Chapter 115
With the Birthday of the Hundred Gods approaching, every church was fretting over offerings and who should preside over the divine descent ceremony.
At that time, rumors spread among major churches: somewhere, several small churches were fighting over a certain “holy son.”
They said this youth had unmatched looks, a pure heart, and an extraordinary body—so attuned that even the little churches’ sacred tools resonated with him. Truly, someone blessed by the gods.
To win this holy son, the small churches had quieted their usual squabbles.
When the big churches heard, they couldn’t help but stir.
If he was genuine, seizing him would honor their deity’s name.
If fake, crushing the small churches’ arrogance would be worthwhile.
Either way, they couldn’t lose.
Some also thought: “Our rival churches are all rushing there—how can we stay out of it? Even if we don’t get him, we can’t let anyone else steal the title of Holy Son or Holy Maiden from under us.”
So they joined the commotion in force.
That was exactly what Lu Chuan wanted.
He took Cang Jiu for a stroll through the streets. After seeing the “Holy Son” in person, the churches that had doubted were now fully convinced.
They had to have him.
It was real!
When they looked at the youth, they almost heard the gods’ pleased laughter.
This was the chosen holy son.
They must seize him.
Hearing reports pouring in from every side, Lu Chuan could hardly keep from grinning.
Cang Jiu was just too effective.
Lu Chuan didn’t sit idle: he set up an auction for the Holy Son—highest bidder wins.
Of course, to qualify to bid, you first had to pay a hefty entrance fee.
Xi Jiangyuan had planned to sneak in and rescue his benefactor, but when he heard the entry fee, he nearly fainted.
Even selling himself a hundred times wouldn’t raise that much.
“If you can’t get in, don’t block the way.”
“You look decent enough—we don’t mind extra sacrifices…”
“Stop wasting time—buy the Holy Son already!”
…
The rival churches were bickering noisily.
Several even eyed Xi Jiangyuan as a potential sacrifice, scaring him into bolting.
But back at the inn, he realized how naïve he’d been.
His teammates had fled again—or rather, had been “removed” by others.
Everyone in the inn—staff, bystanders—had been replaced by people from various churches.
He was forced to leave as well.
Pretending to agree, he instead hid in an air vent, barely managing to stay.
Seeing how tightly guarded the place was, his resolve to save Cang Jiu only grew stronger.
His benefactor was trapped—he had to help!
But with so many hostile churches, and that friend of his benefactor’s “making deals” with them… it was like bargaining with a tiger.
Furious, Xi Jiangyuan knew he needed another plan.
Lu Chuan, meanwhile, was in no hurry.
[Wow, Host, that’s at least a few dozen churches here,] #888 marveled.
[Some of their gods are only lesser deities, but still strong. Only you could get them all to show up.]
“Just a little trick,” Lu Chuan said smugly.
“With only one or two churches, it’s hard to muddy the waters. But with a hundred? All I need is a nudge. At such an important moment as the Birthday of the Hundred Gods, no leader wants trouble.”
In any hierarchy, nothing terrified leaders more than an incident—especially before their boss’s big festival.
A sudden “Holy Son” fought over by small churches? The big ones had to investigate.
Once they came, the little ones wouldn’t dare act rashly.
Balance achieved.
Of course, the real effort behind it wasn’t for outsiders to know.
[Host, are you really planning to sell the Executor? I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad,] #888 grumbled, eager to push Cang Jiu aside.
[Sell him to a church or two; he can just eat their gods later to regain strength. Hardly a loss.]
Then #888 could convince the Host that this god-devouring Executor was too dangerous, and steer Lu Chuan away—leaving only one loyal system by his side.
#888’s little scheme delighted it. After all this time with Lu Chuan, it felt quite clever.
“Of course I won’t really sell him,” Lu Chuan chuckled.
“That’d only earn from one church and annoy all the others. What good would that do me? Little System, you still have much to learn.”
[Huh?] #888 didn’t get it.
Lu Chuan said no more; the auction was about to start.
Skipping the tedious announcements, he went straight to the point.
“You all want the Holy Son, but there’s only one. I can’t chop him up and split him. Whoever offers the highest price gets him.”
Lu Chuan, wearing the face the system had given him, didn’t mind exposing himself—
it wasn’t his real face anyway.
“Highest bidder wins. Gold only—no divine relics. The auction begins!”
While the bidding raged, Cang Jiu slipped out quietly, preparing to leave.
According to Lu Chuan, he had to vanish before the auction ended.
“The whole inn is surrounded by church people to stop you escaping—you won’t make it. I can help,” Xi Jiangyuan whispered, sneaking up to him.
“Benefactor, I really want to help you.”
Cang Jiu looked at him calmly.
“I know.”
At your age, you have nothing you must obtain.
So when you look at me, no desire truly moves you.
Once, long ago, Cang Jiu might have admired someone like Xi Jiangyuan—a selfless, sincere youth, the embodiment of humanity’s best.
But Cang Jiu had seen too many players.
Even those who once helped others gladly, after brushes with death and betrayal, rarely found their old selves again—sometimes they even sneered at who they’d been.
Xi Jiangyuan would change, too.
The purer something is, the easier it is to stain.
Lu Chuan, though, was different.
For a player his age to crave wealth so intensely it could take solid form—that was rare.
Such a steadfast obsession was hard to shake.
Compared to Xi Jiangyuan, it was obvious who Cang Jiu favored.
“Not enough,” Cang Jiu said quietly. “As you are now, you’re not enough.”
“I’m not strong enough?” Xi Jiangyuan lowered his head. “I know I’m weak, but…”
Before he could finish, he looked up—and Cang Jiu was gone.
He scratched his hair in frustration, lingering in the hall before finally leaving.
On his back, a strange mark briefly appeared, glowing before fading.
Inside the auction hall, a major church finally outbid the rest with a sum beyond the small churches’ imagination.
The price was so high Lu Chuan almost regretted letting Cang Jiu vanish. Maybe he should’ve had him return and sold him a few more times.
“Too bad this is a memory instance,” Lu Chuan sighed.
“Otherwise I’d be able to open several gold towers by now.”
Earning too little money felt no different from losing it.
But never mind, let’s just earn whatever we can for now.
“Congratulations, Reverend Priest of the Great Church, the Holy Son is now yours.” Lu Chuan smiled brightly. “I’ve already sent someone to bring the Holy Son here. Don’t worry, the whole place is filled with our people. No one will be able to get in and threaten him…”
“Bad news! The Holy Son is missing!”
“He vanished into thin air, and the people around didn’t even notice anything wrong.”
“Our church’s sacred artifacts have all lost their effect.”
“…”
Lu Chuan’s smile froze, his face full of disbelief. “That’s absolutely impossible! The inn where the Holy Son was staying, along with the surrounding area, was completely occupied by members of the major churches. I even paid a fortune to hire professional bodyguards! How could a living, breathing person like the Holy Son just vanish?”
The representative of the great church that had just bought the Holy Son was equally dumbfounded. “Our bishop was even living in the room next door!”
And yet, the Holy Son had disappeared right under everyone’s nose.
“It must have been another church!” Lu Chuan was the first to point fingers, decisively shirking responsibility. “Sir, you must see clearly—I’m just an ordinary man with little ability, as you well know. With so many church people guarding the Holy Son, even I can barely get a glimpse of him. There’s no way I could have done this. To spirit him away under so many watchful eyes—only one of the major churches could have managed that! They didn’t want to join the auction, so they deliberately caused trouble!”
“Of course I know you’re not capable of that.” The church that had bought the Holy Son fumed. “To take someone away without a trace like that—it must be the Church of the Shadow King. This sort of sneaky, underhanded act is exactly their style.”
“It must be them! They came to me before, trying to take the Holy Son, but I refused. They even threatened us, saying we’d regret it. This is definitely their doing!” Lu Chuan burst into tears and snot, wailing, “My poor Holy Son, who knows where he’s been taken! Milord, you must recover him for the sake of the gods!”
While Lu Chuan cried his heart out, the other churches ignored the small fry like him and threw themselves into searching for the Holy Son.
Some were skilled in divination, but every reading came back with nothing but great misfortune.
Some had eyes that could see through walls, yet even after sweeping the entire town, there was no trace of the Holy Son.
Others had unique ways of locating people, but all failed.
At this point, all the churches attending the auction reached the same conclusion—
The Holy Son must have been hidden away by one of the major churches. Their goal was surely to offer him up at the Birthday Feast of the Gods. Otherwise, with so many of them searching, it was impossible not to find a single clue.
But which church dared slap everyone else in the face like this?
Naturally, suspicion fell first on those skilled in concealment.
And so, they became the first to face accusations. Chaos broke out everywhere—riots between church followers spread like wildfire. Ordinary people cowered in their homes, too afraid to step outside.
[Host, are you… are you instigating a war?] #888 finally caught on to what Lu Chuan was doing.
“Not bad—you’re getting smarter, System.” Lu Chuan grinned. “Back when I was running Divine Challenge dungeons, my relationship with other churches was cooperative, not hostile. We all worked together to make money. Back then, it was because I had an actual church of my own, and I genuinely wanted peaceful development. But now? I’ve got nothing.”
“In history, there was a beautiful woman named Helen, whose abduction sparked a war between two nations. But wars have never truly been about people—they’re about power. People are just the excuse. I’ve simply made the Holy Son that excuse, for now.” Lu Chuan sneered.
Peaceful coexistence during the Birthday Feast of the Gods?
What a joke.
It wasn’t that the churches wanted stability. They just hadn’t found the right excuse yet, and with their unequal strengths, they were forced into an uneasy truce.
All Lu Chuan did was shatter that fragile balance and hand them a reason to fight.
[But what’s the point of starting a war?] #888 couldn’t understand.
“System, don’t forget why we came into this dungeon—to eliminate Xi Jiangyuan’s anomaly. But look at him now—does he show even the slightest trace of abnormality?” Lu Chuan shook his head. “Cang Jiu already said it—this place is Xi Jiangyuan’s dream, woven after his death. If it’s a dream, then in here, he might never encounter a god at all. That’s why when we saved him from the ghouls, it didn’t count as clearing the stage.”
To find the real god entangled with Xi Jiangyuan in his dream, and break out of this null-dungeon, they first had to destroy the dream itself.
You want a peaceful world?
You want a beautiful dream?
I’ll turn your dream into a nightmare—let the churches tear each other apart in your dreamscape.
When the conflict grows large enough, the gods themselves will intervene.
Then Xi Jiangyuan’s dream will shatter, and the true god bound to him will be forced to appear.
At that point, they could go to Cang Jiu and deal with it.
Perfect.
Lu Chuan thought his plan was flawless.
[But host, now the Executor has disappeared. How are we supposed to contact him?] #888 fell silent. It knew driving the Executor away was impossible for now, so all it could do was bide its time and wait for another chance.
“That’s… not urgent. It’s fine if he stays missing for now—he can’t contact me at this stage anyway. He’s the Executor. If he can find me across dungeons, then contacting me within the same dungeon will be easy. He knows.” Lu Chuan reassured himself.
[Host… you didn’t actually think this through, did you?] #888 was speechless.
“Not my fault! The money those churches gave me from the auction was insane. I had to count it over and over.” Lu Chuan grumbled. “At the time, I was just thinking about how to spend it, didn’t have time to think about anything else.”
He would never admit he’d been blinded by greed.
But really, the churches had given him too much. One even threw in a gold mine.
Come on—that’s a mine, not just some gold nuggets.
Who could say no to that?
Still, even if Cang Jiu didn’t reach out immediately, things were already going exactly as Lu Chuan wanted.
The world descending into chaos suited him just fine.
Of course, that meant his teammates trapped in the dungeon were the ones to suffer.
Lilus, for example, had just been chosen as a church’s Holy Son.
After all, Lilus was half non-human, with a visibly unusual right hand—perfect for standing out in a dungeon filled with churches.
“These underhanded tricks—the auction, the vanishing Holy Son—it’s one hundred percent Lu Chuan’s doing!” Lilus cursed furiously. “That bastard! He only just got here and already can’t stop scheming for profit?”
Lilus had actually entered this world before Lu Chuan—ever since he exposed Xi Jiangyuan, he’d been thrown straight in.
But once inside, he’d been stunned.
No dungeon info.
No clear objectives.
No prompts.
Nothing.
How was he supposed to play like this? What was he meant to do—retire peacefully in this dungeon world?
He couldn’t even use his items or weapons. Only his right hand still retained some combat ability.
Soon after, a church branded him as a cultist of an evil god.
He ran for his life until he stumbled into a small church. Thanks to his unusual right hand, they mistook him for a Holy Son and sheltered him.
That was the only reason he’d survived.
And because that church already had him as their Holy Son, they hadn’t sent anyone to Lu Chuan’s auction.
Who knew that not sending people to the auction would turn into a crime, with others accusing them of hiding the Holy Son and demanding a search?
Following the trail of this baseless war, they eventually tracked it back to Lu Chuan.
And of course, he was still using the fake name “Mr. Jin.”
Lilus could only laugh in exasperation.
He knew Lu Chuan wouldn’t die so easily. Of course he’d figure out something was off about Xi Jiangyuan.
But really? Not even bothering to contact his teammate, and instead stirring up all this chaos?
Though Lilus cursed him out, he knew Lu Chuan had his reasons.
So instead of quelling the flames, he fanned them—murdering a few of his own church priests and pinning the blame on others, making the war burn even hotter.
Meanwhile, Shen Li, Messiah, and the others who had just entered the dungeon quickly grasped their teammates’ intentions and joined in stirring the pot.
If their allies wanted war, then war it would be—after all, the more chaos, the easier it was for them to slip through unnoticed.
As the sparks spread, the war between the churches only grew fiercer.
Lu Chuan thought the plan was going a little too smoothly, but then again—plans were all about timing, opportunity, and luck. Smooth was better than messy. No need to overthink it.
Heh, and he’d made a killing this time. Since the war had broken out, none of the churches dared reclaim the money they’d given him for the auction.
It was all his now.
After pocketing his fortune, Lu Chuan shamelessly tagged along with the church that had originally bought the Holy Son.
“The Holy Son belongs to you now, but I still feel responsible for his safety. My conscience won’t let me rest easy. Please, take me with you—I can help find him! I’m willing to join your church.”
He flaunted his connections and information networks until the churchmen were torn between wanting to kill him for being a nuisance and keeping him around because he was useful. In the end, they had no choice but to let Lu Chuan cling to them.
Oh, not only did Lu Chuan shamelessly stay behind, he even came up with an idea: there was a guy called Xi Jiangyuan who had always wanted to help the Holy Son escape. Maybe he knew something. Lu Chuan coaxed the church members into tying Xi Jiangyuan up as well and volunteered to guard him.
Xi Jiangyuan wished he could spit at Lu Chuan several times. “Pah! You treacherous rat who sells out his friends!”
Lu Chuan didn’t get angry at all. “Yes, yes, you’re loyal. But how come I see that all your teammates have disappeared? Don’t tell me they’ve abandoned you again?”
He didn’t just hit the man — he stabbed at his heart too.
Xi Jiangyuan’s face turned green; clearly Lu Chuan had hit a sore spot.
“See? You’re speechless.” Lu Chuan smiled at him. “Relax. If you stay with us, you might find the Holy Son. But if you don’t behave and dare to run off, I’ll sell you too.”
As if he would let Xi Jiangyuan — a key figure in this dungeon — get away! Keeping him close was the only way to feel safe.
Besides, if he brought Xi Jiangyuan into the great church, maybe some god would take an interest in him. That would make breaking this game easier.
Xi Jiangyuan turned away angrily, unwilling to deal with Lu Chuan.
Lu Chuan didn’t mind. The man was in his hands — he could play with him as he pleased.
As a future “Master-Rank” player, Xi Jiangyuan was indeed troublesome.
But now? He was just a kid. Surely Lu Chuan could bully him a little.
At least it felt like payback.
The great church members brought Lu Chuan and Xi Jiangyuan back to their headquarters. While explaining the details of this incident to the bishop, they also reported that Lu Chuan and Xi Jiangyuan wanted to join the sect and help look for the Holy Son.
Xi Jiangyuan stayed silent, but Lu Chuan acted like a born performer. He expressed his longing for the gods, praising them as if they were the greatest beings under heaven.
“I’ve long heard of the gods’ majesty, but someone as insignificant as me struggles just to survive in this world. How could I ever be worthy of basking in their light? Now that such a heaven-sent chance is before me, if I don’t seize it, I’d be unworthy of the gods’ favor.”
Lu Chuan spoke with righteous fervor. Anyone listening might think he was a fanatical believer, passionately rousing everyone’s emotions.
“This disappearance of the Holy Son is clearly because other gods envy our god’s boundless power and are stirring up trouble. I’d hoped to use the Holy Son affair to enter the church, but years of effort have been ruined overnight. Please, mighty god, uphold justice for me: retrieve the Holy Son and crush those wretched sects!”
