Operation Meteor Shower

With all four of us gathered, it was time to start the strategy meeting in the private room. Our main bodies were each busy procuring resources by selling points to other players through mutual consulting and black-market deals with the cartel’s top executives—shortened to Cartel Top Execs.

The genius of strategy and tactics—in a sense, the central pillar among the cartel bosses—Wahando projected something like a digital monitor and began his explanation.

“I will now explain the Total Annihilation Overwhelming Storm Meteor Shower Operation.”

“Shorten that damn name already.”

“Lament! Just call it the Meteor Shower Operation.”

“If a cultivation manual with a name like that were circulating, everyone would assume it was some divine supreme technique. It hardly seems appropriate for our tenth collision.”

Wahando, however, remained steadfast.

“Understood. We will refer to it as the Meteor Shower Operation. However, I cannot compromise on the official designation.”

“Yeah, sure. Do whatever you want…”

My own story could be titled something like World Invasion of the Anti-Intellectualism Demon King if it were a web novel, but people would still just shorten it to Anti-Intellect Demon King or even Anti-Intellect. Who actually calls a story by its full pretentious title?

“The Meteor Shower Operation is not a plan for winning the collision itself. It is the opposite. The core of the Meteor Shower Operation lies in the growth and supply lines right up until the moment of collision. Instead of four meteors, we will bombard the entire world with dozens, hundreds, thousands of them.”

In short, since we already possessed the skill to win any fight once the worlds collided, this was about setting the operational guidelines for the cartel until that point.

Wahando handed over the draft he had prepared after consulting with me and Sesaisa before Mihun arrived. Mihun scanned it, found no particular complaints, and simply said we could proceed exactly as written without adding any clauses.

We still had few members. Honestly, given the nature of this game where headcount only ever shrank, we weren’t likely to gain many more.

The Cartel Top Executives were those who would go all the way with the Meteor Cartel. They would always remain beneath us, and anyone unwilling to fight alongside us would drop out early. In the end, they were our allies.

The upper, mid, and lower members, by comparison, were simply on friendly terms. Since spies were possible, we would not share critical strategies with them, but we would still bind them with absolute secrecy contracts.

This was roughly the organizational chart—a very loose one. Our relationship with the lower members was one of cooperation and friendship, not hierarchy.

When you compared it to Terasion, who had built a friendly force yet maintained clear ranks by scoring players, or the Mythic Alliance, which only communicated with those it deemed equals, our structure was extremely… free. Anyone could join, and anyone could gain at least some benefit.

But the important part was each Boss’s role.

Thanks to my Deity-World Oneness, I could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠summon multiple clones that shared a single consciousness. This was an advantage no other player possessed, allowing active, leading participation and management across multiple communities. I would take charge of aggressive information gathering and external intelligence activities.

Sesaisa could exert his influence inside his world through his Avatar while conducting limited external activities. He would manage internal coordination with the Cartel Top Executives and handle restricted external diplomacy.

Mihun could drastically slow his perceived time and was skilled in clone techniques using divine power. Unlike me, who searched for current information, he would comb through every old community post in existence to hunt for useful data. It was honestly insane work, but he volunteered, claiming that retracing history wasn’t particularly difficult for him.

And Wahando, with his Time Manipulation Right granting him relatively abundant time and his talent for collective grand strategy, would manage the lower members while determining the cartel’s overall direction.

In other words, once Mihun and I scraped together information from the past and present, Sesaisa would immediately begin diplomacy with our Cartel Top Executives, and Wahando would formulate the grand strategy from the gathered intel.

This was the Meteor Cartel’s decision-making system, and internally it also defined the critical functions of each faction.

Essentially, we were aiming for immediate gains through trade.

I would supply biological resources and training locations. Because my ecosystem was the most fucked-up among the four worlds, heroes from other factions could train inside our world and return. It was literally a “hunting ground.”

Killing a few creatures in my ecosystem wouldn’t destroy the Dessert Desert, and since they grew while adapting appropriately, I could supply other worlds with extremely powerful biological resources along with experience points.

Sesaisa would construct spiritual realms. From playing the game, I had come to believe Sesaisa was genuinely the greatest spiritual realm specialist among all players. According to Mihun, extracting that much faith from the Dessert Desert should have been impossible. He would build spiritual realms across various regions with infinitely producing flows and generate mystery resources.

Mihun would provide cultivation methods, knowledge, and training. Using the high terrain levels granted by his Inaction Nature and the enormous resources they produced, he would create heroes and train them. He had even established cultivation sects where outside elephants and hermit crabs could train.

Wahando would supply various goods through a powerful industrial base. By providing factory-produced items to each world, he could convert massive raw materials directly into equipment.

Once we actually laid ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it out, the arrangement felt a little strange.

I didn’t need Wahando’s help. While I sold raw materials, I had no intention of importing any. Just because someone else built a civilization didn’t mean it qualified as anti-intellectual non-civilization gameplay. Wahando had suggested importing weapons for the Sugar Lumps by citing the hermit crab example, but I refused and chose to export only raw materials.

Sesaisa didn’t need Mihun’s help. He trusted only the single mystery of magic and had nothing in particular to learn from Mihun. Though it seemed he was picking up some physical mysteries.

Mihun didn’t need my help. In terms of ecosystem management, he was already evolving well on his own and had acquired sufficient knowledge. Importing biological resources was also impractical for him. Minor adjustments might be necessary, but that was all.

Wahando didn’t need Sesaisa’s help. He claimed that Politics, which had reached the realm of mystery, was incompatible with spiritual realms.

So the three pairs traded at different intensities—frequent, moderate, and almost none—yet the balance somehow worked out, allowing mutual benefit through commerce.

“Now that we have established the guidelines for internal and external activities, I will inform you of the specific actions each of us must take in this Meteor Shower Operation.”

We had to win. Winning came first; only then could there be a future.

Since all of us were aiming for the championship anyway, we would pour out points without reservation to purchase resources from other worlds. According to Wahando, worlds were roughly divided into “those with abundant resources but low-grade traits” and “those with scarce resources but high-grade traits.”

Our current opponent possessed vast resources. Once we defeated them, there would be almost no factions left capable of matching our weight class. That was simply how it was. A world worth twenty million points meant we would be absorbing that entire pool of resources in one go.

This referred only to simple material and spiritual-flow resources, of course. In short, if a million enemy soldiers invaded and all died, that much meat would feed my world, countless life forms would flourish, and the magical power and flows they used would fatten my Nectar.

So we funneled those points—minus commissions—through the Cartel Top Executives to secretly import external materials. With them, we would drastically raise the weight class of our four somewhat grotesque worlds.

The problem was that after a certain point, the small transactions conducted by the Cartel Top Executives selling points bit by bit could no longer convert our enormous stockpile of points into resources.

We absolutely had to win the next match. Moreover, the opponent’s crowdfunding campaign showed no signs of stopping; the total kept rising. At our current weight class, we could not feel safe.

So Mihun, Sesaisa, Wahando, and I scoured the community like madmen, paid the executives and members, and mobilized everyone until we finally succeeded in making contact with one particular faction.

It was the so-called “Pantheon Co.” faction.

I hadn’t expected it either. Who would have thought this player would still be alive?

He was none other than the player who had sold the god fragment used to create Yogur-tosoth. His appearance was roughly a turtle head on a humanoid body—an unshelled turtle person, so to speak.

“Thanks to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what you sold back then, I’m still making excellent use of that legendary creation.”

“Indeed. With the enormous points I received at the time—this sounds rather funny now. Those points are pocket change these days. The inflation has been quite severe, hasn’t it?

At any rate, I expanded the business significantly and even purchased two mythic-grade traits. It was a mutually beneficial transaction.

Shall we get to the main topic?”

Pantheon Co., run by A’kraun, was simply a merchant faction that maximized profit by exchanging points for goods and vice versa.

In exchange for selling us enormous quantities of materials without commission, A’kraun requested a non-aggression pact covering his entire faction, protection from the pirates, and the elimination of the ringleader.

“Those damned pirates…! I never imagined there could be a trait capable of forging Truth Certification to commit fraud!”

“A trait that enables fraud?”

“Yes. Something felt off at the time. Do you know how wronged I felt? In one sense, I am trading with you precisely because the four members of the Meteor Cartel would never be pirates.”

His words left a bad taste in my mouth. Couldn’t this guy be a scammer too?

Fortunately, A’kraun delivered the goods first before receiving the points, proving he was not a scammer.

“Well then. Thank you for the excellent deal.”

“One question, though. No matter how many points you possess, there are limits to what you can actually do with them, correct? If you sell materials at that rate, won’t you run out of stock?”

“Players who are exiting the game right now are far more desperate for points than for the materials they hold. We simply sell to them. We plunder every last resource from those hopeless worlds that no one else will buy.”

I see. So he had his own methods.

And so the four of us acquired an absurd amount of resources. From now until the moment of collision, we would run our internal development engines at full throttle and clash with maximum power.

In truth, the Meteor Shower Operation ended here. Cultivating one’s world was ultimately a matter of individual skill.

The tenth collision. I wondered whether the fools who had diligently gathered funds through that ridiculous crowdfunding could possibly withstand our full strength.

∞

“President A’kraun. Were the goods delivered successfully?”

“Of course. To think I would receive this many points from both sides. Fraud isn’t something you can only commit by telling lies.”

A’kraun’s mythic trait—Cash Shop. It was an absurd ability that literally let him convert a “player’s” victory points into “game” resources.

He had taken commissions from both the Meteor Cartel and the four crowdfunders, converting their points into materials at a cheap rate and selling them off. No matter who won, he had secured a non-aggression pact to face the resulting superpower.

Even after all those sales, the enormous points left over allowed A’kraun to purchase additional worlds, suck dry the assets of exiting players, and invest heavily in his own world. He now possessed an absurd weight class equal to—or even surpassing—that of the cartel or the funders.

“This is how business is done. One legendary creation? My world currently houses five.”

The clumsy had died long ago. Those who remained were already demonstrating extreme competence in this game.

A’kraun feared nothing except the filthy pirates. His goal was victory.