The Girls Are All Coveting Me-Chapter 425 - 361: The Treasure Elf Has Grown Up

"Relax and enter the maze, I'll assist in handling these matters."

At the Ethereal Emblem Duel Plaza, in front of the Teleportation Gate, Heisha looked at everyone and said.

Chloe and the others nodded and directly entered the maze.

Not every maze remains open all the time.

Some mazes with many restrictions may only allow raids at specific times each year.

The Art Gallery Maze is even more troublesome.

The Art Gallery Maze can only be activated once every ten years.

In Chloe's memory, during the Ethereal Emblem festival in "Simulated Hero," the maze opened by the school for the students was another one.

But this year, some changes occurred.

Chloe could understand it.

Up to now, there isn't much information left that matches the game "Simulated Hero."

Over nearly a year, Chloe completely scrambled the original plot, basically leaving no content that matched the game.

Chloe wasn't truly reliant on the future intelligence of "Simulated Hero."

It's just that the game "Simulated Hero" itself has many mysteries.

According to Chloe's speculation, this so-called game is essentially a manifestation of a possible future for The Stars.

Due to minimal interference from external information, The Stars is the only one among all World Groups that can still broadly observe future trends and infer the theoretically most suitable path.

[So the plot of Simulated Hero made me the antagonist]

To be precise, it's not treating Chloe as the game's villain. It's that The Stars wanted to try excluding Chloe's interference to see if the world could move towards a better outcome.

From the first playthrough of the game, this choice basically equaled failure.

He glanced at Abigail next to him.

Abigail turned to look at him and said, "What's up, brother?"

"I was just thinking, The Stars reaching this point must have been anticipated long ago."

"What do you mean?"

"Abigail, though The Stars seems the least aggressive of all the World Groups, it's fundamentally the most insane."

"Yes, brother, the Will of the Stars has never claimed to be benevolent."

"Exactly, it's because The Stars' methods are so crazy that it could repeatedly find opportunities to overtake others."

Unlike other World Groups that constantly devoured external dimensions to grow stronger, The Stars strictly controlled information flow, appearing to consume fewer resources, theoretically its growth should lag far behind other worlds.

Yet, in fact, amidst rampant conservatism, The Stars have caught up with and even surpassed other World Groups at a rapid pace.

Is it because it's kind?

Clearly not, the way it acquires foreign resources differs from other World Groups.

More covert, more deadly.

Under normal circumstances, conflicts between World Groups resemble turn-based exchanges.

You hit me once; I'll return the favor.

Then assess the damage inflicted by both sides.

But The Stars is different. It likes to sneak up behind when the other party isn't paying attention, press them to the ground, and while they find it inconvenient to struggle, pummel them mercilessly.

By the time they want to fight back, they become original-filled puffs.

A small mistake and even a cub may appear.

Don't ask, victims forcibly filled have plenty to say in the Abyss and Demon Hall.

Especially the Abyss.

Several Seven Deadly Sins were converted.

"Such methods, once used, will inevitably alert other World Groups. Developed till now, even without me, the battle among World Groups is unavoidable."

Pummeling an experienced master to death describes The Stars.

Though theoretically under the unspoken rules of major World Groups, The Stars took this path.

Yet, who knew The Stars could use rules so effectively.

Since The Stars began, each World Group has learned to be bad.

The Demon Hall is the most typical.

After being slaughtered a bunch of Evil Gods, it remained silent, hunkered down, and made a big move.

The Stars and Abyss were nearly overturned.

Now, even the Ten Thousand Beasts Garden, usually mutually hostile, has united with the Demon Hall.

The former unspoken rule of non-cooperation between World Groups has been disrupted.

The sprouting of a new order seems just a bit away.

"Let's go, the Teleportation Gate is open."

Chloe looked at the women.

Soon, their group disappeared before the gate.

The Emblem Festival event, All Things Art Gallery raid, officially begins.

...

So dazed, Chloe heard someone calling his name.

He opened his eyes.

Then saw a small priest standing by his bed.

Seeing him open his eyes, the small priest's soft body clung to him.

"Xiaoke Xiaoke, I've grown up!"

Chloe didn't react for a moment, then took a careful look.

Goodness, this small priest turned out to be Nini.

Nini hasn't yet practiced the Secret Technique sealed in the Dark Territory.

Theoretically, she shouldn't be able to grow up.

But entering the "Nightmare Swarm" painting, Nini is supposed to replace an entity within.

Evidently.

This painting does not involve any elves.

So her replacement also led to some changes.

—For instance, forcibly making the tiny Nini grow into a normal human form.

"Nini, what's your current situation here?"

"I have become an apprentice priest, hehe; I didn't expect Nini to have the talent to become an apprentice priest."

Chloe was too embarrassed to tell Nini that in this painting, apart from those few main characters, everyone else is a member of the church.

"Now, let's review the situation..."

The background of the creation of "Nightmare Swarm" is not known to many people.

But within "Simulated Hero," the background of the Love and Desire Twins was once clearly recorded.

The Love and Desire Twins' predecessors were a pair of lovers.

The man was called Rudelson.

The woman was named Xilin.

More than 3100 years before the Dawn Era, that is, over 10100 years ago, the [Goddess of Beauty] from the Stellar Faction fell for unknown reasons.

One-third of her divine format was taken away by her divine friend, the [Love God].

The remaining two-thirds were partially seized by the deity who killed the Goddess of Beauty and partially fell into the stars.

Thus, after the Goddess of Beauty's fall, a special disease appeared among the stars.

[Genius Disease]

Patients of the Genius Disease possessed artistic abilities beyond human cognition and comprehension.

The craftsmen who sculpted the Dragon King statues could make their statues transform into real Dragon Kings, reaching demigod level at birth.

The master who embroidered others' likenesses could track the person in the embroidery for miles. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

The blacksmith forging swords could easily shatter demigod defenses, and the strongest sword he made even injured a deity.

...

These Genius Disease patients, even as mortals, could exert power beyond most extraodinaries.

But every gift from fate has a price marked secretly.

The reason Genius Disease is called a disease is that to endow art with the power of beauty, one must offer an equivalent amount of life.

The craftsman who sculpted the Dragon King, including himself, drained the life from an entire small country.

The embroidery master tracking over miles quickly lost his sight and aged rapidly.

The blacksmith who forged a weapon capable of injuring a deity commemorated the sword with his own life.

...

Yes.

All Genius Disease patients essentially inherited a fragment of the Goddess of Beauty's divine format.

The power of the gods, even the slightest amount, exceeds ordinary understanding.

To maintain the power of the fragments, extraodinaries can only burn their own lives.

Lady Xilin was the most exaggerated case among Genius Disease patients through the ages.

She was born having fused with the largest fragment of the Goddess of Beauty's divine format among the stars.

This allowed her to wield great power with minimal cost using her paintbrush.

But a fragment, no matter how large, is still just a fragment.

After being targeted by Slaanesh, one of the Four Abyssal Evil Gods, her life was on a countdown.

In order to counter Slaanesh, that era's Love God Church almost summoned all famous and powerful figures from various factions, determined to protect Xilin.

But as Chloe knew, even before Xilin was protected, her little maid was completely corrupted by Slaanesh.

The Love God Church arrived too late.

Xilin had already been seeded with the Evil God's sprouts.

So from that time, this Genius Disease patient would fall into Slaanesh's inescapable dreams once she went to sleep.

Slaanesh's whispers long enticed the young girl who was about to burn her life away.

In such circumstances, the painting "Nightmare Swarm" was born.

...

After reviewing the background of this painting.

Chloe turned to the Treasure Elf and said, "So we are now a part of the Love God Church priests assigned nearby to protect Lady Xilin."

Nini nodded and said, "Then we only have two targets."

"Yes, one is to find a way to prevent Lady Xilin from being completely corrupted by Slaanesh, and the other is to end the siege from Slaanesh."

"But both are not easy, right?" Nini lightly bit Chloe's earlobe and said.

"Indeed, Xilin and her lover Rudelson received the Love God's blessing as a couple. Slaanesh's corruption of Xilin essentially erodes the [Love] domain controlled by the Love God."

This is a concept battle centered around this young couple.

But to put it bluntly, the Love God's domain appears to lack offensiveness when facing Slaanesh.

In Chloe's previous life's words:

"A bit of insincerity mixed with sincerity, crap."

"A bit of sincerity mixed with insincerity, masterpiece."

The competition between the Love God and Slaanesh in this domain means that any negligence by the Love God results in a small crack.

As time goes by, this crack will only enlarge.

"So, this battle ended in nearly a complete defeat for the Love God Church."

This is not Chloe's inference.

It is a reality in history.

"So, in fact, from the very beginning, we have no way to stop Xilin's corruption, right?"

Nini looked at Chloe and said.

"Yes, we made it clear in our previous discussions, the possibility of stopping Xilin's corruption is zero, the only change we can make is to beat Slaanesh's followers, and give the Love God Church a chance to wield their sword."

If Chloe and the others could directly engage in this war with the stance of a demigod and a legend, then the story of "Nightmare Swarm" would fast forward to an easy mode.

Because, at that time, in the stars, demigods were the top combat power, unlike now, where saints are just the starting point.