"O God of Games … please guide your disciple, Leah. How should I continue on my path?"
Leah asked piously, leaning on her sword as she half-knelt on the ground.
Xi Wei gently brushed his hand over her head, and her name appeared above her head in white.
"What's this …?" Leah tilted her head, puzzled as she stared at the words that appeared above her head.
"This is the symbol of a 'player'. Only our believers can see it. If you see anyone with words above their heads in other places, you don't have to doubt that they are also our believers. In other words, they are 'players'." Xi Wei explained, "Also, if there's a HP bar floating above their heads, then they're definitely enemies."
"Players, huh …"
Even if she wasn't sure what a HP Bar was, Leah the Player understood that there was a word called Player in this world, and it naturally referred to the people playing the game. That was the perfect code name for a believer of the God of Games.
Leah nodded at that thought.
"I have blessed you. Chant the words of divine revelation in your heart to activate that blessing."
"Words of divine revelation?" Leah closed her eyes doubtfully. Just as she was hesitating if she should start praying, a flash of inspiration that crackled like static electricity flashed in her mind, and a short command was etched deeply into her mind.
She opened her eyes and excitedly said to Xi Wei, who was hiding his tentacles behind his back, "My Lord, I understand!"
Then, she chanted it out almost by reflex. "O Game, grant us new life …"
A translucent screen appeared in front of her at once.
[Ding! Warrior Princess System activated.]
"Alright. You may head to the town outside the Valley of the Tragic Dead. That is where my believers gather, and they would welcome you." Xi Wei spoke up before Leah could look at her System page.
"What about my guards …" Leah looked worriedly at her guards who had yet to wake up.
"They are not devout in their faith, and could not break through their confusion to open the Holy Path and receive my blessings." Xi Wei replied. "They would naturally wake up when you leave the Divine Kingdom."
"I see." Leah breathed a sigh of relief, but also a little disappointed.
"That's all for now. I hope that the next time we meet, I could see your growth …"
"Please wait, God of Games!" "Everyone says that my grandfather was the King of Stupidity and Blindness … What do you think of him?" Lia asked seriously as she stared at the blurred silhouette of Xi Wei.
This time, Xi Wei was silent for a long time.
The hopeful look in the young girl's eyes gradually faded as time passed.
In the end, Xi Wei said seriously, "Even to me, he is a king worthy of respect."
After all, without Yakaran the Eleventh, the God of Games would not have been born, and Xi Wei would not have come to this world. Therefore, from a certain point of view, Xi Wei had to thank that unfortunate king.
"Thank you, God of Games!" Hearing his affirmation, the girl's gaze was no longer lost, and she bowed solemnly.
Instead of answering, he waved his tentacles and sent her away along with the guards.
They were teleported to the outskirts of a county several hundred miles away from Lancaster.
In fact, he had not really pulled them into his divine kingdom, and had merely created an illusory realm to end things hastily. After all, it would take too much divine energy to pull anything from the mortal realm into his divine kingdom, and Xi Wei did not intend to waste so much divine energy on these fellows.
"Okay. With Leah, the main quest for the believers is basically established." Xi Wei was in a good mood, and even had the mood to return to the forest to look at the cultists.
They did not appear to have given up, and were searching the forest in groups of twos and threes. It made sense when one thought about it. After plotting for so long, their prey was about to be caught, and yet they somehow escaped. Xi Wei would not be satisfied if it were him.
It was not that Xi Wei could not handle the cultists. In fact, even if there were ten times as many cultists, Xi Wei could kill them in seconds without panting.
Still, teleporting Leah and the others to another location was a standard divine grace, and if he directly appeared to slay the cultists, it would be a 'descent' that would definitely be noticed by the gods.
More importantly, Xi Wei realized that while the Rotten Bones they worshipped was an evil god, it was essentially an unorthodox branch of the Skeleton God. The Skeleton God was a second-level god under Lord Hades himself, and its branch was clearly weaker, a rare miscellaneous god.
Unless the cultists of this trash god were powerful enough to directly occupy a city-state kingdom, and then establish their religion as the national religion, spreading it wantonly and increasing the number of believers, it would be very difficult for him to rise to the level of a proper lower god.
Such a weakling must be kept, and it would be difficult to find another suitable miscellaneous god if Xi Wei scared it away with his appearance.
As for the cultists, some might think that there must be something wrong with the cultists' brains to worship these miscellaneous evil gods instead of the many superior gods in this world.
However, there was an old saying in the Celestial Empire: it was better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix.
There were millions of believers of the high gods, and it was extremely difficult for ordinary people to stand out in the church. On the other hand, this kind of inferior evil god did not have many believers, so as long as they devoutly submitted to it, after being noticed by it, they could almost get the other party's blessing in a short period of time.
Such blessings would definitely be much weaker than the blessings of a superior god, and there was an eighty percent chance that there would be side effects depending on the corresponding divine title. Still, it was an immeasurably powerful existence compared to mortals or even clerics. Only a person of at least the level of a bishop could stand up against the leader of these cultists.
One could even say that worshipping an evil god was a shortcut to quickly gain power in this world, and that was precisely why evil god cults continued to exist despite being banned.
One way or another, the appearance of the Rotten Bones cult gave Xi Wei a new goal for his believers to develop towards. Who knows, he might even be able to drag that deity whose true form was unknown into a dungeon for the Players to take turns to torture.