Guild Wars

His situation was tough to resolve without breaking the rules, but did he really need to break the rules? Deployed Soldier didn't think so. Even if his law could not give him direct combat power, he could certainly still fight.

Immediately, Deployed activated his law and classified all the core members as his troops, which suddenly boosted everyone's combat capability by 500% at the minimum - on top of what they already had - while also giving them access to the special features of his law.

What was most important, though, was that Deployed sneakily added the three Law clones formed by the Evil Trio into this group. Knowing that Draco was away on another exploration quest, he summoned Draco's Law Clone before him and used his law to get it to clear the grey rot before him.

His law didn't make those he listed as troops automatically obey him, but the law clone was mostly robotic and followed simple commands anyway. Not only that, but it had Draco's Law of True Destruction at the True Rank, so its combat capability was arguably the best among the core members despite Deployed's own limitations.

Work smarter, not harder!

The rest of the True Core did not have the same issue. Gentle Flower, for one, was blessed with very strong magical ability with the element of nature, leveraging her power to deal with the grey rot before her.

｢Name: Gentle Flower – True God

Level: The Law of Nature's Will (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of Nature's Will - Divine Law

Grade: EX+

Effect: An elemental law relating to that of wood, earth, and life mixed together to form the overarching nature element. This law allows one to make use of this combined element to perform offensive, defensive, or support-related moves.

Sources: Daughter of Gaia (Divine Class) + Gaia's Love (Passive Skill).｣

There wasn't much to see here, Gentle Flower was anything but gentle when it came to fulfilling her tasks. She had approached the grey rot and performed some common elemental energy-based attacks and like the others, found it to be of low effectiveness.

Then, she struck with matter-based attacks and naturally found them to be more useful, then evolved to using them in tandem with energy attacks.

That was all to say, the current Gentle Flower had gone Hashirama style on the grey rot, summoning giant wooden avatars that smashed down continuously, exploding with the dark green energy of nature's vitality, causing the earth to tremble for miles around while she smiled calmly.

Along with her was her boyfriend and fellow core member turned guild ambassador, Happy Scholar. Seeing his girl teach the grey rot who was boss, he too became enlivened and decided to use his power which had been held back many times for fear of casualties.

｢Name: Happy Scholar – True God

Level: The Law of Abyssal Corruption (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of Abyssal Corruption - Divine Law

Grade: EX+

Effect: A very dangerous law that allows a user to forcefully infuse any being with pure Abyssal Energy, corroding them into abyssal monsters of different kinds depending on the source being. The strength of the being after corrosion is dependent on the rank of this law and the entity will remain under this law user's control, but will derive energy from them.

Sources: Void Speaker (Divine Class) + Corrode (Active Skill).｣

He, Happy Scholar, had been greatly suppressed these past ten years down in the main plane due to fear by the core members that his abyssal abilities would introduce unstable elements into reality.

Even Eva, who was literally the Mother of the Abyss, didn't dare use her abyssal abilities wantonly and only once turned Shangtian's remnant body into an abyssal golem with the help of Shuangtian to give him a fate worse than death.

So how dare he, Happy Scholar, make this power his mainstay?!

However, Happy Scholar was happy with the niche he found for himself, especially since he had become his own kind of Abyssal creature called the Void Speaker, merging abyssal rules and laws with the power of a runesmith.

On that note, the young man wanted to corrode the grey rot, but gave up when he checked the core members' chat and saw the hypothesis that the grey rot was from an abyssal creature. Happy Scholar could tell this was not a mere guess because he could literally feel the hidden abyssal energy within the grey rot.

It was precisely the abyssal energy that gave it its various characteristics, from energy assimilation or monster manifestation, because these were features of the abyss!

The grey rot could break down energies with ease, minus Destruction and Space? That was literally the nature of abyssal energy and all abyssal creatures. Heck, even the Void Monsters from the First Guild War back then had this ability!

The grey rot could turn living beings into monsters with different abilities by assimilating them, alive or dead? Wasn't that literally the corrosion ability of the abyss?

The grey rot spread out slowly and consumed everything in its way, transforming the very matter where it passed? Wasn't it creating a minor abyssal realm?

So this was the mystery of the grey rot! Read additional stories on m-vl-em-py-r

It was just the work of some abyssal creature that infiltrated the Divine Realm! As long as the core members used anti-abyssal measures to deal with it, then the problem was resolved.

Apart from Destruction and Space among the elements which had strong effects on Abyssal energy due to the nature of the elements, there was only one other that could affect Abyssal and it was its polar opposite, Celestial Energy.

Unfortunately, among all the core members, only probably Warm Spring could use Celestial Energy as the incarnation of Nuwa. For the current Happy Scholar, he had to use fire to fight fire, which was fine for him.

As the grey rot was also an abyssal entity, he certainly couldn't corrode it, but he could smash it with his own refined abyssal energy for sure. As such, he began speaking words of power while writing runes in the air with his fingers simultaneously, the usually golden glowing runes taking on a black and sinister hue when corrupted by abyssal energy.

His attacks struck and had a strong effect akin to Destruction and Space Energy so far as the grey rot could not assimilate, so the attacks dealt their full and normal damage.

Satisfied, Happy Scholar laughed uproariously.

However, his laughter was choked by a loud shout nearby that made him cringe.

"AS LONG AS MY FRIENDS SUPPORT ME, I WILL NEVER FALL!" Noble Soul roared as his body exploded with power.

｢Name: Noble Soul – True God

Level: The Law of Heroic Protagonist (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of Heroic Protagonist - Divine Law

Grade: EX+

Effect: This law harmonizes the user with the nature of the universe, granting them the status of a recognized heroic soul as well as the official powers of a protagonist character. Not only does this character possess the abilities of a hero, but they can also gain strength the more people that believe in them and trust them, with no limit in scale.

Raising this law's rank reduces the energy consumption for the heroic abilities granted.

Sources: The Legend (Divine Class) + Above and Beyond! Plus Ultra! (Passive Skill).｣

Noble Soul's shout resounded across the entire area, causing everyone to feel a surge of power well through them.

｢My Nakama Are Invincible! – Active skill

Effect: You are powerful, but at the same time you're nothing without your friends who had contributed everything to bring you where you are today. Acknowledge the prowess of your friends with an emotional one-liner, giving yourself and every ally a 1,000% boost to all stats, 3,000% boost to Damage and Defense, and a 3-minute invulnerability period!

Duration: 1.5 hours.

Cooldown: 2 hours or 0.004 Divine Points.｣

Apart from bumping all the core members in the area, Noble Soul also began using his various techniques granted to him by his training. He was one person who had greatly trained his techniques thanks to the various implements provided, so he was almost on par with Draco in terms of his own created set of abilities.

Not to mention his many other skills were just as nonsensical, taken from a protagonist's fold. With them, and with Noble Soul designating the grey rot as an enemy, there was no chance for the poor abyssal calamity to make any waves before him.

Noble Soul thought so, and so too did Joker who was watching him speechlessly while wielding his cards.

｢Name: Joker – True God

Level: The Law of the Heart of Cards (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of the Heart of Cards - Divine Law

Grade: EX

Effect: This law massively enhances the user's ability to make fate-altering plays with their deck, always drawing the cards they need at the right moment. The more dire the situation and the stronger the card needed to resolve it, the more Divine Energy this law will require. Raising the rank of this law reduces the Divine Energy cost.

Sources: The Gambit of Cards (Divine Class) + Deck of Fate (Active Skill).｣

Looking at the grey rot before him, Joker pondered what card to use. He already knew that Destruction, Space, and Abyssal worked relatively well, but he was also intrigued by this celestial energy.

｢Free Draw – Active skill

Effect: Decide on any card within your Divine Deck to summon. You will always get that card and can use it freely.

Cooldown: 1 second.｣

He didn't have any celestial cards, but he did have a lot of space-related ones. Given the situation, he was sure he could also draw celestial-related cards given that his law allowed him to draw what he needed most, but he was wary of the cost.

Once again, unlike Noble Writer, Joker was not arrogant enough to think his meager starting energy was enough to hold down the sky. If he ended up being drained to a husk, what would he do then?

Joker tossed out the space element card which created a small black hole in the midst of the grey rot, having a strong effect as it sucked some of it into a caustic sub-space. The card had been played and went into cooldown so Joker summoned other space element cards en masse.

｢Multi-Draw – Active skill

Effect: Decide on two or more specific cards within your Divine Deck to summon. You can play all these cards at once or in a specified order, but they cannot be kept in your hand.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.｣

｢Effect Booster – Active skill

Effect: Boost the effect of any card in your hand or being played. The amount of boost is relative to your Luck stat, and every 10 points of luck is a 1% boost to the card's power.

Cooldown: 5 seconds.｣

Queuing in two different skills, one to bring up to 15 space element offensive cards and one to boost their effects for better results, Joker tossed them out in a cycled order based on their strengths, effects, and his own careful planning.

All cards had cooldowns and none of his current skills could change them or negate them, even Divine Points. As such, he had to time his card plays very carefully and make sure that by the time one card was done, another he could use came out of cooldown.

While Joker worked his magic, Warm Spring was also dealing with the grey rot in her own special way, which was likely only second to Essence and maybe Jada in terms of speed in clearing the grey rot, a definite surprise for every core member until they found out the reason.

It turned out that this crafty young miss had fully utilized her rare and unique law to deal a severe blow to the grey rot!