Chapter 317 - 42: The World Champion Tournament Is Here!

After starting their next stretch of adventuring in Yggdrasil, several months passed by in a blink of an eye.

A lot of things sprang up during this time. Yggdrasil entered its peak activity as well. And with that, the discrimination against Hetermorphs players reached its all time high. Any mention or notion of these players appearing outside of Niflheim, Muspellheim, or Helheim would be targeted and tried to be PKed on site. They were essentially treated as monsters by the Human and Demihuman players.

But during this period of time, what Nao wanted to achieve all this while was his player level finally reaching level 100! His party members and guild members all reached level 100 too!

Nao decided to have a race against Momonga, as to whether Nao's party could conquer Hel's Castle first or if Momonga's Nine's Own Goal could conquer the Great Tomb of Nazarick first.

Wait, that is not accurate anymore. In order to to test out the new dungeon that Nine's Own Goal found in the Grenbera Swamps, which was none other than the lv3000 Guild Base dungeon : Great Tomb of Nazarick, Touch Me rounded the nine main guild members and the rest of the guild's sub clans. They made contact with many Heteromorphic players during this past while, and these contacts became the backburners of Nine's Own Goal.

They were essentially sub clans of Nine's Own Goal. And in fact, Nao finally caught wind of one of the leaders of these sub clans. It was none other than Perorocino! He lead the avian Heteromorphs, even though it wasn't that many. Each these sub clans didn't have that many players either, being a few at most.

Perorocino's clan was named the No Cash Item Alliance. It's name meant exactly as it read. The few in this clan hated using and relying on cash items to play Yggdrasil.

Anyways, if one totaled the number of these few clans that partnered with the nine main members of Nine's Own Goal, it totaled a certain number. Turns out they were still able to round up 32 Heteromorphic players, even with Tabula Smaragdina and Bukubukuchagama out of the picture!

And during these several months spent together, Touch Me urged Momonga to disband Nine's Own Goal after seeing how difficult the Great Tomb of Nazarick was. The other seven members rook a firm stance too, suggesting the same for Momonga. But this wouldn't be without reason.

This was the birth of Ainz Oowl Gown! From here on it wouldn't be nine members anymore, but forty one members, and Perorocino was included!

And everyone wanted Momonga to be their leader. If Momonga declined this position, it would have caused a rift between several of the forty other players, with the possibility of them going along their own ways. But thankfully Momonga accepted the position as Guild Leader. He already led Nine's Own Goal leading Ainz Oowl Gown wouldn't be much different.

And the creation of Ainz Oowl Gown spread like wildfire in Helheim. The time spent while trying to conquer the Great Tomb of Nazarick caused their fame to rise drastically. More so that no one in Helheim wouldn't know who they were.

Meanwhile, as Ainz Oowl Gown continued to rise in fame, the opposite happened for Rising Phoenix. Nao even stopped his livestreaming. This stretch of time during this adventuring was a full year, and it was now year 2133. Besides reaching Lv100 and winning his race with Momonga by conquering Hel's Castle first, Rising Phoenix essentially went off the grid.

Sure this disappointed his millions upon millions of fans greatly, but things come and go like a flowing river. The purpose of his livestreaming was to amass money to bring into Yggdrasil in the first place. The treasury within the Asgardian Palace now had stacks of gold and miscellaneous gems and such, reaching way higher than the stacks of gold that was shown off in Nazarick's Treasury in the original story.

Ainz could easily throw around five hundred million gold to revive an NPC. This could be the same for Nao who could now throw around five hundred billion gold like it was nothing. There really wasn't a storage capacity for gold either, so the more his Guild hunted and collected it, it would stockpile in the Treasury!

In regards to his race with Hel's Castle, it actually turned out to be a Lv2000 Guild Base. Unlike his earlier encounter with the Icy Soul Devil's Lair that he previously selected to destroy, Nao decided to keep his spoils this time. And that meant, everything.

Hel's Castle was stored away in a high capacity data crystal, fit for later customization if Nao wished. Nao tested his taming abilities this time around too, and he successfully captured Hel's soul, who later revealed her true name as Hela. It was stored away in the very same lamp Hela blasphemed and cursed, locking it away in that icy castle.

Turns out the developers made the Goddess of Death Hela quite the beauty. She didn't look exactly like her Marvel counterpart, quite far from it besides her black dress. It wasn't black and green but black and gray, as if a part of it was made from ashes, singed at its frills.

Her skin was extremely pale but looked healthy as jade. Long silvery-ashen hair flew from from her head. It wasn't short either. Extremely long that went past her waist. Hela's eyes were a black starry abyss that one could look into and never see its end. She also had black eyeshadow around her eyes.

As for her abilities, she specialized in Necromancy, Black Magic, Illusions, Spatial Warping, you name it. A very tough foe that put up a good challenge for Nao and his party. She could even bend countless weapons to do her bidding, as if she was a metal bender.

But as all bosses go, Hela was eventually slain and Nao captured her soul. Turns out as long as Nao had his lamp equipped, he could even capture boss NPCs. Not just normal or roaming monsters. It did have a limit, but if he kept the NPC stored inside his lamp, whenever he visited his Guild Base, he could essentially 'resurrect' said NPC by paying the appropriate gold cost! Just like how Ainz spent 500 million gold to revive Shaltear.

And from there on, the NPC would become his to control. Nao probably could have started capturing bosses earlier, but he was pretty picky. Plus he had limited space. His normal monster storage from his Tamer and Dragon Rider job classes could not store bosses. As to whether he would capture any further bosses, he wouldn't know.

He also didn't know if he could capture World Enemies, like Jörmungandr they fought previously. Perhaps there was a restriction on the lamp, considering it was only Divine class. Nao also considered using Ouroboros to upgrade it to a World Class item, but he wouldn't be able to use it break the leveling mechanic and create a Lv3000 NPC, his future dragon girl NPC.

Ouroboros was one of the Big Twenty. Items so powerful they would break after one use, not to respawn ever again. With that in mind, Nao didn't think of upgrading the lamp anymore, he had to save it for his NPC.

After Hela was stored into the lamp and her base stored in a high capacity data crystal, the loot came. And boy was it bountiful. This dungeon was akin to the final story map of Helheim. Rewards aplenty. Considering the requirement was Lv90 and it took Nao's group all the way to Lv100, Nao and his party had high expectations. And it rewarded them.

Several Divine data crystals. Numerous ingredients to craft Divine and higher equipment. Spell scrolls. Even a Hidden Class scroll for Bukubukuchagama. She could finally turn into a True Metallurgic Slime!

On top of that, it granted three World Items. Longinus, Holy Grail, and Ginnungagap!

Ginnungagap would eventually become one of Albedo's main weapons. A silver metallic wand that had a metallic sphere floating on a small pedestal. It had the ability to destroy large areas in a mere instant. Great for targeting groups but not single targets. This item was not the black axe halberd shown Albedo often used in the original story, but it did have the ability to transform into whatever its user wished to.

Holy Grail was a powerful healing world item. It could even resurrect those without paying any sort of fees, including NPCs. It did not have any restrictions, but it did have a cast limit of once per day. And on top of carrying an array of healing and cleansing spells, it also had a passive hp and mp regeneration, much like his lamp did.

And last but not least, Longinus. Nao was surprised to see this infamous spear drop from Hela's body. Longinus was a dark red two pronged spear. Similar to a Trident but it was two-pronged, not three. It's design was very simplistic but it was one of the most deadly world items in the Big Twenty.

As long as one wasn't immune to world items, which almost everyone weren't, unless one was a specialized world enemy or let's say the hidden final boss, the World Eater, Longinus had the power to delete any form of data, players and NPCs alike. If a player was struck by Longinus and killed, their account would get permanently deleted. If an NPC was killed by it, they would get their data deleted and erased from Yggdrasil, also causing a Guild Base's total level to drop.

Cash items or resurrection spells could not work on Longinus. The only possibility to reverse its effects was if one used a world item on said player or NPC. Well luckily enough, Nao also got the Holy Grail alongside this weapon, a really powerful healing world item!

There was one drawback too. The player using Longinus would receive the same effect as the one killed by it. That meant their data would get erased too, account deleted, a double edged sword. It was also of the Big Twenty, meaning it only had one use.

Till now, Nao had collected Ouroboros, Depiction of Nature and Society, and now, Ginnungagap, Holy Grail and Longinus. By the end of year 2133, Nao's Guild had collected five world items! He already had a lead against the newly formed Ainz Oowl Gown.

It was rumored by the time Yggdrasil ended, Ainz Oowl Gown was the leading Guild in collecting these world items, totaling eleven with two being in the Big Twenty. The second place Guild would only have three world items, so the disparity was large. Nao didn't know how many Ainz Oowl Gown currently had, but he wanted to crush that record of Momonga's.

That wasn't the only thing he wanted to crush either. After reaching Lv100 in Helheim, the last realm yet again, the World Champion Tournament was finally triggered! This tournament would determine who was to be the strongest player of each of the nine realms, and eventually the strongest player of the nine realms!

Momonga was growing alongside his Ainz Oowl Gown Guild at a fast pace. Momonga had also told Nao of his intentions of partaking in the tournament. It would be a good stage for Nao to have his first, and probably only battle against Momonga, in Yggdrasil that is.

Even though in his vision Nao saw himself cooperating with Ainz as equal partners, he didn't know if he would clash against him in the New World.

But regardless of that, the World Champion Tournament was set to happen at the start of year 2134. Due to how popular Yggdrasil became in Japan, the developers decided to sanction the tournament to have 512 participants. That meant Nao would have to go through eight matches before entering the top two!

This would occur in all the nine realms. Each realm will determine a winner, and those winners would receive the World Champion job class, and a hefty reward from the developers! This could range from powerful divine equipment to world items, to really rare ingredients.

After the nine world champions are determined, a new stage would open for those nine players. The exclusive World Champion Tournament! The nine world champions would fight each other, and those who place higher will get even more rewards from the developers!

Momonga will obviously partake in Helheim's 512 tournament. Nao could as well but Nao wanted to meet Momonga in the World Champion stage before having his battle against Momonga.

Thankfully he now operates in his Guild Base, the Asgardian Palace located in Alfheim where his girls were. He would partake in Alfheim's 512 tournament. And he would likely come across lots of Human and Demihuman players instead of Heteromorphic players! And in return those players will find it a surprise Nao will make an appearance there!

Nao's battle against Momonga is about to unfold!

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A/N : Note down here today.

Not much to say just hope you guys look forward to the match to come! Nao vs Momonga is here!

Don't forget to keep dropping those stones! Can we reach 300 again once the week resets tomorrow?

Leave your comments below!