......


    One more week (real-world time) had passed since the first appearance of the Plague Race at the Awakened Continent.


    Even if the situation in the Plague Lands was much more intense than it used to be and attracted more attention, not many people were paying attention to it right now.


    One of the reasons was due to the sudden move that the Righteous Churches had made due to the schemes of betrayals the players had done during that time.


    Those who had been caught by the Paladin Knights and Bishops that the churches had sent were either eliminated on the spot before purifying their bodies or got captured and thrown straight to the city dungeon as a lifetime prisoner.


    Due to this, the tricks that the players used to take advantage of the ’loopholes’ that the event had when earning more points started to drop. Even if there were some bold ones, who still dared to do such things, the situation became less frequent, especially when the players could not capture either side once they had discovered such ’transactions’ were taking place.


    Those who had captured the perpetrators could also exchange the captured players for more event points so long as they handed enough evidence to the Templars and Archbishops stationed at the barracks set up at the border of the Plague Lands.


    Of course, this was only meant for the players, who were working with the ones that had converted to Plague Race.


    It was a part of the system returning the balance and setting order as the players were destroying them due to these ’exchanges’ that they were doing.


    At the same time, it was also giving the players on the side of the Righteous Churches an extra channel where they could farm event points as hunting Plagued Monsters was starting to get trickier, especially when the players of the Plague Race started to launch a series of ambushes from time to time.


    Regardless the clashes between the two camps were still getting more intense every time the two sides met.


    But this was just one of the reasons why there were a smaller number of people were paying attention to this place because of what was happening to another place.


    ...


    This was not only happening in the Plague Lands. Even the ongoing war between the Righteous Churches and the Evil Faction at the Dark Cloud Kingdom was becoming less intense due to the smaller number of active players participating in the war on both sides.


    Even the top forces were starting to become less active, affecting the progress of the war.


    But this was the only place where such a ’phenomenon’ was happening. Even in different places within the game, such occasions were happening.


    It was not because a smaller number of people were going online. On the contrary, there were more players online than usual right now. But instead of actively exploring the contents of the game, they were sitting in a silent corner, watching a live broadcast projected by their virtual screens.


    They were all watching the final rounds of the group stages of the United Cup, especially when today was also the time when the other sixteen teams would be promoted to the round-32 knockout rounds and fight the 16-seeded teams.


    After more than a month of intense competition, the early rounds of the United Cup were finally ending. The preliminary rounds were quite intense, but the group rounds of the top 128 and 64 teams that was just ending.


    Even if Alice was busy helping Shin study the ancient sealing formation that sealed the vessel of the God of Primordial Waters, she still gave quite a lot of tips to Daulla whenever the team returned to the underwater temple.


    Daulla’s class was a Mage who majored in controlling lightning, so she would have some advantages when fighting underwater. But she also had to put quite a lot of effort into controlling her elemental powers as it was easy to hit her teammates with her spell due to the conductivity of water.


    She had to follow quite a lot of steps just to cast her spell; starting from gathering her mana when preparing to cast the spell to create a designated path that the spell would follow when it was released up to setting a sealing formation, which would prevent the lightning from going to other places, let them miss their target, and cause an accident.


    The entire process was quite taxing in the mind, exhausting her and draining a large amount of her concentration.


    Regardless, all these were quite helpful in training her control over her spell and mana, greatly enhancing her battle capabilities.


    As for Chaotic Luck – this ’mistress’ of the Goddess of Luck – he had finally found his bane.


    His spells were pretty much useless when it came to underwater battles. Even his Legion of Chaotic Sun was greatly restricted underwater, further limiting his fighting capabilities.


    But his reputation as the ’mistress’ of the Goddess of Luck would be greatly affected if he could not find any way to overcome this challenge.


    This guy had found a way to fight underwater, which was creating an undead from the corpses of the monsters that they had hunted. These monsters would not have any difficulty when fighting underwater. After all, it was their nature when they used to be ’alive’.


    What was even absurd was Chaotic Luck having the water current become his ’ally’. Not only it was naturally dragging him to places he wanted, but it also created some natural disasters such as whirlpools whenever he found any danger.


    These underwater twisters would either drag him away from danger or crush those who would try to harm him.


    This guy’s ’passive’ skill was indeed the scariest among the group. Stay updated through empire


    ...


    After sweeping his gaze at the group, checking on their progress, Shin could not help but give them an approving nod after seeing how much they had grown.


    Leonard’s leadership might differ from when Shin and Cloe commanded the team, but it was equally effective. After all, he was also one of the top gods in the game.


    Seeing that everyone was present except Arthur, who was currently in the Ancestral Land of the Springfield Family, Shin found a spot to sit on before looking at the projected screen before the group.


    "Let’s see who our first opponent will be," he mumbled, feeling a little excited as this was his first time participating in such a huge event.


    He really wanted to see how good the top teams supported by the most powerful forces within the virtual world.


    ...