Gaia watched apathetically as the souls of thousands of creatures dissipated into nothing. Their bodies lost the golden glow in their eyes and they all slumped to the ground at the same time, with only a few lasting a bit longer.

That was the effect of a Soul Technique that she had created called [Eminence of the Creator]. In a World where most if not all people were clueless about Soul Cultivation, she was already heads and tails above the population, and that was without factoring in her Divinity. The only thing that stopped her from being unstoppable was her limited soul essence capacity and her fear of the unknown.

This World was definitely under somebody's control - most likely that Eridel fellow she had seen a couple times - and she didn’t want to provoke him or them by abusing her Soul powers (or any other of her powers for that matter) to attempt World Domination.

In fact, when she gained the System, the first message that it had sent to her was that it was a gift from the gods. It was a message that had been sent to everybody and it was one of reasons people didn’t question her too much when she told them she was a god. They didn’t know what gods were, but they knew that gods existed and that they were powerful.

The downside was that they liked to ask her too many questions regarding the System, like ‘why does it refuse to answer the more important questions’. Those moments were quite annoying, but she would give a cryptic answer or a cryptic smile each time. Gradually, people stopped questioning her, realising that they wouldn't get a straight answer.

But on the topic of the gods creating the system, she had seen enough to realise that it was likely a myth. There were no signs of Divinity other than her own no matter where she travelled.

However, the fact that the System had been granted by a powerful being or group of beings was definitely true.

Anyways, reservations about provoking powerful people aside, it was a lot more dangerous to run out of soul essence than it was to run out of mana. Falling unconscious could be considered lucky. It was not something she was willing to rely on just yet.

As for the giant avatar she created, that was something that she had made with a mixture of Creation and Illusion Laws and it was semi-real (once again by choice). The purpose of its existence had been to act as a conduit for her Soul Technique. Furthermore, not only was its prodigious size imposing, but it also gave the soul attack a lot more range.

But what was truly special about all of this was her ability to use the Illusion Laws in the first place.

In reality, it was almost impossible to use Magic or Laws of a specific kind if you didn’t have the Affinity for it. Gaia had the Creation Affinity at 100% but that was the only Affinity she had. Even if she was talented, she did not have the capacity to obtain a new affinity the way The Crystal Dragon King did with his Metal Affinity. The Creation Affinity was just too heavy and occupied all the space.

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So why was it that she could use the Illusion Laws?

It all came down to one special reason, the primary reason she had traded the extremely powerful Destruction Laws for the innately somewhat ‘weak’ Creation Laws. And that was that if someone had 100% affinity with Creation and comprehended at least 5% of its Laws, then they would unlock the special ability to create an artificial Affinity for a different Element/Law, without having to worry about mental or physical burdens.

Of course, she couldn’t just create any Affinity, her ability to create an Affinity was heavily reliant on 3 things. First, the grade of its Element/Law. Second, her understanding of it. Third, her comprehension in the Laws of Creation.

She could easily replicate the Affinity for Fire, but doing the same thing for Destruction just straight up wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t even get to the part where things became risky.

To put things into perspective, it was like looking at a modern day door that didn’t have a lock and knowing exactly how to open it, compared to looking at a futuristic high-spec door and not even knowing what to touch.

Anyhow, creating an Affinity was a delicate, intricate and dangerous matter. It was not as simple as just meeting the requirements. In simple terms, it was similar to drawing a pattern onto her body, with success meaning a new Affinity and failure (even if it was a slight deviation) meaning big trouble. Forget Mana Deviation, she could even die.

What’s more was that regardless of how perfectly manufactured the Affinity she created was, it would always be temporary. At the end of the day, it was created by the utilisation of her Creation Laws and used Mana to maintain its existence. It would continuously drain said-mana for however long it was up.

This was the reason it didn’t put a burden on her (besides mana). It wasn’t real. However, she had hopes that at a high level she could achieve some semblance of permanence.

Gaia smiled slightly and dispersed both her avatar and Illusion Affinity. She then immediately expanded the range of her Spirit Sense, using the distraction caused by the image of the giant dragon bursting into light to be a little unscrupulous.

Because of her relatively high soul cultivation stage along with her Divinity, she had a much greater spirit sense range than others. She was hesitant to exploit that fact before because it was dangerous, but now she was willing to take the chance.

Her thousands of years of experience had taught her that one of the most common ways to fall into a vicious trap was to stretch your Spirit Sense into a location you shouldn’t have.

There were ways to target someone’s Soul using their Spirit Sense and it wasn’t always caused by a living being. It could be an Item or a natural resource, or something so high level that coming into contact with it using your spirituality could be lethal. One moment you were inspecting something interesting using your Spirit Sense, and the next moment you were flailing in agony as your Soul was corrupted.

You could imagine how wary Gaia would be about stretching large amounts of her Spirit Sense into something that they called the Corrupted Continent, but she was willing to be a little bold, especially since this World was so young and didn’t even have a single method to defend against Spirit Sense.

Her greatest worry stemmed from coming into contact with nefarious objects or possible hidden reincarnators who might have special techniques, but those were very unlikely events.

It was just as she was thinking that thought that her Spirit Sense came into contact with something that made her facial expression change greatly.