Guild Wars

Hera released this final attack down towards the grey rot, wanting to see how well spatial displacement would work. Draco had once told about how the grey rot attacked him when he was at the peak of the Tower of Babylon and wanted to enter the Divine Realm from its special passageway.

Luckily, he had managed to blast it back using his bloodline energy and then trap it in the sub-space between realms. According to Draco, there was something apparently even more terrifying within sub space that had caused that split segment of the grey rot to be filled with endless fear, but he hadn't been able to see it.

Hera herself thought back to the First Inter-Player International Competition, when Kiran had first entered his Super Warrior 2 form, he had broken between the space between realms and attracted some strange existences into the main plane that the AI had to quickly seal up.

Luckily, those existences had been absorbed by the sarira carrying his mother's spirit, causing her to undergo some sort of transformation that lasted even up until now. As far as what everyone could verify, the transformation was beneficial but progressing very slowly.

When the space element attack struck, it had a very significant effect as a blackish-purple light erupted like a ball, swallowing up a huge amount of grey rot and causing it to disappear. The other with Hera were surprised by this, marveling at the power of her skill and its effectiveness.

Hera herself frowned, deeply unsatisfied. The destructive power was fine, but some of the grey rot that had been banished did not enter the sub space she expected. She also had very few void element spells because they and time element spells were some of the rarest to acquire.

She could only put her experiment aside and pay the divine points to use the skill again, clearing anther significant amount of grey rot to fulfill her quota.

...…

To the northwest of the Divine Umbra Church, the Blessed Bestowals worked hard to prove their name. Within their group, one could find the focused but callous, and greedy Money Lover working hard.

He had initially planned to ascend as a Tradeskill True God, but the orders came down from above, everyone had to become a combat True God. Money Lover naturally had no qualms because everything he had was given to him by Umbra, the prestige, the power, and the ability to acquire endless wealth!

Besides, Money Lover, after being bestowed the Lucifer Lineage bloodline from Draco and acquiring transcendent abilities, firmly and deeply understood that without power, all other things were transient.

｢Name: Money Lover – True God

Level: The Law of Unequivalent Exchange (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of Unequivalent Exchange - Divine Law

Grade: EX+

Effect: This law focuses on the ability of exchange, being an offshoot of the equivalent exchange law. It allows the user to swap one thing between themselves and another person, but unlike the law of equivalent exchange, this law can allow for one to take something better than what they are giving. The range of 'unfairness' is dependent on this law's rank.

Sources: The Merchant God (Divine Class) + Golden Rule (Passive Skill).｣

Money Lover had a plethora of useful laws and even had the original Equivalent Exchange offered him, but naturally salivated once he saw this one. Why would he, who had been used to fleecing others for their possessions legally using his insane class abilities, give up such an advantage to engage in unscrupulous business?

Naturally, he snapped up this law, and seeing the foe he was going to face, he felt it was a good choice!

Money Lover stood before the grey rot with a serious expression, first activating his law. He designated himself as the beneficiary of the trade and then tried to swap the grey rot's weakness for his own weakness.

On the laws balance scale, two things appeared. On the left was a blurry mass that had the words 'grey rot weakness: Eternals' and on the other side was a blurry mass that said 'Money Lover's weakness: Loneliness'.

Seeing it, Money Lover's face changed greatly as a wad of blood was spat from his mouth, being redder and fresher than typically spat blood as this was straight from the heart!

Money Lover had been the type of person who did not think much about women or romance at all for the most part until his life changed when Draco gave him his biggest opportunity during the Merchant King class change quest.

There, he had started from a terrible beginning and had raised himself into a champion in that world against all odds. However, he definitely could not have won and made it ti at the end without the help of an exemplary woman.

Katerina Beaufort.

As they said, behind every successful man was an intelligent woman. Katerina had helped Money Lover in more ways than he could imagine and their mutual plotting revealed their insane compatibility, to the point where even the stone-hearted him felt burning passion and took her as his partner.

However, once the quest came to an end, she disappeared into the smoke of the AI's code, never to be seen again. This had been buried in the young man's heart for a long time for he understood that it was fleeting and he did not have the power to change things.

However, that changed after he was bestowed with his bloodline and gained real power. With such power that could let him become a ruler on earth, conquering ten directions on his own, why should he settle for anything less than the perfect woman he had once lain with?

This intensified during the mass resurrections and revivals back then, especially adding in how the Gypsies were brought back from demise by Hikari even though they were 'delayed' content from a unique quest.

By tracing the lines of fate and the connection they had with the 'real' Roma, Hikari had been able to sue the overpowered creation ability of her White Dragon heritage to recreate them from scratch.

This was something even Eva could not do with her Creation Bloodline, showing how special Hikari was. It was theoretically possible for her to also trace the lines of fate to bring Katerina here far easier because Hikari was now a True God first of all, and class change quests were not as 'sealed' off as unique quests meaning there was less difficulty for Hikari to face in bringing her back.

It was simple but also hard. In this world, there was no one who Money Lover respected more than Draco.

He had simply been a floor manager in the Rank 7 shop during Umbra's growth era, slightly before the legendary First Guild War event back then. Draco had seen him, patted him on the back, and pushed him to greatness one step at a time.

And he had merely been a serf player of Umbra!

How could Money Lover have the gall to ask Draco for something when Draco had already given him everything without asking for anything back? All the things Umbra and Draco had asked him to do literally cost him almost nothing and yielded 5000% benefits for him, so was that really paying back the kindness shown?

This left him aching deep down and feeling lonely beyond measure. As the scale said, his weakness was loneliness, not missing Katerina. That was only one factor contributing to the overall situation, and one who knew about all this could easily exploit and defeat him despite his charismatic ability.

As Money Lover was lost in suffering, the scale balanced the two weaknesses and skewed heavily to the grey rots side. The difference ratio between both was rated as -39,440,445%, and Money Lover could only exchange when the ratio was positive or at most, up to -5% at the Basic Law Rank.

This snapped him out of his thoughts and left him speechless. The system weighed and felt that the value of the grey rot's weakness surpassed his by more than 39 million times, which made sense.

Being weak to only Eternals and being weak to loneliness were two very different things. On that note, the grey rot's weakness really made Money Lover want to crack open the AI's calculation center and ask what the hell was wrong with it.

Why create something that you likely couldn't even stop? Are you a fucking gambler? Betting on the fact that humanity could grow sufficiently enough to reach True God and deal with the grey rot?

What if they failed? What if they did not have Draco or Umbra? What would it do?

Money Lover was unaware that there was a timeline where players were stuck at Rank 6 for over 7 years, causing the AI to lose sleep and shudder with fear day and night, because it was an unsolvable issue.

It wasn't that players couldn't continue to level up, but it simply did not have enough Origin Energy to simulate the power of Rank 7 players en masse, so it could only artificially cap players.

The previous timeline's AI was like a gambler that had lost everything in one bet, eyes bloodshot and willing to beg on the roadside for 'money' if it meant it could make another bet to try and recoup losses, but where would it get 'money' from?

Luckily, this timeline had the reincarnated Draco and Eva right?

The trade failed and Money Lover hesitated but shared the information he received with the Evil Trio and the entire Umbra. Hopefully, this could prove useful in dealing with the grey rot's source.

Meanwhile, Cold Summer, who was struggling a bit with the grey rot, was quite focused on his task, not having time to care about his personal life crises. He was waving his hand to try and clear the grey rot using his control over water, but it was like trying to drown a fish.

The young man's concealed face was pale, and his knuckles were gripped tightly. At this rate, he would end up being the most useless among the core members, unable to even tickle the enemy, much less clear his segment for the daily task!!

｢Name: Cold Summer – True God

Level: The Law of True Water (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of True Water - Divine Law

Grade: EX+

Effect: This is the highest law of the water series, granting one full control of the water element. It can be used offensively, defensively, or for support-based purposes by the user and its effectiveness varies per target and law rank.

Sources: The Paragon of Water (Divine Class) + Essence of Water (Passive Skill).｣

Cold Summer was so stressed because he was holding a top-tier law of the water element, so how could it be totally useless? No matter how much of a tsunami he crashed down on the grey rot, it was like trying to pass water over a huge sludge of tar.

It did have some effect, but it was minimal. The grey rot did thin, but it was barely enough to tell and this was the main issue. Cold Summer simply did not have the time to do this over and over, nor did he have the Divine Energy or the Divine Points.

Even if he exhausted everything he had at this rate, he would only be able to clear around a quarter of what the others did in a single day using an entire week!

The young man stopped by lowering his hand and no longer released attacks or skills. For the first time since he had joined Umbra, he lowered his hood to reveal a head of short, curly hair that was a deep blue color.

He still wore a thief's mask that covered his nose, mouth, and neck, but one could now at least see his forehead and eyes, noting that the former was a pale white color while the latter was a watery blue, seemingly gleaming with something.

Suddenly, Cold Summer reached up and pulled down the mask as well, revealing…