Chapter 68
Lu Chuan was never the type to shoot the hawk before seeing the rabbit.
Not that he was stingy—he just believed in spending where needed and saving where he could. But when it came to ordinary investments or startups, don’t even bother mentioning them in front of him.
If Lu Chuan had the idea himself, he would find a way to make it happen without anyone’s prompting. But if he didn’t, no amount of persuasion, no matter how grand, could sway him.
That kind of personality showed most clearly when it came to spending money.
Even though he had made a fortune in this dungeon by selling indulgences and monopolizing the printing industry, he was still fairly restrained with his expenses—except when it came to heavily funding his Paladin regiment.
That was where he really poured in money.
He used the dungeon world’s currency to buy all sorts of costly gear.
On average, raising a knight cost more than raising a bishop in a church.
With so much money sunk in, it was bound to pay off.
And it did—his Paladin regiment was obedient and reliable.
Just like now.
Lu Chuan leisurely opened the window, even handing Messiah a telescope with great courtesy.
“Take a look. It’s quite interesting.”
About four enemies had come to besiege them. One looked fairly human, just with reddish eyes. The other three were much cruder—their gazes were clouded, and even holding human shape seemed a struggle.
But everywhere those four passed turned into scorched wasteland.
“They’ve been modified by the [God of Desire]. One’s a complete transformation, the others are mass-produced versions.” Messiah could read his pursuer’s tricks at a glance and identified their nature instantly.
“When I ran dungeons before, He often created such things to help me clear them.” Messiah continued. “Thanks to Him, with their help, every dungeon I entered got me an S-rank evaluation. NPCs would see me and just hand over clues without effort, begging me to leave quickly.”
His spot as #2 on the newcomer leaderboard was undeserved, really.
“Pfft, what a waste.” Lu Chuan remarked casually. “If that bastard god hadn’t dragged you down like that, your mission ratings would’ve been even higher.”
Messiah was meticulous, and to wrestle with a god so long without losing ground—he was undeniably top talent.
Besides, gods weren’t garbage collectors. They wouldn’t cling to some random human for a divine marriage unless they had no other way. Clearly, when He couldn’t deceive Messiah, He resorted to such underhanded tactics.
Messiah chuckled happily.
Being acknowledged by someone like Lu Chuan felt far better than a thousand hollow praises from mediocrities.
Meanwhile, Lu Chuan’s Paladin regiment lived up to expectations.
The regiment’s captain was someone Lu Chuan had gone to great lengths to recruit from another church.
He had rescued him from prison, tracked down and secured his family’s safety, paid for his parents’ medical treatment—showering him with so much kindness that the man had no choice but to “pledge himself” in return.
The captain split the Paladins into several squads, encircling the intruders.
No matter how the enemies boasted of being “God’s Envoys” come to “welcome Mother,” the captain didn’t bat an eye.
These days, gods were the least scarce thing around.
He commanded the Paladins into a full-on human-wave assault.
The Church of Light had given them armor to block attacks.
The Church of Forge had given them heavy swords to break defenses.
And their great Omniscience God had granted them agility and speed.
They moved swiftly, coordinated seamlessly, showcasing the beauty of cold-weapon tactics.
Each time one group took hits, another immediately rotated in.
When the enemy braced against the front, they struck from behind.
In war, who cared about face?
As the saying goes: many ants can bite an elephant to death.
Individually, none of these Paladins could match the so-called “God’s Envoys.” But together, the Envoys were no match at all.
Barely had they pushed back the first wave when the second and third descended, giving them no time to breathe.
What was worse, the Paladins also cast spells.
In batches, they chanted prayers in unison, begging the Omniscience God for strength to annihilate the heretics.
Every Paladin was a devout believer.
Their united prayers drew an answer.
Countless beams of divine light filled the skies, turning night into day.
Messiah was dumbstruck.
Did that so-called Omniscience God realize He’d been unknowingly reduced to Lu Chuan’s thug?
The Paladins, at least, didn’t know. They believed they were purging heresy for their god.
Under their relentless swarm, the “God’s Envoys” were quickly torn apart and pulverized into dust.
“Report, Bishop—the enemy has been wiped out.” The captain rode up on horseback to report at the window.
“Good. I still have a guest—keep the guard up.” Lu Chuan waved him off, dismissing them.
The captain nodded and quickly withdrew.
“They obey you so completely?” Messiah was surprised. “Other players have tried to bend dungeon NPCs to their will, but few succeeded. And none to the scale you’ve achieved.”
After all, a dungeon wasn’t limited to one NPC. If you could sway several, they’d be invaluable for intelligence or combat. Many players had tried. Very few had succeeded.
But Lu Chuan seemed to have pulled it off brilliantly.
“Bend them?” Lu Chuan chuckled. “You’ve misunderstood. I never bent any NPCs. I simply hired them and gave them a job. As long as I have no money, or they don’t want to work, they’re free to leave. They stay for one simple reason—I pay them better than anyone else.”
Messiah’s eyes widened slightly.
Lu Chuan met his gaze calmly.
“I see.” Messiah thought for a moment, quickly grasping the essence of Lu Chuan’s approach. “No wonder you’ve risen so quickly.”
Because dungeons in the Evil World were too much like reality.
Most players, in their minds, divided these dungeon beings as NPCs—different from themselves. Only by doing that could they accept their deaths or exploitation without guilt.
Humans were sentimental. No matter how cold or indifferent they claimed to be, very few could truly kill or use others without hesitation.
And hesitation, in a dungeon, was often a death sentence.
So they comforted themselves: NPCs weren’t real, just puppets of the dungeon. That way, their conscience was spared.
But Lu Chuan genuinely treated every “NPC” as a person.
“It’s just that, the longer you treat them as equals, the harder it will be for you.” Messiah warned. “When the game first began, many couldn’t cross that mental hurdle. They treated NPCs as equals—and their fates were rarely good.”
That was why later, guilds even trained newcomers with the mantra:
The people in dungeons are not the same as us.
“As long as they can make me money, whether they’re people or pigs, it makes no difference.” Lu Chuan declared firmly.
Messiah was speechless.
In a sense, Lu Chuan really was capable of treating everyone equally.
The first wave of attacks from the God of Desire was repelled.
But they couldn’t afford to relax—instead, they needed to press the advantage.
Cynthia, Lilus, and the others quickly finished off their enemies and regrouped with Lu Chuan’s team.
“Let’s count. Altogether, we’ve only taken out fewer than 15 players, but they had 21 in total. That means 6 are still missing.”
Everyone did the math and realized the numbers still didn’t add up.
“The first batch of defective ones was defeated, so the rest are probably elites,” Lu Chuan said after a moment of thought. “My Paladin Order once spent ages grinding down a humanoid player with unusually strong rationality before finally defeating him. If we compare by player levels, that guy was at least A+.”
“The God of Desire can only manipulate players from the Pro-God faction,” Cynthia added. “He can’t directly alter our will, or else the system would notice and the game’s fairness would be broken. But since Pro-God faction players are meant to aid his resurrection, his ‘modifications’ count as bending the rules without breaking them. If I were him, after one failure, I’d only be brewing a much bigger plan.”
“Messiah, what do you think?”
After a round of noisy debate, everyone turned their eyes toward Messiah.
After all, he was the one most deeply entangled with the God of Desire.
“Since I arrived here, I’ve hardly heard his voice,” Messiah shook his head. “Either you’ve threatened him too much, or maybe it’s because this place belongs to the God of Omniscience, so he doesn’t dare intrude. But based on what I know of him, right now he’s probably plotting against you all.”
This dungeon world, after all, didn’t only have two gods.
“I went to see the Pope of the Church of Light earlier and told him the God of Light was on the brink of death. I asked him to gather all the bishops to start calling on their god,” Cynthia recalled. “If the God of Desire has only just devoured the God of Light and hasn’t fully digested him, then he must now be struggling to resist those prayers. As long as faith survives, it’s hard for a god to truly die.”
“If I were the God of Desire, the next step would be to ignite a war and drag all the gods into it so I could fish in troubled waters,” Lu Chuan said with a sly smile. “Instead of waiting for that, why don’t we strike first? What do you think?”
Everyone stared at him, waiting for his next words.
“Messiah, you still have some of the God of Desire’s power, don’t you?” Lu Chuan looked at him expectantly. “I’ll send a squad of Paladins with you to smash the idols of every other church, then leave traces of that divine power to spark a war. That should work, right?”
“Shasha, it’s time to unleash your ability. Let’s turn this dungeon world upside down.”
Silence fell.
Cynthia broke it first.
“Lu Chuan.”
“Hm?”
“You really don’t want to consider joining our Resurrection Guild?”
“…Sorry, but I’m going to be the guildmaster of Star Guild.”
With Lu Chuan at the helm, the players were nothing less than professional instigators in this dungeon world.
They might not excel at much else, but fanning flames of chaos—they were masters at it.
Especially after Shasha of Star Guild unlocked her [Lucky Demon] ability, the whole dungeon world began spinning wildly down bizarre paths.
First, followers of the God of Desire shouted slogans claiming he was the one true god, smashing every other church’s idols. Then pamphlets and posters flooded the streets, preaching in every corner. Soon after, outlandish legends about the God of Desire appeared everywhere—cribbed from Greek mythology and dripping with messy family drama—leaving the public dumbfounded.
In just a short time, the God of Desire became a public enemy, and disputes among churches flared endlessly.
What’s more, under a streak of “unlucky coincidences,” every force trying to stop the chaos met with bizarre setbacks, while the unrest only drove the dungeon world further into unpredictable territory.
And yet, amid all this turmoil, Lu Chuan’s wealth only grew!
What was the most profitable business in times like these?
War and disaster.
As the hidden mastermind behind the Church of Omniscience, with a band of players backing him up, Lu Chuan raked in money with shameless ferocity.
One day he’d help a church sell indulgences to raise funds, the next he’d help its enemy buy weapons. No matter how the churches fought, one thing was certain: Lu Chuan was making bank.
A true profiteer.
Next, Lu Chuan turned to logistics.
Because with churches locked in frenzied wars, the ones suffering most were the ordinary people.
So what did he do?
He didn’t act under the banner of the God of Omniscience—why give that god free faith? He wasn’t stupid.
No, the best tool now was the Golden Tower!
The Golden Tower was complete, and Lu Chuan gave Cynthia and the others positions within it.
Since it was considered his personal domain, not even gods could enter without his permission—unless they sent their true bodies to forcibly break in.
Thus, the homeless and those hunted by gods could find refuge inside.
Even better, if you carried a Golden Tower membership card, you’d receive privileges everywhere—churches at war would often give you face and let you pass.
In this way, the Golden Tower became a kind of paradise apart from the chaos.
And since it was also the supplier of weapons and indulgences to the churches, none of them dared to antagonize its patrons.
This so-called “Neutral City” suddenly rose to prominence.
Countless civilians longed to flee there for safety and to trade in peace.
But for the gods, this was tantamount to stealing food from their mouths.
They were fighting to the death over faith—only for this mysterious Golden Tower to show up and siphon off believers?
Clearly, something was wrong with it!
Messiah kept a constant eye on the divine card.
Yet the God of Desire seemed to have vanished, leaving no response at all.
Messiah even wondered if this strange peace was all just a dream.
How could he have so easily escaped divine entanglements?
Impossible.
He steadied himself, knowing he had to uncover some clue, or else risk being ambushed later.
Meanwhile, Shen Li seemed to be suffering from lack of sleep these days.
“Uncle Shen, you don’t look well at all,” Lilus remarked. These days he was busy running around with Cynthia, living full and cheerful. Seeing Shen Li with dark circles under his eyes, he couldn’t help but show concern.
Shen Li rubbed his temples. “Lilus, do you have any healing items or diagnostic tools? Check if some power is corroding me. Lately, I haven’t been able to sleep—I feel like I’m having nightmares, but I can’t remember them.”
Anything abnormal was no small matter.
He had already exhausted his own healing tools with no effect, and diagnostic items revealed nothing either.
Something was off.
“I’ll try.” Realizing the seriousness of his words, Lilus quickly began testing him.
“…Completely fine. Just sleep deprivation. Uncle Shen, maybe you’re too stressed, that’s why you can’t rest.” After repeated tests, he found nothing unusual.
“Could be. Too many divine envoys have been sniffing around lately,” Shen Li sighed.
With his Creation ability, he was a walking miracle of logistics.
Many of the “rare” resources the Golden Tower sold—steel, guns, ammunition—were produced by him.
This made his workload heavier than everyone else’s combined. But it was also indispensable.
Without Shen Li, the Golden Tower couldn’t have risen so fast.
“You really should rest. Even if Lu Chuan will be your Guildmaster one day, that’s for the future. For now, he should give you a break.” Lilus looked at Shen Li’s dark circles in alarm.
“You’re right, I do need to rest,” Shen Li admitted. He couldn’t keep this up—it would kill him.
But to die serving Lu Chuan instead of fighting gods? What a pathetic way to go.
“I’ll go tell him,” Shen Li nodded. “I’ll make it clear.”
“Go ahead,” Lilus said, moving aside, curious to watch the drama unfold.
Lu Chuan really treated them like tools, working them to exhaustion.
It was about time he was made to squirm a little.
At that moment, Lu Chuan was talking to #888.
“System, this isn’t right. I’ve stirred up so much chaos, yet the gods haven’t come after me. They must be plotting something big.” Lu Chuan was nothing if not self-aware—he knew how badly he’d blackened their names recently. For them not to retaliate was impossible.
[Host, maybe they’re just too busy right now to deal with you.] #888 was nervous too, but as a God of Wealth System, far above those divinely shackled by Main Systems, it could never admit weakness in front of its host.
“It doesn’t look like it. This game system also doesn’t seem so kindhearted. It’s definitely hiding something big—it’s just a matter of where it’ll strike.” Lu Chuan didn’t trust the character of either the gods or the Main God Systems.
After all, he wasn’t a good person himself. Judging others by himself, he didn’t believe his opponents could be any better.
[Host, our current conditions aren’t mature enough. Even if we want to guard against risks, it’s not very realistic right now.]
“Anyway, System, get the sanity points I earned in the last dungeon ready for me,” Lu Chuan said after a moment of silence. “There might be a fight any time now.”
[Pah, pah, pah, don’t jinx it! There won’t be a problem, Host.] #888 thought its host was great in every way—except he spoke far too carelessly.
Words from a god carried weight, and so did words from a god candidate!
Just then, Shen Li pushed the door open and saw Lu Chuan still polishing the gun the Vice-guildmaster had given him.
“You actually treasure something from the Vice-guildmaster that much?” Shen Li was a little moved.
“Of course. It’s so valuable I need to keep it in my hands at all times to feel at ease,” Lu Chuan admitted with a nod. “It’s my only means of self-defense.”
Shen Li was speechless and only felt his headache worsen.
“I came today mainly to ask for some time off. Recently, I’ve been feeling a bit…” Shen Li pressed his head, sensing something was off.
He stepped back a couple of paces, intending to leave Lu Chuan’s office.
Lu Chuan also sensed something wrong. “Brother Shen, you don’t look quite right.”
[Detected: Player [Walks Alone for Ten Thousand Miles] is under a sanity attack.]
[Player [Walks Alone for Ten Thousand Miles]—sanity rapidly dropping.]
[Warning: Player [Walks Alone for Ten Thousand Miles] shows abnormal reaction. Divine Challenger status activated.]
[Player [Walks Alone for Ten Thousand Miles]—divine body evolution successful.]
The system’s voice rang in Shen Li’s mind.
Shen Li froze. When he first entered this dungeon, hadn’t the system warned him about something?
What was it again?
As a Divine Challenger.
Also as a divine representative.
The aura around Shen Li shifted once again, his whole being seeming a bit more sacred.
Lu Chuan instinctively raised his handgun.
“#888, hurry up and buff me! Use all the sanity points from the last dungeon!”
[On it, on it!] #888 panicked and scrambled into action.
[Player [Arrival of the God of Wealth]—sanity points increased to 83.]
Author’s Note:
Shen Li is the main protagonist of the Divine Challenge dungeon, so he’s bound to face the most trouble~
Cynthia had also considered this issue before, hhhh.
Next chapter, a temporarily more rational “Lu Chuan” will appear.
