163: World Mission and Despair

Scarlet font hung coldly at the very top of all players' system interfaces.

[World Quest]

[Quest Rank]: SSS?

[Quest Description]: An unknown World-class Rift has appeared at coordinates (110, -42, 31), accompanied by a large-scale invasion of Otherworld creatures. Four SSS? rank High-dimensional threat entities have been detected.

[Quest Requirements]: Stop and attempt to kill the four SSS? rank threat entities.

[Quest Rewards]: free attribute point × 400, Seed of Frenzied Breath × 4, Gold Coins × 400.

Silence.

Team channel, area channel, and world channel all fell into a dead silence.

A few seconds later, a few scattered messages began to pop up tremulously.

[Superpower is Laji]: "W-World Quest? ...After the S, there are... three more Ss? And there's a damn question mark? What the hell kind of rank is this?!"

[My Worldly Observations]: "The coordinates... are toward the Beiyuan Mountain Range. In my Perception, it feels like the world has been torn apart."

[Glazed Beauty Curse]: "Weren't the Inheritors supposed to be having their final battle there? How did it suddenly become... an Otherworld invasion?"

[Class Hunk Meng Zihao]: "Inheritors are only S-rank, right? This SSS? and there's four of them... you've got to be kidding me..."

[...]

[...]

Panic spread through the silent text like a cold tide.

Liao Jianfeng finally couldn't help but @ the person who had always been seen as their backbone.

[Charging City]: "@Lord of Wisdom Wisdom, what do we do? This quest... should we take it?"

Linshui City, at the edge of the giant crater.

Lu Qinghe remained in a cross-legged sitting position, but his eyes stared blankly into the distance.

He had just touched the edge of a Tier 4 skill, his heart surging with the ambition to grow stronger and visions for the future.

But in the blink of an eye, the system told him in the coldest way possible—you just climbed a small hill, only to look up and see Mount Everest; no, it was like seeing an alien warship.

"Why..." he whispered to himself, his voice dry, "I finally... saw a bit of hope, gained a bit of power... and the world just pops out something like this... something that isn't even in the same dimension..."

He glanced at the system chat channel; those players who usually feared nothing and joked around were now only silent, with a few scattered, despairing questions.

He looked at the two glaring orange buttons—[Accept] and [Decline].

A massive sense of powerlessness gripped his heart.

After a long time, he typed a line into the team channel, each word heavy:

[Lord of Wisdom]: "Forget it. This time... free action. I suggest... everyone, go home and spend more time with your families."

It wasn't an order; it was a plea, a sigh admitting defeat.

The channel went completely silent. No one argued, no one questioned; even the most active people from before fell silent.

Lu Qinghe looked at that line of text, then at the orange button. He didn't hesitate anymore, reaching out his finger to gently tap [Accept] on the virtual interface.

Then, he closed the system interface.

The world seemed to fall quiet in an instant, leaving only the whimpering of the wind blowing through the ruins and the faint clamor of the distant city.

He stood up, patted the dust off his clothes, and looked to the west. Even from five hundred kilometers away, that hideous black rift on the horizon was still faintly visible, like an ugly scar hanging across the sky.

"Time to go," he said to himself, his voice very soft, yet carrying a calmness that comes after the dust has settled. "I don't know... if there's still time."

A flash of white light.

His figure appeared at the Return to City point he had set last time on the outskirts of Jinzhou City—an abandoned small town square.

He looked up; that black line in the western sky was clearer now, emitting ominous fluctuations.

No grand speeches, no pre-battle mobilization. He silently bent down, his legs slightly flexed, and a wave of air exploded from the ground.

In the next moment, he turned into a blurred dark shadow carrying a giant axe, treading on air as he sped resolutely toward that wound tearing the sky apart.

The wind roared in his ears, filling his slightly thin but straight-backed frame.

---

Jinjiao Camp.

Lu Guangming stared blankly at the players' reactions in the system backend, looking at his younger brother Lu Qinghe's message about "going home to spend time with family," seeing him accept the quest, and then seeing him resolutely set off toward North Garden.

He felt an absurd sense of powerlessness and asked the system: "How can you even issue this kind of quest? This is simply a death trap with no chance of winning! Where is the 'conviction' in this?! Didn't you optimize the quest generation logic last time?"

[System: Lord God, the current threat has been detected as the highest priority 'World Erosion Source'. According to the core conviction principles you set—'Protect the home, resist erosion, seek the spark of hope within despair'—generating this quest is the current optimal solution. The quest objective is clear and the rewards are extremely high, which meets the conditions for stimulating ultimate conviction and the spirit of sacrifice.]

Lu Guangming was stunned.

Protect the home... resist erosion... seek hope within despair... Yes, wasn't that his original intention for creating this system and screening players?

To screen out those "seeds" in an ordinary world who still harbor passion and are willing to stand up for others.

If even these "seeds" chose to shrink back when facing a true cataclysm, then this world... perhaps really had no hope left.

"I guess..." He gave a bitter smile and slumped down. "The players are already the group with the relatively strongest convictions among the people I can reach. If even they don't take it... then there might really be no one left in this world to stand up."

[System: Delete this quest?]

Lu Guangming looked at the screen, at the lone player marker representing his brother rushing toward the battlefield, and then at the scattered light points from other directions starting to move toward North Garden.

He slowly shook his head, his eyes becoming firm once more.

"No need."

He stood up, a pure and restrained light beginning to flow around him.

"A place where convictions converge... perhaps it will be a good battlefield, and also a good... resting place."

As he spoke, he turned into a streak of brilliant white light that pierced through heaven and earth, instantly vanishing from the sky above Jinjiao Camp, leaving only a lingering warmth that gradually dissipated.

---

Beiyuan Mountain Range, in the sky above the now-ruined base.

The seven-eyed Fusio seemed completely indifferent to the shock and chaos of the humans below, calmly saying to the green-eyed Karu: "Karu, do it. Make it quick."

Karu twisted its long, thin neck, making a "crack" sound, its slit-like mouth widening: "Fine! Don't any of you snatch them; these little bugs are mine to play with!"

*Pfft!*

A sound of breaking air so light it was almost inaudible.

Karu's figure left a faint grey afterimage where it had stood.

In the next instant, it appeared less than a meter in front of Themis, the Inheritor of the god of order!

Themis didn't even have time to make any reaction—his expanded "Order Domain," which represented absolute logic and law, collapsed and vanished silently like a soap bubble in the sun the moment it touched the invisible force field around Karu, without even making a sound!

Then, Karu just casually raised its hand, the movement faster than the limit of visual capture.

Themis froze in place.

He looked down in disbelief at the left side of his body—from his shoulder to his waist, including his left arm, half of his body had completely vanished as if erased by the most precise eraser! The cut was as smooth as a mirror; there was no blood, no broken bones, as if that part of his body had never existed!

"Ugh..." An unintelligible, short gasp escaped Themis's throat. The remaining half of his body swayed, the light in his eyes rapidly fading as he fell straight from the sky.

One hit!

Just one hit! An Inheritor symbolizing "order," his domain ignored as if it were nothing, his body easily erased!

"So weak." Karu shook its "hand," which had no stains on it, its tone full of disgust and boredom. "Not a single drop of 'Frenzied Breath'! Hahaha, how boring!"

Beside him, Chen Long, who had just been preparing to fight Themis again, was frozen as if turned to ice. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, and his mind went blank.

Not just him—all the Inheritors in the air and the Xia Country's Single Digits on the ground were stunned! Even the violent flames of destruction in Alan Gray's eyes froze for a moment.

What... what kind of power was this?!

"Unite against the enemy!!!" Zhao Guoyun was the first to wake from the shock, roaring hoarsely, his voice distorted by shock and anger.

Alan Gray responded almost instinctively, turning the immense horror in his heart into the fire of destruction, condensing an unprecedented black flame that swept toward Karu like a roaring black dragon! This strike was enough to vaporize a mountain range!

Karu didn't even look directly at the attack. It just casually waved its hand as if shooing away a mosquito.

That torrent of destruction, enough to make an S-rank powerhouse retreat, hit the invisible wave it waved out and was instantly scattered and diluted like a wisp of smoke in a gale, vanishing completely into the air without even causing a ripple.

"Oh?" Karu finally seemed to take a bit of interest, its emerald compound eyes looking at Alan. "You can actually condense... hmm, power similar to the prototype of 'Frenzied Breath'? Although it's mixed and inferior... interesting. I hope you can entertain me a little longer."

Alan Gray's face was deathly pale; he had used almost all his strength in that strike! "You... what exactly are you?!"

He asked hoarsely, his voice carrying a tremble he hadn't noticed himself.

Karu tilted its head and answered in an ancient and obscure language, yet its inherent Rules-based fluctuations allowed all high-level beings present to "understand":

"Karu Gik."

The name itself seemed to carry a heavy, chaotic weight of Rules, making anyone who heard it feel a sense of discomfort in their Soul.

"Impossible... how could..." Alan seemed to have received a huge Impact, muttering to himself.

In the next second, the fire of destruction ignited in his eyes again. Disregarding everything, he turned into a streak of black lightning and lunged toward Karu with an aura of mutual destruction! The destruction core condensed in his hands released a heart-palpitating light that seemed to end everything!

Karu looked at the pouncing Alan and extended a finger—at the tip of that finger flickered a point of greyish-white, extremely condensed light that seemed capable of piercing through the world.

Zhao Guoyun's pupils shrank, and he activated his time Rules with all his might—"Time Freeze!" He tried to freeze that terrifying attack at Karu's fingertip outside of time.

However, that greyish-white light point touched the "Time Freeze" domain as if it had only hit a thin layer of ice. After a slight pause, the "Time Freeze" domain let out a strained "crack" sound, like shattered glass, instantly filling with cracks and completely crumbling!

Li Yinxin also struck at the same time, her five-colored Distortion power attempting to deflect the trajectory of that finger's attack.

Useless!

That finger, carrying that greyish-white light, seemed to follow some higher-level, inviolable "trajectory," ignoring all obstructions as it pointed straight, slowly yet unstoppably, toward Alan's forehead.

The shadow of death instantly enveloped this Inheritor of the God of Destruction.

For the first time, a clear, near-despairing fear appeared in Alan's eyes. The destruction power he had condensed melted like snow before that finger.

Just at the moment the fingertip was about to touch his skin—

Although Li Yinxin's Distortion Domain couldn't deflect the attack, it suddenly acted on Alan, "twisting" him violently to the side and back!

*Pfft!*

The greyish-white light point grazed Alan's cheek, leaving a deep-to-the-bone, smooth-edged burn mark, but it didn't hit his vitals directly.

Alan screamed as he flew backward, landing in the ruins, gasping for air as if he had just been pulled from the abyss of drowning. His face was filled with the extreme horror and daze of surviving a disaster.

Karu withdrew its finger, looking at the rescued Alan, then at Zhao Guoyun and Li Yinxin who had barely managed to intervene. Its emerald compound eyes rolled, seemingly finding this mutual rescue among "bugs" somewhat interesting.

It didn't pursue them. Instead, it crossed its arms and stood in the air, leisurely watching the human powerhouses below, who were facing a great enemy yet filled with despair.

"Continue."