Brand New Life Online: Rise Of The Goddess Of Harvest

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Elayne and her party quickly entered the Tower the moment they confirmed there was a clear entrance. The interior proved even more distorted and strange than the outside suggested. Everywhere they looked, they saw countless disjointed areas, floating fragments of houses and broken land, and swarms of Hollows crawling through every nook and cranny of the twisted space.

At the center of this pure and confusing madness, Elayne stared in disbelief as a gigantic Jester appeared, floating high above them while radiating a powerful energy that warped the air itself. This energy distorted space and even time to a noticeable degree, and it seemed deeply tied to darkness and the complete disarray of all things inside this strange pocket realm.

The Jester’s appearance was classical in the most unsettling way. He was truly humanoid in form and strangely exuded no Undead power at all. His clothes were a vibrant mix of purple, pink, and gold, and he wore a mask that covered his entire face, split cleanly into a laughing half and a crying half. Above his head sat a crown made of pure darkness, and his Aura constantly poured out distorting energy that Elayne could only recognize as one thing.

Chaos.

This bastard was a rare wielder of the Element of Chaos.

And unfortunately, he also had a personality.

"Welcome, explorers of the unknown!"

As he declared those words, he clapped his hands, and thousands of other souls clapped along with him. The deafening noise filled the entire interior and shook Elayne and everyone else down to their bones.

"To the great, the biggest... the most wonderful... Tower of Madness!"

The clapping and howling never stopped. More and more souls appeared out of nowhere to celebrate every word he spoke. It was complete and utter nonsense.

"Here’s your Host, famous Death Apostle of Chaos and Madness, Jester!"

The moment he announced his title, Elayne and the rest of the group remained completely paralyzed. To think that her earlier suspicions had been correct, and that a real Death Apostle truly waited here!

The realization sent sharp shivers racing down everyone’s spines.

But above all else came pure wrath.

The anger and hatred they felt completely overwhelmed any fear that tried to take root. Why? Because it was them. The Death Apostles.

It was the Death Apostles who had turned half of the Netherworld into a living hell for the Undead. They enforced endless enslavement. They demanded eternal servitude. They were traitors, Undead just like the rest of them, who had chosen to embrace greater power and join the Demon King of Death in oppressing their own people.

They were the worst of the worst. Damned souls who showed no remorse as they used and tortured other damned souls exactly like themselves, without a single shred of empathy. The worst part was that they forced this same cruelty onto everyone else. That was why so many evil Undead walked the Netherworld now. These twisted teachings had turned ordinary predators into true monsters far beyond what they might have been before.

The Netherworld had never been a peaceful dream world even before the Demon King of Death awakened. Yet it had never been this bad. Undead preying on one another had increased by more than a thousand times. The rate at which weaker Undead were destroyed and turned into resources for the strong had become truly astonishing.

This crisis even pushed the Noble Races, who once protected many Undead, into open hostility. They now viewed free Undead as dangerous unless bound as slaves to trusted masters, because any of them might turn traitor and serve a Death Apostle. It was that bad.

"Ohohohoho!"

The Jester laughed as if he could read the minds of Elayne and her companions, as if he could see every reaction and peer straight into their hearts. He felt their hatred, their anger, and their lingering fear.

And it fed him with power.

His Chaos Energy surged even stronger, shifting everything around them. Giant houses and entire rooms erupted into existence on all sides. Even more monsters poured out endlessly from every shadow. He seemed completely unstoppable, a true menace to the entire Netherworld.

If the Demon King of Death had reached the strength of a true God after absorbing the power of the False Demon King of Void born from Merlinus’s experiments, then the Death Apostles stood on the level of Demigods. Many even speculated that every Death Apostle received a Cursed Divine Blessing directly from the Demon King of Death. Those blessings pushed them far beyond their natural limits and turned them into terrifying monsters beyond ordinary comprehension.

"I can see that our guests today are quite eager!" the Jester laughed happily. "Aaaaaanyway! Today, ladies and skeletons, we’ve got a special guest!"

Suddenly he pointed both hands toward Elayne and her group. The world around them shifted at once. A massive stage-like room surged into existence, and bright lights flooded down to illuminate them completely for the entire "world" to see.

Indeed, the world.

Because what was happening right now went beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

"Elayne! The very leader of the rebel army!"

As the Jester spoke her name, the countless souls watching stirred into euphoric celebration. Their roars rose into a deadly cacophony that echoed across the whole Tower of Madness, leaving Elayne, Sailor, Norman, Mark, Granny Yaga, and Blank completely speechless.

"OOOOHHHHH!"

An audience of tens of thousands of souls roared in perfect unison. The Jester laughed and clapped again, raising his arms high as he celebrated the thunderous echoes of everyone who was thrilled to see them.

Elayne stayed silent while she carefully analyzed the Jester’s every movement. She narrowed her eyes and forced herself to confront him directly, deciding that simply standing frozen in fear would lead them nowhere.

As she faced him and confirmed that he was the one behind everything, even more questions flooded her mind.

"Just who are you?!"

"Oh my, didn’t you hear me the first time, dear?" the Jester asked with mock sweetness. "I am who I am! Jester! Just call me that!"

"..."

Elayne looked around and noticed dozens of floating cameras shaped like giant eyeballs, all of them filming everything as they spoke. There were not just a few like she had spotted earlier. There were hundreds of them. The entire situation felt beyond bizarre.

"You said you were a Player?" Elayne asked in a low, steady voice. The audience fell silent for a brief moment, and she realized with growing dread that she and her friends were being broadcast live for everyone to watch.

But where was this broadcast going? That was the real question.

"Indeed!" the Jester laughed. "I am indeed a Player, my dearest! Hahaha! And I know you very well. I know you beyond just this world... I know you for who you were when you were still alive."

"?!"

Elayne fell silent. Her Aura flared with sudden power as she furrowed her brows at the sight before her.

What the Jester revealed next left her stunned.

He opened his palm and showed a black, hand-shaped tattoo with a single red eye in the center.

"The Black Hand?!"

Elayne could only stare after that reaction. The Jester laughed even louder while the audience went completely wild at the revelation, which he seemed to care nothing about.

He was openly revealing that he was a member of the Black Hand without the slightest fear or remorse. Just who was this being? What was wrong with him? Why was he doing all of this?

Was he truly a Death Apostle and a Player at the same time? Was something like that even possible?

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