Chapter 104: Soul Lamp

Even though Jom had been ‘betrayed’ by the system, the players didn’t plan on doing anything to him anyway. They all saw the double-edged attack that the Barren Giant had used, and knew that no one could have changed the fate of the chocobos even if they were given another chance. No one could have dared to block the way of the Barren Giant, and even if they did they would have been buried in the rubble together with the chocobos, and wouldn’t serve any use other than a few scraps of dead meat.

When the players returned to the village in the valley, they were surprised at how the villagers multiplied drastically in such a short time. Upon seeing the scene of a few hundred people waiting for them outside the village, the players all thought that the villagers had gotten wind of their evil plan to loot the bandits, and had rallied together to beat them up…

Thankfully, the hunters that had gone back to the village beforehand explained the situation to them quickly.

The old village elder was afraid that the players would lose, and that the rage of the mountain bandits would rain on the village again, so they went all out and borrowed the players’ carriages to get reinforcements from the surrounding villages in preparation.

But soon after, the hunters brought back the news that the players won, and the fight to the death scenario was changed into a large-scaled celebration that involved all the villages in the vicinity.

The many weird and funny dance moves that the players learned from the system were extremely popular within the villagers, and they were extremely entertained by the impromptu dance battles that they had. After this, the players all agreed to pass this down as a festive tradition of the Church of the God of Games.

Meanwhile, Xi Wei was having a headache over the crumpled corpse pile of the Barren Giant back in his Divine Kingdom.

This thing couldn’t be consumed nor used, and because it had the divine power of the Lord of the Peaks protecting it, Xi Wei couldn’t use it as a sacrifice to obtain divine energy for himself. That being said, the Barren Giant was an epic creature, and it would be a waste to throw its precious corpse away…In conclusion, it was a headache to deal with.

“Ah, that’s a loss for me…” Xi Wei’s spherical body bobbed up and down as if he were a landlord fussing over his monetary losses. “Not only did I not get a lot of divine energy from this fight, I even gave out a Golden Legendary item…No, I can’t calculate my losses or my heart will break!”

That being said, he was sincerely happy for his believers.

After all, even though there wasn’t any guidance from the system, the players used their own skills and strategies to achieve this feat that could be seen as legendary on the mortal plane.

The corpse of the Barren Giant wouldn’t cause Xi Wei to get into trouble with the Lord of the Peaks because it was killed by the players, and so it was completely natural for the players to sacrifice it as a trophy for him, so even if the other deity wanted to fight over this the one in the right would be Xi Wei. The Earthweaver wouldn’t get involved with such a trivial matter, and so Xi Wei who had his buddy the lion to help him deflect his problems didn’t have any fear!

The one that gave Xi Wei a greater headache was the other trophy that the players obtained.

A Soul Lamp.

This thing could be counted as an item, so it wasn’t sacrificed to Xi Wei after the players obtained it, and so he could only detect it vaguely.

Under Xi Wei’s analysis, this item was probably a Sacred Item from the Revenant Pantheon.

At this point, it was probably the time to talk about the difference between Sacred Items and Godly Items.

Godly Items were gifts that contained great power from the deity to their believers, and most of these Godly Items were weapons so Godly Items were also called Heaven-Forged Weapons. Even though many of the equipment that the players had were created by Xi Wei himself, he didn’t imbue them with any deific properties nor any laws, nor did they fulfill the criteria of containing great power, so they couldn’t be counted as Godly Items. If it came down to it, the Giant’s Toe could be considered as a Godly item, but it would be one of the weakest ones out there.

If Godly Items had to be created in Divine Kingdoms, then Sacred Items would have to be created completely by humans. The true nature of these items were ones that accumulated vast amounts of divine energy from the believers of a church, and had gotten strange powers that were related to the deity it corresponded to as a result. Most of these treasures weren’t weapons, but items that were worshiped in churches, or even items that were placed next to statues of deities.

There was no absolute better or worse between the two—In the ranks of Godly Items, there was the Prismatic Edge that could crush a mountain in a single blow, and the Giant’s Toe that could cut the toenails of a Barren Giant; While in the ranks of Sacred Items, there was the Torrential Screen that could flood an entire kingdom underwater at once, as well as the Scarlet Goblet that could produce one liter of exceptionally tasty wine a day.

On this scale, the Soul Lamp was considered the type that wasn’t strong, but not weak, either.

This lamp can collect souls via contract to form lamp wicks, and after those were lit, they could provide large amounts of life energy to keep its target alive. Before the lamp went out, the target wouldn’t die no matter how much damage it had endured, as long as it didn’t surpass the total contained in the Soul Lamp, it wouldn’t die.

The reason why the Barren Giant was fleeing towards the mountain bandit was probably to have its owner light up the Soul Lamp to keep it alive, but it probably did not expect the owner to flee so quickly…

This Soul Lamp was quite strong in a way because it basically locked ones HP gauge in place, and would allow the target to attack even if it were crushed into minced meat like a slime.

This item was also quite weak in a way, because it worked based on contracts, and couldn’t recharge whenever it needed too, so its use was limited.

In the first place, the contracts of this Soul lamp didn’t work on the players because their souls would be kept by Xi Wei in his Divine Kingdom after they died, so it conflicted with the contracts greatly. Because the priority of Xi Wei naturally came before the priority of the Sacred Item, this thing would never work on the players.

Anyway.

In conclusion, Xi Wei had planned to stay away from the Revenant Pantheon as far as he could as the moment—The corpse of the Rotten Bones God was still stuffed in the blender.

It was completely unexpected that there were believers of the Revenant Pantheon within the mountain bandits, and ones that had gotten a Sacred Item, at that. Either the leader of the bandits were a high positioned officer in a church of a random deity of the Revenant Pantheon, or it was stolen from said church.

Whichever way it was, it weren’t a good thing for the players. The former would mean that the members of the church would have a grudge towards the players, and Xi Wei would have to recreate the Rotten Bones annihilation crusade, while the latter would mean that the members of the church would target the players who had their Sacred Item…

“Ahh what a pain in the butt…Ah right, I don’t have one.” Xi Wei sighed softly. “I guess what’s important now is to become stronger now. If I could knock out a Divine Father in one blow, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.”

And so, Xi Wei started plotting ways to scam divine energy from the players again.