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Like every other human on Earth, Arthur had entered a Tutorial, a quite difficult one as far as he could gather. Survival had been the goal, and after the initial panic, he had calmed down. He had entered with several employees and his youngest son, Peter, so in some ways, he had an advantage. They had all put their faith in him, and as always, he had risen to the occasion out of a sense of obligation. There had been a total of two thousand individuals, and with Arthur at the helm, less than a hundred had ended up dying within the first month, the majority on the first day before they gathered them. He had done all he could… but even in the Tutorial, outside influence had begun to rear its ugly head.

Invitations during evolutions, dungeons made by those who had designs on their new universe. Some people had been convinced, and even Arthur had been close. The offers of the gods sounded genuine, and it seemed like a win-win.

It wasn’t. There was no equal deal, no give and take… it was an as unbalanced relationship as they could come. Nearly all the gods who had blessed people wanted them to convert others. Some gods even were antagonistic towards others, and the leaders of man clearly did not enter the eyes of the gods. The battle for influence was mostly peaceful, but deadly duels began to pop up

A Tutorial that was mostly under control began to turn chaotic. Especially two gods held great hatred for each other and decided to wage war by proxy – something Arthur came to learn was rather common practice. Why wouldn’t it be?

To gods, mortals were nothing more than playthings. They saw no reason to take any risks themselves when they could just have their ignorant followers die in their stead, like chess pieces in a game where neither player truly cared about winning – just spiting their opponent.

That was the first time Arthur learned to crack down and be assertive. The gods had no tangible power in the Tutorial, and Arthur still had many followers. The majority also soon adopted his sentiment of distaste towards these religious factions, spurred on by their senseless violence and disruptions of what actually mattered, at least according to most reasonable people.

The Tutorial was about survival, and this manifested in frequent attacks by beasts and elementals. Once the religious factions’ conflicts began to result in casualties among the defenders, it didn’t take long before the majority was on Arthur’s side.

He didn’t like to do it, but some of them had to go. It was better to cut off the tumor before it could spread. They threw them out of their settlements into a wilderness where these ”priests” and ”preachers” quickly fell to the invaders, their followers not devout enough to follow them to their deaths. Many who had gotten blessed renounced them and denounced their former Patrons.

From there, Arthur ruled with an iron fist. He got a lie detection skill early on, and his Identify evolved to also include if people had a Blessing or not. It did not say who or what they were blessed by, only if they had one or not. This naturally proved instrumental in weeding out those who tried to hide their loyalties and tried to spread conflict.

It had to be noted that Arthur, not even at the height of his hatred of divine influence, went indiscriminately against those with Blessings. Some were blessed but never voiced anything. Never tried to recruit anyone or make trouble. Arthur saw no reason to shun these people and simply acted like nothing was different about them. Even some of his closest allies carried Blessings of gods who didn’t care about spreading their faith and growing a faction. From them, he learned many important things.

Firstly: all gods benefit from faith, but some more than others. Some benefitted so little that it didn’t matter at all. These gods, Arthur had no issues with. More than Patron gods, they were just personal sponsors and guides. He would compare them to people who identified as spiritual but didn’t view themselves as part of any organized religion. They also didn’t tend to believe that their religious beliefs mattered more than the beliefs of others.

The second thing he learned was that the gods who did benefit from faith were very aggressive when it came to getting it. While they were clearly not monotheistic, they still believed that all those within a group should act as if they were, only recognizing their Patron as the most important god. It was fine agreeing there were others, but they had to be viewed as lesser.

This was simply a requirement for them. A mechanic of the system itself. How exactly faith worked, he never quite figured out, but it was clear that people who believed in multiple gods were worth far less than those who truly believed in only one. There was a caveat to this as it appeared that gods in Pantheons did not suffer this penalty, truly giving birth to large organized religions.

Thirdly, Arthur learned the existence of different levels of Blessings. Those blessed were far from equal, and each rank of Blessing offered more benefits and more Records. The cost for the god of giving away higher-leveled Blessings also grew, meaning the higher level of the Blessing, the more devout the person tended to be. Minor, Lesser, Intermediate, Major, Greater, Divine. These were the Blessings he first heard of, but later it was revealed there were two more.

Baptism was not truly a Blessing but more a brand of sorts. It did not truly offer anything, and as far as Arthur could determine, it was only used by the mega-religion known as the Holy Church. Finally, there was one more that was also hard to argue was a normal Blessing: the True Blessing.

True Blessings were something truly Unique. First of all, a god could only have one True Blessing given out at a time, and often, a god didn’t even have someone who carried it. The ones with the True Blessing were called Chosen, but others also referred to them as Prophets or Champions. They were effectively the mortal mouthpieces of their gods.

Arthur never encountered any Chosen before the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and the Chosen of Yip of Yore. But everything he had seen pointed to the same reality: the higher the level of Blessing, the more devout the person. Ell’Hakan struck Arthur as a miniature version of his own Patron, and he shared much of the insight Arthur came to have about what it meant to be a Chosen and what the Order of the Malefic Viper was all about. Insights he now questioned the accuracy of.

Why had he believed Ell’Hakan? Even now, Arthur wasn’t sure. The man had just seemed like someone he could trust, and everything the nahoom had said made sense to Arthur. His logic was sound, and he even had evidence of all his claims. He now doubted all of this as it was clear that while Arthur attempted to use Ell’Hakan to remove a major threat from their planet, Ell’Hakan had also just used him as an instrument to further his own goals.

But… as mentioned… Arthur had believed Ell’Hakan because he wanted to. But in his defense, his biases were confirmed time and time again.

Everything he had done was, at least in his own mind, for humanity, and every step of the way, he was affirmed in his beliefs. Peter had even agreed to infiltrate the Holy Church in order to try and get to Jacob, but during that infiltration, he had found out how truly messed up the so-called holy faction was.

Arthur had even considered joining the Church at one point, especially when he learned his son was leading it. Jacob had always been excellent at everything he put his mind to, and Arthur trusted his judgment… at least, he used to. Now, Arthur wasn’t so sure.

What he learned from the Church was everything in the Tutorial taken to the extreme. While it was not explicitly stated, the City Lords who tried to negotiate with the Church quickly realized what the goal of the Church was: total domination. They would not allow any other faction to remain on Earth and were more than willing to commit genocide of both their own people and the locals to achieve this. Did they prefer peaceful methods to preserve as many potential faithful as possible? Perhaps… but that wasn’t the kind of future Arthur wanted for Earth.

It would also result in the death of Earth, at least in the metaphorical sense. They would wipe out the culture of Earthlings and replace it with that of the Holy Church. The values humanity had built up throughout history would be forgotten. In a few generations, those who lived on Earth wouldn’t even remember what Earth used to be. The history of their homeland would be lost forever.

Arthur could not allow that to happen. But, as he was trying to figure out a way to battle the Holy Church, he came to find an even worse fate for humanity than what the Church would bring. One caused by a faction far more destructive, cruel, and bereft of empathy:

The Order of the Malefic Viper.

When he first heard about them, he found it hard to believe. As mentioned, he had many who worked with him who still had Patrons who had no interest in laying a claim on Earth. They told him what was going on in the wider multiverse, with the two biggest events being the integration of the ninety-third universe and the reemergence of the Malefic Viper. Two events he came to learn were connected once he knew of the presence of the Chosen of the Malefic Viper…

The Prophet of the Malefic Viper. His Champion. Mouthpiece. The mortal avatar of a god that had Malefic in its very name. A god known for his cruelty and slaughter of ten percent of an entire universe. An utterly monstrous existence that now had laid its hands on Earth. The Chosen had laid his hands on Earth.

Now, why did Arthur think he had an interest in Earth? Everything pointed to it.

The Order of the Malefic Viper had begun expanding in the first universe. Their methods of expansion were ones that reflected the cruelty of their Patron. Slaughter, enslavement, destruction. No mercy was shown on their path to conquest, and any who dared stand in their way or even try to negotiate were killed unceremoniously, their entire factions implicated.

Horror set in as Arthur feared the Chosen of the Malefic Viper had similar plans, but he had one hope: that he wouldn’t care about Earth. Maybe he would simply leave and head off to the Order, leaving behind their small rock in space? That hope died quickly after Arthur learned that the Chosen had not only taken part in the First World Congress but was even the one with the highest noble rank and held significant sway over every vote. It would not be wrong to say he ruled the World Congress already.

The Second World Congress and Auction Event only reaffirmed what Arthur thought. He tried to get a feeling for the individual that was known as Jake Thayne but found it impossible. He was too aloof, too carefree about anything political. But that didn’t mean he lacked a presence in the political arena because he had two individuals at his back.

Firstly was Miranda Wells.

From all he could gather, she was a nobody before the system. Not surprisingly, most people who were now prominent were not known before the system. He did find a large percentage of City Leaders and faction leaders to also have been leaders in the old world, but Ms. Wells was not such an example. From what he did learn, then she was just a manager or something before the system.

Perhaps there would have been hope with her, but she was clearly also a member of this Order. She was blessed by witches and was a witch herself. Those who got to see her in action during the Treasure Hunt reported that she used brutal tactics and magic to kill her foes. The level of trust the Chosen showed in her was also high, making it only reasonable to assume she was absolutely loyal. Hence Arthur was certain the City Lord had to go to destroy the supporters behind the Malefic’s Chosen. After his death to Ell’Hakan, they would shamble, and he saw Ms. Wells as the only person able to hold anything resembling a faction together. At least the humans in the faction. Because there was one entity even more dangerous.

The Fallen King.

Upon seeing the Unique Lifeform in the Second World Congress, Arthur felt like many of the chess pieces fell into place. A King by birth, a creature created to lead and rule. To Arthur, that was why the Chosen had never bothered to expand his faction. Why would he when he had such a creature at his back to do it all for him?

To make it all worse, this Unique Lifeform could lead even monsters under his banner. This was why Arthur decided that he had to do something. Why he, in his desperation, listened to the sweet whispers of an enemy Chosen who knew just what to say. He had been approached during the Myriad Paths event, and the offer he was given was just too good to refuse. Arthur had, in all honesty, been desperate by how badly he was outmatched, so when he was thrown a lifeline, he grasped it with both hands.

Ell’Hakan would take care of the Chosen and the Unique Lifeform, and he even presented the potential of allying with Valhal, something his Patron had pre-negotiated for them. Valhal was a force that Arthur had no problems with, as they did not want to control the planet. Moreover, they were a predominately human faction, and the contract he negotiated with them was incredibly favorable towards Earth. All contingent on the defeat of the Chosen, of course…

Arthur sighed as he was awoken from his thoughts by one of his old employees. They were riding a magical ship, and he had been made aware that Haven was now within sight. Steeling himself, Arthur was prepared to face what was to happen.

A captain had to go down with the ship, and as the leader of the United Cities Alliance, he had to take responsibility for his actions. From the very beginning, he had been resolved to follow through or die in the attempt.

It was only four days past the defeat of Ell’Hakan, and Arthur had not been made aware of the Order of the Malefic Viper making any moves yet. He hoped that they wouldn’t before he had a chance to give himself up.

Their approach was naturally spotted, and Arthur sighed as he prepared himself. He had only gone with three of his most loyal attendants, and he hoped that mercy would at least be shown to them, though he wouldn’t get his hopes up. They had also prepared themselves to face death.

An advance party from Haven moved towards them as Arthur had the ship stop. He saw that the group included the assistant of Ms. Wells, Lillian, as well as the resident space mage of Haven. The space mage alone was strong enough to beat everyone on the ship.

Lillian landed on the ship and regarded Arthur. She didn’t speak right away but took out a token, nodded, and motioned toward the city. “Welcome to Haven; the City Lord is expecting you in the central office. If you would follow me.”

Arthur nodded, a bit surprised they didn’t put any magical restriction or something like that on him quite yet.

“Your followers can wait on the ship in the meanwhile,” Lillian followed up.

He couldn’t really argue with that… it was safer to only bring him and split them up.

“Finally, what do you prefer for the meeting?” Lillian asked, Arthur frowning with confusion before she continued. “We have coffee and tea, but if you prefer something else, we can get that too.”

Arthur stared at the woman, confused. A sneaking suspicion entered his mind… had he misread the situation?

And if he had… how badly?