102: Chapter 102 The Carnival Ends

Lin Feng's discovery was by no means an isolated case.

Paper cannot wrap fire; in the internet age, the news about "Barbatos wholesaling massive amounts of Hearts and Pages" was like a super hurricane, sweeping through the entire Blue Star FGO gaming community in just ten minutes!

“Shocking! Old Thief Gu's ultimate benefit?! Major bug suspected in the drop rates of the Final Singularity!”

“Holy crap, brothers, stop picking other pillars! Look for the one called 'Barbatos'! This guy is wholesaling Hearts and Pages!”

“Is this for real? I went and tried a round, and damn, three Hearts dropped in one go. I maxed out Zhuge Liang's skills in a heartbeat!”

Looking at the boastful posts on the forums with screenshots of full-screen drops, the players collectively erupted in excitement!

What oppressive raid? What despair-inducing Demon God King? What heavy sense of mission for the survival of all humanity?

To hell with all of it!

In the face of absolute material temptation, that terrifying Demon God Pillar entrenched in the void was no longer an unspeakable monster in the eyes of the players.

It was a glittering, mobile gold vault! It was an ATM covered in Hearts, Pages, and Gears!

At this moment, the atmosphere underwent an extremely eerie and absurd mutation.

The gaming forums and group chats, which were originally heavy and tragic, instantly turned into a chaotic battlefield like a wet market where people scramble for discounted cabbage.

“Speed-farming Barbatos! Private message for the room number, only those who know how to control the health bar and sync the rotation! Don't dawdle, let's stock up efficiently!”

“Q-group needs a Defender! Any Spirit Vein Tower death-seekers? I guarantee you won't die, I'll lead you to riches and Hearts!”

“Charge, brothers! For the Hearts and Pages! Pluck this pillar bald!”

On the tactical map in the game, the total health bar of thirty million that players originally thought would take several days of grinding...

Under the gaze of countless eyes glowing with green light...

It began to evaporate at a terrifying speed that even caused the system's calculations to lag!

[25,000,000]

[18,000,000]

[9,000,000]...

The numbers jumped faster and faster. Every refresh meant that tens or even hundreds of thousands of Barbatos were being ruthlessly dissected and stripped of materials by this group of greedy players.

The 72 Demon Gods, who were high and mighty in the story and could only be barely countered when the Heroic Spirits of the Seven Singularities descended together...

Were now experiencing the most humiliating and terrifying one-sided massacre since their birth!

Even the posts on the gaming forums changed from "Requesting Raid Guides" to screens full of absurd wailing.

“Holy crap, brothers ahead, can you kill a bit slower?! I just came back from the bathroom, and all the rooms are full, I can't squeeze in!”

“Stop killing, stop killing! There's only one million health left! Leave some soup for me, I'm still short two Hearts for my Zhuge Liang!”

“It's going out of print! Barbatos is being hunted into an endangered species! Hurry and grab it!”

PD was in the livestream room frantically clicking the 'Create Room' button while shouting anxiously, "Squeeze in! Let me squeeze in! Damn it, how are these people's hands so fast? I'm a fully equipped Whale, and I can't even snatch a mob to farm?!"

...

This absurd and celebratory "Server-wide Stock-up" lasted for a full five hours.

As the sky in the real world gradually began to break dawn...

Accompanied by the light of the last few Noble Phantasms, the core node representing the "Temple Administration Bureau" on the tactical map shattered with a violent tremor and turned to ash.

[0]!

The moment that string of numbers representing the Demon God Pillar's health finally hit zero, a stirring and grand victory BGM played in the ears of all players.

[All tactical nodes have been fully suppressed!]

[All life signs of the peripheral Demon God Pillars have disappeared. Quantum Time-Lock released.]

[Congratulations, Masters. The defense line spanning time and space has been constructed.]

Looking at the tactical map that was once densely packed and despair-inducing, now cleared clean, and hearing the system notification representing victory...

The players, whose eyes were red from the all-nighter and who were exhausted from grinding, let out a celebratory roar after a brief silence that was enough to overturn the entire city!

“We won!!”

“Old Thief Gu's hellish raid has been cleared by us!! Hahaha!”

“Over sixty Forbidden Pages and more than thirty Hearts! Awesome! This wave of stocking up has directly graduated my entire roster!”

“We even ground through this thirty-million-HP hellish raid; surely nothing later will be difficult.”

PD slumped into his gaming chair, his face written with the exhaustion of having "not a single drop left."

As a top-tier Whale with a full collection of max-level Noble Phantasms, he didn't lack those materials at all, but his heart was filled with an unprecedented sense of satisfaction—the thrill of twenty brothers fighting side by side and cooperating perfectly on the line between life and death was ten thousand times better than spending money on gacha!

Carrying the momentum of this great victory, he casually clicked on the coordinate at the very center of the tactical map, which was flashing with a piercing red light and representing the final battle—

[The Throne].

“Brothers, the periphery is cleared! The gate to the Demon God King's lair is open!”

In the livestream room, not only PD, but countless viewers who had cleared the periphery also boiled with excitement.

“Hahaha! The mere 72 Demon Gods are nothing more than this! When the Demon God King dares to show his health bar later, our army of tens of millions will scatter him just the same!”

“Let's go, let's go! Bring the Zhuge Liang whose skills we just maxed out. Our twenty-man group will go straight to the center and trample the Demon God King's throne!”

“P-Boss, are you ready? Create the room quickly, let's go meet this Big Boss!”

“Creating it, creating it! Brothers, get ready to squeeze into the room!” PD shouted in the livestream while spiritedly clicking on that deep red node.

According to his expectations, what would pop up next would definitely be that blood-pumping [20-Player Joint Assault Waiting Room]. They would gather the firepower of twenty fully-equipped Whales to gang up on that boastful Demon God King.

However...

The next second.

The originally stirring BGM stopped abruptly.

In its place was an oppressive, low-frequency echo that felt like a heartbeat.

On the screen, the [20-Player Joint Assault Waiting Room] they were so familiar with did not pop up.

Neither were there those random teammates shouting and cooperating in the voice channel.

All there was, was a solitary single-player deployment confirmation interface showing only PD's own team.

In the center of the interface, a line of piercing system prompts, written as if in blood, was etched firmly onto PD's retina.

[WARNING]

[The area ahead is the center of the Singularity; Quantum Communication has been blocked.]

Looking at this cold prompt, and recalling the hours-long raid revelry just now, where twenty living players supported each other in voice chat, full of laughter and noise...

The smile on PD's face froze completely.

The bullet chat in the livestream that was originally clamoring to "enter the room and fight the Boss" also instantly fell into a dead silence.

It turned out... there was no such thing as twenty people on the same screen to crusade against the Demon God King.

An unprecedented, massive sense of loneliness and fear, as if being abandoned by the whole world, submerged PD's entire body like a cold tide.

The revelry was over.