43: Chapter 43 The Divine Court's Misjudgment, the Forsaken's "Performance Art"

Dark red dust swirled above the ruins, and the sonic boom clouds that had yet to disperse hung over Qin Ji's head like a shattered crown.

The giant skull beneath his feet groaned under the heavy pressure. As Qin Ji's toes ground down lightly, the skull belonging to the Undead Archmage finally crumbled completely, turning into a pile of worthless bone meal that scattered with the wind.

"That's it?"

Qin Ji casually flicked the black blood off his heavy sword, abyssal fang, a hint of dissatisfaction flashing in his purple-gold pupils.

This so-called Lord-tier BOSS was as fragile as a thin sheet of paper, aside from that "Frost Nova" move that had contributed 50 points of Frost resistance to him. He hadn't even had time to use the trump card Forbidden Spell scrolls in his backpack before the battle ended with a dull explosion.

[Ding! You have killed LV.50 Undead Archmage · Kyle (Lord-tier)!]

[Plunder successful! Obtained Intelligence +200!]

["Greedy Grasp" triggered! Obtained special skill book: Death Gaze!]

[Obtained quest item: Shattered Memory Crystal (1/5)]

"A drop?"

Qin Ji's brows twitched slightly as a black skill book emitting a thick Death Qi appeared out of thin air in his palm. A bleeding eyeball was drawn on the cover; just looking at it sent a bone-chilling cold drilling through the optic nerve into the brain.

He clapped his hands together without hesitation.

[Learning successful! You have mastered the S-Rank active skill: Death Gaze!]

[Death Gaze (LV.1): Lock onto any target within line of sight, dealing (Intelligence x10 + Spell Power x5) True Damage per second for 10 seconds. If the target dies during the gaze, the skill has no cooldown and automatically transfers to the next target.]

"True Damage? Automatic transfer?"

A playful arc curled at the corner of Qin Ji's mouth. This was practically a divine skill tailor-made for "noob stomping." In this Land of Oblivion with its extremely high monster density, this skill was even more useful than a Forbidden Spell.

To test the power of his new toy, his gaze swept casually toward several shivering Skeleton Archers at the edge of the ruins.

Buzz!

The air seemed to freeze in that instant.

As purple light flowed in Qin Ji's eyes, an invisible pressure descended instantly. The Soul fires of those skeletons locked by his gaze, originally a faint blue, suddenly twisted violently as if gripped by a massive invisible hand.

Crack!

No projectile, no wind-up.

A shocking gray-white number floated directly above the head of the leftmost skeleton.

-49,940!

Its skeleton instantly scattered into a pile of fragments, not even having time to let out a scream. That terrifying power of the gaze did not disappear; instead, like a greedy viper, it instantly snapped onto another nearby skeleton.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

In just three short seconds.

All the remaining dozen or so Skeleton Archers within his field of vision exploded into bone meal. Qin Ji hadn't even moved a finger; a mere sweep of his eyes had brought total silence.

"Not bad, saves me the trouble of moving."

Qin Ji nodded in satisfaction. This feeling of "whoever I stare at dies" was indeed much more elegant than swinging a sword to hack people.

Just as he was preparing to head deeper into the wasteland, an incongruous ethereal voice suddenly echoed softly in his ear.

"This is the Land of Oblivion... We were all cursed in life... Our Souls have long been locked here..."

"Who's there?"

Qin Ji's gaze sharpened, and the abyssal fang in his hand instantly swept out, creating a shrill whistling sound as it slashed toward the Void Realm beside him.

The blade sliced through the air without any resistance.

A translucent ghost was floating three meters away from him, staring blankly at the sky, completely oblivious to the sword strike that could have split mountains.

[The Forsaken — Rhode (Special NPC)]

[Status: Fragmented Memories / Cursed]

"Physical immunity?"

Qin Ji withdrew his heavy sword and sized up this ghost that had suddenly appeared with interest. The other party looked like a middle-aged man dressed in noble attire, but those fine clothes were now reduced to tattered strips, and his translucent body flickered in and out of the gray mist.

Rhode paid no mind to Qin Ji's attack, instead clutching his head like a broken repeater, his face contorted in pain.

"Let me think... Who am I... Right, Rhode, that was my name once."

"That curse... it's too terrifying... it's devouring our Rank, devouring our memories..."

Qin Ji frowned slightly and directly interrupted his performance: "Stop the nonsense. Tell me where there are more monsters? Or where are the treasure chests?"

These words seemed to flip a switch.

Rhode snapped his head up, those hollow eyes staring intently at Qin Ji as his voice became sharp and shrill: "Monsters? There are monsters everywhere! But you won't get out... Once you enter the Land of Oblivion, your Rank will begin to drain away... until you become a lonely ghost just like us!"

"Rank drainage?"

Qin Ji paused for a moment and subconsciously glanced at his status bar.

Sure enough, at the very bottom of the status bar, an inconspicuous gray skull icon had appeared at some point.

[Curse of Oblivion: While in this area, 1 Rank is forcibly deducted every 10 minutes, and all attributes decrease by 10%. Cannot be purified, cannot be dispelled.]

"I see."

Qin Ji rubbed his chin. Instead of panic, an expression of looking at an idiot appeared on his face.

If it were an ordinary player, they would have probably been scared witless seeing this BUFF. Losing a level every ten minutes was practically the pace of deleting an account to start over.

But for him, who possessed "Greedy Grasp"...

[Warning! Malicious rule intrusion detected!]

[System logic restructuring... Restructuring complete!]

[Curse of Oblivion (Tampered): While in this area, Spiritual Qi is forcibly plundered from the surrounding environment every 10 minutes. All attributes +10, Experience Points +50,000!]

"Thanks for the treat."

At this moment, Qin Ji even wanted to award a commemorative banner to the designer of this curse.

...

Meanwhile.

In the outside world, the God Domain main world, the [Divine Court] guild base.

Inside a magnificent temple suspended in the clouds, two figures stood before a giant holographic star map.

A burly man wearing golden battle armor and carrying a giant shield—Divine Court Elder Futou Shield Mountain—was operating the communication interface with a solemn expression.

"Guild Master, something has happened."

The man addressed as "Guild Master" turned around. He wore a mage robe flowing with starlight. His ID was Divine Wolf, the Vice Guild Master of the Divine Court guild and the top-tier mage currently ranked third on the server's level rankings.

"What? Did that kid named Qin Ji cause another stir?" Divine Wolf asked nonchalantly.

"It's not a stir, it's... he might be finished."

Futou Shield Mountain pulled up a monitoring chart and pointed at a sharply declining red curve. "Just ten minutes ago, Qin Ji's coordinates disappeared into the depths of the 'Wasteland of Sighs,' the legendary forbidden zone—the Land of Oblivion."

"The Land of Oblivion?"

Divine Wolf was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter. "Is he crazy? That's the universally recognized 'Account Deletion Zone.' Even the person ranked first on the server wouldn't dare set foot there easily."

"What's even more terrifying is this."

Futou Shield Mountain pointed at another set of data, his voice trembling slightly. "According to our real-time monitoring of the rankings, although Qin Ji has hidden his specific information, his comprehensive combat power evaluation has suffered a cliff-like drop in the past ten minutes. This kind of drop... is equivalent to losing at least four levels!"

"Losing four levels in less than ten minutes?"

Divine Wolf could hardly believe his ears.

In this game where leveling up was as hard as climbing to heaven, what did losing four levels in ten minutes mean?

Even if someone was being spawn-camped and killed, it would be hard to die that fast! After all, resurrection had a weakness duration and a protection period.

"So I suspect he encountered some kind of irresistible rule-kill?" Futou Shield Mountain speculated. "Like being ganged up on by hundreds of high-order BOSSes, or falling into some kind of infinite loop trap."

Divine Wolf pondered for a moment, a hint of contempt flashing in his eyes.

"It seems we overestimated him."

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the vast sea of clouds outside the window, his tone as cold as if he were pronouncing a death sentence on an ant.

"The curse of the Land of Oblivion is unsolvable. Losing one level every ten minutes, plus the weakening of all attributes, he has probably turned into a low-level novice account by now."

"Then do we still need to send people to track him?"

"No need."

Divine Wolf waved his hand, answering decisively.

"Young Master, there's no need to focus our attention on a dead man. He's fallen too far behind us, and now that he's stuck in a death trap, the gap between us will only grow larger. Put your energy into conquering the 'Flame Dragon's Nest'; that is the future we need to conquer."

Futou Shield Mountain nodded and closed the monitoring interface. "Understood, I will withdraw all trackers."

In his view, the name Qin Ji would be completely struck from the list of the strong starting today.

...

In the Land of Oblivion, deep within the wasteland.

"Achoo!"

Qin Ji rubbed his nose and stomped a Skeleton Assassin that was trying to sneak attack him into the dirt.

"Which beauty is thinking about me?"

He muttered to himself and casually finished off the skeleton, which only had half a body left, with a shot of Death Gaze.

Golden damage numbers floated up, accompanied by a heart-warming System notification:

[10-minute cycle settlement complete! Triggered 'Curse of Oblivion (Tampered Version)'! All attributes +10!]

"This feeling of getting stronger just by sitting still is truly corrupting."

Qin Ji stretched, his bones making a series of crisp popping sounds.

At this moment, he was like an untiring bulldozer, pushing straight toward the north.

Behind him lay a ground covered in broken bones and debris. Beside him, the ghost named Rhode floated with a dull expression.

"You... why haven't you become weaker?"

Rhode looked at Qin Ji's increasingly terrifying aura, and his already not-so-bright brain completely crashed.

According to the script, this human should have been kneeling on the ground by now, crying and begging him for the method to break the curse. But now, this guy was not only alive and kicking, he was even treating the monsters here like watermelons to be sliced!

"Become weaker? Not happening."

Qin Ji casually grabbed a passing Skeleton Mage, holding its neck bone like he was pinching a chick, and turned to look at Rhode: "You said earlier, what's to the north?"

Rhode trembled all over as if recalling some great horror, and clutched his head again: "To the north... to the north is the 'Sanctuary of Buried Bones'... something is sleeping there... sleeping... ah! I forgot!"

"..."

Qin Ji rolled his eyes.

This guy's intermittent amnesia was even more annoying than the faces of those people from the Divine Court.

"Forget it, since you've forgotten, I'll go see for myself."

Qin Ji let go, and the Skeleton Mage, as if granted a great amnesty, barely had time to run before it was instantly pierced by a purple gaze and turned into a pile of experience points.

He raised his head and looked toward that even thicker darkness to the north.

Vaguely, he could feel an extremely massive energy fluctuation there, like a lighthouse in the dark night, frantically tempting his Greedy Grasp.

"Rhode, keep up."

Qin Ji snapped his fingers, and his figure instantly turned into an afterimage as he rushed out.

"Since the outside world thinks I'm dead, I'll prepare a big surprise for them."

The wind howled, whipping up bone meal into the sky.

Qin Ji's figure pulled a straight vacuum corridor through the gray mist. Wherever he passed, whether it was a sea of skeletons or elite monsters, they all turned into golden data streams that flooded into his body.

He was like a tyrannosaur barging into a flock of sheep, charging into the depths of this world-forgotten forbidden zone with unparalleled dominance and greed, leaving only an extremely arrogant back to the silent wasteland behind him.