【 BLOODBORNE DIVINITY 】
—
With the affairs of Maple Moon State fully resolved, [Sophia’s Request] Questline was formally concluded.
Being satisfied at the outcome, Evé at last found the leisure to examine the rewards she had gained throughout the endeavor.
Seated upon her divine throne, she sampled the exquisite delicacies offered by the elemental fairies while simultaneously summoning the most remarkable item she had obtained.
Streams of light converged, and within Evé’s hand appeared a slowly rotating, translucent crimson crystal.
It shimmered with a soft radiance and emitted an unmistakable aura of mystery.
This crystal was the divinity she had acquired from Borderlord Otto.
Evé observed its steady rhythm of light, which brightened and dimmed like a pulse, then gently closed her eyes and immersed her consciousness within it, sending a trace of her soul into the crystal.
As her consciousness entered the crystal, Evé felt as though she had stepped into a world of blood. Vast torrents of information instantly surged into her mind, flooding it with knowledge as boundless as an ocean, more than enough to overwhelm or shatter the mind of any mortal unprepared for such knowledge.
Of course, for Evé, whose level of existence had long since transcended such mortal limits, all the overwhelming knowledge she received was nothing more than a light drizzle.
Moments later, she reopened her eyes, a trace of surprise crossing her expression.
“The vampire—No, the racial divinity of the Bloodborne, and… the legacy of their race?”
This crystal turned out to be a rare racial divinity!
The information that flooded Evé’s mind was the inheritance of the Bloodborne. It included their art, culture, history, magic, and more, covering every aspect of their race.
Nonetheless, despite its rarity, all of this had little value to her.
At most, they contained a few spells that could be cast without Bloodborne blood, along with various other miscellaneous knowledge, such as methods for creating thrall familiars and forming contracts using blood as a medium—techniques she could use to entertain the players.
Speaking of which, perhaps she could incorporate this into the game and introduce a new playable race for the players to experiment with?
The thought crossed Evé’s mind for a brief moment.
However, she quickly dismissed it.
Strictly, any race chosen as a vessel for the players’ avatars had to meet one condition: she had to be able to easily produce the bodies of that species in a way that allowed for mass production.
Only then could she sustain the heavy losses she’ll end up incurring by those players who delighted in reckless behavior.
Moreover, certain traits of the Bloodborne conflicted with the laws governed by the World Tree. Their biology and abilities were far less practical than those of elves, and even fell short compared to elemental fairies in terms of adaptability and usefulness.
As such, the idea was fundamentally unfeasible.
Yet this line of thinking gave her another thought.
Perhaps she could extract certain laws from the crystal and integrate them into her own elven divinity, making it possible for her to create a subspecies within the elven race.
By doing so, she could provide the players with a new option during character creation or class advancement.
“Hmmm… how about a new sub-race?” she mused, tilting her head slightly as a faint smile played on her lips.
“Let’s see… Blood Elves?”
She let the idea linger in her mind, savoring the thought with a subtle glimmer of mischief.
Of course, she was not thinking of the Blood Elves from a certain game back on Earth. No, what she envisioned was an entirely new branch of elves, one that could emulate certain vampire traits. This new subspecies would possess significant enhancements in regards to blood magic, blood contracts, bodily regeneration, and other related abilities.
“This could actually work,” she murmured to herself. “Traditional elves have their limits when it comes to physical growth. Even when I deliberately altered the players’ avatars to elevate their inherent talents to genius levels, my enhancements still fall short. It’s just like humans back on Earth—they can train tirelessly, but they will never match the speed of a cheetah, no matter what.”
Her eyes flickered with thought as she considered the broader implications.
“Advancing in rank can certainly increase a player’s strength, but there are alternative paths. Even within the same rank, the gap in strength between different races can be astonishing. Perhaps there’s a way to enhance their bloodlines, to let them grow stronger organically, without relying solely on rank progression.”
“Perhaps I can add something interesting to the players’ bloodlines, allowing them to grow stronger even without advancing in rank.”
“And it doesn’t have to be limited to the Bloodborne lineage alone,” she continued, her mind weaving through possibilities.
“I also have some fragments of dragon and titan bloodline within my grasp. That means, in theory, I could create dragon-blooded elves, titan-blooded elves… perhaps even entirely new forms that blend traits of multiple bloodlines.”
The Heavenly Crusade against the Demons would begin in half a year and based from the information she possessed, Evé knew that the main force of the demons was also at the Silver-rank.
With the players’ current strength, they could already be considered formidable within the same rank. However, if they encountered demons with exceptional bloodlines, the battles would likely become quite difficult.
Of course, Evé could also simply increase the overall strength of the players by loosening their level caps.
Yet the cost-effectiveness of doing so was not high, since for every rank a player advanced, the cost for Evé to resurrect them would also increase exponentially.
For a small number of players, this was manageable. However, once it was implemented on a much larger scale, her divine power expenditure would truly flow uncontrollably, like water spilling over a dam.
As the god who governs over the laws of life, she had more options for tackling the problem in relation to the bloodlines, and perhaps even discovering an alternative method that could bypass the usual limitations…
But, of course, the prerequisite was that she could imprint these bloodline traits into the playersʼ avatars to produce such specialized bloodline elves.
“It is worth trying. In any case, it will not cause any harm whatsoever.”
Gazing at the blood-red crystal in her hand, Evé’s lips curved into a smile.
She could almost imagine a scenario wherein the demons would clash against the players, only for the latter to suddenly roar, sprout dragon scales and bat-like wings, or abruptly transform into hulking titans.
For sure, those demons would be gobsmacked, utterly unprepared for such a sight. Since all of a sudden, they would be facing dragon- and titan-blooded elves
That beautiful and captivating smile caused the elemental fairy attending her to pause briefly in a daze, before hastily lowering her head respectfully and refilling Eve’s cup with a new batch of elven flower tea.
With this idea in mind, Evé extracted some of the bloodline traits of the Bloodborne from the crystal, before setting them aside for future experimentation.
After that, she turned her gaze once more to the crimson racial divinity crystal and fell into deep contemplation.
In actuality, borrowing a portion of the Bloodborne’s bloodline traits did not require this divinity at all.
For her, this divinity was little more than a burden with limited value and held no strong appeal.
Since for a racial divinity, what truly mattered was the sheer number of individuals belonging to that race. As for Bloodbornes, even if one scoured the entire universe, their total population would likely not exceed that of the orcs.
As such, Evé had limited options for dealing with this divinity.
She could either seek out a Bloodborne believer and elevate them into a God, thereby granting her a Bloodborne subordinate deity.
Alternatively, she could approach the God of Dwarves and enlist his skill in forging it into a divine artifact. Or perhaps she could also negotiate with another god who had an actual use for it, offering the divinity in exchange for something far more valuable or strategically advantageous to her own plans.
After brief consideration, Evé decided to first analyze the corresponding law-based powers contained within the crystal, and only then determine how to proceed.
She closed her eyes and extended her consciousness into it once more, letting her divine awareness probe every corner of the crimson crystal.
The blood-red gem in her hand emitted a faint, pulsating glow, and moments later, Evé reopened her eyes.
This time, a trace of surprise flickered across her face.
“…The Law of Death?”
Indeed, there was a significant concentration of laws relating to death embedded within the crystal.
Evé was a little confused at first, but she quickly realized the reason why the crystal contained these laws to begin with.
Bloodbornes were a unique species, existing in a state that was neither fully living nor entirely dead. Therefore, it was entirely natural for their racial divinity to contain some of the Laws of Death, as they were necessary for their race to function.
Aside from the Law of Death, the remaining subsidiary laws included blood, charm, fear, slaughter, and other such powers.
Of course, none of these were complete laws capable of forming a distinct divinity as they were merely fragments of the greater laws from which they were drawn from.
Even so, among them, the Laws of Death was by far the most prevalent.
“The Law of Death…”
Eve’s thoughts stirred, and she had already decided how to deal with this divinity.
“It seems I have not contacted Lady Hela in quite some time. I wonder if she would be interested in this…” she muttered, her fingers lightly tapping the armrest of her divine throne.
With that thought, Evé raised her hand gracefully and summoned the Casket of the Dead, which the artifact she used to contact the Goddess of Death.
Then, using her divine power, she carefully recorded an image projection of the Bloodborne divinity and placed it inside the casket.
Releasing her hand, she sent the “mail” on its way.
Once that task was completed, Evé turned her attention to her current status panel, bringing it up before her eyes.
Name: Evé Yggdrasill
Race: World Tree (Ancient God)
Level: 150 (Mythical-rank)
Rank: Intermediate Divine Power
Divinity: Nature, Life, Elvenkind
Titles: Goddess of Life, Mother of Nature, Sovereign of the Elves
Divine Power: 29,232 / 30,000
Number of Believers: 3.65 million
(Saints: 1, Fanatics: 4,867, Devout Believers: 434,000, Shallow Believers: 3.21 million)
Types of Believers
Queen of Crypt Spiders (1), Dragons (233), Oak Guardians (105), Elemental Fairies (10,000), Elves (36,600), Half-Elves (122,100), Elf–Human Hybrids (2.895 million), Humans (555,000), Half-Orcs (17,000), Dwarves (456), Dark Dwarves (1,453), Goblins (143), …
Abilities: Absorption, Communication, Bestowal, Enlightenment, Healing, Summoning, Divine Descent, Celestial Domain, Weather Manipulation, Tracking, …
Divine Artifacts: Scepter of Life, Crown of Nature, Withering Heart, Gate of Reversal, Sword of Damocles
…
Number of Players: 560,000
Total number of Iron-rank Players: 524,000
– Max Level: 501,000,
– Under Max Level: 23,000
Total number of Silver-rank Players: 36,000
– Low Silver-rank: 35,000,
– Intermediate Silver-rank: 1,000
Player Controlled Cities:
– Greyhaven — Heart of Nature
– Mountpeak City — Moe Moe Committee
– Winterhold — First Legion
– Shangjing — Scourge Knights
– Atlantis — AllStars Alliance
– Lordaeron — Azeroth Union
– Eden — LoLiGod (Long Live the Goddess Alliance)
Registered Player Outposts: 1,241
Total number of Player Guilds: 3,125
– Top-Tier: 4
– First-Tier: 12
– Second-Tier: 97
– Third-Tier
Leaving the players aside, with Maple Moon State now being incorporated into the Church of Life’s sphere of influence, Evé’s number of believers had once again begun to grow explosively.
Moreover, this growth still showed no signs of stopping.
However, when looking at the believers section, Evé could not help but notice that some rather strange individuals had slipped in.
When she expanded the ellipsis under the believer types, an entire string of oddly varied racial names appeared, much to her bewilderment.
Of course, the number of believers belonging to these races was very small, and in some cases only a single digit.
Regardless, this was the most distinctive sign that her faith had been spreading well, as it had now reached a point where some races across the entire continent would naturally begin to convert to her faith, despite her not deliberately reaching out to them or actively trying to influence their beliefs.
Who knows…
Perhaps it was because they had inadvertently received some benefits from her believers, or because they admired her doctrines, or simply due to it naturally spreading as the elves’ trade routes expanded across distant lands.
Nevertheless, Eve’s primary sources of faith were still the elves and hybrid humans. Whereas the humans from Maple Moon State, due to the quality of their faith, could at best rank third, slightly above the dragons.
As for her more than two hundred dragon believers, the majority of them were the companion partners of the players.
By now, the spread of her faith within the Demirealm of Ouros had already run its course, and the only task left for her there was to continue selectively purifying the bloodlines of Ouros’s inhabitants, allowing them to become elves or half-elves over time.
By contrast, the expansion of her faith in Maple Moon State had only just begun.
With a population of over five million, even if the quality of their faith could not compare to that of the elves, it was still capable of providing her a considerable amount of power.
On that note, many priest players had flocked to Maple Moon to preach—primarily as a way to level up their Priest subclass—during this period.
As a result, a wave of elven influence spread throughout the region, as people there began to admire and be subtly influenced by the elven culture, from their art and architecture to their manners and philosophies…
Of course, the current elven culture was no longer the old, traditional one. Instead, it had essentially evolved into a version 2.0, a fusion of modern Earthly customs and the refined traditions of the elves.
One could say that the faith of a true god was like a snowball. Once it broke through its initial hurdle, the rate at which it spread became astonishingly fast.
Overall, the development of her faith left Evé very satisfied.
Although she was not, in the strictest sense, a faith-based deity, having a stable faith network not only increased her sources of divine power, but also strengthened the game network.
This allowed Evé to support more player activity while simultaneously reducing the cost of transferring their consciousness into this world, making the operations of the system far more efficient.
However, the greatest gain from this endeavor was neither the Bloodborne divinity that had captured Evé’s attention nor the steady expansion of her faith.
It was, above all, the sharp surge in her divine power.
“Heh, seems like I am only just a step away from advancing into Greater Divine Power,” she murmured, a trace of excitement in her tone.
Watching her divine power value inch ever closer to twenty-nine thousand, Evé felt a genuine thrill of satisfaction.
It had to be said that the fallen Titan Princess was indeed a formidable entity. Even after being sealed for several hundred thousand years, she still possessed nearly ten thousand points of divine power.
After absorbing Sehemmet’s power, Evé’s own divine power had almost directly surged to its limit.
In fact, if the divine power currently contained within her divine incarnation were also included, the total amount of divine power that she commanded would have already surpassed the minimum threshold of thirty thousand, which was the requirement for advancing into Greater Divine Power.
Once she broke through the thirty-thousand mark, Evé, as the new World Tree, would formally return to the same rank of her predecessor.
“Should I try it now?”
Feeling the abundant divine energy surging through her, Evé could not help but be tempted.
If she transferred the divine power from her incarnation into her main body at this very moment, she was certain it would be enough to push her past the thirty-thousand threshold.
However, based on her past experience, she knew for sure that it would cause considerable phenomena every time she advanced.
The last time she advanced to Intermediate Divine Power, the entire world of Seigües had been affected. She had only barely managed to gloss it over by taking advantage of Uller’s downfall.
So if she were to advance to Greater Divine Power now, the disturbance it might cause would certainly be far greater than before.
In Evé’s original plan, she intended to advance during the Crusade, using the chaos of the upcoming conflict with the Demons to mask the whole ordeal.
But now that she had already met all the conditions to advance, she found it difficult to restrain herself.
Even so, despite the restless urge gnawing at her mind, Evé ultimately held herself back.
Her true body had not yet severed its connection with the Origins of the World of Seigües. Therefore, advancing to Greater Divine Power at this time—even setting aside the phenomena it would cause—might prematurely weaken or even break the world’s planetary barrier if something went wrong.
After careful consideration, it was still more appropriate for her to wait until she had separated from the world’s Origin, and then advance in the Abyss during the Crusade.
The half-year remaining before it began should be more than enough time for her to fully sever her connection with the Origins of Seigües.
Just as Evé was reviewing her own status, the Casket of the Dead she had placed to one side suddenly flared to life, emitting a faint glow.
Looking at it, Evé could not help but raise one of her brows.
“Hela replied so fast this time?”
With a graceful gesture of her finger, she summoned the Casket of the Dead into her hand and activated it.
“Your Grace Evé, meet at the Pantheon. Now.”
Hela’s voice echoed directly inside Evé’s mind.
Surprisingly, this time the Goddess of Death’s voice lacked its usual lethargic tone.
〘 PREVIOUS 〙
〘 NEXT 〙
— —