Several months had passed since divine energy began returning to Iberon.
During this period, its density continued to rise.
It slowly permeated every part of the planet, crossing mountains, plains, forests, and seas, until its effects began appearing in places that had not responded to any change since the ancient ages.
The ancient seals that had remained dormant for thousands of years began to stir once more.
Some did little more than release faint fluctuations.
Others began responding more noticeably.
But the most important change was not in the seals themselves.
It was in what they concealed.
News of awakened gods had begun spreading throughout the Upper Continent.
These were no longer rumors of their appearances before the masses.
The gods who had begun awakening were not returning directly to the surface of Iberon.
Instead...
They were returning to their divine domains.
When a cultivator reached the level of godhood, they could open a special space connected to themselves.
That space was neither a planet nor an independent world in the conventional sense.
It was a private domain separated from the main world, serving as the god's personal residence.
Thus, when the gods entered their slumber during the ancient ages, their divine domains remained intact.
Their palaces.
Their temples.
Their formations.
And their servants.
All of them remained throughout their absence.
And now...
Those divine domains were beginning to come back to life.
Within one divine domain, a white palace stretched across a vast expanse of land covered by golden clouds.
The palace had remained silent for thousands of years.
Its doors had never moved.
Not a single sound had been heard from its halls from its master.
Yet dozens of servants had continued living within it, maintaining the palace throughout the ages.
Some had been born after their master entered his slumber, while others had spent their entire lives waiting for the day he would return.
On this day...
Everything changed.
Divine energy within the domain suddenly surged.
Ancient formations began operating.
Inscriptions covering the walls and floor lit up one after another, and waves of power spread throughout the palace.
The servants raised their heads at the same time.
Then a voice came from the inner hall.
"How long has it been?"
Silence descended.
No one dared answer before the owner of the voice appeared.
A few moments later, the door leading to the inner hall opened.
A tall man wearing a long white robe threaded with fine golden lines stepped out.
His expression was calm, and he had no need to deliberately release his aura to prove his identity.
The moment he appeared, every servant bowed before him.
"We welcome our lord's return."
He looked at them for several moments.
Some of the faces were familiar to him.
Most, however, he had never seen before.
That alone was enough for him to understand how much time had passed.
He said,
"It seems I was gone for a long time."
One of the elders answered,
"Yes, my lord."
The god then asked,
"How is the palace?"
The elder replied,
"It never ceased operating throughout your absence."
The god looked around before nodding.
"Good."
He then turned his gaze toward the sky.
He could sense the divine energy beginning to gather within his domain.
He extended his hand.
Strands of divine energy gathered around his fingers.
He stared at them for several moments.
"It has returned."
His words were simple.
But the servants understood what he meant.
They had felt the change from the very beginning.
In another divine domain...
The scene was entirely different.
Black earth stretched toward the horizon beneath a crimson sky from which enormous dark moons hung.
At the center of that land stood an ancient city surrounded by enormous walls.
The city had remained motionless for thousands of years.
But at that moment...
The black torches lining its walls suddenly ignited.
The guards raised their heads.
Then the main gate trembled.
An unmistakable divine pressure emerged from within.
Several beings instinctively took a step backward.
Moments later, the doors of the palace at the heart of the city opened.
The god emerged.
The servants quickly gathered before him.
An old man, one of the oldest beings within the palace, stepped forward and bowed.
"My lord."
He paused for a moment before saying,
"We have waited for you for a very long time."
The god looked at him.
Then he looked at the city surrounding them.
He asked,
"How many of the servants who were here when I entered my slumber remain?"
The elder answered honestly,
"Only a few."
Silence followed.
The god then looked at the palace, the temples, and the ancient formations.
Everything was still standing.
He said,
"You maintained them well."
The elder replied,
"It was our duty."
The god said nothing more.
He knew that thousands of years could not pass without leaving their mark.
Those divine domains were not the only ones.
In a third divine domain, another god awakened.
In a fourth, ancient formations began operating.
In a fifth, the seals surrounding the residence of a sleeping god stirred.
Then the same thing happened in other places.
One after another...
The ancient divine domains began returning to life.
The gods did not all awaken at the same time.
Each god had their own period of slumber, and the strength of the seals surrounding their domains varied from one place to another.
But their numbers continued to increase.
The lower gods were the first to awaken.
Then some middle gods began responding as well.
As for the higher gods, their awakening was slower.
The seals surrounding their domains were stronger, and their slumber was deeper.
But even those seals were no longer as still as they had once been.
Across Iberon, the beings of the world began to notice the difference.
Most cultivators were incapable of seeing what was happening within the divine domains, but the effects of the awakenings had begun appearing in the main world.
Fluctuations in divine energy intensified in certain regions.
Ancient formations responded.
Some divine relics that had remained dormant for thousands of years began releasing fluctuations that had not appeared since the ancient ages.
And in cities that still preserved the remains of ancient temples, divine symbols carved into stone began glowing once more.
This time, it was no longer merely a possibility or an interpretation of the strange fluctuations.
There were gods awakening.
Within one of the racial empires, several Transcendents gathered inside an ancient hall.
At the center of the hall stood a massive stone disc covered along its edge with dozens of symbols.
The disc was used to monitor changes connected to the ancient divine domains.
Suddenly...
One of the symbols lit up.
Then a second.
Then a third.
One of the Transcendents stared at the disc.
"Three more."
Another asked,
"Within the same period?"
"Yes."
They fell silent for a moment.
Then one of them asked,
"Have other gods awakened beyond the range of our monitoring?"
The other answered,
"Most likely."
The first said,
"Then we won't know the true number."
"Not yet."
Silence returned to the hall.
There was no need for anything more to be said.
The glowing symbols before them were enough to reveal the scale of the change.
Elsewhere...
Within another ancient divine domain, one of the gods had already awakened.
He stood before a tall window overlooking his palace.
He was not prepared to leave his domain yet.
He had spent thousands of years in slumber, and the world he had left behind was no longer the same.
One of his servants entered and bowed.
"My lord, do you require anything?"
The god answered,
"I want to know what happened in the world during my slumber."
"I will gather the information."
"Good."
The servant bowed and left immediately.
The god remained standing before the window.
He raised his hand.
Divine energy gathered around it.
It was not as stable as he remembered it from the ancient age, but its mere existence was enough.
The energy had returned.
And with its return...
So had he.
As time passed, the awakening of the gods became increasingly evident.
Every period brought new reports.
A god awakened within an ancient divine domain.
Then another.
Then some of the middle gods began returning.
And deep within the divine domains, older and stronger seals began responding little by little.
Not all the gods had awakened.
What was happening was merely the beginning.
But the world had come to understand one undeniable truth:
The gods who had vanished from Iberon for thousands of years were beginning to return.
They did not return all at once.
Nor did they appear in a single place.
Each one returned to their own divine domain, regained consciousness, and began observing the new age they had awakened into.
An age in which the races had changed.
The empires had changed.
Even Iberon itself had changed.
As for the Awakening...
It had entered a new stage.
From the lower gods...
To the middle gods...
And then to the higher gods.
The return of the gods had truly begun.