Game of the World Tree
chapter-20

▪️ God of Winter and Hunting

Goblin Priest?

Eve’s heart sank.

Generally speaking, it is impossible for goblins to have priests within their ranks simply because they neither have the custom of totemic practice or following a proper religion.

However, if a priest actually appeared within these goblins, then it would probably mean that this particular tribe may have started their tribal totemic customs or…began worshipping a certain deity.

It would be fine if it is the former, but if it is the latter…

Thinking of Berserker’s deliberate actions of concealing himself, Evé already guessed the answer within her heart…

Only by worshiping a certain deity could these Goblins spooked the mighty Oak Guardian and raised his vigilance!

“…Who is it?”

A solemn voice resounded within Berserker’s mind, but this time, the voice carried a hint of urgency in its tone.

Berserker immediately understood what the divine matriarch meant and respectfully replied in his consciousness,

“According to my observations, the deity these goblins is worshipping should probably be the God of Winter and Hunting—Uller.”

As expected!

Eve’s mood dampened to a somber manner.

The Hunting God was exactly the culprit that came to her mind first, the instance she learned that these goblin tribe had begun worshiping someone.

She knew that an orc tribe had established a stronghold around the outer regions south of the Elfen Forest.

With these orcs being the largest source of believers that worships the God of Winter and Hunting, this particular orcish tribe also meant that they can be used by Uller as his eyes to monitor her territory.

Did he perhaps noticed her revival?

It seems unlikely, however…

Evé quickly scanned and gathered all the information regarding the Hunter God within the World Tree’s inheritance. The data from a thousand years ago might be outdated but having this info would still better than not knowing anything at all.

Anyways, based on the data stored within inheritance, Uller was a relatively young deity who belongs to the new generations of gods who solely uses faith in acquiring power.

He was said to have been born from 2,000 years ago and ascended into godhood through the totemic practices of some primitive tribes, gaining the strength of a peak low-tier god upon his ascension.

His divinity governs winter and hunting, and he had been at odds with the World Tree, which has the authority over nature, life, and elvenkind since ancient times. He was also one of the enemies of the World Tree back in the Heavenly War a thousand years ago.

According to Alice, this sadistic deity did not give up persecuting the elves even after the World Tree fell and has now become the biggest enemy of the elven race.

All this data proved to Evé that this god must be eliminated at all cost. Uller’s name quickly soared on top of Eve’s kill list and she vowed to avenge the old World Tree and gain power to defend herself against this new archenemy of hers.

In any case, it seems that this deity have now began collecting the World Tree’s divine blood crystals.

In order to find these crystals, he even recruited these widely detested goblins and accepted them into his service.

Although goblins are generally low in intelligence and provide little power of faith, they are also afraid of the strong and are very suitable as laborers. Therefore, it is not surprising that they were chosen by Uller in Eve’s opinion.

However, Uller’s whole gathering operation most likely only should’ve just began recently. After all, these divine crystals were in a sealed state just as recently well and its difficult for anyone to easily discover them.

Upon thinking about this, she had some guesses.

“Could it be… that the Hunter God want to gain the divinity of nature and life by analyzing the crystals he collected?”

Uller’s divinity of winter and hunting are both auxiliary divinities, one tier lower than fundamental divinities like nature and life, making his divine power inferior in comparison to her.

And the reason why Uller has been stuck within low-tier divine power for so many years is precisely because the essence of his divinity are fundamentally weak in the first place.

Furthermore, winter and hunting originally were under the scope of nature and life.

Therefore, it was not surprising to Evé that Uller wants to gain the divinity of nature and life by analyzing the crystallized blood of the old World Tree.

After all, for a true god like him, studying these divine crystals are the fastest way to get the information out of other divinities.

Nevertheless, Evé did not think that Uller would immediately equate the unsealing of the divine crystals with the revival of the World Tree. At most, he would simply assume that it was because of the disappearance of the World Trees’ preservation spell since spells no matter how strong it is doesn’t normally last for a thousands of years.

So the disappearance of it wouldn’t raise much suspicion.

Besides, Evé was not worried at all that Uller’s plan would even succeed.

After all, she has now regained the authority over nature and life after she had revived as the World Tree.

Divinities are a unique kind of power exclusive to those who beholden it, so even if Uller tried his best, he will never be able to analyze the divine power he desires for he has no authority over it.

Uller’s plan had already failed the moment Evé revived.

But even so, absorbing the divine crystals of the World Tree even if cannot unlock its secrets, can still provide Uller with some divine power, making him even stronger.

This is not something Evé wants to see.

After all, these divine crystals of the old World Tree should have originally belonged to her, its successor. Absorbing these crystals also means an opportunity for her to quickly regain her strength!

Thinking about this, Evé continued her inquiries.

“What is the strength of these goblins?”

“Matriarch, most of them are above level 5, with a few elite ones at level 10, but the goblin priests have the strength of an Iron-ranked around level 11. Alas, I still cannot determine the overall numbers of these goblin priests.” Berserker promptly replied.

So their strength isn’t that particularly strong.

Evé nodded in agreement in her heart.

Given the opponents’ abysmal power levels, Berserker could easily exterminate them all with just a flick of his finger. The only problem with him doing so would be these goblins reporting it back to Uller.

“The head priest is at level 11, elites are level 10, and the rest are levels 5 to 9…”

“Their level are quite suitable for players to train and gain experience.”

Evé muttered within her mindscape.

After doing various menial tasks for several consecutive days, the overall strength of the three hundred beta-testers have improved quite significantly, with the majority advancing to level 7 or higher.

Moreover, some hardcore daily grinders and construction bigwigs have already advanced to level 10, the peak level of the apprentice rank, with only one level away from the next rankings which is Iron.

With their current strength, the players would still find it difficult to fight against other powerful Iron-rank monsters, but would be suitable enough to combat these goblins. Even if the goblin priests were at level 11 of Low Iron-rank, they would pose no threat if the players banded together.

During these days, while the majority of players have been working hard to complete various tasks, the long-term repetitive work has also caused some to feel bored.

Currently, there are already many impulsive players who have began ignoring the introductory guide and are now trying to explore areas outside the safe zone.

At this time, the best solution for Evé is to provide them with something more exciting to do other than repetitive manual labor.

Originally, Evé planned to let Berserker constantly drive some suitable monsters towards the safe zone for players to hunt in order to gradually raise their levels. She initially wanted the players to at least reach level 11 first before encouraging them to explore the outer areas of the forest.

However, the appearance of these goblins gave Evé an even better idea.

“After all, Berserker is a druid who is an advocate of nature. Although he doesn’t say it, such crude actions will inevitably affect his faith if I keep ordering him to gather wild animals just for players to brutally slaughter…But, these goblins are different.”

“They already began worshiping my enemy and are relatively weak. Hunting them won’t affect the impression of the natives in regards to their faith, and a goblins overall strength is not so threatening towards the players as well.”

“Not only that, but letting players hunt these goblins can also undermine Uller’s plan and indirectly appease the resentments of the haunting elven spirits lingering around and gain their recognition.”

“Furthermore, the players can also help me find more divine blood crystals thus accelerating the pace of my recovery.”

“Ahha, it seems that I can soon get the first return of my investment from these players!”

Thinking of this, Evé already had an idea in mind.

She wanted to design a sidequest and develop the start of the main questline which is going to occur within the ruins of Florence, where the players would go after the goblins!

These players are different from Berserker.

As Eve’s follower and believer, Berserker would definitely attract Uller’s attention if he acted against the goblins who is now worshiping the hunter god.

But these players would not.

Although they have the same appearance of elves, they are not her believers. And with them not following her religion also means that there is no divine stigma etched upon their souls.

Actually, it doesn’t matter even if a player is a believer of her faith since their souls are still situated back on earth, and they can only connect here via their consciousness whilst using Eve’s divine power as a medium.

If Uller really wants to investigate the existence of the mark of faith, then he would first need to go to earth first and Evé highly doubt that he’s even aware of the existence of other worlds.

Even if the players take action, at most, they will only make Uller assume that some of the faithless elves have returned back to the Forest of Elves and should not arouse any suspicion in regards to the revival of the World Tree.

After all, it would only be natural for the prideful elves to be angry with the goblins whom had dared to live within the ruins of Florence, the once holy land of the elven faith.

And if there is no direct participation of divine believers, just killing some goblins wouldn’t be enough to attract too much attention from the hunter god.

Plus, Evé did not fully believed that the goblins in Florence were the only goblin tribe that Uller had recruited. Since the goblins had already appeared the Elfen Forest, the other elven ruins scattered around the surroundings would probably be also infiltrated by Uller’s minions.

Of course, Evé did not think that she could hide her revival for so long.

Since Uller already discovered that the seal upon the divine crystals had been broken, it would only be a matter of time before he also realized that the World Tree’s protection spell had disappeared too.

In that case, it would be inevitable that Uller would eventually order his stronger followers in order to check the situation of the World Tree…

Luckily, the Hunter God is a deity with a weak divine powers and it seemed that he was the only one amongst the Parthenon gods who had noticed the divine crystals for the time being.

Evé need to improve her strength as soon as possibe, before her revival is fully exposed.

For this reason, it was worthwhile to take some risks.

Thinking of this, Evé already decided on what to do next.

“Berserker, I need you to do something.”

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