Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

One of Eren's perma-clones, who participated in Shaynak Top 100, had been assigned the task of defeating Eliza Samael.

Eliza had regained her status as a Sage after establishing herself in Labh Salem and utilizing its resources. Her previous life experiences aided her Path, making her the strongest half-blood Kaiser of her generation.

Eliza was considered the top genius of the current century. If the perma-clone managed to defeat someone of her stature, he would not only gain fame but also establish formal contact with the Witch of the Enderflames.

For Eren and his clones, fame or ill fame was nothing more than a means of generating Origin Force Points.

Eren himself did not stay quiet after his clones became active in various projects. Just like his debut, he made several appearances in Agora to ensure that the buzz around him never died down.

***

Had Agora stayed the same after its inception five years ago?

Definitely not. It had gone through various qualitative and quantitative transformations. The active users of Argoa grew like wild mushrooms after the first rain, popping up from every stratum of Labh Salem's populace.

Firstly, Eren wasn't the sole debutant on the platform anymore. Various other characters had established themselves in Agora, amassing a massive number of followers. Some represented the divine faction while others catered to audiences influenced by the demonic faction.

The Immortals made their most staunch followers appear in Agora and spread their respective faith. They used this wide-reaching platform to its fullest, enabling them to solidify their followers and attract a new generation of followers from mortal and Practitioner populations.

The divine and demonic factions were also tasked with countering the third faction--the Elder Ichor faction, which still had a relatively abysmal number of followers. The very first thing most of the demonic cults and some temples did was to place bounties on Eren's head.

Some temples offered rare Tantras, Skills, Blessings, and more to anyone who could point in the right direction regarding the whereabouts of God Aleph's Inheritor. The demonic cults offered similar rewards. But the number of rewards the demonic faction offered overall was obviously more than what the divine faction was willing to invest in.

Eren had started from the bottom. So his debut could be considered to be successful considering he had nothing else to lose.

The third faction experienced massive growth in just five years, attracting many Practitioners who had forsaken the two well-established traditional factions. They joined Eren wholeheartedly, forsaking their ties with their respective originations.

In short, Agora had become a virtual battleground for the followers of all three factions, giving rise to various branch organizations and alliances on the platform. Some organizations also used Aggora to declare their enmity with their respective rivals.

***

Then there was Syl Ouroboros who had been sent Eren's way by Eliza's clever diversion tactics to get rid of the guy's romantic pursuits.

Through Agora, Eren learned that someone named Syl Oroborous was actively trying to hunt him down through any means possible. Syl had already killed many Elder Ichor faction supporters, broadcasting their live executions on Agora for everyone to see.

Eren's identity as the leader of the Elder Ichor faction was still under wraps, and not even his followers were aware of who he was. He reached out to them and supported them through the Mesh, providing various rare and unique resources in exchange for Menaka's Runes or other resources through the Barter system.

As such, Syl, who had no idea where to look for Eren, began targeting his followers. He also started killing the fiends whom Eren had managed to turn through his tools or direct intervention, attempting to extract information from them.

However, he failed to learn anything about Eren.

Eren didn't know or understand why Syl Ouroboros was searching for him, but at the same time, he didn't care.

After all, Syl was not the only one applying this strategy. The demonic cults were also out for blood, killing any fiend associated with the Elder Ichor faction that they could find.

Eren's fiends were not bound by Faustian Contracts, making them identifiable with a bit of effort. One could say that the freedom Eren had offered to his followers was the very reason they were being targeted by others.

The Demon Prince of Gluttony, Beelzebub, had openly supported Eren and the Elder Ichor faction. Except for the cults associated with Beelzebub, all the other demonic cults had formed a joint front against the Elder Ichor faction members.

The divine faction was relatively less aggressive compared to their demonic counterparts. However, they supported the cults from the shadows in an attempt to eliminate or at least suppress their common enemy.

Eren, on the other hand, played it safe. He could not be provoked by Syl Oroborous or others like him. He continued to verbally spew venom while supporting some of his staunch supporters with Hex Artifacts, potions, Tools of Liberation, and practically anything he could do in his capacity as a demi-

god.

Eren was practically running a temple all by himself. The fact that he stayed out of harm's way when almost everyone was out looking for him was considered a miracle by many.

***

Of course, new items were added in the subpanel named Tools of Liberation inside Menaka's Market.

Grimdawn had started giving away Gluttony Pearls and Envy concoctions that only his verified followers could buy from a dedicated section of Menaka's Market. He created these Gluttony Pearls from his failed experiments, which enabled him to recycle the wasted test subjects. The process also helped him get rid of the traces of his victims. So it was a win-

win.

He also had plans to distribute Borrowed Might potions through the Mesh, allowing his supporters to break free from times of difficulty.

This was the reason he had tasked one of his pseudo-avatars with obtaining the recipe for the potion, which only Minerva could make. Eren had plans to produce Borrowed Might potion en masse. All so that he, his pseudo-avatars, and the fiendish subordinates could stay ready for any unforeseen circumstances.

Eren's ingenuity extended further. He extended the privilege to his verified followers, allowing them to acquire upgraded versions of the elven masks he had first encountered in Angang. These masks, once employed by the kingdom of Layos to infiltrate Edinburgh during Eren's presence there, had ironically become a valuable asset in Eren's current endeavors.

Grateful for the inadvertent assistance from his former adversaries, Eren enhanced the runic attributes of the masks and layered them with intricate Array Formations.

The resulting Elder Ichor masks gained widespread popularity for their ability to conceal users' identities in such a way that even the wearers felt that they were not the same person anymore. Additionally, Eren introduced unique Polyjuice potions infused with traces of Elder Ichor blood, drawing inspiration from Layos kingdoms' elven potions.

While items similar to Elven masks and Polyjuice potions existed in Anfang, the inclusion of Elder Ichor blood as a distinctive ingredient in Eren's versions made them resistant to conventional countermeasures.

In Anfang, he had learned to harness the power of his bloodline in different ways. That experience came pretty handy to him.

Eren's improvements elevated these alchemical items to a status comparable to Hex Artifacts, yet they remained available at the price point of regular alchemy items.