162: Chapter 162 The Dark Forest? No, this is a fully automated farm.
pangu-003 · Tenth Heaven · Dark Cultivation World (Discarded Draft Instance 003).
[Server-wide Warning: You have entered a high-risk zone!] [Current Environmental Characteristics:]
Toxic Spiritual Qi: The air is permeated with 'Tribulation Balefulness.' Every breath deducts 1 point from your maximum HP, and it cannot be recovered (unless you resort to cannibalism).
Law of the Jungle: There is no NPC protection mechanism here. Any living creature (including teammates) is a mobile 'experience pack' and 'health potion.'
Death Penalty: Extreme. Upon death, you lose 50% of your current Rank's experience points, with a probability of dropping body parts (e.g., being refined into a Magic Treasure).
As soon as they landed, the thirty thousand pioneer players felt the deep malice from the developer (Li Mo). The sky here was a ghastly white, like the skin of a dead man's face. The earth was a dark red, with foul-smelling blood seeping from the soil. The surroundings were deathly silent, save for the occasional sounds of chewing and bone-cracking that made one's scalp tingle.
"Holy crap... this atmosphere is insane." Streamer Old Wang swallowed hard, tightening his grip on his [+13 Enhanced Titan Engineering Shovel]. "Brothers, something's wrong with this instance. My health bar keeps dropping, and the System is prompting me with 'Extreme Hunger.' Looking at my teammates next to me... I actually kind of want to eat them?"
"Stop talking nonsense! Group up! We must group up!" Thunder War led the Falcon Special Forces to quickly occupy a high slope. They were all equipped with the newly developed [Spiritual Power Gas Masks] and held [Spiritual Energy Assault Rifles] (a product of combining the Scrap Iron Clan's blasters with Talisman technology).
Just then, over a dozen dark shadows suddenly lunged out from the dense forest below. They were a group of black-robed Cultivators with withered faces. Their eyes were hollow yet filled with extreme greed, and they held Magical Artifacts refined from human bones. "Living people... fresh flesh and blood!" "Such pure Divine Souls! No scent of Tribulation Balefulness!" "Eat them! We can extend our lives by ten years!"
The black-robed Cultivators let out Night Owl-like cackles, manifesting wicked Magic Treasures like [Ten Thousand Soul Banners] and [Blood Baleful Skulls], smashing them toward the players with overwhelming force.
"Enemy attack! Fire!" Thunder War gave the order. Da-da-da-da-da—! Dense spiritual energy light bullets wove into a net of fire. However, these dark Cultivators' movement techniques were extremely eerie; they could actually turn into blood mist to evade physical attacks. Moreover, their Magic Treasures were highly corrosive, leaving a large hole instantly upon touching a player.
"Jie jie jie! It's useless!" The leading black-robed old monster gave a sinister laugh, waving a human bone staff. "Blood Refining Grand Array, rise!" A blood-red light curtain instantly enveloped hundreds of players. "Become this old man's blood food!"
The players discovered in horror that their bodies were beginning to melt, their flesh and blood flying uncontrollably toward the old monster's mouth. "Holy shit! He's actually eating people!" "This is too hardcore! I'm going to report this!" "Help! My equipment! My Rank!"
In just a few minutes, hundreds of players turned into dried corpses and were forced offline in flashes of white light. After consuming the 'supplements,' the black-robed old monster's aura surged instantly, and a look of intoxication even appeared on his face. "Delicious... so delicious... is this the taste of an 'Outer Realm Heavenly Demon'?"
...
Deep in the Darkness · Demon Palace.
A cold-faced young man with eyes that were all white without pupils was observing the slaughter through a water mirror Spell. He was the protagonist of this world—Old Demon Fang (pseudonym). A ruthless man who would kill his wife to prove his Dao and refine the living beings of an entire realm for the sake of longevity.
"Outer Realm Heavenly Demons?" Old Demon Fang smiled coldly, fiddling with a [Soul-Devouring Gu] in his hand. "They are numerous, but they have no order and are soft-hearted." "In this world, being soft-hearted... is the original sin." "Pass down the order: the entire sect is to mobilize." "Capture all these 'Heavenly Demons' and keep them in the blood pools." "This kind of blood food that can revive infinitely... is simply a gift from the heavens to serve as resources for my breakthrough to the 'Soul Transformation Stage.'"
...
Half an hour later.
The player army suffered an unprecedented defeat. Faced with the dark Cultivators' 'mad dog' fighting style of 'I'll even self-destruct just to kill you,' the players, who were used to 'fighting bosses by the book,' were beaten senseless. Spawn points were camped, equipment was stolen, and some were even captured to be refined into 'Human Pills.' The forums were filled with wails: [This instance is unplayable! The stats are broken!] [The mobs are too cheap! They self-destruct if they can't win, and they turn into zombies after they die!] [And this environment is too depressing, my SAN value is almost negative!]
Thirty-Third Heavens · Tianhe Academy.
Li Mo looked at the dismal battle reports but didn't panic at all. "Don't worry," he said to Lumina beside him. "Creatures like players are best at... exploiting bugs in desperate situations." "Or rather, finding the 'meta answer'."
Sure enough. Another half hour passed, and the tide turned.
In-game · A hidden valley in the Tenth Heaven.
"Professor Li from the Chinese Academy of Sciences" was leading a group of science-student players in a dissection of a recently killed dark Cultivator's corpse. "Just as I expected." Professor Li pushed up his glasses, using tweezers to pick up a black crystal. "The reason these dark Cultivators are strong is that they have a type of [Tribulation Balefulness Factor] similar to a 'prion' in their bodies." "This factor can devour Spiritual Qi to replicate itself, which is why their Spells are highly invasive."
"However..." Professor Li's tone shifted, his eyes filled with fanaticism. "According to virology principles, this factor is extremely unstable." "As long as we inject a bit of... 'positive energy,' which is high-purity active spiritual particles, into it..."
Professor Li took out a bottle of [High-Concentration Holy Water] (actually a diluted version of Light Spirit Race bathwater) and poured it onto the crystal.
Sizzle—Boom! The crystal instantly underwent a violent chain reaction, exploding into a brilliant golden firework. The power was so great that it directly collapsed half of the nearby rock wall.
"Do you understand?" Professor Li turned around, looking at the group of wide-eyed players behind him. "In this instance, we don't need to slash with swords or burn with fire." "We only need to do one thing: a 'neutralization reaction'." "Compress the Spiritual Qi in our bodies into bombs and deliver them into their bodies." "This is called... the 'Human Nuclear Bomb Style'."
...
The counterattack began.
When the black-robed old monster led his disciples to harvest a new wave of 'blood food' again, he found that the players this time were a bit different. These players no longer hid; instead, they stripped off their equipment (to reduce losses), their bodies emitting a dazzling white light (a state of Spiritual Qi overload), and charged over howling.
"Come on! Eat me!" "I'm full of positive energy! I'll choke you to death!"
The black-robed old monster frowned. "Seeking death?" He reached out and sucked the player at the very front toward him, biting into the neck. However— "Art is an explosion!" That player laughed wildly and detonated the Spiritual Qi in his body.
Boom—!!! A massive explosion rang out. Half of the black-robed old monster's head was blown off. It wasn't blown off physically, but rather the [Tribulation Balefulness] in his body had an annihilation reaction with the player's [Spiritual Qi], disintegrating his Physical Body from the inside.
"Aaaah! My demonic body!" The old monster let out a shrill scream. But before he could repair his body, the second and third players had already charged up. Boom! Boom! Boom! A series of self-destructions, like a string of firecrackers, blew the group of overbearing dark Cultivators to smithereens.
"Holy crap! It works!" "Brothers! We found the meta answer!" "Self-destruct style! Just do it!" "This isn't a Dark Cultivation World! This is a 'Match-3' scene!"
The situation reversed instantly. Utilizing their 'infinite revival' advantage, the players turned themselves into walking bombs. Whenever they saw a dark Cultivator, they would rush up and grab them without a word, and then—Boom!
...
Demon Palace.
Old Demon Fang looked at the group of 'Heavenly Demons' in the water mirror who were even crazier than he was, and the Soul-Devouring Gu in his hand was crushed. "Self-destruction?" "Do they not cultivate for longevity? Do they not value their lives?" "Thousands of years of cultivation, just blown up like that?" This fighting style, which completely violated the 'logic of dark cultivation,' made this old demon, who had spent his life calculating, feel... lost for the first time.
"No." Old Demon Fang's gaze turned cold. "I can't let them get close." "Activate the Mountain Protection Grand Array! Release the [Eternal Corpse King]!"
Rumble— The gates of the Demon Palace opened. A giant zombie, a hundred zhang tall, covered in green hair and emitting a nauseating corpse stench, walked out. It was Old Demon Fang's trump card, its body indestructible and immune to all Spells. "Roar—!!" The Corpse King stepped down, and hundreds of self-destructing players were crushed into meat paste before they could even detonate.
"Physical defense is too high! We can't blow it up!" The players were stuck again. "Captain Lei! What do we do? This mob's skin is too thick!"
Thunder War lay on a distant hilltop, watching the Corpse King through a sniper scope. He calmly pressed his communicator. "High physical defense?" "Then let's give it some... more Advanced Physics." "Call Director Xiao Yan." "Requesting [Tactical Guidance]."
...
Thirty-Third Heavens · Burning Heaven Qi Refining Tower.
Xiao Yan was wearing goggles, researching with a player how to put Heavenly Flames into missiles. Receiving Thunder War's communication, the corner of his mouth curled up. "Corpse King? That's a cold, yin thing, right?" "Perfect, I just developed a new product—[Buddha's Fury Hydrogen Bomb · Prototype]." "Although it hasn't been test-fired yet, theoretically... it can purify all uncleanness."
"Launch coordinates?" "Tenth Heaven, directly above the Demon Palace."
Whoosh—! A strange missile painted in red and white, but with a warhead burning with Green Lotus Core Flame and Bone Chilling Flame, whistled down from the Thirty-Third Heavens. It crossed multiple spatial folds and, with a sharp whistling sound, landed precisely on the head of the Eternal Corpse King.
"What is tha..." Old Demon Fang had just looked up.
Buzz— Sound vanished from the world instantly. Following that was a white light ten thousand times more dazzling than the sun. A massive mushroom cloud, woven from three types of Heavenly Flames, rose slowly in the Tenth Heaven.
Rumble—!!! The terrifying heatwave instantly evaporated the blood water for a hundred miles around. The Eternal Corpse King, which claimed to be indestructible, didn't even let out a scream before it was directly vaporized. Along with the Demon Palace beneath its feet and the surrounding dark Cultivators, everything in that instant... returned to an atomic state.
[System Prompt: Congratulations to the players for cooperating with NPC 'Xiao Yan' to slay the World Boss 'Eternal Corpse King'.] [The core of the 'Dark Cultivation World' instance has been destroyed.] [World Fragment x1 recovered.]
...
Above the ruins.
Only a wisp of Old Demon Fang's remnant soul remained, floating in the air. He looked at his home, which had been leveled to the ground, and at the group of players dancing and celebrating on the edge of the radiation crater, his eyes full of disbelief. "What kind of Spell is this..." "No spiritual power fluctuations... only pure... destruction?" "Could this be... the Great Dao?"
At this moment, Li Mo's figure appeared out of thin air. He held a small bottle and casually collected Old Demon Fang's remnant soul into it. "This isn't the Great Dao," Li Mo said flatly, looking at the old demon in the bottle who was still questioning his life. "This is... a Dimensional Reduction Strike." "Using the yield of an industrial civilization to hit a primitive person like you who is still playing with Gu bugs."
"However, although your 'cannibalistic' logic is disgusting, that 'extreme egoism' rule is quite a good material." Li Mo threw the bottle into the [black box] for analysis. "It's perfect for completing the ship's... [Counterattack System]."
He turned around, looking at the group of Fourth Calamities who were scavenging corpses (though they were all vaporized, the players were still trying to sift through the dirt for equipment). "Clean up the battlefield." "Prepare for the next one." "I feel... a big fish is approaching."
Li Mo looked up toward the real world. In the depths of the network there, the discarded draft will of a place called the [Main God Space] (Infinite Genre World) was Awakening. It seemed to treat "pangu online" as its... new hunting ground.