87: Chapter 87 The Chaos Corruption Value System Triggered for the First Time

As the pile of Ashes at the bottom of the Pump Station pipes was being shoveled into a sealed lead box by Nightsong's own hands, Grey Mist Walker was in the control room writing her post-battle summary. Her left shoulder was wrapped in fresh bandages—not because of a new injury, but because an old wound had split open after a full day and night of continuous command. She didn't stop to treat it, merely wrapping another layer of waterproof tape over the bandages before continuing to write. The characters on the screen were somewhat slanted, but every figure had been cross-checked three times.

The first thing she wrote was the casualty statistics. Number of deaths—with a parenthetical note: "Actual personnel loss after accounting for resurrections is zero." Number of death counts—she had requested that figure from Hephaestus; usually, only Lin Qiming had access to this data. She stared at that number for a long time. Not because it was large, but because she realized that if calculated by the average resurrection energy consumed per death, the energy burned in this battle was enough to support all facilities at the Outpost running at full power for quite some time.

The second page covered equipment wear and tear. Three automatic rifles were completely scrapped, one of which had its receiver crushed by the aggregate's claws; one imitation shotgun's barrel had deformed from overheating—Nightsong said it could still be repaired, but it would take three days. Concentrated smoke canisters were exhausted, with zero stock remaining. Iron Stomach's safety rope had been cut by him once during the battle—he used the dagger Lin Qiming had personally quenched and forged to sever his own safety rope because it had become entangled with the aggregate's severed right arm, and he wanted to bring back that joint fragment.

On the third page, she circled a title in red: Abnormal Exposure Records. Listed below were the names of all players who had been in direct contact with the aggregate, hit by its claws, affected by shrapnel splashes, or remained within its immediate vicinity during its disintegration. Iron Stomach was first on the list. Not out of favoritism, but because it was sorted by contact frequency in descending order. Throughout the night, he had been crushed by claws, spat back out by the resurrection point, and thrown back into battle at least four times, staying too long within the aggregate's attack range each time. Grey Mist Walker included herself as well—at the end of the pipe battle, she had charged into the passage and fired a final shot while kneeling before the pile of ash after the aggregate's core fragments shattered, the laser beam passing through the not-yet-dissipated Warp particle residue. Her left hand still felt a faint numbness even now, and she couldn't determine if the sensation stemmed from a physical burn or something else.

She sealed the list in a hardback waterproof bag and stood up to head toward the second floor of the Outpost. Iron Stomach, Iron Wall Rebirth, and Rookie One were already waiting at the dispatch room door, each still covered in ash. As they followed Grey Mist Walker into the room, Lin Qiming had his back to them, with three holographic panels floating before him. Real-time data scrolled on the left, an energy fluctuation graph rose and fell slowly on the right, and the center screen was frozen on four personal corruption value curves.

He turned the screen around for them to see for themselves. Iron Stomach's corruption value curve showed a distinct, almost vertical spike, with the peak occurring in the second hour after the battle at the bottom of the pipes began. Grey Mist Walker's curve was similar, though her peak appeared later—at the exact moment the aggregate disintegrated. Rookie One's curve was flatter, but not because he took less damage—it was because his exposure time at the bottom of the pipes was shorter than the other two. Iron Wall Rebirth's curve was the lowest of the four, yet it still far exceeded any daily cumulative range. Lin Qiming didn't explain the meaning of each curve; he simply left the screen there for them to see. The four of them stared at their corruption value curves and remained silent for a long time. This was the first time they had seen this value, usually hidden deep within the back-end panels, laid out minute-by-minute before their eyes. Previously, all discussions about corruption values were nothing more than scattered remarks on the forums, a line of pale red annotation flickering in the background, or a tiny increment that flashed by when Iron Stomach fell down a well to his death. It had been a distant number that no one truly cared about. Until now.

“The bottom of the pipes is the resonance center for all fragments; the entire battle took place within high concentrations of chaotic radiation. Whether you were killed by it or you killed it, there is no difference.” Lin Qiming finally spoke, casually turning off the center screen and facing them. “The rate at which the corruption value began to accumulate far exceeds the normal range, and not just because the battle lasted long—the aggregate released all its remaining energy at the last moment, a final pulse of all the fragments within its body before they were exhausted. Everyone still at the bottom of the pipes then was exposed to the pollution at its very center. This mechanism was originally designed to give Chaos enemies a final pollution radius—but for people who can stand back up from a resurrection point, this mechanism's lethality radius is much larger than physical damage. Because you aren't afraid of dying, but what it pollutes isn't your life. It's something else.”

Iron Stomach leaned against the wall without looking at the screen, merely looking down to press his right wrist, which had been slashed by a fragment in the pipes earlier. That wound had long since healed with his resurrection, but he said the spot had been throbbing faintly. Lin Qiming pushed a portable data pad into his hand. “Your corruption value has already exceeded the warning threshold. If it isn't handled now, after a while, you might no longer be Iron Stomach. A person who can resurrect won't always be the same person. This is something I didn't write in the mission prompts.” Iron Stomach stared at his value reaching the warning line on the data pad and didn't speak immediately, only raising a hand to wipe away a streak of ash on his brow that had remained since last night. “I understand.”

“Who else?” Grey Mist Walker asked.

Lin Qiming pulled up the list of all participating personnel and marked the players who needed to enter the first round of purification line by line, including Dark Blade, Rookie One, and almost everyone in the Vanguard Group. A note was added to the top of the list: “All members must be cleared for the next mission only after purification is complete and a re-examination is passed, without exception and without special approval.” He then projected an independent report onto the dispatch room wall, using data silently compiled by Hephaestus in the background to show the corruption value accumulation slopes under different exposure durations, the decay in purification efficiency caused by consecutive deaths, and the Information-State Evasion Mechanism that allowed Rat Speaker to maintain zero growth throughout at the bottom of the pipes. He didn't explicitly tell her to do anything, only stating that her Information State Perception had maintained a complete information-layer shield during the climax of the chaotic radiation, making her the only one who remained uncontaminated from start to finish.

Grey Mist Walker reviewed the list of everyone who had come into close contact with the Chaos Aggregate that day line by line. Based on each person's cumulative exposure time, consecutive death count, and current corruption value reading, she scheduled the first round of purification for that night, with the second batch following the next day. All marked members had to pass a re-examination after purification to be allowed to participate in the next mission. The purification was set in a simple Purification Room in a corner of the Outpost that had just been expanded by Nightsong—the equipment was still the old Psionic Filtering Devices salvaged from the Pump Station control room with limited functionality, but Nightsong had installed independent radiation shielding curtains and data monitoring screens on each purification table, so every flicker of energy value would be sent to the back-end. Lin Qiming stood at the door of the Purification Room, not wearing the robe that Xiao Haozi had bitten two holes into, nor wearing his metal mask. Everyone saw him standing there before they entered; he said nothing, only nodding to each person on the first list one by one. Iron Stomach paused before entering the Purification Room and pulled a half-melted brass fragment from his waist pouch—it was the final remains of the Grail Dagger he had picked up from the ash pile after the aggregate disintegrated—and handed it to Lin Qiming. “Keep this. I don't need it anymore.” Lin Qiming took it and flipped it over; the three nicks on the remains were still there. He placed the fragment into the sealed sample box at his hip without saying another word.

After the purification lights came on, Grey Mist Walker stood alone outside the dispatch room, comparing the death timelines of everyone marked as exposed at the bottom of the pipes line by line. The spike in corruption values wasn't just a matter of death counts; its steepest segment always coincided with the aggregate's pulse eruption. This meant that in future battles, the closer one was to the final stage of a high-risk target, the more irreversible the pollution sustained would be. Consequently, the Corpse-Piling Tactic—the most primitive method of trading lives for time and using resurrection counts to fill firepower gaps—would have to change. Any direct endurance seen as a hallmark of the Fourth Calamity must be included in strategic risk assessments, and this risk would no longer be optional on the Hammer of Dawn's future tactical boards—it would become a hard constraint.

The next morning, Lin Qiming reopened the corruption value tracking panel provided by Hephaestus. The first round of purification was over, and most members' readings had dropped below the safety line, with only Iron Stomach's remaining slightly high, requiring additional observation. After archiving and encrypting all the data, he personally wrote two new work items in the guild's core decision-making memorandum: Henceforth, any newly explored area must complete a preliminary radiation assessment before formal entry; for all missions involving prolonged close contact with Chaos residue, a rotation mechanism must be arranged regardless of the mission's nature, with mandatory status checks before and after each rotation. He remembered that long ago, he had carried this data alone in the background; now, these numbers had become red lines glowing before everyone, and all he could do was ensure no one crossed them because they couldn't see, feel, or care. After the orders were approved, he leaned back in his chair. Hephaestus quietly added a memo to the end of the system log: From today, the corruption value no longer exists as a hidden statistical item; it will be formally listed as a strategic management item for the Hammer of Dawn Legion. The Anchor no longer allows them to use sacrifice as an excuse to pay for invisible pollution.