277: Chapter 276 Child of the World, Exclusive Mission

The area ahead was in shambles.

On the ground, one could barely make out fragments of medical uniforms.

No one knew why they had suddenly been plunged into darkness just moments ago, or why things had suddenly returned to normal.

Even less did anyone know why, in the span of just a few seconds, the scene before them had been completely overturned.

Everyone found it inconceivable.

In the end, when everyone's gaze fixed upon Chu Xuan beneath that night cloak, even the most ignorant among them could guess that everything had been done by this person before them.

"Such powerful destructive force. Can the power of a single human truly reach such a level..."

The fire of hope in people's hearts burned even brighter, and Lin Jie, in particular, gazed with longing eyes at the figure ahead, who seemed to be in a vortex of darkness.

At the same time, Chu Xuan received a prompt from the System.

Task Prompt!

[Life withering, spirituality value stripped, rules replaced, Origin nearly exhausted. The Child of the World is about to die, and a portion of the Origin power will be lost. Detecting you as a Purifier, exclusive task permissions have been opened for you in advance.]

[Task Content: Lead the remaining twelve survivors to leave St. Lianna Hospital alive.]

[Task Rewards: spirituality value X1000, jiyue crystal X10, soul crystal X5, rule fragment X1, random teleportation scroll X1, Transcendent Skill synthesis and promotion scroll X1]

[Failure Penalty: Forced erasure]

[This is an exclusive task; you may freely choose Yes or No?]

The successive System prompts made Chu Xuan's heart skip a beat.

The amount of information contained in this task was truly significant.

First, there was the Child of the World and the Origin power.

To think such an existence as the Child of the World actually existed!

Chu Xuan had originally thought that by becoming a Purifier—the only remaining Transcendent sequence in this world—he had received the world's attention, and even the gods of the Dark World had issued kill orders for him.

If there really was a Child of the World, it should have been him, but now it seemed that was not the case at all.

However, upon second thought, Chu Xuan understood.

In the original timeline, he had already died in the dormitory. The reason he was able to make it this far and embark on the path of a Purifier was due to the help of [Future Tang Zheng].

And this world had long been invaded by The Gloom; in its attempt to save itself, perhaps a candidate for the Child of the World had already been chosen.

According to the current task information, if the Child of the World died here, their world would lose a portion of its Origin power. This likely involved elements of rule collision and world-level maneuvering.

The task content directly required leading all remaining twelve survivors out of here, without specifically pointing out who the Child of the World was. It was unclear if this was for protection or due to interference from the Dark World.

In short, this task was inevitably somewhat difficult for Chu Xuan.

However, what Chu Xuan didn't expect was that this was not a mandatory task, but one that could be declined.

In the past, it would have been a mandatory task with no room for choice. He wondered if there was interference from the Dark Place, hoping he would intentionally give up this task.

Or perhaps it was because this task wasn't triggered by entering the Dark Place, but rather by the emergence of an "exclusive task."

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in a split second.

Chu Xuan suddenly gave a self-deprecating smile.

In the past, when he was weak, he hadn't felt much fear when facing mandatory tasks. On the contrary, because of the oppression of the Phantom Demon, he had yearned for the appearance of mandatory tasks to gain more spirituality value.

Yet now, with strength far greater than before, why was he overthinking things when faced with this optional task?

Not to mention the random teleportation scroll and the Transcendent Skill synthesis and promotion scroll—rewards he had never seen before—the soul crystal and rule fragment alone were rare and precious resources.

Coupled with 10 jiyue crystals and 1000 spirituality value.

With such generous rewards, how could he give them up?

——Accept task.

[You have accepted the exclusive task. Current progress: 0/12]

Only a few seconds had passed since Chu Xuan accepted the task, but the others had not yet recovered from their shock.

"Lin Jie, you should know how to get out, right? You guide me!"

A calm voice rang out, interrupting everyone's thoughts. Lin Jie quickly spoke up, "Let's go downstairs first!"

Chu Xuan nodded slightly, unfurled his night cloak, and darkness enveloped them.

"As for the rest of you, if you want to leave alive, follow obediently behind me and don't cause trouble."

The light was lost once more, but unlike before, although everyone felt they were in darkness, they could barely see through it to the path ahead.

Especially the figure shrouded in the night cloak ahead, who was like a lighthouse in the night, guiding the way.

That direction was the hope of life!

The group followed Chu Xuan, walking quickly. As they were heading toward the fire door more than ten meters away, the fire door opened on its own.

This time, a total of four nurses wearing black masks appeared.

Everyone's hearts trembled instinctively.

In this corridor, if they were seen by the black-masked nurses, they would definitely die!

However, everyone saw that Chu Xuan in front did not stop his pace; several half-meter-long Black Flames flashed out from his body.

Immediately after, those four nurses were instantly slashed in two. As the Black Flame burned, only a pile of nurse uniforms remained, falling to the ground.

And all of them remained completely unharmed.

"This kind of darkness... we must be enveloped by darkness, and those eerie nurses can't see us from the outside," someone murmured.

Upon hearing this, the others were all incredibly exhilarated.

Chu Xuan's expression was calm. At this moment, he was using the night cloak to cast Nightfall, covering only a five-meter radius around him.

The spirituality value consumed was about 2 points per second, and the load on his Mental Energy was very light; Chu Xuan could currently afford it completely.

Under this Domain-like effect, the black-masked nurses couldn't see him at all, so naturally, they couldn't trigger the death rule.

However, Chu Xuan did not skimp on spirituality value because of this; whenever he encountered them, he used instantaneous Slash.

Kill first as a courtesy!

At this moment, his spirituality value was increasing instead of decreasing, having already reached 1580 points.

"Should we continue downstairs?"

As Chu Xuan spoke calmly, he slowed his pace, diverting a small portion of his attention to replenish the Slash within his body.

These newly replenished four Slashes no longer consumed just 10 points of spirituality value, but 30 points of spirituality value for each Slash condensed.

With sufficient spirituality value, it was better to keep some powerful means in reserve.

In this place, even a small minnow had a death rule, and with an exclusive task at hand, Chu Xuan was giving it his full attention, doing his utmost to ensure he remained at Peak combat power at all times.

Accumulating one Slash every three seconds, by the time he had consumed 120 points of spirituality value and the Slashes within his body had condensed back to fifty, they had already arrived at the third floor.

Just as Chu Xuan was about to continue downstairs, Lin Jie suddenly spoke:

"There is a corridor anomaly here; it's very terrifying. It will form a blood shadow that follows right behind us. If you turn your head, you will die, and if you don't turn your head, your vitality will be absorbed, and you will still die! Let's take another way downstairs..."

"There is no need for that!"

Chu Xuan stood on the stairs, raised his hand, and pointed abruptly toward the seemingly ordinary corridor below:

"Slash!"