Chapter 307: Aojo

In his divine kingdom, Xi Wei’s body was flashing like the three-minutes Ultraman color timer.

It meant that he was thinking.

At first, he was not really concerned about the cultists that Leah and the others found.

For one, his attention was mostly occupied by the Twin City Cup, and he was also keeping an eye on Fishmen Island at the same time so that he was ready when the Ocean Goddess turned her gaze upon it once more. Secondly, Xi Wei more or less shared Marni’s opinion that there was no major cultist group hiding in Lancaster.

After all, the Players were Xi Wei’s eyes, and he didn’t have to deliberately take notice of wherever they were since any new places they go would be marked on the minimap. Therefore, there basically weren’t any blind spots on the map in Lancaster where the Players were present in great numbers. Almost everything was exposed to Xi Wei’s eye, and if he wanted to, he could directly use his Divine Eye to observe places where his believers couldn’t enter-such as civilian houses.

That was also why Xi Wei did not directly assign Leah’s group any quests at first.

In fact, he only realized that something wasn’t right after they had found the secret room where the cultists were hiding and ran into the cult leader.

And without using his Divine Eye, he was unable to clearly make out the cult leader’s appearance too!

The situation was actually due to Divine Grace and not some rare powerful ability. It could easily be exposed with Divine Eye, which made divine grace a form of protection of the patron god over their believer, a declaration to other gods that ‘I’ve got this person’s back’.

Reasonably speaking, anyone could earn such a basic Divine Grace if their rank was high enough in their church, which was the case for believers from other churches participating in the Twin City Cup.

In other words, there definitely was an evil god behind the cultist’s back.

But for some bizarre reason, Xi Wei was unable to sense belief in the cult leader. Instead, divine energy was swirling around the other cultists John Dhana had bewitched in the secret room, offered towards the evil god Aojo that they were all talking about.

It should have been impossible for a person without belief to become a leader of a cult, especially in this world where the gods truly existed.

Moreover, Aojo’s name didn’t exist in the memories in the God of Games divinity. It probably wouldn’t be any famous evil god, and was at best third-rate like Rotten Bones.

That was why Xi Wei decided that the cult leader was a problem, and only then did he assign Leah and the others a new quest to have them capture or directly take him out-the gods could get much information they want even if it’s from a corpse. In the end, both Xi Wei and his believers witnessed the same sight.

***

Leah watched as the cult leader spat blasphemy before stabbing that suspicious knife into his own eye. Black blood began to shoot out of his eye at irrational volumes, raining over the roof of the consulate and dyeing it black.

At the same time, John Dhana’s body bloated like an expanding balloon before bursting apart with a loud boom on the lightning rod!

The mushroom cloud of an explosion rushed into the air.

But it was not over even though the cultist leader was now in pieces.

Instead, it was just beginning!

As the mushroom cloud dispersed, and the rain of black blood stopped, an arc that would upset Newton to death appeared as it shot towards the skies, converging in the air above the consulate to form a massive black sphere.

Edward, who didn’t know what was happening but was absolutely sure that this mustn’t continue immediately unleashed Black Dragon Hellfire-his most powerful skill—at the sphere.

The black fiery dragon, however, was devoured entirely once it struck the sphere, leaving not a single spark behind!

The other players tried to attack it as well to no effect.

Meanwhile, the sphere was continuing to expand-it was almost a hundred times larger than the cult leader now, and there was just no explain how a single person’s body could have contained so much black goo.

Right now, it hanged in the air like a hovering meteor, and the Players felt a pressure they hadn’t felt for a long time as it palpated an intimidating presence as if it could crash down with apocalyptic force.

But in the next split second, the sphere split open down the middle as its entire body parted, revealing crimson eye beneath…

Yes, it wasn’t actually a meteor, but a colossal eye!

“What manner of monster is that…” Leah stared at the horrific eyeball in the sky and couldn’t help feeling goosebumps. The System page appeared before her once more then.

(Ding]

(Side quest: Investigate and capture the mysterious cultist failed]

[New urgent quest started]

[The crusade against Aojo, the manmade Abomination]

*

*

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Xi Wei immediately picked up on what was unusual about that colossal eyeball when it appeared.

It was no natural monster, but a container created with an unknown method and imbued with a certain level of divine attributes.

Its purpose must have been to contain those impure divine energy from the cultists.

If Xi Wie’s hunch was right, it must be what the blasphemer had been counting on-even though John Dhana had cursed the gods with his last breath, the monster he made was basically the crude replica of a divine being.In turn, the purpose he had for forming a cult was to gather divine energy.

Nonetheless, the monster still lacked a vital part: a divinity that purifies divine energy and convert it into divine power.

Moreover, it had no Authority that allowed it to interfere with Rules, and it couldn’t even simulate the Divine Order that Rules manifest.

In fact, the divine attribute that it had which shrouded itself from the eyes of other gods and held its divine energy was no more than a derivation of the three essences of a god.

This counterfeit of counterfeits made through such artificial means wouldn’t compare to the most inferior of evil gods, let alone any god.

If Xi Wei had to put his finger on it, that was no more than a new form of Abomination.

“Be that as it may, such a technique capable of allowing mortals to reach the domain of the gods is almost at the level of the gnomes who were raising their banners against the gods in the last era…”

Even an outsider like Xi Wei was surprised by how unbelievable the entire situation was. “The humans of this age are really full of surprises, though…” “Finnia? Silver Oak? The God of Games’ memories doesn’t have anything related to those terms… I should ask the lion about it. But before that, let’s have the Players deal with the current situation…”