Chapter 9: The Valley of the Tragic Dead

The town outside of the Valley of the Tragic Dead was not a place that he had chosen on a whim, but a place he had chosen after meticulous planning.

Kennington Village was too remote, and the surrounding forests only held regular beasts. It would not be a good place for players to grind and earn levels.

Due to the fact that other deities existed, there were a lot of churches or temples built in their honor all over the Prime Material Plane, releasing divine energy like a protective barrier. If Xi Wei did not have any believers around those places, he would not be able to observe those places using his Divine Eye alone.

On the other side of the spectrum, places that were not covered by divine energy were impoverished and unsuitable to become a starter village for his believers.

But in the end, Xi Wei found a few passable areas after spending some time.

The Valley of the Tragic Dead was exactly one of those places.

In a world filled with deities, the cliché sounding war of gods and demons had naturally happened before. Xi Wei did not know the details as the God of Games had not been created at the time, but from the vague marks left behind by natural laws on his Divine Records, it seemed that a lot of realms had been involved with this terrible war.

It was that war that had almost reset the entire world and had caused the Three Saints of Creation to completely separate the divine realm from all the other realms and made them forbid deities from heading to other realms.

As the bridge which connected the east and west continents, the Valley of the Tragic Dead which spanned up to a hundred kilometers was one of the warzones of the war. It was here that Lord Hades had slain the Primordial God of Death, and stole his power over the netherworld and death itself.

When the Primordial God of Death ceased to be, it let out copious amounts of deadly miasma, killing almost half of the living beings on the Prime Material Plane.

A thousand years later, the gray miasma still filled the Valley of the Tragic Dead, turning the valley into a forbidden land for all living beings, and cutting all contact between continents entirely.

Xi Wei was not overconfident enough to have the players challenge the remains of the primordial god so quickly, but a rift in space caused by the miasma was formed. From this place came millions of revenants that immediately flooded the valley—even the parts that were not covered by miasma.

The number of revenants increased by the dozens each year, and their natural hate toward everything that lived and breathed made them leave the valley in hordes—sieging any human settlement they came across.

Every year, the empire spent innumerable amounts of money to wipe out these revenants. Not that the empire didn’t want to solve the root of the problem: there were no mainstream deities that held influence over death, and so they could do nothing.

Even if they expended large amounts of divine energy to create protective talismans for their believers, they could only protect one or two of them from perishing in the miasma. This amount was pitifully low when compared to the revenants that filled every nook and cranny of the valley.

Lord Hades was an extremely introverted deity and always kept to himself, not interacting with any other deities and by extension, not helping to deal with this problem.

Ultimately the Valley of the Tragic Dead could only stay the way it was on this continent. The priests of the Brilliant White church had predicted that the miasma would dissipate on its own in three to four thousand years… And that was if they were lucky.

This land which was seen as poisonous and deadly by the other deities became the ideal place for Xi Wei to set up his starter village—unlimited number of monsters, imperishable resources, and he did not have to worry about affecting the ecology of this world by slaying beasts. In addition, the revenants here grew stronger from Skeletons and Zombies to the Dullahans and Zombie Dragons deep within the miasma—basically a complete chain of monsters that continued getting stronger! He did not have to worry about the players not being able to meet their match.

Other than that, even though it was a shot in the dark, but since the valley was a key warzone in the war, perhaps there would be some precious loot in there as well! (Like sacred weapons or divinity fragments, for example)

Even if that was not the case and there weren’t any other treasures in there, there would still definitely be the remains of a primordial deity! If the players could get their hands on it and sacrifice it to him, he could definitely increase his divinity by another level!

“But before I get ahead of myself, I must make some preparations first,” he grumbled to himself, “If those children traveled all the way here and had to come face to face with violence, then I’d lose all my dignity as their deity.”

☆

Angora Faust was the third son of the Silver Eagle Duke, Horan Faust. As the youngest child in his family, he definitely had no hope of succeeding the dukeship. That being said, the elderly duke had no plans on letting his child with noble blood become a lowly peasant.

However, Angora had no talent in martial arts, and so he could not be a knight and seize glory for himself on the battlefield.

Even though he worshipped the God of War Kratos along with his father, he was only a shallow believer who could not even use Battle Qi no matter how hard he tried—and so he could not become a priest in the Temple of Glory either.

As he became, his older brother who had always disliked him awakened the power of Battle Qi without even trying hard and beat him up, stepping all over his pride. That was the last straw for him to completely lose faith in Kratos, becoming a non-believer without anyone knowing.

Thankfully, the duke wasn’t a heartless man. After concluding that Angora did not have any other talents, he specially used his connections to give Angora a position as a baron, along with his own piece of land.

Even if it was a small town outside of Amaranthine Gate that was feared by everyone, he would still be a nobleman. Quoting the duke’s words, “Being a nobleman in a somewhat dangerous place was leagues better than being a lowly peasant.”

In the carriage that was bumping and shaking on the road, Angora felt that his future was bleak.

According to reports, every year the revenants would attack any human settlements near to the Valley of the Tragic Dead, and under those situations, he wouldn’t think that he was any safer than the average commoner.

While he was still worrying about his future, the elderly chauffeur suddenly yelled, “Bandits! There’re bandits here! Young master, please… Argh!”

The voice of the chauffeur who had always been loyal to a fault disappeared after a harrowing yell. Angora was shaking in fear. Was he going to die before he reached his goal?

‘God… If you truly exist, please give me some hope…’ he pleaded in his despair

At this moment…

DING! You have activated the Overlord System!