With Khajiit's death, the entire Lich King incident was finally settled.
The group returned to E-Rantel under cover of night. They slipped past the celebrating crowds still cheering in the streets and, with help from the Adventurers' Guild staff, each retired to an assigned private room.
Once Momonga had layered sufficient defensive wards inside his quarters and stationed Nabe on watch outside the door, Helant and the other two stepped through into the Heart of the Sanctuary.
The moment Momonga crossed the threshold, the dim space flared with gentle light. From the soaring palace suspended high in the artificial heavens drifted holy, ethereal singing, soft and resonant.
He had already heard that exact melody once tonight.
"Helant-san, at the time I really thought that clone of yours felt like a true god."
The majestic figure of the Holy Domain God Lord remained etched deeply in Momonga's mind. He had never imagined that Helant's doppelganger could radiate such overwhelming presence. The pressure it exuded had felt heavier than the aura of any world boss they had raided back in YGGDRASIL.
"The Holy-Evil Balance trait among special races allows me to split off a clone embodying ultimate good or ultimate evil for a limited duration. That clone possesses my full power." Helant walked steadily toward the Faith Pool at the sanctuary's center.
Holy-Evil Balance?
Momonga had never encountered such a racial trait before. Curiosity stirred as he asked, "Helant-san, is this a hidden class you discovered?"
Helant let out a quiet chuckle. "After I gained access to the source code, I grafted traits from several special races together to create what you see now. Holy-Evil Balance is the result."
He paused briefly. "I patched together three variants like this in total."
Originally, Helant had considered modifying only his job classes. That approach would have been far safer. A failure would merely produce conflicting class effects, and the character would almost certainly survive.
But altering a race was entirely different. Rewriting its source code felt like dismantling one's own body and reassembling it with foreign organs. One critical mistake meant permanent death.
Holy-Evil Balance had been the first special race he dared to modify. Just as he had coded the Faith Pool to absorb and store belief, he had granted this race the core trait [Balance]. He hoped it would neutralize the violent conflicting forces raging inside him.
The risk had been enormous, yet he had won the gamble.
Within Helant now, the apex jobs World Champion, World Calamity, and Eternal Life Sustenance intertwined with the special races Holy Light Demon God, Holy-Evil Balance, and Faith Devourer. Together they formed a closed, perfectly stable loop.
Under the equilibrium enforced by Holy-Evil Balance, those immense powers remained docile as lambs, each confined firmly to its designated place.
Momonga sensed the faint but unmistakable pressure radiating from his friend and marveled silently at the sheer audacity. Peroroncino had once warned him in no uncertain terms: random code edits could corrupt a save file and crash the entire data set. For a character, that was indistinguishable from true death.
The memory sent a faint chill through Momonga even now. If Helant had failed back then, would he have simply vanished right in front of him?
He looked at Helant with rare earnestness. "Next time you plan something this dangerous, talk to me first."
Helant stood on the palace's high steps, gazing down across the entire Heart of the Sanctuary. Confidence filled his voice as he declared, "Modifying code was my last and riskiest gamble. From this moment onward, the entire world is officially part of my calculations!"
His long white hair streamed behind him in the gentle currents of mana. His flawless face glowed with quiet radiance. Beside him, Mino stared up in a daze and let out a soft, foolish laugh.
This was the real Helant. The true Supreme Being.
And the man she loved most.
Quietly, she activated a small recording crystal and captured the moment.
"Albedo got the better of me last time. This photo will even the score!"
Seeing Helant like this, Momonga teased him in the easy manner of old friends. "No wonder you managed to charm Bukubukuchagama. But are you really planning to use all that accumulated Faith Power to forge a fake World Item?"
Helant had first floated the idea when he showed Momonga the Faith Pool's contents. He intended to combine Faith Power with his special job [World Alchemist] to craft a fully controllable World Item.
As they reached the edge of the Faith Pool, Helant explained once more. "The Holy Domain God Lord's official debut tonight is bound to draw attention. Among the onlookers, there will certainly be dragons."
He had already told Momonga earlier: the Eight Greed Kings had fallen due to internal strife among Players combined with a devastating counterattack by dragons.
A single True Dragon Lord was comparable in strength to a top-tier Player, and as the race that ultimately wiped out the Eight Greed Kings, they undoubtedly possessed World Items of their own.
Helant lifted his gaze to the Faith Pool. Thousands of white-gold threads, dense as silk yet flowing like liquid light, trickled steadily within the basin.
Four thousand points of Faith Power.
Every NPC in Nazarick, plus the hundred thousand Sanctuary Demons housed within the Heart of the Sanctuary, had gathered belief for nearly half a month. Added to that was the spontaneous faith generated by tens of thousands of E-Rantel's citizens during the battle.
This was the total harvest.
He opened his level status panel.
Helant: [LV:100 (Progress: 0.1%)]
All-Attribute Enhancement: 0.1%
One hundred points of Faith Power could raise a level 100 character's attributes and level progress by 0.1%. Four thousand points would yield, at best, a 4% increase in stats and progress.
Compared to such a negligible gain, it was far wiser to invest the resource in a larger, more decisive plan.
With that thought, Helant turned and smiled at Momonga. "With our current strength, burning Faith Power on ourselves is meaningless. Why not craft a World Item specifically meant to screw people over?"
A trolling World Item.
A red light flashed briefly within Momonga's eye sockets. "I found a spell called 'Bloodline Reversion' in Khajiit's memories. It might be useful to you."
From the very beginning, Momonga had sensed its potential value. He knew the game's lore regarding dragons well: a species whose older bloodlines were inherently stronger.
Helant perked up immediately. "Tell me everything!"
As Momonga explained the spell in careful detail, a wicked grin slowly spread across Helant's face.
The magic could not have come at a better time. He had been searching for the perfect way to tailor a World Item specifically against dragons.
Now, inspiration had struck.
Watching that grin, Mino raised her recording crystal once more and captured another beautiful shot.
Whoever Helant was plotting against was none of her concern.
All she knew was that, at this moment, he looked absolutely breathtaking.
____
Sry for the late update...
Was having a BroVsBro in League of Legends..
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