novelraw Chapter 389: Goddess of Envy, the Upper-Seat Disciples’ Struggle
Chapter 389: Goddess of Envy, the Upper-Seat Disciples’ Struggle
Lin Xun watched as the game text displayed: ‘You have defeated Sixth Disciple Bashir!’
Now, in the Soul-Annihilation Bookmark option, all the middle-seat Disciples had been wiped out.
Just now, Bashir’s summoning of the demon had caused quite a commotion, enough that even he, all the way at the edge of the island, had noticed it.
That demon’s strength was terrifying. He estimated that even if he had gone over, without using some cheesy tactic, he would most likely have had no choice but to avoid its edge for the time being.
“Anyone who can be chosen as a Disciple really does have a few tricks.”
Lin Xun quietly rushed over and happened to see the Fifth Disciple die, while the Sixth Disciple Bashir stood there blankly.
Once the demon vanished, he immediately used Bloodthirsty Judgement and sent Bashir off.
Very soon, a Resting Page that signaled victory appeared in front of Lin Xun.
He stepped forward and clicked the short rest option on the page.
The Child of Evil had endless stamina and did not need recovery, but the Corrupted Calamity Lich, whose mana had been completely drained and who had fainted, needed to be restored.Once that lich Shell recovered full mana, he started charging the Scarlet King’s Sword while checking on the battle among the upper-seat Disciples.
[Fourth Disciple Anli – dead.]
[Third Disciple Vishnu – alive, remaining retainers 2/8.]
[Second Disciple Nehemiah – dead.]
[First Disciple Solomon – alive, remaining retainers 4/6.]
In this entire Disciple war, aside from him and Amos, only two Disciples remained alive.
Lin Xun had not expected Vishnu to be this tenacious and actually manage to survive to this point.
He now had two choices. The first was to click the Resting Page directly and teleport back to the Library.
He was the only winner in the middle-seat region and could occupy all the middle-seat Disciples’ pasture territories.
If he did not take part in the struggle among the upper-seat Disciples, then judging from the number of retainers left to each side, and from their rankings and overall strength, Vishnu’s chances of surviving were practically negligible.
Barring any accidents, the First Disciple would become the final winner in the upper-seat region.
As for the lower-seat region, Amos was already his underling. Lin Xun had no intention of handing him any of the lower-seat territories. Letting him keep the land he already had was already an immense favor.
He intended to pocket the territories of the other two lower-seat Disciples as well.
In that case, Lin Xun would, all by himself, command seven Disciples’ pasture districts. Any random Offering Ritual he held would net him a massive amount of Spirit Essence.
The second choice was to continue taking part in the upper-seat Disciples’ struggle, become the final victor, become the First Disciple and monopolize all territories currently controlled by the Disciples.
The upper-seat Disciples’ territories were far larger and more numerous than those of the middle and lower-seat Disciples.
If he could swallow them all, Lin Xun would truly become a filthy rich tycoon who did not have to treat Spirit Essence like money anymore.
Forging a powerful full set of gear for every main Shell might no longer be just a dream.
Lin Xun narrowed his eyes and considered carefully.
According to Vishnu’s intel, the upper-seat Disciples all had at least mythic+ grade strength, and although the First Disciple had not yet reached the pseudo god immortal realm, his strength was the greatest among all the Disciples, a top demigod among demigods.
Although Lin Xun could utterly steamroll mythic grade opponents, it was another question entirely whether he could win against a mythic+ grade Apostle.
By acquiring the Calamity Lich Shell, his level had jumped up by 20, reaching an unprecedented 110.
However, compared to those veteran Disciples, he had no advantage in levels, only disadvantages.
In terms of Shell quality and equipment, he also lost out to those long-standing Disciples who were armed to the teeth.
Lin Xun’s only advantage lay in the boost to Shell strength granted by his soul enhancement.
Even if that soul enhancement could flatten out the disadvantages in Shell level and equipment, the boost from Shell quality was simply too great to erase.
Facing a mythic+ grade Shell bristling with god-tier gear while he himself only had a mythic grade Shell was still somewhat unrealistic.
But Lin Xun was not without any chance at all.
He looked toward the item in his Inventory, Touch of Pleasure.
[Touch of Pleasure (immortal grade item): …Using this item allows you to inflict pleasure or extreme pleasure upon a specified target.]
[Pleasure will massively increase the specified target’s favorability toward you, while extreme pleasure will inflict a long-duration control state upon the specified target and has a high probability of causing an instant kill against targets below immortal grade. This item is consumable and may only be used once.]
It was known that the First Disciple had not yet reached the pseudo god immortal realm and was still at mythic+ grade.
That meant this so-called half-god slayer item was a true tactical nuke.
Although the fate-changing artifact’s Luck Value had not fully recovered yet, given the ‘high probability’ described in the item text, he estimated that a casual roll of the value would be enough to trigger an instant kill.
Pulling back now would be the safest choice, while competing for the First Disciple position came with a small chance of a disaster.
After thinking it over from every angle, Lin Xun finally made up his mind.
He possessed the Soul Secret – The Fire Never Dies. Even if he died in battle and suffered soul annihilation, he would still return safely to the Library.
And after this Disciple war ended, who knew how long it would be until the next one.
Since so few Disciples remained, they would need to hold nine more Disciple selections to refill the slots before another Disciple war could even begin.
Since Lin Xun intended to kill the Master and destroy the New World, he had to grow as fast as possible.
“None of you are getting out of this alive.”
He operated his Shell, left the middle-seat Disciples’ island and flew toward the last remaining battlefield.
[…]
[You had just flown past the island beneath your feet and were heading toward the final distant island when you suddenly stopped.]
[You sensed something and turned your head to look…]
[You once again saw a stunningly beautiful mature woman. Her clothing and build were similar to the Goddess of Anxiety you had seen before, only her face was slightly different…]
[You have discovered one of the Three Goddesses of Vengeance – Goddess of Envy.]
[The Goddess of Envy flicked her bloodstained snake whip, coiling it around you layer by layer, dragging you close so that your eyes met…]
[You are the amusing mortal my little sister spoke of, are you not?]
[The Goddess of Envy extended her sharp claws and drew a bloody scratch across your face. She then stuck out her crimson tongue to lick the blood that seeped out, softly praising…]
[This is exactly the wonderful flavor of hatred. My sister was right, you really are interesting.]
[Let her guess: you have already obtained the qualifications of a victor in this game, yet your desire to kill cannot be satisfied.]
[You want to go to the final hunting ground, the one that belongs to her elder sister, the Goddess of Retribution, do you not?]
[Fearless Apostle, do you wish to go to the hunting ground of the Goddess of Retribution?]
Lin Xun could not help but have a thought pop into his head. What would happen if he used Touch of Pleasure on the Goddess of Envy right now?
After thinking for a moment, he shook his head.
The three Goddesses of Vengeance were the designers and enforcers of this game’s rules. If their strength were not beyond that of a demigod, would the upper-seat Disciples not be able to drop down into the lower-seat region to slaughter weaklings at will?
Extreme pleasure very likely would not be able to kill this goddess.
As Lin Xun reached that conclusion, that strange feeling rose up in his heart once again.
The rules of the Disciple war were simple on the surface but complex underneath.
Why was it that every Disciple war had a chapter like this, whose rules could be used for Disciples to fight in?
If it had only been one such chapter, he might not have been suspicious, but Disciple wars had been held many times already.
How could there be that many chapters whose rules lined up so well with Disciple war rules?
A single such chapter might be coincidence, but once so many identical-rule chapters appeared, it could not be coincidence anymore, it had to be man-made.
The Blood Sun Easter Egg Chapter from the Disciple selection earlier had that same Slaughter Mode as other Easter Egg chapters.
That kill-score ranking mode, which arranged Apostles by the amount of slaughter, appeared fairly often in Easter Egg chapters and was not especially rare.
The Master was one of the strongest among the Apostles. In terms of progression in clearing the game, other than the Chairman, probably no one could surpass him.
A top-tier Apostle like that had authorities normal Apostles did not. It was plausible that he could modify the summoning method of Easter Egg Bookmarks, turning them from random summons into invitation letters.
The New World had long been collecting all kinds of special bookmarks from its members, and Easter Egg Bookmarks were among them.
The existence of a Disciple selection chapter like that was not surprising at all.
But Soul-Annihilation mode was an extremely rare game mode. Even if The Book of Salvation had chapters too numerous to imagine, there would not be many Soul-Annihilation mode chapters.
And if one further had to, among the Soul-Annihilation mode chapters, pick those whose rules fit the Disciple war… frankly, the probability of there being even two or three such chapters was already tiny to the point of being negligible.
If the Master was picking chapters based on the Disciple war rules and trying to find suitable chapters to use as arenas, there was absolutely no way there would be so many Soul-Annihilation mode chapters that met the conditions.
After thinking for a long time, Lin Xun came up with two plausible explanations.
The first was that the Master could already interfere with the game rules to some extent.
He could take some ordinary chapters and change them to Soul-Annihilation mode, then alter them to have rules suitable for Disciple wars, and even carve out suitable regions within them for the Disciples to enter.
However, Apostles at present were, at best, players. To change the fundamental rules of the game, one had to break free of the game’s shackles first.
Was the Master really that strong?
If he were really that powerful, would he still need to raise a group of gladiators and hope that the evil gods would let him defect with his whole brood?
To make this explanation plausible, Lin Xun could only think of one possibility.
That was that the Master had already entered into some form of collaboration with the Librarian.
Only that could make sense of it.
The second explanation was that there actually were not that many Soul-Annihilation mode chapters and not that many suitable arenas.
From beginning to end, all Disciple wars had taken place in the same chapter, with only the battle regions being different.
It might even be that the battle region had always been the same and that it was just that the Disciples participating could not perceive this.
The Master was not picking chapters according to Disciple war rules, but rather drawing up Disciple war rules based on the modes of an existing chapter.
He was not cooperating with the Librarian, but with the evil god in that chapter.
Between the two explanations, Lin Xun leaned more toward the second.
If things were really like the first explanation, that would be far too despair-inducing.
If the game’s administrator was in league with the surrender and descent factions, what would the official side use to fight the New World?
Although Lin Xun preferred the second explanation, in reality the first explanation matched the current situation more.
The official side did not even have a gathering base like the Disciple Sanctum, and he had never seen the official side issue invitation-letter-type items for chapters either.
Without help on the level of rule permissions, things like that were impossible.
Lin Xun narrowed his eyes. He had already thought of a way that might help confirm his theory.
However, if he wanted to verify his guess, he would have to revise his original plan to use Touch of Pleasure to instantly kill the First Disciple.
Because he needed to use Touch of Pleasure on one of the Goddesses of Vengeance instead.
He would not use the instant-kill effect of extreme pleasure, but rather its other use: greatly increasing favorability.
If he could become the final victor and then use Touch of Pleasure to massively increase his favorability, he would very likely be able to learn the truth about this chapter from the mouth of a story character.
“Whew…”
Lin Xun slowly let out a breath and rubbed his forehead to calm himself.
He had already reached the edge of the last island and successfully stepped onto the final battlefield.
In the Soul-Annihilation Bookmark option, Vishnu’s retainers had nearly all been slain, while the First Disciple Solomon still had two retainers remaining.
If things continued on this trajectory, the winner would undoubtedly be the First Disciple Solomon.
And without using Touch of Pleasure, Lin Xun’s chances of beating Solomon in a one-on-one fight were very low.
He narrowed his eyes and decisively pulled out another special private phone, dialing Vishnu.
This phone was not the in-game mobile phone, but one specifically used for him, Amos and Vishnu to stay in contact.
However, the call went unanswered for a long time.
Lin Xun did not stop, immediately switching to chain spam calls.
At last the call connected, and on the other end came Vishnu’s anger that had been suppressed for a long time. “Cain.”
“Are you trying to die?”
Lin Xun snorted coldly. “My lord, no, Vishnu. Do you want to live or do you want to die?”
“What did you say?”
On the other end of the line, Vishnu had long since turned on speakerphone as he fought fiercely. Hearing Cain’s rebellious words, he could not believe his ears.
Of course. This ungrateful bastard must have decided that his, Vishnu’s, strength was inferior to Solomon’s and that he most likely could not become the winner of the upper-seat region.
He had deliberately called now to disrupt his final battle with the First Disciple.
Once he died, Amos and Cain would no longer have a superior above them, and there would be no one to herd their lambs for them and skim off tier after tier of Spirit Essence.
Vishnu, as the Third Disciple, had seen countless major situations.
He gave a contemptuous laugh and was just about to hang up when he heard Cain’s voice come through the receiver, overflowing with confidence.
“Vishnu, if you still want to live, if you still want to defeat Solomon, then listen to my instructions.”
“You know who stands behind me… Heh, to tell you the truth, I am already on the island.”
“I am already on the upper-seat Disciples’ island.”
Vishnu’s heart shook.
He quickly shook off Solomon’s attack and fled backward without hesitation, opening the Soul-Annihilation option as he ran.
In the list, Amos and Cain were both still alive, while not a single one of the middle-seat Disciples remained.
“This brat…”
A thousand thoughts flashed through Vishnu’s mind and his rage instantly cooled. As he ran for his life, he said in a deep voice, “Cain, I lost my temper just now. Speak.”