

Better, in that case, to pour those vast materials into refining weapons or armor—

gear you could hand to many troops.

There was one point Liu Che didn’t voice.

Technology had a very cool advantage:

it could be manufactured fast—you could field a cyborg army.

With enough material,

you got an endless stream of soldiers.

No need to fret about casualties; he’d even been working on a little amusement:

let Earthlings posture in mechs to fight.

Use massive mental power to pilot them—if one broke, swap it out.

And Sam himself

was a colossal armory.

That was Liu Che’s real tactic.

The next time a god-war broke out,

Sam could churn out mechs while fighting. How sweet would that be?

Liu Che looked at his system prompt panel with a pleased smile.

Only he could see it.

"Ding... Your believer Sam has begun the interstellar sacrifice, offering the solar system to you. A thousand-fold increase is triggered—congratulations, you have obtained the Technology Tree."

"Ding... The Technology Tree allows you to choose paths of technological evolution. It is a unique evolutionary route with vast potential."

"Ding... Your believer Sam has begun the interstellar sacrifice, offering life-metal ores to you. A million-fold increase is triggered—congratulations, you have obtained the special race: the Stone Kings of Destruction."

Note: This race is enormous—each individual is a star. Because of extreme rarity, they have been extinct in the God’s Domain for countless ages.

"Ding... Your disciple Sam has begun the interstellar sacrifice, offering twelve AllSparks to you. A thousand-fold increase is triggered—you have obtained 12,000 Sources of Life."

Note: The Source of Life is distinct from origin divine power. Composed of pure life force with immense soul power, it is the finest medium for creating a race.

At present in the God’s Domain, one Source of Life can be exchanged for one billion origin divine power.

There is no market for it.

It is a super-scarce resource.

And he had just received twelve thousand.

Tsk... egregiously rich.

Sam’s sacrifice looked simple, but it had lifted him into a special class.

Otherwise Liu Che would never have been so generous with him.

...

In the Ten Thousand Worlds chat group,

the crowd that had just come back from the god-war, their pockets newly heavy, started into a little Versailles-style banter.

But after only a bit,

Li Shimin noticed a brand-new world lighting up.

Li Lao’er: "Whose world just got promoted? Why didn’t anyone report it!"

Tanjirou: "Eh... someone got promoted again? Who is it... Uncle Jiu?"

Ninth Uncle, Slayer of Demons: "Ahem... I’m still a ways off. Sorry—wasn’t me."

The Fox Who Only Loves Money: "Who could it be? Don’t tell me it’s Old Gao?"

Li Er: "No—this isn’t a single world. It’s the entire solar system!!! Someone opened an interstellar sacrifice. Ruthless..."

Chu Dashan: "Who the hell is that bold?"

Demon Hunter: "I want to know too."

Blond Boy Sam: "Nobody, really—just me!!!"

Queen of Vampires: "You sacrificed the solar system?"

Blond Boy Sam: "Ah... I thought about conquering the universe at first, but that turned out to be too difficult, so I decided to sacrifice the solar system."

Pursuing All Sentient Beings: "Good grief, you quiet little guy—move in silence and drop a bombshell... you’ve stunned everyone."

For Peace: "Since you’ve promoted your world, send a video. Let us see how powerful it is when you use planets as altars!"

Blond Boy Sam: "Heh, wait up. Two videos this time—enjoy them. Oh, and I’m a Five-Star Divine Envoy now."

Young Master Murong: "...You, jumping straight to five stars—unreasonable."

Spirit of the Demon Sword: "Stop staring at other people’s worlds. Don’t be jealous—big sis will hand out candy. Also, I hear God likes technological worlds, but the ceiling isn’t high."

Ding... Blond Boy Sam uploaded two videos to the group.

Everyone downloaded them at once.

The first video

showed the interstellar altar opening—with the sun as the core, all planets offered in sacrifice.

The altar unfolded with terrifying power.

And the promotion was unlike others:

the Gods wrapped them in law, swallowed them up, and carried them into the God’s Domain.

Everyone watching was stunned—so it could be done this way as well.

The Whirlwind of Chu in the group was sore about it. In fact, if he had offered the whole little underworld, it would’ve been better—but his world still had the Ancient Road of Reincarnation. He didn’t know if that could be sacrificed.