Chapter 500

【 DEMACIA’SOUTRAGEOUS STRATEGY 】

Desecrating a true god’s sanctified statue provokes divine wrath, triggering an explosion of the faith power contained within it, obliterating everything nearby…

After an entire party was wiped out because of this, it became a new taboo amongst the players.

Evé thought that was the end of it.

But just as she assumed no one else would be foolish enough to dare incurring the wrath of Uller, she sensed multiple consecutive divine punishments occurring within the Desert of Death.

Evé was momentarily stunned.

“…Again?”

When she turned to looked and saw who had caused the divine punishment, the corners of her mouth could not help but twitched involuntarily.

A head of messy afro raid hair, paired with a smug, mischievous grin.

Of course…

How could she forget about the number one undisputed daredevil of Elven Kingdom, the bottomless pit of negative favorability, the founder of the Amway Pyramid Scheme Corp, and the pioneer of evangelism cult tactics…

Of course, it had to be this punk, Demacia.

After piecing together the final memories of this unlucky rascal, Evé saw him stark naked, gleefully urinating on Uller’s sanctified statue.

Naturally, the next moment, a successive bolts of lightning struck him down, sending his consciousness back to the World Tree.

Eve: “…”

“…Why is it always him?”

She felt another headache coming on, much worse than the last time.

Sure, desecrating the statues of gods wasn’t totally unheard of, and albeit rare, there had been a few instances of it throughout history. Hence, the other gods wouldn’t necessarily hold Evé accountable for what the players did to their statues, though Uller’s hostility toward her would certainly only grow deeper as a result.

However, if this continued, the cost of reviving Demacia would skyrocket, as she wouldn’t be able to reclaim the life energy in hus avatar whenever he perished under divine judgment.

“Why did this punk anger Uller, anyway?”

Before long, Evé learned the reason because the rascal himself had made a post about it on the forums.

As always, the title was simple and crude, typical of his usual style of writing.

“Demacia Teaches You How to Properly Desecrate a Statue.”

The content read as follows—

“Hey everyone! It’s Demacia here. Heh heh heh, today I’ve got another neat little trick to share with you all.”

“I’m sure you’ve all heard about how the Black Cat Guild’s raid group got wiped out a few days ago. Yep, they ignored Little Salty Cat’s guide and directly desecrated a god’s sanctified statue, resulting in a total wipeout. That incident made everyone realize that in ElvKing, desecrating a god’s sanctified statue is a big no-no…”

“But after learning about it, I started getting some new ideas, you see.”

“Actually, this idea has been brewing in my mind for a while already, ever since the Maple Leaf City quest.”

“You all remember it, right? Back in Maple Leaf City, we wanted to attract the Eternal Lord’s attention. So, me and my pals disguised ourselves as cultists and snuck into the Cathedral of the Eternal Lord. We dumped a bucket of filth on Etriōu’s holy statue, which triggered the divine punishment. The entire temple was obliterated, and we even managed to drag the lurking Despair Dragon into the mess, sparking a battle between gods…”

“That time, I really took note of how powerful divine punishment was. Let me tell you guys, divine punishment truly lives up to its name! Here’s the stream recording of my adventure—just look at the devastation. It was like dropping a tactical nuke!”

“See that destruction? Absolutely insane… The entire temple was reduced to ashes.”

“Ever since then, I’ve been interested in desecrating these statues. Unfortunately, there weren’t any chances to try it again. I also didn’t dare desecrate the Goddess’s statue, so I just put the idea on hold.”

“Until a few days ago, that is!”

“After Black Cat Guild’s raid group got wiped out, I got inspired again and decided to give it a few tries myself.”

“And just like them, I triggered divine punishment. Guys lemme tell ya, it nearly wiped out the entire oasis I was in…”

“Here, take a look—this is a screenshot I took after I returned to the site after dying. The scene was catastrophic. The surroundings was disintegrated so thoroughly that not even dust remained.”

“After several attempts, I discovered that the statues enshrined in different tribes will have varying strengths. It seems to be related to the size of the tribe… Though my guess is that it’s actually tied to the amount of faith power contained within the statue.”

“Here’s a few screenshots comparing the divine punishment power based on the statue I stole from the smallest to the largest tribe—”

“I have to say, the destructive power of divine punishment in this game is ridiculously overpowered.”

“Although Uller’s divine punishment works differently from the Eternal Lord’s. With the latter directly from the heavens, while the former detonates the faith stored inside his statue, triggering a massive explosion—but either way, it’s still terrifying.”

“And most notably, as the size of the tribe increases, so does the power of the divine punishment.”

“In a large tribe, I doubt even Meryer could withstand it. Maybe not even Big Sister can’t stand it too but regardless.”

“At this point, those familiar with my tactics probably already know what I am getting at, right?”

“Divine punishment? No… this is basically an indiscriminate AOE nuke attack! And an absurdly destructive one at that too guys…”

“If that is the case, then we can completely turn this divine punishment mechanic into our advantage!”

“Those who have entered the Desert should already know that the orcs there live in tribes, which generally can be classified into small, medium, and large settlements.”

“Small tribes barely have over a thousand population, and a large guild can take them down with a raid ambush. Medium tribes on the other hand typically have several thousand Orcs, requiring multiple guilds working together to defeat. As for large tribes with over ten thousand Orcs, I imagine we would need the entire playerbase to unite in order to wipe them out. Otherwise, our only option is to harass them bit by bit from the outskirts.”

“But now, with these divine punishment in play, I had a sudden realization and came up with a new strategy!”

“Divine punishment hits everything in its path, no exceptions. And the bigger the tribe, the more faith power stored in their enshrined statue—meaning the punishment hits even harder. So… if we sneak into these powerful tribes, steal their statues, and trigger divine punishment later on, we can basically have portable nukes for ourselves and wipe these large tribes out of existence with them!”

“Better yet, we should lure the orc leaders there as well and have everyone go out with a bang! As long as we eliminate their high-ranking elites—those at the upper silver and even golden-rankers—then no matter how many orcs remain, we can grind the survivors down over time!”

“A small sacrifice in exchange for huge gains, so to speak… hehehe, does this not sound like an epic-new strategy?”

“Of course, NPCs killed by divine punishment will not grant us any experience, but those medium and large tribes are incredibly wealthy. Even if we miss out on some EXP, looting their resources and eliminating the remaining orcs will be an absolute goldmine!”

“Moreover, if a high-ranking orc warrior survives the divine punishment but is left gravely injured, we might even get the chance to finish them off and reap the bonus rewards!”

“Heh, I am calling this new tactic the ‘Divine Punishment Meta!’”

“That being said, before you all rush to try it out this strategy, make sure to strip completely butt naked beforehand. Otherwise, it cannot be called the Divine Punishment Meta… but the Zenloss Meta instead.”

And with that, the post finally came to an end.

The comment section immediately exploded with activity, with two particularly familiar players receiving the most upvotes…

Li Mu: This is brilliant…

Optimist: “Holy crap! Why did I never think of this? Demacia, you always come up with the wildest ideas.”

EveIsMyWife: Hahahahaha! Is this an upgraded version of the Sacrificial Strategy? Desecrating a statue to trigger divine punishment and wipe out the orcs… hahahaha!

StudyHardEveryDay: Uller is gonna be so miserable… you are just exploiting his divine punishment at this point to harm his own minions.

The comment section was filled with excitement, along with a palpable eagerness to try out the strategy.

She tried opening her mouth, only to be left speechless.

Evé realized, once again, that she had severely underestimated the players propensity for doing asinine things.

Not only had she underestimated their recklessness, but also their creativity when it came to finding exploits in the game.

Looking at the players’ list of “forbidden taboos” that had become common knowledge, it should have been obvious that someone would still find a way to work around and even exploit them.

For instance, the “Do not joke about the Goddess in front of native elves.” This taboo was made because it would lower the NPCs’ favorability.

But some players deliberately spread rumors about people they disliked, telling the gullible natives that those individuals were bad-mouthing the goddess. This led to a flood of system messages like:

“NPC XXX’s favorability toward you has decreased by X amount.”

Leaving the clueless individual utterly confused.

Or the “Do not ask Crypt Spiders to mine for you” taboo. This was because these spiders had an insatiable appetite for two specific minerals—mithril and mana stones.

Yet, after the introduction of magic firearms, the demand for these resources surged, causing their prices to skyrocket. As major guilds fiercely competed for the mining rights, some players resorted to underhanded tactics. They began sneaking Crypt Spider hatchlings—or even fully grown ones—into their rivals’ tunnels when no one was looking. The spiders would then devour the precious deposits inside, decimating the competition’s supply.

Before long, what had started as an occasional dirty trick had became a completely normal strategy in the ongoing war for these natural resources.

Even the “Do not call Meryer a black dragon” taboo was not spared from being exploited.

Since Meryer absolutely despised being called that, some players decided to take the opposite approach. Instead of angering him, they drowned him in excessive flattery—praising his wisdom, kindness, and nobility. They even went as far as to compare him to the most righteous and just silver dragons in the world, claiming he was a paragon of draconic virtue.

Meryer—whose intelligence was already questionable at best—was so thoroughly fooled that he started showering them with rewards. Personal quests, precious dragon scales and saliva—he handed them out freely, all in exchange for their relentless praise.

Of course, in the end, Little Salty Cat couldn’t take it anymore and subtly reminded Meryer of the truth, snapping the gullible dragon out of his delusion.

Time and again, the players had proven that even the most well established taboos could be exploited and be used to get ahead of the game.

And this time was no different.

Following Demacia’s post, instead of fewer incidents of statue desecration, there were more and more of it now happening instead.

This, in turn, significantly drove up the cost of their resurrections. However, despite the mounting expenses, the amount of life force Eve received in return also surged, which somewhat mitigated the overall loss she’s incurring.

After all, as Demacia had pointed out, the players weren’t simply throwing their lives away for nothing. They had practically turned Uller’s divine punishment into a strategic weapon, using it as a makeshift nuke to wipe out the orc tribes.

Faced with such ridiculous outcome, Evé did not know whether to laugh or cry.

The players were having a blast, and Evé herself was feasting upon the steady flow of life force from the countless orcs that perished in the chaos.

But as for Uller, the unfortunate god being ruthlessly exploited?

Well, chances were, he was probably teetering on the edge of a full-blown mental breakdown right about now, after having his own power of faith turned against him.

TL/N : Chapter 500! Can’t believe we’re already halfway through, so to commemorate it, I thought of drawing something…Initially I wanna draw a group photo of everyone just like how its typically done on mangas when it reach a certain milestone but then I just can’t get some inspiration so in the end I just had to settle to drawing Demacia instead…

Butt naked…

God, why did I draw this smh…

— 500 —

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