The Eighth Collision

Military = Destroyer: Creatures excel at destroying structures and terrain.Numerical Superiority: Significant advantage when outnumbering the enemy.Thorough Estimation: Major bonus to when gauging enemy strength.

Industry = Horticulture Industry: Advantage in horticulture-related industries.Floriculture Industry: Advantage in floriculture-related industries.

Tech = All three turned out to be magic-related, so I had Yogur-tosoth teach them climate and spacetime magic. I don't really keep track of what tech I have.

Culture = Oral Tradition: Narratives passed by word of mouth are strengthened. Promotions through storytelling occur more frequently.

Politics = Military Life: Better adherence to military orders.Loose System: High systemic flexibility. Happiness increases at the cost of weaker bonuses.Group Living: Reduced conflict when living in groups.Interspecies Sociability: Improved ability to collaborate with other species and animals.

Mystery = Spacetime Mystery Specialization: Greater aptitude for spacetime-attribute mysteries.

The world has developed far more than expected. Let's go through it one by one.

hit 560,000 as anticipated, thanks in large part to the territorial expansion through the no-man's-land.

was something Wahando had confidently predicted would exceed a million, and I could have pushed it that high if I'd wanted to. I simply chose not to. The nectar consumption was too severe, and the ecosystem couldn't sustain it indefinitely, so I kept it at a maintainable level.

surged thanks to the support for Nyaltartep and the sugar lumps cultivating plants alongside her.

was especially unusual, jumping three whole levels. The magic sugar lumps that inherited and used magic had multiplied enormously. Since they simply memorized and cast spells, civilization-level technology barely mattered, yet magic alone carried the stat upward.

and rose normally thanks to the sugar lumps' social nature. As originally intelligent beings, they already possessed fairly high baselines in both areas. Still, remains pitifully low.

and are being deliberately cultivated. I've been spamming Shuc-rimmurath's and Sesaisa's spiritual realms like mad.

When Faith levels up, it's not just a number increase. Usable divine power skyrockets, and I gain another clone. That's the real payoff.

Thanks to the Three Meteors' consulting, several enhanced creatures now exist. The sugar lumps and gamchi have begun coordinating hunts against invaders with simple but effective teamwork.

The Dessert Legion was evolving from a mere swarm of powerful organisms into a genuine army.

However, the caliber of the opponent was different from anything before.

This was one of the absolute top players in the game, someone holding a mythic-grade trait. With ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠our current forces, victory was far from guaranteed.

Ogolraeot, leader of the Mythic Alliance, had been a ranch manager in his previous life. That might sound modest, but the ranch he ran was the size of an entire country—an executive of a corporate-scale livestock company.

Oddly enough, Biin had seen Ogolraeot's land before.

Or rather, he had seen what became of it. Back when the community first opened, Ogolraeot had defeated the player who posted the whining thread titled "Please, Just Give Me One ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hill" and absorbed their territory.

Ogolraeot had worse luck than that player. Across five collisions, all thirty-two divine fragments he received were nothing but grasslands, plains, wastelands, magically infused barrens—any terrain with an average elevation under ten meters.

It was so unfair it made you want to swear. Of course, the fragments had turned those lands into incredibly fertile pastures or black soil where crops grew explosively from a single scattering of seeds.

Still, too much was too much.

Through the first four collisions, Ogolraeot extracted insane amounts of food from his vast pastures and farmlands, drew in flows from the barren plains to create mysteries, built a religion that filled , , and through oral tradition, and barely purchased a mythic-grade trait through desperate trading.

His strategy was basic cooperation. When that failed, he suppressed dissent with nomadic armies based on his pastures.

He cooperated in the early rounds, and even when war broke out, he usually accepted surrenders, running his world like a corporation with himself as CEO and the subordinate gods as employees.

He was a surprisingly reasonable executive who listened to criticism and advice, which helped him avoid failure by actively incorporating suggestions from the subordinate gods who had joined his world.

Currently, he had forty-six subordinate gods. Rather than being on friendly terms, they operated his world as a "company" under Ogolraeot in a fiercely competitive system.

That same Ogolraeot, with the collision against Biin fast approaching, was reviewing Biin's world—his ecosystem—and pondering.

"That guy really has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no civilization at all."

Ogolraeot's angel replied.

"Correct. He is the only player in this game who has not developed civilization."

"Is that even possible…?"

"No. It's impossible… yet somehow he's making it work, and the organizers are currently baffled."

Ogolraeot scratched his head.

His nation had developed into something resembling a nomadic empire in a fairly normal fashion.

After conquering ordinary agrarian states with cities and farmlands in the sixth and seventh collisions, he had achieved a complete form that harmonized nomadic empire and agricultural empire.

In a world "much larger than a typical world," there were five major cities, enormous farms stretching out from them, mines, rivers and coastlines ideal for fishing, volcanic regions perfect for training mages along with their matching spiritual flow systems, and more than half the land consisted of vast pastures and forests—excellent in both the material and spiritual realms.

His race resembled what Biin would call "dwarves," though the details differed.

Their build and cultural traits were clearly similar to Earth's dwarves, except instead of beards, their faces featured horns formed from modified facial skin.

Several other races from different worlds also lived there. With the god at the apex, the system was essentially a nomadic empire that had usurped the existing medieval states, yet granted them strong autonomy within that political framework.

"The problem is military power."

Biin had publicly revealed his score: roughly 760,000. Ogolraeot's own world sat at 300,000, so it wasn't low, but Biin had more than double that. It was insane. His also exceeded 500,000.

Yet in every other field, Biin was inferior. That had to be the opening.

"Biin's mythic trait, . If it means fusing with the world, does that mean he'll notice the moment I enter his world?"

"Yes."

"Not a bad trait. Actually, it's excellent… A trait that massively amplifies divine power itself seems to synergize very well with what I have."

That was probably why Biin had specifically targeted him. Ogolraeot focused, determined to make Biin regret that choice.

As he concentrated, the world itself began to twist. The terrain was reshaping itself solely for combat—preparing for the collision in the way he deemed optimal.

The best traits were mythic-grade. So what were the conditions for a mythic-grade trait?

From Common through Excellent and Uncommon, traits simply provided "a lot of ordinary bonuses."

From Hero-grade onward, they gained the additional function of temporarily altering the situation.

From Epic-grade, they gained the function of continuously altering the situation.

From Legendary-grade, they gained the function of permanently altering the situation.

And from Mythic-grade, in addition to permanently altering the situation, something crucial was added.

Mythic-grade traits touched the fundamental rules of the game.

Even Sesaisa's , which merely created creatures with the same stats as the world, was like that.

It allowed the to directly enter the world and fight, and mythic-grade creations consumed no maintenance cost and revived even if killed—an absurd existence.

Of course, since these traits touched the game's fundamental rules, some weren't necessarily better than lower-grade traits, but the core of mythic-grade was still that they interfered with the fundamental rules, whether the scope was large or small.

And the trait held by Ogolraeot, leader of the Mythic Alliance and the strongest player among them, was so plain that hearing it made you think, "Huh? That's all it takes to be mythic-grade?"

World Shaping: When editing terrain, you can freely manipulate not only its position and boundaries but also its size and shape. The editable range increases in proportion to level, and the divine power consumed during terrain editing is now inversely proportional to level.

At first glance, it provided no direct bonuses whatsoever. In other words, obtaining the trait didn't make you stronger in the slightest.

On top of that, terrain editing was something anyone could do, yet this bizarre trait allowed you to do it in any way imaginable. People who hadn't played the game wouldn't even understand what use it had.

But… those who had played the game understood.

This was an absurdly broken trait. It was the only trait in the game that could adjust the "area" of terrain.

For example, when the Nectar Well's level rose, nectar production increased, but the well itself didn't grow larger. It only appeared to grow because overflowing nectar encroached on surrounding terrain.

The same applied to mountain levels and land levels. The "quality" of the land improved, but the land itself didn't increase.

Each divine fragment was always assigned a fixed area of ten square kilometers. That was the rule, and if one terrain grew, it encroached on others.

Yet broke that rule itself.

Prime fertile land. In other words, if you had level-10 prime farmland, you could massively expand its actual area in proportion to your Faith level. Roughly ten percent per level, so at level 10, you could double it.

The land area doubled while the terrain level stayed the same. No—it was even better than that.

Doubling the land area meant doubling everything you could do with that land, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠which in turn doubled the opportunities for the terrain to gain experience. Terrain growth doubled. Naturally, productivity increased insanely as well.

And this applied equally to spiritual-realm terrain. You could drastically shrink or even sever useless spiritual realms that generated worthless flows, while expanding useful ones.

Because resource consumption for terrain editing was also drastically reduced, you could reshape your world however you pleased. Since the no-man's-land was also editable, you could choose and freely shrink or expand its area as well.

Thus, when every player received 1,280 square kilometers of land, Ogolraeot had chosen and received roughly 2,560 square kilometers, then expanded it to the maximum according to his level, becoming a land-obsessed maniac who possessed over 6,000 square kilometers. The vast pastures of nomadic peoples were truly tremendous compared to the excellent farmlands of settled peoples.

Current Life score: 300,000. More than half of Biin's. Because a world's potential scaled with score, none of his stats were below level 11 (roughly 160,000), and his military power also exceeded 300,000.

World Total Score: 1,856,443.

This was the opponent facing the "Lord of Mass Extinction." Someone who surpassed Biin in every field except and .

Yet… the difference was exactly twofold. That was Ogolraeot's greatest problem right now.

The collision had begun, and dimensional gates were opening. Ogolraeot dispatched his elite knight order and other vanguard forces into the enemy world, while Biin poured monsters through.

And poured more.

And more.

And more.

By the time Ogolraeot had sent only a single vanguard unit, Biin had already forced the gate wide open using Yogur-tosoth's authority, support from the magic sugar lumps, and divine power, dumping ten times Ogolraeot's numbers straight into his world.

"What the hell is this bullshit?! Is that spacetime-magic monkey messing with me?!"

The mass extinction had only just begun.