Chapter 116
Lu Chuan was having the time of his life stirring the pot in this world.
Oddly, everything was going unusually smoothly for him. Even beyond this church, events were unfolding exactly as he wished — almost as if he had helpers working outside.
Hmm, helpers?
“System, tell me — is it possible my teammates have also entered this dungeon?” Lu Chuan couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Things were going too well; with no setbacks at all, worry crept in.
[Host, sorry, I can’t scan such a large range,] #888 replied. [But I’m sure there are no teammates of yours inside this church.]
“If they were here, they’d already have contacted me,” Lu Chuan shook his head. “Thinking back, before I entered this dungeon, I hadn’t found Lilus and Vivian. If Shen Li and Messiah woke up after I came in, they’d definitely try to find me.”
Either way, he decided to prepare as if they might also be in this world.
“At first, I thought my power alone was limited,” Lu Chuan mused, rubbing his chin. “But if they’re all here, there’s so much more I could do. Maybe I should try something new.”
[What do you mean?] #888 was curious. [You’ve already turned this world upside down.]
“This is just the beginning!” Lu Chuan laughed. “Xi Jiangyuan is still sitting here, just an utterly ordinary player. I’ve been thinking: the ‘Executors’ want to sever Xi Jiangyuan’s connection to the gods at its root. But what if, from the start, I swapped the god linked to Xi Jiangyuan for another god? What would happen?”
[…Host, you’d better be careful,] #888 shivered. [That might alert the Main God System.]
“System, once I clear this dungeon, don’t you believe I’ll immediately be vaulted onto the Master-Rank Leaderboard? Don’t you remember what Cynthia said? Clear a dungeon containing a Master-Rank Leaderboard player — especially if that player dies — and the system will judge you strong enough to join the list. This dungeon already has every element. Once I finish, becoming a Master-Rank Leaderboard player is guaranteed.”
Cang Jiu had said: players on that list are destined to help the system plunder divine power and hunt gods.
But Lu Chuan was half a god himself.
That meant some things were easier to attempt before becoming a Master-Rank Leaderboard player than after.
So he would take his chance now, see how the Main God System reacted.
Once decided, Lu Chuan quickly formed a plan.
Xi Jiangyuan was locked in the church basement. They sent him water and food daily — barely enough to live on, never enough to fill him, ensuring he couldn’t escape.
But Xi Jiangyuan wasn’t planning to surrender.
He might seem naïve now, but he’d later become a master-ranked player — proof of his potential. He was just a rookie, lacking experience, unable yet to show his strengths.
Backed into a corner by Lu Chuan, Xi Jiangyuan’s potential began to shine.
Every day he saved a little food, hiding it as rations for an escape. While pretending to nap, he secretly lay on the floor, eavesdropping on footsteps and voices, piecing together information.
When the guards brought food or water, Xi Jiangyuan would casually drop a question. Even if only one or two out of ten were answered, it was enough.
After more than ten days, Xi Jiangyuan had ground a bone into a tiny knife and hid it in his palm, waiting for a chance.
Fortunately, the perfect opportunity soon arrived.
It was the eve of the Birthday of Hundred Gods.
The church was busy preparing for the coming celebration. Even without the Holy Son, they had captured other offerings and could still make the festival grand.
Xi Jiangyuan took advantage of the loosened guard. He knocked out the person bringing him food, stripped off their clothes, and put them on. Then he stole the keys from a guard, tossed them near other cells, and freed all the prisoners.
He knew the cells held not just outsiders like himself, but captives from rival sects — either for sacrifice or as hostages.
Disguised as a church member, Xi Jiangyuan lay on the floor, pretending to be unconscious, even smearing blood on his stomach to fake being gravely injured.
The freed prisoners surged out, drawing the church’s attention.
While chaos raged, the clergy mistook Xi Jiangyuan for one of their own and hurried him off for treatment.
“See, System?” Lu Chuan smiled. “He’s got good instincts. He just needed some experience. Otherwise, why would it take two Executors to deal with him?”
Now Xi Jiangyuan had obediently walked straight into the scene of the upcoming god-descending ritual.
Yes — if Xi Jiangyuan was a fledgling beast, Lu Chuan was a sly old fox.
Every move Xi Jiangyuan made was in Lu Chuan’s grasp.
Even the two church members carrying Xi Jiangyuan away had been arranged by Lu Chuan.
They weren’t taking him to a treatment room but to the spot closest to the descent ritual.
Tomorrow was the Hundred Gods’ Birthday. Preparations for the divine descent were underway.
And Xi Jiangyuan, blundering in, would certainly attract the gods’ attention.
“The god already clearly linked to Xi Jiangyuan is the [God of Beautiful Dreams],” Lu Chuan mused, excitement gleaming in his eyes. “But I think there must be others. One god alone couldn’t give him such power. And here, the church worships the [Mother of Fertility], who rules over birth and offspring — a power utterly unlike Xi Jiangyuan’s abilities. I wonder what will happen if he gains the Mother of Fertility’s blessing.”
#888 hesitated.
“System, say what you’re thinking,” Lu Chuan prompted with a grin. “Have you forgotten what I told you before?”
[Host, if we experiment with Xi Jiangyuan like this, what do we tell the Executor?] #888 seized the chance to badmouth Cang Jiu. [Won’t the Executor be angry about this?]
“System, only after I pay the Main God System to buy Cang Jiu will he be mine. Until then, he belongs to the Main God System.” Lu Chuan shrugged. “Besides, from the start, I never promised to ally with him. We’ve only been traveling together, nothing more. And Xi Jiangyuan’s escape? I didn’t notice in time — that’s not my fault.”
And yet, the fact that the Executor agreed to his request so easily, and then disappeared without a trace so quickly… that was still something worth paying attention to.
[Ah, so that’s it. Host, you really are too clever.] #888 suddenly realized—right, the host had never truly allied with the Executor. So what was there to worry about?
Lu Chuan let out a short laugh.
Lucky for #888 it had met him. Otherwise, even if it found hundreds or thousands of other hosts, they probably wouldn’t survive long in this infinite world.
Stupid little system—if the Executor were nothing more than the main system’s blade, there would have been no reason at all for Cang Jiu to keep helping him again and again.
Anyone who could grow so quickly under the main system… how could they be simple? The more innocent Cang Jiu acted at the start, the more unfathomable he seemed to Lu Chuan.
Number 18’s pure-heartedness was one extreme.
But even 18 had said he disliked keeping a human form.
Yet Number 9 always kept a human form.
Would an Executor who “wanted nothing” really abandon his stronger, true form, just to stay in a useless human shape?
There had to be something wrong there.
Lu Chuan just pretended not to notice.
The prettier someone is, the better they are at lying.
Meanwhile, Cang Jiu, seeing the ingot dangling on his sword hilt trembling nonstop, immediately knew that Lu Chuan was up to no good.
But that didn’t matter.
This world was meant for Lu Chuan to play his part.
This player was stronger, sharper than he had imagined.
That was perfect.
Cang Jiu stood in some secret place.
Slowly, he tossed the sword beside him into the air. When it fell back down, another figure identical to Cang Jiu stood on the ground.
From appearance to strength to every other detail, the two were exactly the same. Only Cang Jiu himself could tell them apart.
In this Evil World, the ability might be called a clone.
But among gods, it had another name.
For an instant, #888 nearly froze.
It wanted to call out to Lu Chuan, but in the blink of an eye, that divine power had vanished without a trace.
No. This wouldn’t do.
The host wasn’t truly a god yet. If it told him more about divine matters, it would only draw unwanted attention from the gods.
And yet #888 couldn’t understand—Before entering this world, it had scanned everything.
Every god here had either disappeared, or been shackled by the main system, transformed into another kind of false deity.
The true gods were all gone.
And yet just now, it had really felt the presence of genuine divine power.
How was that possible?
Cang Jiu sealed his strength again.
Only in this mutated dungeon, born of Xi Jiangyuan, could the main system’s power be suppressed—and Number 18, who normally monitored him, wasn’t here either.
He had waited far too long.
So long that he had almost forgotten everything.
Leaving his avatar behind, Cang Jiu strode straight toward a certain cave.
If Lu Chuan were here, he would have realized—the cave was frighteningly close to the graveyard Xi Jiangyuan had mistakenly entered before.
—
Xi Jiangyuan woke on a stretcher, knocked out the two cultists carrying him, and tried to escape.
But there was only one path forward. Going back would throw him straight into the chaos between prisoners and cultists. His only choice was to press ahead.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed on.
Yet with every step, his body grew hotter. Cold sweat trickled down his temples.
For some reason, countless old memories began flooding his mind.
The first time he dirtied his sheets, everyone congratulated him for growing up.
A film he’d once been dragged to watch.
The older neighbor girl he’d secretly liked as a child.
Faces of beautiful men and women he’d seen over the years—even the striking savior who had once rescued him—all surfaced one by one in his mind.
What’s happening?
Xi Jiangyuan pinched himself hard twice, scattering those dangerous thoughts.
When he finally reached the end of the passage, he found a vast underground chamber.
Inside, countless naked men and women lay sprawled, all wearing crazed, fervent expressions. The air was thick with an indescribable stench.
Around them, cages of animals in heat strained in the same frenzy.
And at the chamber’s center, a high platform stood.
Carved with dense runes, upon it sat an imposing old man in a white robe, eyes shut as if in sleep.
Xi Jiangyuan’s heart sank—he knew he had stumbled upon a divine descent ritual.
And from the scale of it, these beings made the ghouls he had faced before seem trivial.
If he’d known, he would have preferred to fight it out with the prisoners.
But even with just a glance, the white-robed elder’s closed eyes seemed to latch onto him.
Without opening them, he parted his lips, chanting strange syllables.
Xi Jiangyuan clamped his hands over his ears—useless.
Hallucinations blurred his vision: beautiful men and women pressed close, whispering words of love, their eyes alight with desire.
Were they welcoming him?
His reason plummeted.
He couldn’t resist. His body seemed to move on its own, joining them in the chamber’s center. Clothes slipped away piece by piece.
The elder still hadn’t opened his eyes, continuing the ritual.
Xi Jiangyuan felt hot bodies clinging to him, like being wrapped by endless serpents, suffocating.
His back burned.
Hotter. Hotter.
Until—he snapped awake, shoved them all off, grabbed his clothes, and fled.
On his back, a glowing sigil pulsed.
That mysterious mark yanked him back from the brink, erasing every last whisper of lust.
But the stifling aura in the chamber only thickened.
The false god whispered, its divine voice threading directly into the elder’s mind.
Deaf ears mattered little—divine words bypassed hearing.
In that instant, the elder seemed to age years.
At last, he opened his eyes.
He fixed his gaze on Xi Jiangyuan—and on the glowing sigil on his back. For once, joy touched his face.
“Catch him!”
“The Mother favors him. He will be tomorrow’s perfect sacrifice!”
The men and women surged at him.
Xi Jiangyuan fought with all he had. They were only ordinary humans, spent from their ritual. Against him, they had little chance. Escape was possible.
The elder’s face twisted. Realizing Xi Jiangyuan might slip away, he cast a divine spell.
The strike hit Xi Jiangyuan square in the back, sending him sprawling, but he tumbled, scrambled, and bolted into the distance.
“He bears the Mother’s mark—he cannot escape! Spread the word! Stop everything else and bring him to me!”
Xi Jiangyuan had no idea where to run. The path was one-way. At the exit, prisoners lay captured by cultists. Being caught would be no better. He had only one option left.
“So, you still know to come find me.” Lu Chuan looked him over with some interest as Xi Jiangyuan ran straight to him.
At a time like this—even if he hated Lu Chuan, even if Lu Chuan disdained him—he knew only a fellow player could save him from the gods. That decisiveness impressed Lu Chuan more than expected.
“Even if I don’t like you, even if you despise me, we’re both players. In front of gods, that makes us natural allies,” Xi Jiangyuan said. He wasn’t stupid. After what he’d just faced, he understood how powerless he was against such forces.
“But I don’t understand. I’m just a rookie—why am I caught up in all this?” His eyes accused Lu Chuan. “It’s because of you, isn’t it? Because you people came, this world became so dangerous.”
“Shhh, you can’t put it like that.” Lu Chuan smiled. “If anything, you should say it started when you wandered into the ghouls. In a dungeon, what’s ever truly safe? Dungeons mutate, or bad luck drags you into the players’ circle—it all happens.”
And besides—if you really want to trace it back, you’re the one who created this world.
“Now, tell me—what exactly happened just now? You came running over in such a hurry, so I’m guessing you ran into something big, right?” Lu Chuan asked with great interest.
“I’m not entirely sure myself…” Xi Jiangyuan was still a bit confused. “I ran to the end of that road, and what I saw was…”
Xi Jiangyuan carefully recounted everything, including all the details he’d noticed.
Lu Chuan questioned him repeatedly to make sure—it really had been the site of the [Mother of Fertility]’s divine descent ritual.
And that white-robed elder should have been the archbishop of the church.
“But isn’t this church’s bishop only thirty? The man I saw was at least seventy or eighty.” Xi Jiangyuan was stunned. Because of the church’s special nature, nearly everyone from the bishop down to the lowliest believer was usually young and fertile.
“Close contact with a god always has a price,” Lu Chuan replied with a smile. “The ‘Mother of Fertility’ is famous—almost everyone back home knows about her.”
Lilus and Cynthia’s mother had once possessed abilities similar to the Mother of Fertility. She developed her powers as a believer in this very church and, because her gifts were so much like the Mother’s, she’d been regarded as the deity’s vessel in the mortal world, stirring up quite a storm for a while.
Later, with the help of other players from the Master Ranking, she completely slew the Mother of Fertility and seized part of Her power, which allowed Cynthia and Lilus—half NPC, half human—to be born.
Of course, all these details had come from Cynthia herself.
That was why, after scouting several churches, Lu Chuan had decisively chosen this one.
If Lilus really was inside this instance, and learned about such a church, he would absolutely come here.
“You said the old man in white struck you, yet you have no wounds.” Lu Chuan gestured for Xi Jiangyuan to turn around and take off his shirt. “Let me see your back—maybe there’s a divine mark from another god. If so, you won’t escape.”
Xi Jiangyuan obediently complied.
Looking at Xi Jiangyuan’s perfectly unmarked back, Lu Chuan frowned.
“System, did you notice anything?” Lu Chuan rubbed his eyes, suspecting his vision might be missing something subtle.
[Nothing, Host.] #888 scanned him several times. [I didn’t find any trace of the Mother of Fertility’s power… but there is something else.]
“What is it?”
[The mark left by that Executor—the one Number 9 put on your forehead. It seems Xi Jiangyuan has one too. That Executor secretly tampered with him so he can track Xi Jiangyuan’s every move. You’re right, that Executor just looks honest!]
“That’s it?” Lu Chuan looked slightly disappointed.
That couldn’t be right.
Xi Jiangyuan had walked right into the Mother of Fertility’s descent ritual, yet She hadn’t left even a wisp of power on him?
It made no sense!
