The players have been on the Second Main Scenario Planet for about a week or so and there was never a dull moment. If the First Main Scenario Planet was a tutorial where it let the players adjust and train to the new gaming environment and playstyle, then the Second Main Scenario World was where all the training and adapting were put to the test.
Every day that the players were on the planet, they experienced battle after battle and war after war. There wasn’t a moment’s rest for them as war quests and battle quests were constantly issued by both sides of the 2 factions that were warring against each other on the planet. Guilds continuously clashed while players would constantly be moving to and from the Arena to gain MMR and contribution points from their respective factions to earn some rewards that were in the form of weapons, equipment, skill books, pets, titles, and gold.
The battlefield and the Arena were the 2 main attractions of this planet. The Arena had many battle modes, normal PvP where two players fought against each other, a tag-team PvP, a battle royale, a survival mode, a colosseum mode, and even a battle arena mode. Many guilds had their players form teams to challenge all of these game modes. Most of the time, the players would be fighting amongst themselves but there were some odd occasions where the players would be matched with an NPC.
Most of the time when the players were matched like this, they’d immediately receive a loss because the NPCs were just too powerful for them. This went for all of the Arena modes. The Arena provided so much good content for streamers that it was all they were streaming most of the time. Hunting monsters, grinding levels, and completing dungeons had gone bland since it was normal to see such things in previous games. The Arena function of UniTale was also present in previous games but unlike those that weren’t VR, this was and it added a realistic nature to the Arena battles that were akin to fighting sports like boxing, MMA, and wrestling.
It was also much more entertaining to watch since the game provided the players with cool aesthetics in both their armor, weapon, and skill animations. The Arena matches were just so fun to watch that it attracted normal audiences that weren’t even playing the game and had no interest in it at all, until now at least. So many people came to watch all the action and it grew so popular that it was even featured in the real world’s sports news.
Now, some major sports channels were even hosting a few gaming organizations’ Arena matches and there were talks about a Virtual UniTale Arena Battle League coming soon. In all that bustling, a portal was opened in one of Gaia’s Temples. The black portal felt ominous and cold, it wasn’t like the normal portals that appeared, this one was definitely different. All of the players thought that some kind of random event was happening and they became excited but what stepped out of the portal was a beautiful young lady wearing a hooded black mantle that partly obscured her face who had 4 pairs of large black wings on her back.
The NPCs and players that were moving around the temple to see what was going to happen had their attention caught by the newcomer that stepped through the portal. The players could tell that the person who had stepped out was a player just like them so they grew a bit disappointed. There was only one Temple of Gaia found on the entire planet and newly arrived players would come here to set their respawn points and to take the starting quests from one of the two factions, the Pantheon and the Celestial Order.
Everyone here was a neutral allegiance player but Maria’s name was displayed as a dark red to everyone present which soon caught their attention as it was definitely unusual. The person who had stepped out of the portal was, naturally, Maria, and when she did reveal herself to everyone present, all of the NPCs and Players received a mental status check due to her passive [Charm] skill. Everyone present was hit with the debuff and they stood frozen in place, not moving at all like a bunch of zombies.
Maria looked around for a moment before hearing a system notification bell ring in her ears.
*DING*
You have arrived on Gaia! Due to special circumstances, your allegiance will be changed to [Goddess Gaia] and your alignment has been changed to Neutral! Your bounty will also be lifted for the time being and NPCs will no longer be hostile to you. Note*: Players will still be able to see your bounty and attack you, please take caution!
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot that I was wanted by the other gods,” Maria said as she stretched her 8 wings.
Her name quickly changed from dark red to grey in front of the astonished players and NPCs. She quickly stepped off of the altar before flying out of the temple and as she moved, Maria left behind a dark, shadowy trail.
This dark trail was something that she obtained from one of the Sin Devils that she killed, an ability that she plundered from their souls just before she absorbed them. She had obtained Greed’s Chains from the Devil of Greed while this one was from the Devil of Envy and it was called Envy’s Umbra. Just like Greed’s Chains, Envy’s Umbra was similarly an item but at the same time, not an item. It didn’t fit into any equipment slot and Maria could equip it without the item taking up any space on her loadout. Just like Greed’s Chain which gave her a 100% increase to a random stat, Envy’s Umbra did the same but instead of bolstering her INT, this item enhanced her AGI.
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The item also gave Maria the ability to control her shadow as she pleased to act in defense or offense, though she mostly had it mirror her movements or equip it around her body like armor. The ability was called [Shadow Weave] and she was still learning how to properly use and control the item like how the Devil of Envy did when she last faced it. Envy was able to manipulate its shadow to enhance all of its attacks. It used a bow and arrow so every projectile it sent at Maria was enhanced by its shadow and it would leave behind a trail on her that would act as a homing beacon for all of its arrows.
By far, it was the most annoying devil she had fought amongst the Sin Devils. Maria wanted to learn how to quickly do the things Envy did so she always had her shadow attached to her body which resulted in her leaving behind a dark trail wherever she went. The other two ‘items’ she obtained from the Devil of Wrath and the Devil of Lust, were Wrath’s Heart and Lust’s Sigil. Wrath’s Heart was a mantle while Lust’s Sigil was a tattoo and it was placed in a somewhat embarrassing spot on Maria’s body.
Wrath’s Heart gave her a 100% increase in STR while Lust’s Sigil gave a 100% increase to her VIT stat. Maria was growing more broken by the day but she still felt like she was lacking compared to the top rankers of the game. Other than the stat enhancing effects the two items gave her, Wrath’s Heart gave Maria the ability of [Flight] and [Levitation]. She didn’t need the first ability of the mantle because she already had wings but the second ability caused Maria and anything that she possessed to always be in a floating state.
She no longer even needed to sit down on a chair or anything as she could just ‘sit’ on the air while the things she touched would just hover in the air after she let go of them. Maria didn’t know what good it did for her but at the very least, she felt like she had become more ‘classy’ in some ways―some odd ways.
Finally, Lust’s Sigil gave her the ability to enhance her beauty and charisma. This was probably the most useless ability from all the new items she gained from the Sin Devils. Of course, she wouldn’t know that such an item to an ordinary player was godly because enhancing Charisma could allow for better NPC interactions. Of course, she didn’t need this but the stat enhancing effect was just too good to pass on.
The only problem was the weird tattoo that she had to place on her body in order to have the item’s effects work. Luckily, all of her clothing covered it so she didn’t have to reveal the embarrassing thing to anyone. Another thing that changed was Maria’s [Fallen Angel of Death] title. After she had finished absorbing all 3 of the new Sin Devil Souls, the title had been changed to [Fallen Angel of Sin].
The effects of the title were the same as before except that it also had an additional effect that enhanced her control and affinity with the items and skills from the Sin Devils. When Maria arrived outside of the Temple, she breathed in the air of the new planet and began to giggle to herself.
“Thank you Death, and thank you, Gaia!”
Previously, when she heard the Goddess Gaia was asking for Death’s help, she didn’t link the goddess with the planet Gaia, just then. However, she did have her hopes up a little bit. Now that she was on the planet and seeing other players around her for the first time in a long time, Maria really just wanted to cheer and shout at the top of her lungs.
“I’m finally here! I thought I’d miss it like before, but I’m actually here!”
Maria flew around the little town called Osrus and found that only a few players were hanging around here. It wasn’t like the grand city she saw that held the Colosseum Arena that was all the buzz with players moving in and out of it. She then remembered that this was likely the starting town where players would first be teleported to when they arrived.
“Hmm, I wonder where it is. I’ll go ask the village chief or a player where it is.”
Maria swooped down in front of a swordsman player and was about to ask them for directions but when she appeared in front of the person and asked her question, the player wasn’t responsive and just blankly stared ahead without moving or even acknowledging her presence.
“Eh? What the hell? If you don’t wanna answer, then just say so!”
Maria quickly flew away and tried to find another player or NPC but all she got was the same stupid treatment. She finally gave up but was fortunate enough to find a complete map of the area around her when she passed by the town’s adventurer guild. After recording the map, Maria quickly summoned Lilah and Red to her side before departing from the village. She indeed couldn’t bring any of her subordinates, but her pets were a part of her so after releasing their summoning before walking through the portal, she could easily just re-summon them after she arrived.
“Master, tell Red to go in that direction,” Lilah said after looking at the map.
“You heard her, Red. Let’s go!”
Red listened to her command and quickly sprinted out of the town’s gates with Maria and Lilah on his back. Once they left, all of the players and NPCs, who made contact with Maria and fell under her passive [Charm] skill, were immediately lifted of their befuddlement and were confused that they had suddenly blacked out for a moment.
The players only saw from the system notifications that they had fallen under the effects of [Charm] and were lifted from its effects and grew a bit angry. They were in a neutral village and attacking here should have been banned but someone actually had the audacity to break that rule. Normally, the Temple of Gaia would immediately issue a bounty for said transgressor so everyone affected immediately tried to look for the person who cast [Charm] on them but their search was futile since Maria had already left. Not only that but the Temple of Gaia didn’t even issue anything after a while so the players dropped it.
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Name: Maria Level: 87 Race: Fallen Ophanim - Awakened Variant Class: Dark Priestess
Subclass 1: Magus
Subclass 2: Queen Titles: Fallen Angel of Sin, Angel of the Apocalypse, The Unlucky One, Fallen Priestess, Fallen Saintess, Harbinger of the World’s End, Queen of the Dire, Species Eradicator A, ... HP: 69,760/69,760
MP: 438,600/438,600
BE: 219,300/219,300
SP: 14,112/14,112
NE: 242/242 EXP: 8,429,288/8,700,000 REP: 110,000 ATK: 15,785 (+1800~2000)
DEF: 6,930 (+115~215)
M.ATK: 5653 (+1800~2000)
M.DEF: 23,793 (+15) STR: 1260 (+10)
AGI: 1680
VIT: 2520 (+8)
INT: 8,652 (+26)
LCK: 12 (+10)
SIN: 24 Free Stat Points: 150 Universal Currency: 360,412 Gold 18 Silver 88 Copper
Vanhal Currency: 54,600 Blood Gold
Faction Currency: 3,001,000 Universe Gold