Ch.8484. The Grand Operation to Crush Violence with a Bang (1)

In truth, when I thought about it, it made perfect sense.

According to the lore, the Seven Great Evil Gods were said to be powerful, but ultimately they were just part of the game world’s setting.

And not just as mere background lore either. They were entities that could actually be defeated, with data existing for them within the game.

Although I’m still unsure whether the game became reality or if this is some kind of parallel world, there are certainly differences between this world and my memories of what was once just a turn-based game made of pixels….

But conversely, if we exclude those differences, much of this world matches exactly what appeared in the game, which means the Seven Great Evil Gods are simply part of the end-game content.

In other words, among the various components that make up the “Evil God Subjugation” end-game content, there must be elements that allow players to defeat these transcendent beings called gods.

And among them, the Seven Great Evil Gods—who are most likely to be final bosses when following the good deity, neutral deity, atheist, or ascension routes—all have predetermined strategies for defeating them in the game.

The most difficult but also the most straightforward method is to ascend to godhood yourself and challenge them to direct combat….

But this method only works when they have enough pride to be intimidated—in other words, when they perceive you as weak. If I have the upper hand, their survival instinct will likely overcome their pride, so that approach is rejected.

While there are various other strategies available, the one I prefer is….

‘Since I’m stronger, let’s just find them and overwhelm them with force.’

Since I’m likely stronger than the current God of Violence, being in the upper ranks of intermediate gods, I could simply locate their divine realm and overpower them.

Finding a specific god’s divine realm is often compared to finding a metal ball in a desert—extremely difficult—but conversely, this metaphor implies that there are methods to find that metal ball easily—meaning there are ways to locate divine realms.

One could deploy countless minions to search by sheer numbers, or perhaps find one of the god’s followers in the divine world and trace them back.

While there might be many methods in theory, few are actually practical—but “few” still means some do exist.

And among the practical methods for finding the Evil God of Violence’s sanctuary….

‘Where was the First Apostle of the God of Violence again?’

The plan was to capture an apostle of the God of Violence in the material world, send down my avatar to analyze them, find the connection between apostle and deity, and trace it back to locate the divine realm.

If I could find the divine realm’s coordinates through Bjorn, who was expelled from his position as apostle, how much easier would it be with a current divine apostle?

So if I could somehow find an apostle of the Evil God of Violence, I could definitely pinpoint the coordinates of the divine realm under their control.

‘Let’s see… it should be around here.’

Following my memories, I moved my divine sight around until I could confirm what I remembered as the abandoned temple that served as the Evil God of Violence’s base.

The abandoned temple was a structure carved into a rocky mountain and expanded with additional constructions, appearing from the outside as a stone building partially buried in rock.

Had it been in good condition, it might have been quite an impressive structure, but now, abandoned and half-collapsed, it looked like nothing more than an uninhabited ruin….

‘…Found it.’

But precisely because of that, I could be certain this was still the headquarters of the Violence cult at this point in time.

It was artificial. Artificially so—the surrounding area was covered with magical energy that gave off the feeling of “there’s nothing here.”

Had they overlaid it with a different image, as I had done with the underground church beneath Gracchus’s house, it might have been less obvious. Instead, the excessive emptiness created a strong sense of dissonance.

So as I carefully adjusted my divine sight and changed the visual settings, a magnificent scene gradually appeared in my view.

‘This is… quite impressive in its own way.’

The true appearance of the temple, which had seemed abandoned and half-collapsed, was actually a majestic building constructed of marble and limestone, restored to its former glory.

Of course, the walls bore crimson bloodstains and cracks that appeared to be battle scars, and everywhere lay corpses or humans as good as dead, abandoned and dying….

What convinced me that this was indeed a temple serving the Evil God of Violence was the decisive fact that the abandoned corpses were in such serious condition—reduced to little more than minced meat and shattered bones—as if someone had exercised excessive violence.

The God of Violence.

Simply put, they would be a deity who thrives on emotions derived from the act of inflicting harm on others, but from a broader perspective, violence is essential for survival.

Even just chewing on grass is violence toward plants, hunger is violence against oneself, and even during conversations, it’s common to hurt each other with words.

In other words, like other Evil Gods, this one would grow endlessly stronger if left unchecked….

But even so, right now they’re just a weak lesser deity born only a few years ago.

Moreover, the God of Violence isn’t the essence of violence itself, but rather a special mental entity that draws power from the concept of violence.

Even if the Apostle of Violence was too strong to defeat in direct combat within the game, they should be no match for our apostles now.

Just as I can bestow blessings that increase abilities proportional to vengeance like a passive skill, that Evil God of Violence can easily bestow blessings appropriate to their divine nature of “violence.”

Especially as one of the Seven Great Evil Gods, they naturally have insane multipliers on their buffs.

Because of this, they can grant good attributes that purely increase raw stats to all their followers, but high stats alone cannot stand against even higher stats.

And among the apostles the God of Violence might have, the one who could be an apostle at this point happens to be a named character.

Moreover, since they’re already dead in the past and serve as a sort of flagship apostle representing the Evil God of Violence, I’m already familiar with almost all their abilities, and even those abilities are likely inferior to what this apostle had in their prime.

The name of the first apostle of the God of Violence is Philemon, and his race is Titan.

Like Giants, their basic appearance is that of a large human, but the differences are clear.

Titans are, so to speak, a superior species to Giants—more precisely, Giants are the degraded descendants of Titans, and Titans are one of the fallen ancient divine races.

Therefore, unlike Giants who struggle to exceed 5 meters in height, Titans average 10 meters and can grow up to 20 meters as they age.

Also, befitting their origin as fallen divine beings, adults are naturally Rank 1, and if they survive long enough, they can easily reach Rank 0, the realm of demigods.

The most distinctive feature of Titans is their physical prowess, which is so superior it reaches boss monster levels.

Their normal attacks are on par with tactical weapons, and even mediocre skills can reshape terrain—truly formidable raw power.

With the favor of the Evil God of Violence added to this, Titan Philemon would be an entity impossible to defeat in a direct confrontation.

But his weaknesses are also quite clear, so after some consideration, I decided to postpone the subjugation and start with preparations first.

※ ※ ※

First, the obvious priority was to complete the equipment for Bjorn and Lisa.

I provided Lisa with the equipment set collected from daily Andro Sphinx runs, and had Bjorn run dungeons with the vampire avatar to earn both equipment and experience.

Following my judgment that all equipment should be at least Rank 3, after farming diligently for gear, the next step was:

“This is a request from the master, Blacksmith Grumhil.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. The master is really working these old bones hard.”

By exploiting our all-purpose craftsman Grumhil, I extracted only the necessary options from lower-grade equipment and transferred them to higher-grade items, creating proper gear.

I meticulously refined each option to ensure combo effects would apply correctly, and when necessary, I even directly intervened using divine faith to craft the equipment.

At the same time, on another front, we were manufacturing various war machines to be used in this operation.

As time quickly passed with these preparations…

Finally, it was time to begin our chaotic Titan capture operation.