After giving Miracle its instructions, Chen Xu left the Undead Dao Court and returned once more to the Land of the Undead to continue his unfinished grand undertaking.
Unlike the Elemental Spirit Realm, while this Church of Pain sounded like it might be related to Hell, Chen Xu didn't feel it was necessary to go out and investigate it personally.
In the divine supernatural system, true gods accounted for less than a third of the entities; the remaining two-thirds were evil gods that could never be fully burned away or killed off.
Faiths like the Church of Pain, which clearly belonged to an evil god, would cause a stir across the Myriad Worlds every once in a while.
The Land of the Undead was his true killing move aimed at the Mother of Hell, the Lord of Heaven, and that Great Sage who was very likely hiding behind the scenes.
Monitoring the Church of Pain was merely to figure out Hell's movements, allowing Chen Xu to judge the current state of the board.
Within the Land of the Undead, Chen Xu hovered in the air, channeling the essence of the sun and moon to condense the Towers of Starlight.
The moon tower was a pristine white, with a dancing Taiyin sculpture atop its summit.
The sun tower was magnificent, topped with an overbearingly majestic Shengyang sculpture.
The two were situated among the one hundred and eight Towers of Starlight, enjoying the amplification of the Heavenly Spirits and Earthly Fiends.
At the same time, the Towers of Starlight themselves grew increasingly powerful under the combined radiance of the sun and moon.
...
Within a certain world of a Mage supernatural civilization, a bloody, violent, and ancient tragedy was unfolding.
A group of mage lords, who usually held themselves high above others, were currently fleeing in a panic.
Their mana was no longer used for researching magic or performing those magnificent spells; it was used entirely to save their lives.
Wind magic was cast recklessly, one after another; before the previous spell had even faded, the next was already applied.
Such crude methods were truly a violation of the ancestral teachings of mages.
But these mages couldn't be blamed. If they didn't exert themselves to this extent, what awaited them was an even older and more miserable activity that their ancestors had once 'enjoyed.'
Witch Hunt! Burning!
This Mage civilization, which had not been established for long, was still in its prime, with its strongest members only at the Mythic Rank.
A Church of Pain that had come out of nowhere and a Witch of Pain who was clearly an evil god had instantly torn this Mage civilization to shreds.
Mages were captured and tied to wooden racks, first whipped with thorny vines to make them scream in agony.
Then, the old activity returned. A wooden stick wrapped in rags was soaked in oil, lit, and thrown beneath the mage's rack, instantly igniting the dry firewood. The screams grew even more intense.
The followers watched from the side, claiming to understand the teachings and grow closer to their god through the mages' pain.
Miraculously, after going through this process, the watching followers actually received divine gifts. Their bodies became stronger, their thoughts sharper, and all their previous exhaustion and fatigue vanished instantly.
In this way, the numbers of the Church of Pain snowballed, while the mages became fewer and fewer.
With one side rising and the other falling, this newly born Mage civilization met its end.
The Witch of Pain and the Church of Pain became the new pillars of civilization.
The remaining mages began to seek help from other nearby civilizations through the Undead Network, hoping to flee to other worlds.
On the Job-Holder Forum, a large number of transcendents were drawn to the information about the Church of Pain, flocking to offer advice to these refugees.
【Young God of Magic: Everyone, this is an emergency! These cultists kill without blinking. They whip you before they kill you, and they even use divine arts to pull the parasites out of your body to whip them separately before burning everything together. They have no humanity!】
【Please Call Me Top Scholar: No way, Brother God of Magic. Didn't you say before that your civilization had countless experts? How could you be beaten like this by a cult that just popped up?】
【Young God of Magic: Don't even talk about it. I've never seen such an active evil god. The god worshipped by this Church of Pain grants divine gifts and miracles more often than my old master gets up to pee at night.】
【Black Magic Master: This Church of Pain is indeed strange. This is also the first time I've heard of the deity they worship, the Witch of Pain.】
【Young God of Magic: Big shots, this isn't the time to ask for thesis advice. Let's not discuss the background. I need a way to save my life!】
【Please Call Me Top Scholar: I actually have a method. Brother God of Magic, why don't you enter a mage tower to seek asylum?】
【Young God of Magic: There are no safe mage towers left. The few Mythic Rank experts in our civilization have already fallen.】
【Please Call Me Top Scholar: I'm not talking about the mage towers in your civilization, but the mage tower that brought us all together here.】
【Young God of Magic: You mean entering the Necrotic Archmage Tower? Right! Why didn't I think of that! Brother Scholar, you're the best! I can't thank you enough. If I can survive this, I'm willing to go to your lab and be free labor for ten years.】
【Please Call Me Top Scholar: Heh, there's no need for such 'repayment.' With your level, if you wanted to enter my lab, you'd probably only be used as experimental material.】
【Young God of Magic: Terrifying... I bow to the master.】
The method of seeking asylum by entering the 【Necrotic Archmage Tower】 to escape the pursuit of the Church of Pain spread instantly as the forum post reached the top of the hot list.
Worlds that were being ravaged by the Church of Pain and lacked the power to resist adopted this method one after another, hiding inside the 【Necrotic Archmage Tower】 to preserve the sparks of their civilizations.
This mage tower, which carried the knowledge of the Akhan world, actually ended up preserving the sparks of other worlds and other Mage civilizations.
Miracle, the true spirit of the network, was also executing Chen Xu's orders, monitoring the development of the Church of Pain in real-time.
The actions of the transcendents hiding in the mage tower were all seen by it.
Suddenly, an idea occurred to it. Miracle left the Dao layer of the Undead Dao Court and entered the top of the Necrotic Archmage Tower, finding Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu.
“Oh, Lord Miracle, why have you come?”
Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu were very surprised; they hadn't expected Miracle to come to them.
Generally, only Nephalem and some skeleton heroes with mage-type classes would enter the mage tower.
The former were there to challenge and play tricks on the participants, while the latter were there to climb the tower and learn Akhan's supernatural knowledge.
“You know about the Church of Pain, right?”
“We do. The forum posts have exploded. Many civilizations are being affected by this Church of Pain.”
“Yes, yes. The number of people climbing the tower has decreased a lot lately, but the number of people entering the tower has increased—they're all coming in to hide.”
Since Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu knew about the Church of Pain, Miracle got straight to the point and shared its idea.
“Can you make the mage tower serve as a transit station to allow transcendents to cross between worlds?”
“Cross between worlds? If it's a world with a mage tower projection, that's no problem; it'll just cost some energy. But for worlds without a projection, it'll be more troublesome.”
“Mhm, worlds with a projection will be enough. We won't worry about the others. I'll need you to launch a new event to mobilize all the tower climbers and have them go out to provide cross-realm support.”
“Huh? Launch an event? Cross-realm support? Lord Miracle, isn't that a bit much? It's fine to mess around inside the tower, but once we show that we can influence things outside the tower and affect their civilizations, I'm afraid we might be ostracized by them.”
“Don't worry, no one can resist the temptation of an Eternal Rank opportunity. Besides, the Undead Network is entirely under my control; I can manipulate the direction of public opinion as I please. Furthermore, this is our Lord's will. I am acting on his behalf.”
“Ah! It's our Master's command. Lord Miracle, you should have said so earlier! We'll get right on it.”
Upon hearing it was Chen Xu's command, the two artifact spirits immediately left the top-floor lounge. One went to draft the announcement, while the other went to connect the various projections and open spatial channels.
A moment later, an announcement was posted on the Undead Network. Miracle used its authority to pin it to the top and force a pop-up notification.
【The new limited-time event for the Necrotic Archmage Tower, , has officially begun. Participants can obtain a massive amount of supernatural knowledge, supernatural equipment, and Tower Spirit Favor.】
Rate on N.U.
