Chapter 577

【 I DEMAND AN AUDIENCE WITH HER MAJESTY THE GODDESS OF LIFE 】

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“Whose demigod is this? The players really did a number on him, huh…”

Evé showed a baffled expression as she observed the unfortunate demigod sprawled on the ground, being curiously prodded with branches and staves by players. The man who obviously looked frustrated and furious, could do nothing but struggle powerlessly.

All Einherjars like him naturally had their own Gods they anchored themselves in and judging from the state of this demigod, it was evident they were once a Einherjar transformed by divine power, but as to which deity they served, Evé couldn’t yet tell.

After the divine punishment from the Eternal Lord, the surrounding area was still saturated with remnants of Etriōu’s divine power and the unlucky demigod had obviously been crippled in the aftermath. Without unleashing more of her own powers, Evé found it difficult to discern his identity more from a distance.

Nonetheless, regardless of who they were, anyone investigating the Elven Forest at this time—especially this close to the World Tree’s divine ruins—and even going so far as to clash with the players, was most likely did not came here with good intentions.

At the very least, they harbored no goodwill.

If they had come with friendly intentions, they would have first identified themselves upon encountering the players. Even if they chose not to reveal their identity, they would have tried to avoid conflict.

In short, a fight shouldn’t have broken out at all.

Once the players realized the equipment on the fallen man couldn’t be removed, they all expressed disappointment.

“Why can’t we take off this guy’s gear? Is this some kind of bug?” one player asked, frowning as they poked the backside of the “legendary mob” with a branch.

Their actions were met with a furious glare from the downed demigod.

But instead of being intimidated, his livid expression only seemed to fuel their amusement, prompting them to poke him even more gleefully.

“What are you staring at, huh? Keep yourself down and don’t try anything funny, you punk!”

The player with the branch glared back and pressed down with more force.

Facing such humiliation, the “legendary mob” remained silent, yet his expression twisted with fury, and its body trembled from sheer rage.

Seeing him shaking with anger only made the players more delighted.

In Elven Kingdom, the NPCs were highly intelligent and teasing them was practically a favorite pastime among players. Moreover, most of them were fearless troublemakers by nature to begin with…

However, due to the favorability and reputation aspect of the game, friendly NPCs couldn’t be attacked or teased too much, therefore players often had to flatter and appease them to stay in their good graces.

But hostile NPCs were different.

Enemies like this so-called “legendary mob” who attempted to infiltrate the World Tree’s divine ruins were long since classified by players as hostiles and walking loot drop. Their only purpose was to provide experience and contribution points so there’s no need for courtesy for such individuals.

“Maybe this guys’ gear still bound because they’re not fully dead yet?” one player suggested as he lifted the crimson axe from the center of the crater.

The others’ eyes lit up.

“Oh that makes sense!”

“In that case… how about we just finish him off?”

The players discussed this potential course of action as casually as if they were planning to butcher a chicken.

After a brief exchange, they all agreed the most likely explanation was that the demigod wasn’t fully dead yet. If they were, the gear should’ve been lootable.

These conversations were not kept secret from the unfortunate demigod lying on the ground.

Evé even noticed a mixture of shock, confusion, rage, and shame flash across the man’s face upon hearing the players’ remarks.

He likely never imagined that the reason for their attack wasn’t because he had entered the Elven Forest but simply because they wanted to strip him of his gear!

And just as Evé had suspected, at that moment, Athos was truly stunned.

He realized these elves had mistaken him and Hercules for ordinary adventurers.

Initially, he had assumed the elves were attacking them so desperately because they thought they were trying to enter the World Tree’s divine ruins.

But now, after hearing their conversation, he found himself unable to keep up with these long-eared beings’ crazy way of thinking…

They weren’t defending the forest…

They weren’t even defending the World Tree’s divine realm…

No—It seemed like, they simply coveted his equipment!

To put it in their own words, they just wanted to loot him and Hercules.

These new generation of elves are just literal bandits!

Athos’s face displayed a complicated look as his worldview was utterly shaken.

He knew these new breed of elves were crazy, and their behavior bizarre, but he hadn’t expected this level of lunacy.

Just to obtain his gear, they had even committed blasphemy on the highest order and brought down divine punishment upon themselves!

Just what on earth were these mad elves were thinking?

As for the talk about killing him…

Even though these elves had ambushed him, he was still a demigod, after all. Hence, despite being severely wounded, these mere Silver-ranked individuals had no chance of actually killing him.

Athos still had some confidence left in himself.

Well… no

.

To be precise, he used to have that confidence.

These elves’ individual strength was indeed insufficient to kill him. The problem, however, was that these elves simply did not play by the rules.

If they dared to commit blasphemy once, they could do it all over again.

If they summoned another divine punishment—regardless of whether it came from the Eternal Lord or even a lesser deity with only faint divine power—Athos would surely end up like Hercules.

At that thought, Athos’s expression changed.

He forcibly suppressed the residual divine power of the Eternal Lord raging within his body, lifted his head with difficulty, coughing up silvery blood, and spoke hoarsely but angrily:

“Insolence! You vile blasphemers! I… cough, cough… I am a divine messenger of the Pantheon! I come bearing the decrees of the Pantheon! I demand an audience with Her Majesty, the Goddess of Life!”

He did not dare claim to be the emissary of the God of War and Destruction outright.

He might be shameless, but the God of War still had a reputation to uphold.

A demigod getting ambushed by a group of mere Silver-ranked mortals—especially by invoking divine punishment from another god—was already disgraceful enough. While the loophole in the divine punishment mechanism played a role in the current embarrassing situation, if word got out… it wouldn’t just damage Athos’s reputation; even the War God might become the laughingstock of the Pantheon.

After all, who would have imagined that a group of reckless and irreverent lunatics would actually dare to weaponize divine punishment to attack their enemies?

Divine punishment was meant to obliterate blasphemers, to utterly annihilate their souls. Yet to these mad elves, it seemed to have little effect…

Upon hearing Athos’s declaration, the players froze.

“…Pantheon?”

“Divine messenger?”

“What’s that?”

Athos: “…”

Once again, he was stunned by these elves.

They didn’t even know what the Pantheon was?!

Wasn’t that supposed to be the supreme and sacred institution known to all beings living in this universe?

Even if they hailed from the so-called another “demirealm” that earlier adventurer spoke of, wasn’t this basic knowledge that every living being should normally possess?

Unfortunately, the players truly didn’t know.

At least, the ones who had ambushed Athos certainly didn’t.

Terms like “Pantheon” and stories about the gods belonged to the mythological lore of the game—narratives of which only “story-focused” players would bother to know.

But Winterhold was the headquarters of the First Legion.

The players gathered there were all primarily combat-focused. Even in other games, they were the type to skip all story text, speed through quests, and immediately move on to the next objective.

If you asked them afterward what the quest was about, at best they’d remember the objective. As for the long winded story behind it?

Chances are, most of it were completely lost on them.

They might not even remember which NPC issued the quest, but they could probably tell you exactly where to find the item needed for it.

For this kind of player, Elven Kingdom’s unskippable story-based quests were quite torturous. But after playing long enough, they had simply gotten used to it.

So, while the surrounding players remained bewildered, Evé was struck by a sudden realization:

“The Pantheon? That guy was a divine messenger from the Pantheon?”

Her expression grew solemn.

So what was meant to come had finally arrived…

Evé had always known that with her own rise in power, the Pantheon would eventually come knocking at her doorsteps.

In this universe, the Pantheon was essentially the official organization of the Gods and its origins even dated back to the Genesis Era.

It had been founded by the first mythical beings when the oldest ancient gods came into existence. Located above the heavenly realm, it served as the divine council of the gods and possessed mysterious powers.

Therefore, every dominant figure of each era had also been the ruler of the Pantheon.

During the Genesis Era, it was the legendary being of supreme divine power and founder of the Pantheon, the King of the Gods, Neo.

Of course… he had long since vanished, becoming an eternal mystery and gradually fading from everyone’s memory over time.

In the subsequent Dragon Era and Titan Era, the rulers were the Ancestral Dragon Urinos and the Titan King Anos, respectively.

During the Twilight Era, amid the conflict between dragons and titans, the Pantheon was banished to an alternate dimension by Urinos. It wasn’t until the Silver Era that it was recovered by Yggdrasill, the previous World Tree.

In the Silver Era, her predecessor served as the Pantheon’s leading figure, although She largely refrained from actively governing the other gods.

Near the end of that era which was about a millennium ago, during the great holy war of the gods, old Yggdrasill also drew upon the Pantheon’s power to resist the gods. But the Pantheon was ultimately damaged in that divine conflict.

As such, the current Pantheon was reconstructed from the remnants of the original one after the beginning of the Eternal Era. It was no longer located in the Heavenly Realm, but anchored within the very foundation of the realm of Seigües, tasked with suppressing and repairing the world’s origin core.

The reconstruction was led by three primary figures among the gods of faith: the nominal ruler of the era, the Eternal Lord Etriōu, along with the God of War and Lord of Destruction, and the Guardian of the Stars, Rigdar.

In fact, these two were the main instigators of the holy war a thousand years ago. Only Rigdar, despite being a god of faith, had refrained from participating in that ancient conflict.

In a sense, the Pantheon functioned as the “official authority” for mythical beings in every era in which every lawful deity was expected to be registered within it.

Theoretically speaking, Evé was no exception to this rule.

Just like registering household residency, it wouldn’t be acceptable for a newly ascended true god like her to remain “off the books” indefinitely.

Moreover, Eve’s identity was particularly sensitive and shrouded in mystery. Thus, many divine entities were undoubtedly curious about her, and some surely harbored ill intent. There were likely even those who suspected she had ties to the previous World Tree.

The overwhelming display of power Evé showed when confronting Uller had, in truth, been a message to the rest of the pantheon. Having slain a true god was a notable achievement, enough that any hostile divine powers considering entering the Elven Forest would have to think twice before doing so.

The planetary pathways of the Seigües had not yet fully reopened. So currently at most, gods could send their incarnations, making Evé practically invincible, at least within the confines of her governing territories.

At the moment, no mythical being would be foolish enough to risk direct entry.

And sending lesser subordinates, such as demigods or divine envoys, would likely result in failure as well.

Therefore, a different approach might be more effective—by inviting Evé directly to the Pantheon, that is.

This would both formally register her as a new god and provide an opportunity to probe her nature and capabilities.

In fact, Evé noted, they had arrived even later than she had anticipated.

“The Pantheon, huh… Even though the current one is no longer what it used to be, it still retains some of its former divine authority, especially when it comes to verifying the divinities of mythical beings.”

If the previous World Tree had been revived, its divine throne would have been immediately illuminated upon entering the Pantheon.

However, Evé was more like the successor of the World Tree—a new World Tree born from the remnants of the old fallen one.

After advancing to an intermediate divine, consuming the divinity of Winter and the Hunt, and deepening her understanding of the laws of Nature and Life, Evé had also developed some contingencies in case of such occurrences.

“Perhaps… it is time for me to finally pay an official visit. Continuing to delay might make me appear evasive.”

At that moment, Evé also identified the demigod’s origin.

Although the unfortunate figure ambushed by players had claimed to be a divine messenger of the Pantheon, Evé, through the players’ discussions, learned that his companion was a legendary orc warrior.

Given that he was an orc and had declared himself a divine envoy, it was almost certain that he served Lóðurr, the God of War.

There was, however, one thing that deeply concerned Eve…

To avoid abuse of divine punishment mechanisms and avoid attracting the attention of other mythical beings, she had specifically configured the game system to prevent players from approaching any holy statues except that of Hodür.

So how had these players still obtained and activated the statue of the Eternal Lord?

After a thorough investigation, Evé immediately found the answer:

So it turned out, these players had exploited a loophole…

Her restriction on the usage of holy statues as ‘bombs’ was implemented through a system-level divine power check. However, after unlocking the Shattered Divine Kingdom dungeon, players had begun discovering large amounts of devilwood which was a corrupted material found in areas tainted by the power of the Abyss.

This devilwood had grown in the divine ruins for over a thousand years and had developed the ability to block a true god’s perception.

By coincidence, some players crafted gear pouches from devilwood vines and discovered, much to their surprise, that such items allowed them to approach previously restricted holy statues undetected…

And so, today’s situation had occurred due to this loophole.

Of course, the statue of the Eternal Lord hadn’t been stolen directly and were most likely had been purchased from a human black market somewhere.

Upon understanding what had happened, Evé was at a loss for words.

She had never expected the players to discover such a convoluted ‘bug’ like this.

Only they could have pulled off something like this.

Still, it was manageable.

She would add a system mechanism specifically designed to detect and counteract divine power isolation, and increase surveillance sensitivity.

From now on, any divine obstruction detected would immediately trigger a system-level investigation.

The matter could be handed off to the Fairy King Feynir for regular enforcement.

Evé quickly made up her mind.

Divine punishment was a sensitive subject. It would be best to restrict player access to such powers, only reserving them for use against truly hostile gods.

For now, she was interested in meeting this demigod in person and hearing what he had to say…

With that thought, she immediately contacted the only three part-time priest players among those present and spoke directly into their minds:

“Bring him to the temple in Winterhold.”

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