The story so far: Momonga and five of his online guildmates have been flung into a whole new world, a dark and miserable place. In here, their bodies have been turned into that of their avatars, monstrous beings that had been worshiped by their former NPC servants-who were responsible for bringing this world to chaos in the first place.

After their destruction of a hideous place called the Crossroads, the players have separated, each to explore the new world in their own way. Momonga has endured a terrible battle against his friend, the wily, dangerous Ulbert. But then comes multiple crises: Peroroncino and his sister have problems of their own. Soon thereafter, another, worse crisis rises. Can Momonga and his friends solve these problems, before the New World swallows them whole?

And now, on with the story!

Bidding farewell to every law of physics Momonga thought he knew, the Great Tomb of Nazarick floated ever upward into the sky, carried by the impossible.

The sight of it was so much that Momonga could scarce believe it himself, not even after Herohero had explained it, and not even after seeing it for himself. The piece of land upon which the Great Tomb was situated was slowly but surely ascending, its form wreathed by great puffy clouds and slowly carrying his beloved guildbase away.

It was so much a shock to the poor subconscious of Suzuki Satoru within the great God Momonga's mind that he initially fell to his knees, his skull jaws down, and his hands swept up to the sky, as if he could stop the event from happening, could stop Nazarick from floating far away from him again, always out of his reach. It had made him completely blind and forgetful of a number of things, including the fact that such things as magic certainly existed here.

"Momonga-san, are you alright?"

"-aaaahhhhh—Eh? Oh, right, Herohero-san." His guildmate moved into view, with Solution Epsilon trailing behind.

"That was a pretty big shock," the black slime said. "When I stepped through the Gate, and then I felt I was falling, I initially thought you were playing a prank on me, Momonga-san. I fell right into this crater here. I only realized something was wrong after I got me and Solution out of it."

"Huh." The blonde maid-looking NPC was silent as ever. Momonga looked down and confirmed the presence of the massive crater right below. It took a second, but he put two and two together. The size of the hole just about fit the shape and size of the floating landmass above. "Wait, wasn't it still attached?" He recalled that before they'd come to Peroroncino's "rescue", the crater had been there, and Nazarick had been balancing on a thin, pillar-shaped piece of land. Ordinarily one would think that if the brittle-looking pillar snapped, then Nazarick would just sink into the crater; instead, it inexplicably floated up, like a cast-off balloon.

Thinking about it made his nonexistent brain hurt, but he did manage to calm down from his initial panic. Something that Herohero had said also made him recall something.

"Pardon me, Herohero-san, but I'll be teleporting ahead up to Nazarick. I want to see if all is well."

"Alright," Herohero said, his body rippling as if he were shrugging. "Your call, Momonga-san."

This time, Momonga didn't open a Gate: it was a direct teleportation spell to Nazarick. It required marking a place as an anchor prior, but Momonga had been prudent enough to do that all the way back when they'd first come to this world's Nazarick, even before they'd met Sebas and Nemu. It was one of those subconscious things he did even without having to think about it.

He arrived at the entrance to the lower floors, which was just as empty as he'd recalled. He went outside, to the very entrance of the Tomb which was exposed to the external world. There, he felt something different: a gust of air whipped up his cloak. It seemed that the area was being buffeted by a very strong breeze. And then of course, he noticed that the surrounding environs were no longer of the forest, but of an endless blue sea.

Momonga walked swiftly to the very outskirts of Nazarick, down to the point where its body met the floating ground. He braved the strong, buffeting winds that threatened to blow him away, then stepped to the very edge. He looked down.

A great spread of forest lay sprawled just below. And there, all the way down, was the distant crater he'd just left, now a bowling ball sized shape in his vision. At this level of distance, he was barely able to glimpse the blonde hair on Herohero's NPC, as well as Herohero himself, who was like a blotch of ink on the ground.

"[Message]. It's me, Momonga. Herohero-san, I made it up."

"Oh, that's good."

Momonga teleported directly to the Throne Room. With the Eighth Floor Guardian dead, the way was clear. Within he saw things just as they were before they left to aid Peroroncino. Even the penguin butler was there, studiously scrubbing the floor in a corner. At Momonga's approach, he flailed upright to salute. Momonga ignored him, as he'd teleported away, this time to the Seventh Floor. He combed through each Floor one by one to check their status, and was relieve to see nothing was amiss. It looked like the only thing that had changed in Nazarick was the situation directly outside.

Now to tackle the problem.

As ever, he contacted Touch Me first. And yet again, the player refused to listen. The repeated failures to answer began to wear at Momonga, but he ignored that. He contacted the others in quick succession.

"Everyone, this is an emergency!" he announced.

"Eh, but leader, we haven't even started with organizing the survivors yet! We can't just leave them like this!"

Momonga made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "The plan was to bring them to Nazarick right? Well, because of this emergency, now we've got to make sure there's even a Nazarick for them to get to. So please, come through the Gate."

Solution Epsilon was dispatched to watch over the human survivors temporarily, along with all of Momonga's ghostly legions. The other three Guild players who'd been left behind were quickly apprised of the situation, including the issue of the ascending guild base.

"Do you think this'll reach space? Or, the equivalent of space in this world, anyway," Ulbert said in a speculating matter. All five guildmates stared up at the massive structure slowly floating away on a seat of clouds.

"No, we can't focus on that just yet. We have to bring it down before it is completely out of reach. Does anyone have any ideas? Or, no, actually, Chagama-san, do you have an inkling on why this particular state came to be?" Momonga asked.

The pink slime seemed to curl in on herself when she was suddenly thrust into the center of attention. "I'm so, so sorry, Momonga-san! I wanted to mention this to you, but of course, everyone else seemed really busy at the time and I was just so excited, and then my idiot brother had to be involved in that whole thing so I got distracted—Well, you see, I was building a floating castle. Of sorts. I haven't gotten to the castle thing yet, only the foundations. Well, you know me, whenever I use EDEN I always have to start from the foundations, so I had to get the floating land-mass ready before all else. Now according to the manual, the recipe for creating that kind of 'land', requires certain materials which I couldn't find initially. With me so far?"

Momonga resisted the urge to throw up his hands and tell Chagama-san to get to the point, but of course he could not. He nodded, urging her to continue.

"Okay, so I searched far and wide, looking for this material that I needed. And I found it! I couldn't even believe it at first. But there was a whole bunch of the raw material I needed right below our beloved Nazarick. It was all concentrated there, and nowhere else." She turned and pointed a globular hand towards the crater. "In fact, there's still a bunch of them over there. So anyway, I basically went overboard extracting as much material as I could. By the end of it, things looked like Nazarick was about to fall into a crater. But I never expected it to float! That part I don't get. I didn't know the raw material itself could float."

"I see…" Momonga was grateful she didn't take too long. "So the problem might be in the landmass itself. Would removing it be at all a problem, do you think? Could you, perhaps, 'extract' the rest of it, so Nazarick could return safely?"

"I'm pretty sure I can, but…"

"Um, Momonga-san," It was Peroroncino. "You do realize it means Nazarick'll instantly fall down right? At that distance…"

Just the thought of Nazarick hurtling down from the heavens made Momonga's head ache. "R-right. Never mind then. So what can we do?"

"Maybe a spell? Don't you guys know something that'd help?" Herohero ventured.

"Between us, Momonga and I could flood the outside with a lot of summoned bodies, which we could use to try to weigh it down." Ulbert scratched his chin. "On the other hand, look at how Nazarick is being lifted up. Like, shouldn't it be really heavy? I doubt our legions of summons would be even able to overturn the upward push, if it could carry even that much already."

Momonga looked around as Ulbert trailed off, wishing to hear more suggestions. He was very impatient, but of course that was a given what with Nazarick's continued, implacable ascent.

"….Why don't we just build it?" Chagama-san said.

"Build what?"

Chagama made a shrugging motion. "Sorry, I mean using the EDEN to build the thing that'll keep the Nazarick landmass from floating any further, like I was supposed to make for my castle. It won't be able to go down, but it's not going any further up, either."

"Right! Okay, that sounds good! Let's do it," Momonga said.

"Ahhh, right hold on, let me consult the recipe book first. This was actually next on the list of things I was gonna build, so… hmmmm…" Chagama's "arms" moved, pointing and gesturing at something only she could see. "Ohoh… Damn. Good news and bad news. Momonga-san," she turned back to face Momonga. "The good news is that I can definitely build something like that. It should be able to stop the land from moving upward by 'weighing' it down. I guess that's how it'll work in this world. Now, the bad news is that it requires another type of material. And I don't know where to find it."

Momonga's nonexistent heart sank, but he soldered on, and stuttered, "W-well, what is this material?"

"[Magical Irridite], which I'll combine with dirt to make [Purified Gravitic Mass]… Funny thing is one of the other ingredients is the same material in that landmass, so like I said all we really need is [Magical Irridite]."

"You don't know where this is?"

"The encyclopedia doesn't show me the location back in Yggdrasil, so I wouldn't even know where to find it here. But I'll know it when I see it; or rather, the EDEN will let me know."

"But there's the problem," Ulbert pointed out. "How do we even know such a material even exists in this world to begin with?"

"I suppose…" Peroroncino now said, "If one of the Crafters were here, they could've been able to help. I think one of them had 'Geomancy' as a skill, that could've helped. But, sadly, none of us are."

Chagama's slime body sagged. "… Yeah. Gosh, I really am so, so sorry, Momonga-san."

They all fell to a contemplative silence. Even Momonga couldn't muster the words. It was a difficult, desperate situation, which required swift action, but he couldn't do anything.

"Why don't we…" Herohero now said, filling the silence. "Why don't we fly, or teleport Chagama-san around, as fast as we can, all over this land? We don't know this 'magical iri-something' has a chance to exist, well, maybe it does. Why give up so early, right fellas? We should give it a chance."

Everyone looked at Herohero with a mixture of surprise and admiration. Then, Ulbert clapped, followed soon by Momonga, then the siblings. The black slime flailed around, as if embarrassed. "Aw, what's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, Herohero-san. You said exactly what we all needed to hear," Momonga said quietly. He was grateful. For the sake of his Nazarick, he shouldn't be giving up that quickly.

He quickly sized up the options. Sadly, for all that he'd been the one giving the pep talk, Herohero would have to stay behind over with his NPC to make sure to watch over the humans they had just saved. He had no flight capabilities, nor was he a spell-caster who could teleport someone around.

Right as he was about to announce his initial plan, Peroroncino said, "Hum… I wonder. Momonga-san, would it be alright if I gave nee-san this?" A glowing object appeared in Peroroncino's hand. Momonga recognized it immediately.

"The [Lidless Eye]… Do you think it would help?"

"Hm? What? What's this thing?" asked Chagama-san.

"It's the Soul item Momonga-san gave me. It gives me a whole lot of 'vision' options, making me see far and with a lot of accuracy. Maybe you can use some of its functions. Is that alright, Momonga-san?"

He had his reservations, particularly with passing around the Soul item that stemmed from his God status. But right now, he didn't care. "Please, go ahead."

"I'll try… That means I'll have to unequip the Soul item he gave me, right?" The Soul slot could only accept a maximum of one, in Yggdrasil, and it seemed to be true here too. "Here we go… Oh? Hmm? Huhhh? Whoa…" Bukubukuchagama began moving around, facing this way and that. "So there's a bunch of modes—aah! That kind of hurt. I don't have eyes, but I still feel them hurting. Let's switch… oh, oh, oh! Wait, is that, no, I think it is! It is! I see it! I see!" She began jumping up and down excitedly.

"What's going on, Chagama-san?"

"I see it! I see it! I can see the materials!"

"You can?" Momonga repeated, shocked. He didn't know the [Soul] item had such a thing.

"Yep! There's a 'mode' in this thing that lets me see EDEN materials! This is so much better than the standard EDEN interface. You should've let me use this back in Yggdrasil, Momonga-san! It would've been a really big help."

"Well, I didn't know there was something like that involved," Momonga said reluctantly. "And, well, Punitto Moe-san always suggested we keep things secret."

"But with this, we can surely widen our search," Herohero said. "We should start moving. We've got a whole world to search!"

Skirmishes began to erupt along the informal "border" they'd set up between themselves and the Bloodfallen's dead army. In hindsight, it was a miracle it had even taken long before hostilities erupted.

For much of their march on the Crossroads, there had been much tension among the armies of the Demon King regarding the Night Queen's army which could be easily seen moving in great numbers just a few miles away. The lower ranks were even expecting that they were to battle the undead, and that their hasty march to the Crossroads was some sort of elaborate stratagem by their superiors.

Once the vanguard of the demihuman horde passed through the portion of the Dread Forest near the Crossroads, the generals called a halt and began ordering battle formations all along the marching line. The initial scouting had revealed two things: that something strange had occurred in the vicinity of the Crossroads, and that the undead had also reached roughly the same area and had even began sending out scouts like they were.

Since there had been no command from the Demon King's direct subordinates to attack the undead army, the highest-ranked commanders furiously commanded a general defensive posture for the whole army, knowing full well that certain elements of the forces included several demihuman types who would have loved nothing more than to fight. If the Demon King was adamant on avoiding conflict, then each of the generals fought tooth and nail to keep order in the ranks, as the punishment for failure to adhere to orders strictly would have had them begging for death.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be true of the Night Queen's chain of command. In theory, the undead were all easily controlled by the charismatic will of the more powerful of their ranks. However, there was a general upper limit to it, and sometimes they couldn't even be bothered to exercise control every single minute over the musty hordes. Without the proper control, therefore, the undead were akin to feral beasts, which operated more on instinct than on any notion of discipline or rank.

The commanders of the Night Queen's army were also quite lax on discipline. Having no need to fear death themselves, they viewed their minions as little more than pawns they could easily sacrifice. This lapse of control led to many a gap in restraining the restless dead, causing a collapsing chain of neglect down the line of command. Therefore, at the lowest rung—meaning commanders with only a modicum of rational thought as an undead—this was akin to being let loose on a city's living population. This led to the mounting escalation of conflict.

While the battle lines were being drawn, scouts were sent to probe into the strange disturbance in the Crossroads proper, which was their main objective and was supposed to be the reason they were even sent here. Unfortunately, there was some sort of strange sorcery that had occurred there, as one by one scouts fell indubitably silent, unable to respond to their fellows' repeated hails over the [Message] channels. It was as if they had all been killed.

Was it the undead? Some of the surviving scouts thought. They had survived by dint of being the backup formation of scouts, who were supposed to go further in and discover why the first wave wasn't answering. Yet not a single one of them (prudently) had the nerve to continue. The Dread Forest had acquired a foreboding quality that wasn't just due to the presence of the undead. And after their comrades had mysteriously disappeared, the rest were understandably spooked.

It was fortunate their immediate superiors weren't there to demand updates. However, they might surely have done so, if the tension in the front lines hadn't in that moment already escalated into a full-blown battle.

From above, the Demon King's battle line faced towards the Night Queen's army directly, with the swiftest and the most hard-hitting legions concentrated on the far left leading towards the center, where the Dread Forest bordered the plain. The general theory in assaulting the undead was to either soften them up with long-distance artillery; or if distance was unfeasible, to charge in ruthlessly, with a front line acting like a gigantic battering ram to smash the undead lines, while also being able to endure the barrage of fire spells that were sure to come from the magic casters to effectively curb the undead.

It was harder to do that in the forest itself, so the lower-ranked, more disposable units were deployed all along the army's right flank, to act as a warning sign in case revenants or vampires attempted to strike through the forest into their center.

The battle, if it could even be called that, had begun when a low-ranking lich, who'd been sent to scout out the area along the Crossroads with an escort of skeletons, arrived too close to an entrenched unit of demihuman soldiers. Unable to overcome its innate hatred for the living, it immediately descended on the soldiers, causing havoc along the lines before it could be stopped by the local cleric. By then, the skeletons it commanded began rampaging among the survivors, turning a minor skirmish into a full-blown melee.

The sounds of battle alerted the closest nearby unit, who was commanded by a particularly battle-hungry orc. Although placed under strict orders not to attack unless the undead struck first, the leader's lust for power overwhelmed its good sense, and it immediately ordered its units to advanced through the trees, straight into the opposing line of undead, whereupon they were instantly surrounded by the sheer mass of undead and slaughtered. This only served to excite the lower-ranking undead present, who began to frenzy like sharks scenting blood in the water. Unbeknownst to their highest-ranking commanders, they surged forward like a tide through the forest.

This motion was not missed by the other nearby units, who also advanced, albeit a little more reluctantly. Their slower motions meant they were able to spot the undead coming, and so were able to link up into proper defensive formations before the tide hit. Soon, the whole forest erupted with the busy sounds of battle and fire.

It would be a while before the other parts of the army actually realized it. By then, it was already too late.

In the meantime, neither of the encamped forces were able to really determine the exact reason for their forward scouts' disappearance when going near the Crossroads.

Of course, the main reason for their failure to report was the undeniable fact that they'd all been killed.

"Gods… have mercy…"

The last of the members of the (former) Elite Plainswalker Corps gasped and wheezed as blood flowed freely from his scaled side. His body already knew what his brain refused to accept—that he was about to die.

He was only able to shiver as the sounds of fighting behind him continued. He'd managed to crawl away from the ambush point, suffering immense pain along the way, and yet he knew, on an instinctual level all beasts were familiar with, that he was going to die. It somehow didn't matter whether it was through this strange, enchanted arrow that had pierced his insides so readily, or through that thing's vicious coup de grace.

A thunderous crash echoed. A lich fell to the ground just a few feet away, utterly bereft of its ratty robes. It struggled to crawl. An ominous shadow fell across its body, causing the scout's heart to freeze in its chest.

Even the Night Queen's undead were no match. In fact, the thing seemed to be able to kill undead with greater ease, reaping a tally of zombies as a scythe through the harvest.

Presently, the unknown attacker lifted its foot and stomped down, hard. The lich's skull shattered beneath its armored boots. It dissipated into dust not soon afterward. The scout watched, with growing trepidation, as the thing's head swiveled to face him.

Thwack!

Before he could even blink, a nail-shaped object had drilled deep into his throat. One second passed in choking, agonizing, blood-flavored pain, before darkness claimed him.

"All enemies of the Supreme Beings: eliminated."

Enfi woke up to a sore pain in his whole body. He felt like he was being carried on something, and felt himself bump repeatedly against something hard.

Then he opened his eyes, and realized that he was being carried on Evileye's shoulders.

"Uh… huuuh?"

"Oh, you're awake? Good. Cause I don't know how long I can keep this up," came her muffled voice.

"Wha-what's going on?"

"The worst finally happened, just like I always said it would. Now we're on the run, and she's not far behind."

"The worst?"

"That killer maid's after us, probably after receiving some orders from its demon master. See, this is why we should've just kept them away from our camps!"

"Maid… do you mean Yuri-san?" He strained to lift his head to look, but found it difficult to focus with the continuous bobbing motion.

"Yep. She started attacking us out of nowhere, but it was a good thing I was on watch. Managed to drive her off with a well-placed undead buster and save you from getting squashed like the others, but now we're on a pursuit."

"Where are we?"

"We're getting close to Lundiz."

"Ah, we can get Sebas-san to help!"

"Not a chance. I ain't trusting that old fool, and I never did. No, we're just going to stop for a breather, and hopefully mind control a citizen or two to help us lie low and get supplies for a while—shit!"

A great explosion rocked Enfi, and he was flung a fair distance away, landing painfully on a rocky piece of ground. Stunned, he struggled to lift his limbs, but strangely couldn't muster any of his muscles. Wait, were my arms supposed to bend that way…?

"Shit! Enfi, no!" came Evileye's cry.

A shadow loomed above him. It was the same sight as before he blacked out. Yuri Alpha's bespectacled face looked down on him, as of someone looking at a pathetic insect. She raised her fists, which were tipped in great, spiked gauntlets. She said nothing to him, as if all past interactions had been nothing more than a mockery.

Yet, before the fist could descend, a white-gloved hand came and stopped it, seemingly unfazed by the many spikes.

For a moment, Enfi thought Evileye had arrived, but then he looked up, and his eyes widened.

"Yuri Alpha. What has happened? Why is there blood on your fists?" said Sebas Tian, in a calm voice, his body tall and implacable. And it was then that Enfi knew that their hopes had not yet disappeared.

To all our valued customers:

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Shurpuff says: Ahoy there! I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter!

The poll to decide the fate of the other guild members had long been concluded, and my patrons have decided on having them exist in the story! In celebration I have created several introduction snippets, all of which were made available to my patrons, which showcase how each guild member has accessed the new world. Their arrival into this story proper is still forthcoming, but the story itself has already been realigned to reach that goal.

Also, I have neglected to say last chapter that I have a twitter now. The handle is 'Shurpuf', which has a single "f", do note. Do check it out for news on updates to Godsfall, and feel free to shoot me questions or messages. In addition, for access to more Godsfall, feel free to visit my p atreon.

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

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