4: Chapter 4: Built with Pay-to-Win! The Underworld Fortress Rises from the Ground

Lin Chen walked through the deathly silent streets of the ruins. The crunching sound of broken glass and concrete blocks beneath his feet was particularly jarring in this land of death shrouded by the blood moon.

Behind him followed ten silent Shadow Soldiers, followed by a despondent Su Qingyu and Zhang Hao, who was crawling on all fours like a dog. Wherever this strange group passed, the low-level Bizarre Monsters peeking from the shadows retreated one after another, as if they had encountered a natural predator.

"Right here."

Lin Chen stopped in front of the ruins of a hundred-meter-tall office building. This was once the financial center, one of his most familiar battlefields in his past life. Now, half of the building had collapsed, its exposed rebar reaching toward the sky like the fingers of a dying man.

Zhang Hao quickly crawled forward and said flatteringly, "Master, this place is too dilapidated. Why don't we find somewhere more..."

Lin Chen didn't listen to him at all and directly opened the nether domain asset system.

[Build "Underworld Fortress" here? Base construction cost: 1 billion nether talismans]

He chose "Yes" without hesitation.

In an instant, the world changed color.

With his feet as the center, a black ripple spread out instantly. Wherever it passed, the concrete, rebar, and glass in the ruins were all crushed and reorganized as if by an invisible giant hand. Even more hair-raising was the sound of countless skeletons being awakened from deep underground!

"Rumble—"

The ground shook violently, and Su Qingyu and Zhang Hao fell to the ground, unable to stand. Countless pale white skeletons burst out from deep underground as if they had life, automatically stacking and combining, merging with the crushed building materials to quickly construct the base of the city walls.

That wasn't all.

In the sky, a hole was suddenly torn in the light of the blood moon, and countless giant black stones burning with green ghost fire fell like a meteor shower, precisely embedding themselves into the forming walls. Every giant stone emitted a deafening roar as it landed, and distorted Nether Runes emerged on their surfaces.

"Oh my god..." Su Qingyu covered her mouth, her eyes full of horror.

She saw the hollows in the skulls seemingly emitting silent roars as they built the walls; she saw the ghost fire on the black stones flickering, reflecting countless faces twisted in pain.

Even more terrifying, at the four corners of the Fortress, a Bone Sentry Tower rose from the ground. A giant skull floated atop each tower, blue flames burning in their eye sockets, constantly scanning the surroundings.

The entire process took no more than three to five minutes.

When the shaking stopped, a grand, eerie Fortress radiating a thick aura of death stood in its place. It was composed entirely of bone and obsidian, with walls twenty meters high, covered in Nether Runes that would automatically attack intruders. The entire Fortress was shrouded in a translucent black light screen, where the faces of wraiths would occasionally surface, wailing, and then vanish.

[Underworld Fortress construction complete]

[Current Defense Level: Can withstand attacks below Ghost General level]

[Attached Structures: Nether Sentry Tower x4, Bone Wall, Wraith Shield]

[Upgradable]

Zhang Hao was already dazed. He lay on the ground, trembling with excitement. "Master! This... this is a miracle!"

Su Qingyu felt a wave of dizziness. The Fortress before her, radiating the aura of death, terrified her even more than the Bizarre Monsters roaming outside. This was simply not a power humans should possess!

Just then, another change occurred.

"Roar—!"

An earth-shaking roar came from the distance, and a giant figure fifteen meters tall rose from the city ruins. It was a "Stitch Monster" made of countless corpses stitched together, its dozen or so arms holding various weapons. Buildings collapsed like toy blocks wherever it passed.

[Giant Threat Detected: Hundred-Armed Corpse Demon]

[Threat Level: High]

[Immediate activation of Fortress defense system recommended]

Lin Chen only glanced at it indifferently, then selected "Nether Sentry Tower Auto-Defense" in the system.

The next second, the skulls atop the four towers turned simultaneously, the blue flames in their eye sockets flaring up. Four thick blue light beams shot out instantly, converging in the air into an even larger beam that precisely hit the distant Hundred-Armed Corpse Demon.

No explosion, no roar.

The moment the giant corpse demon was enveloped by the light beam, it disappeared silently, as if erased from the world by an eraser. Along with it, all the ruins within a hundred meters of it vanished into nothingness.

Instant kill!

Another instant kill without any suspense!

Zhang Hao was incoherent with excitement: "Master is mighty! Master is invincible!"

Su Qingyu felt a bone-chilling cold. This power... was too terrifying.

Lin Chen seemed long accustomed to all this. He walked slowly toward the Fortress gate. It was a giant gate woven from countless interlocking spinal columns, which opened inward automatically as he approached, revealing a deep passage inside.

He stood at the door, turned to look at the broken world outside, and his voice spread clearly to the surroundings:

"Hiring now, room and board included."

"Trade labor, loyalty, and intelligence for nether talismans."

"With nether talismans, you can buy everything from me—food, clean water, safety, and even... power."

His voice wasn't loud, but it strangely reached the entire area.

At first, there was dead silence.

But soon, from the corners of various ruins, survivors began to poke their heads out tremulously. They were all in rags, thin and sallow, their eyes a mix of fear and longing.

The first to walk out was a middle-aged man who had lost an arm. He asked tremblingly, "Can... can you really give us food?"

Lin Chen didn't speak, but simply exchanged a piece of steaming roasted meat from the system and threw it to him.

This action was like opening a floodgate. More and more survivors emerged from their hiding places, the light of hope reignited in their eyes.

However, among this group of bedraggled survivors, a few people were particularly conspicuous.

They were three men and women who, although covered in filth, still showed signs of their former privileged lives. Leading them was a middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He forced himself to stay calm as he walked to the Fortress and looked up at Lin Chen.

"President Lin, I hope you've been well." He squeezed out a stiff smile. "I am the chairman of the Wang Group, Wang Dehai. We met at the last business summit."

He pointed to the man and woman behind him: "This is President Li, and this is Chairman Zhang. We are all..."

Lin Chen interrupted him directly: "I only have two kinds of people here: useful people and dead people."

His gaze swept over the three: "Which do you choose?"

Wang Dehai's face stiffened, but he still held his ground and said, "President Lin, we can use our previous assets..."

"Previous assets?" Lin Chen sounded as if he had heard something funny. "Do you have a single penny in your pocket right now?"

Wang Dehai was speechless.

"You can come in," Lin Chen pointed to the automatically repairing city wall, "but go move bricks. One brick, one nether talisman."

These three business tycoons, who had been powerful in their past lives, turned pale instantly.

And what made them even more embarrassed was that Lin Chen added:

"Oh, let me remind you."

"The bricks here refer to those bone fragments that are still moving."

"Be careful not to get bitten."

Just then, Su Qingyu walked timidly to Lin Chen's side and asked softly, "Lin Chen, I... what can I do?"

She looked at the eerie and terrifying Fortress before her, and then at the survivors who were scrambling to sign up for "moving bricks." Her heart was filled with confusion.

The once high-and-mighty White Moonlight now had no idea where she belonged.