It's almost been an hour now. Still no sign of the altar, but these trees aren't the only things around that can move, it seems. There's obvious signs of stuff crushing its way through the undergrowth, rampaging around or maybe it's just that mindless. I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it must be important around here.

I'm starting to think the boss' place is where I'm meant to go. In order to make sure I'm thinking right, I'm gonna follow the trail of broken stuff it left behind. Better to make sure it's nothing than to mess around and get lost because you're leaving it for later. Come to think of it, an altar of chaos seems like it would need to be secretive to stay in a proper state but that's not how Chaos does things. It IS with the boss after all, isn't it?

...This trail is getting hard to follow. There's more and more broken stuff. On the upside, there's this slight condensation in the air that wasn't here before, which is something else I can follow. If it gets thicker, I get closer. It seems to be working so far...

"Ah! The fuck? When could you bitches grab people? Take this, you stupid thing!"

The tree people are getting worryingly big. I decided to just avoid them altogether, this place is getting too hard for my tastes right now. Is this what a Fire-type feels like in a Water Gym? It's getting hard to see, there's too little noise, something smells like fire...

What, fire? That's not supposed to be there. I can see it, too! There's a faint trail of smoke inside the mist! I've got it!

I was not prepared for the scene I was about to encounter. There was the being of dark stuff from yesterday, exuding a tremendous amount of the white fog from something in its back, and an absolutely gigantic purple-black bear with what seemed like shadow-fire coming out of its eyes, nose, mouth, ears, everywhere really.

They were doing... something, I could feel a shift and a twist in the air but they were absolutely still. Is this some kind of magic struggle? Just to be sure, I'll stay away.

As I think that, a huge gash of light opens up in the middle of the bear and starts spreading, leaving behind it proper fur as opposed to the matted mess that was there before. That was some sort of purification, happening right in front of my eyes! I'd better take note of this. Am I recording?

It roars and convulses, falling to the floor and clawing at itself like it's been awakened after being sealed away for a million years and it's got a bad case of the Everyone I Know Is Dead And It's Not My Fault Syndrome. Except this one feels more like anger than grief, and-- oh he's just real mad, that's all.

As the light finishes clearing up around his body, it spreads from the shadow entity and everything slowly starts regaining a healthy color.

"Now, we can talk. Ik'traa will not be waking up for a long time."

"Is this bear Ik'traa? What was all that about?"

"There is a reason I told you to come here. I am the God of Chaos. My name is no longer existent, or meaningful in any way, so if you could use my title it'd be great. My body and soul were separated by this substance you see being cleared right in front of your eyes. A long time ago, the gods of Good and Evil were seriously getting tired of fighting constantly and really wanted to win. The god of Evil, being more used to trickery and strange method, decided to create an entity that would taint and turn all good to evil.

What he made instead was a horrifying abomination that targeted gods and systematically took over their bodies, souls and minds. For all intents and purposes, its only goal is to corrupt. I shall thus dub it the Corruption. The reason all three of my own made it out relatively unscathed is because in becoming the God of Chaos, I added divinity to all manners of other energies. What it did was only strip away what I'd already made and do nothing to the very foundation. As far as my awareness goes, all other divinities, holy lands and blessed artifacts in this world have been infected by its evil.

My energy and power will grow again, and with said energy I will provide mortals, the immune, with a chance to fight and remove this corruption from the world. For now, I need to reclaim this land that used to be mine. It was so beautiful, so lively, so flowing with life and joy... Now, it is nothing but a shelter for the damned."

"Do I need to come back later to help you again or can I start spreading the news now?"

"You will not need to come back here nor will you need to tell anyone. I believe the game has that covered, does it not? You just need to follow the very long, scaling list of minor gods. As you help them, they will also help you, by making your race as splendid as it once was. Then we can move on to the more powerful ones. I can't wait to see how Lust reacts to this one..."

"I see. Those other energies include the mighty power of the Meta as well, huh? Wait, how are we mortals supposed to remove the corrupted divine energy from gods?"

"You need to beat it out of them, plain and simple. The Corruption has only one priority, self-preservation. By drowning it in things it can't manage, you can neutralize its offensive potential and it will react strangely, devouring itself furiously in an attempt to ward off outside contamination and ultimately fizzing out."

"In layman's terms, please."

"Drown it with mana."

"Oh no, I can't do that. I guess I'll just have to use kinetic energy then. Anything works as long as it's not divine energy, right? If I'm careful not to punch a god to death, I can pull out the Corruption then literally beat a plague to death."

"Are you really going to sit there and argue semantics with me? As long as you overwhelm it, you're good. Now leave this place and go fight, you idiot! Even I want some order once in a while and now is one of those moments!"

"Okay, sure... buuut the quest said I would get a reward and all I got was molested by trees. Aren't you purposefully leaving something out?"

"The reward part was to bait you into coming here. Look again, there's a Quest Rewards section with 'Unlocks the Purification List' and nothing else on it."

"This is bullshit. I was scammed. Whatever, I'll extort the other gods for their own rewards."

"This whole meeting was broadcasted to everybody who's online and will be uploaded on the game's official channel."

"Then I was scammed in front of everyone! It makes you look like a joke, I'm standing here with my Jello Head talking shit to a god!"

"Okay, that's enough, I am not having this right now. Expel!"

Then I was outside. Damn you, you shithouse god! You made me look like a cringy, whiny loser! I'll get you for this.

Quest Cleared!

You get:

A sense of pride and accomplishment

The Purification system has been unlocked! Defeat gods to turn them to your side, and accumulate the benefits!

Some of the names on the huge list I saw had indications and hints to where they might be, and there were tabs for spirits and artifacts as well. This will take a very long time, with the weakest among the gods being the God of Weakness, I, the Wimp being noted as twice as strong as me. One of the spirits was pretty close, the Nymph of the Rubber Tree, being an indicated Level 36 Solo-only Boss. Joke's on her, I got pets, it's a 3-on-1!

Walking about 50 meters to my right, I saw a strange, large pole of a tree. As I got closer, out of it came a short, flat woman with a plain face, most likely meant to be pure white but instead pure matte black. It's like she went from tree pulp to full dyed latex. Looks strange on her. Oh, she's taking a fighting pose! I need to take one too.

"Come on, then. Biiro, get that charge ready! Crush, try to figure out how to get past opponents with bouncy, tough bodies far surpassing your own, then apply it."

I took a few steps forward and she advanced towards me as well, dropping the pose and shuffling awkwardly at me instead. Was she meant to be this clumsy? It's like the Corruption never had to defend itself using this body, or like she was weakened really easily with distance from the tree she was the incarnation of. Most likely a combination of both, as she'd stopped moving while in an uncomfortable position.

I punched her in the face, a quick left jab, and she wasn't nearly as bouncy as I expected her to be. She just kinda took it all then looked at me. If she wants to stare, I won't let her wait to be comfortable. A few minutes later, it was going fine but I could hardly do damage, and she had no offence at all. I needed a big boy punch, something that would take a few chunks off.

My Stamina was hardly going down, as she was quite easy to keep in check. I thought I'd just have to whittle her down, but maybe Biiro could help me.

"Fire, Biiro!"

A blunted blast of air came and crushed her body flat, dealing a huge amount of damage at once, like 20% or so. For a moment, the Corruption shifted and started trying to defend itself more freneticallly, leading to minor whiplash as the nymph flailed through her attacks, giving me ample time to stop them before they had a chance of hurting me. She was on the ground now, and that gave me several ideas. I'd just tie her own legs and arms together then deliver as many blows as I wanted to her prone form.

Getting her legs together was fairly simple and I tied an improvised knot with them. Her arms weren't so simple, and after much struggling I didn't manage to get them tied up so I had Crush hold them together for me as I delivered Mighty Punch after Mighty Punch to the little bundle of stretchy stuff.

When she got down to around 30% HP, the corruption began trying to leave her body and find itself a new host. Finding nothing divine around, it tried to find out what to do. I backed off of the nymph's twisting form and had Biiro blast her with continuous wind blades from a safe distance. Crush positioned itself so it wouldn't be hurt and kept holding on, its core safely tucked away in the back of its body.

At 20%, the corruption began gathering in one place, the front of her torso, attempting to change hosts at all costs. This is the part where I come in. Her further extremities were free of corruption, making it obvious what this phase was: the "overload it" phase.

"Biiro, stop, I got it from here."

Moving in, I activated Rush of Fists and aimed for the outgrowth of Corruption directly. It was soft and mushy, but somehow held together a lot more coherently than I thought. It was working, I could feel it drawing itself in. The rubber nymph turned white gradually as it concentrated itself, amplifying the damage caused by my high-speed beating higher and higher. Soon, it all formed into a mushroomy shape from her gut. My Stamina being somewhat low, I decided to risk it all and put Mighty Punch into the rush of attacks. That seemed to be the last push it needed. As my Stamina fell to 0, the black cloud detached itself completely from its host body.

It hovered in the air, making shrill noises and consuming itself as Biiro, now that I was out of the way, made sure it kept killing itself by submerging it in a high-intensity wind barrage. It ate itself tiny, then popped into a tiny pebble.

You have freed the Nymph of the Rubber Tree from the Corruption!

You get: 284 XP

1x Shard of Corruption

30 Gold

Crush gets 36 XP

Crush is now level 15!

Biiro gets 180 XP

That was fun. Is the girl alright? I need to untie her legs before she wakes up.

There ya go, much easier to undo. She feels strange under my hands, her skin is the same as actual rubber. Put her up against the tree, carefully now, slowly...

"Ah, I'm fine."

"Oh, you're awake?"

"Yes, thanks to you. I remember the whole fight we just had. It's a good thing it didn't know how to use a body, otherwise I might've actually hurt you. Thank you."

Then she grabbed my head and pulled it in, to hug me. My chin rested on her breasts.

"I have no clue how much time I spent trapped in there, but thanks to you I can live again. I owe you my everything. Will you tell me your name, my hero?"

"My name is Chad. Um, you're kind of rubbing me into your chest here--"

"Ah! I just remembered! Since I haven't done it in dozens of years, I need to shed off all my excess stuff! Get off me, I gotta do something."

Pushing me aside and standing up, she pulled the white stuff off herself, somehow staying the same size afterwards.

"Oh wow, I grew so much! Look, Chad, I even have breasts! They're small, but they're perky!"

She was a pale-skinned, white-eyed blonde under the thick rubber covering her. She was also naked, 100% human-like, and showing herself off to me.

"That's great, umm, y-you... I don't know your name."

"Oh, I don't have one. I'm supposed to be rubber, though, so I guess you can call me Stretch."

"Well, Stretch, it's great that you're grateful, but I'm awkward around nudity so I'll have to leave you now, is that OK?"

"Aww, fine. Come back and see me once in a while, alright? I can't properly reward you, so I'll gladly help you where I can."

Damn, she's so cute! My peepee is at maximum mast right now. Thank God it's tiny so it doesn't bulge.

"I'll make sure to do that. See you around, alright?"

"Yeah, see ya!"

I left the tree and girl behind and headed off to the next being, a minor guardian deity of a cliff once used for religious rituals. Marking this place on my map with 'Rubber Nymph' first, of course.

"Wait, wait! Hang on! Do you want to take my sap with you? It's better than nothing and there's quite a lot!" she said, holding up the thick skin she'd shed.

"I mean... Sure, I guess. Why not?"

You gained 56x Perfect Enchanted Latex

Sounds really high quality, I could get this made into something.

Then we finally parted. Actually, looking at my inventory, I've got way too much stuff. I should go sell these pelts, these fangs, maybe buy something to use to cook the boar meat. If I buy that, I'll need spices and stuff.

Yeah, it's time for yet another trip to the city.