33: Chapter 33 The Golden Coffin Board

If the previous moment was a divine mountain awakening, then this moment was an abyss opening its massive maw.

Invisible ripples spread from the ancestral hall as the center, and a fine, ice-cracking "crack" sound resonated in the air; it was space itself groaning.

On the ground, the dust formed by the players obliterated by the black-robed envoy was drawn by an invisible force, turning into thin gray streams that flowed backward and disappeared into the deep lintel of the ancestral hall, as if becoming the first appetizer offered to some ancient existence.

The black-robed envoy's stiff, bowed body shuddered violently.

He could feel that greedy will, like billions of invisible, cold tentacles, reaching out from all directions, attempting to bore into his seven orifices and tear at his soul.

This was not a spell, nor a divine ability, but a more primordial form of plunder!

It was a condescending gaze from a higher stratum of life that viewed all things as sustenance!

"You...!"

The eerie red light beneath the black-robed envoy's hood flared, and a force that was equally cold, bloody, and carried an aura of destruction erupted from within his body, forming a thin, blood-colored curtain of light around him, barely holding those invisible tentacles at bay.

For the first time, his voice carried uncontrollable horror: "What exactly are you?!"

This Lu Family Ancestor was by no means just some remains with extraordinary bone structure!

This was clearly an ancient, ferocious beast imprisoned here that fed on souls!

The Master... was wrong! The intelligence was ridiculously wrong!

That grand and indifferent voice did not answer his question, but instead carried a hint of obvious disappointment, as if regretting that a meal about to be consumed had been blocked by an inferior eggshell.

"Scram."

A single word, and the law followed his command.

An irresistible force slammed into the black-robed envoy's blood-colored light curtain.

"Boom!"

There was no earth-shattering roar, but a thunderous sound that shook the very soul.

The black-robed envoy groaned, his entire body flying backward uncontrollably as if struck head-on by a battering ram, his feet plowing two deep furrows into the ground until he barely stopped after smashing a stone lion at the edge of the square.

He jerked his head up, and a trickle of ink-black blood slowly seeped from the corner of his mouth beneath the hood.

A single word had caused him internal injuries.

He knew the other party had already shown mercy. Or rather, they disdained to waste too much effort on a "messenger" like him.

Intense humiliation and an even deeper fear gnawed at his heart like a viper.

He, Fierce Shadow, the Chief Demon Envoy under the Blood Slaughter Demon Venerable, a powerhouse at the Foundation Establishment Mid-Stage, had never suffered such humiliation!

But he knew even more clearly that if he stayed for another moment, he might truly become a sacrifice for that memorial tablet.

The Master's great undertaking was not yet complete; he could not die here.

Taking a deep breath, Fierce Shadow suppressed his roiling blood and Qi, his eerie red eyes staring fixedly at the direction of the ancestral hall; his voice was hoarse and venomous, yet he had to follow the ultimate purpose of this trip.

"Very good... very good! As expected of someone who can catch the Master's eye!"

He slowly straightened up, bracing himself against the pressure that almost froze his soul, and took out a jet-black token from his bosom.

On the token, a blood-red character "Slaughter" slowly squirmed as if it were a living thing.

"My Master has an order!"

He infused his voice with spiritual power, no longer confined to Lu Family Hollow, but spreading in all directions like rolling thunder.

"Starting from today, the deadline is three months!"

"Three months from now, if you do not respectfully send your true remains to the mountain gate of my Heavenly Demon Sect, I will personally lead an army to flatten North Mountain!"

"By then, everything here, whether human or beast, grass or tree, will be turned into blood-soaked earth! Your soul will also be cast into the Nine Nether Blood River, burned for eternity, and never be reincarnated!"

"This is the final ultimatum!"

As his words fell, the token in his hand let out a "hum" and turned into a beam of blood-colored light, shooting into the sky and exploding into a huge, hideous, blood-red "Slaughter" character against the dim sky.

The blood character seemed to possess life, circling three times in the air before slowly dissipating.

After doing all this, Fierce Shadow took a hard look at the ancestral hall; deep in his eyes, besides fear, there was also a bone-deep hatred born from the threat to his Master's grand plan.

He did not linger, his figure flickering into a wisp of black smoke, fleeing into the distance at an astonishing speed, vanishing into the horizon in the blink of an eye.

He was gone.

But that suffocating pressure did not immediately dissipate.

Inside the ancestral hall, the memorial tablet of Lu Bei continued to emit a faint light, like a gluttonous beast relishing the "snack" it had just had, and also seemingly locking onto the fleeing prey from afar, calculating when it would be convenient to enjoy the main course.

Not until several breaths later did that all-consuming pressure slowly recede like the tide, and the faint light on the memorial tablet gradually faded, returning to its plain, unadorned appearance.

It was as if everything that had just happened was just an illusion.

But the deep furrows plowed into the square, the shattered stone lion, and the cold, cruel system prompt all told every surviving player that it was not an illusion.

That was... a death notice.

"Gulp."

I don't know who it was, but someone swallowed hard, breaking the dead silence.

The next moment, as if a switch had been flipped, the whole world came alive.

[Beep! Major change in the world line detected!]

[Epic World Event - "Eve of the Demon's Arrival" has begun!]

[Event Background: The ultimatum from the Heavenly Demon Sect has been delivered, and the gaze of the Blood Slaughter Demon Venerable has locked onto this place. In the face of absolute power, all schemes and tricks are useless. Either submit, or... war!]

[Faction Quest: Last Stand!]

[Quest Objective: Within 90 days, at all costs, improve the family's strength to resist or defeat the final invasion of the Heavenly Demon Sect.]

[Quest Rewards: Based on the player's comprehensive contribution to the event, massive amounts of experience, family contribution points, limited titles, and... "The Ancestor's Mysterious Gift" will be distributed.]

[Failure Penalty: The family is destroyed, and the territory is razed. All player levels will be reset to zero, cultivation will regress to that of a mortal, and accounts will be forcibly locked for one year.]

[Countdown: 89 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 58 seconds...]

The scarlet quest panel was branded deeply into the vision of every player like a hot iron.

Account forcibly locked for one year!

This was more vicious than permanent deletion!

For this group of players who already viewed this place as their second world, this was equivalent to the cruelest life sentence!

"F...uck!"

Demolition Office Director was the first to recover from the extreme shock. His face, covered in rolls of fat, turned liver-colored from blood rushing to his head, not out of fear, but out of a hysterical rage at being driven to a dead end.

"Screw them!" He slammed the ghost-head blade in his hand into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, and roared at the ancestral hall, "What the f... are we waiting for! Do it! It's just a Demon Venerable, right? We took on Black Wind Stockade! We took on the Chen family! If there's one more damn Demon Sect, we'll take them on too!"

His roar ignited the spark suppressed in everyone's hearts.

Fear still existed, but when fear was pushed to the extreme, what remained was the madness of burning the bridges behind them.

"Right! Screw them!"

"What's there to be afraid of! Worst case is the account is locked for a year; a year later, I'll be a hero again!"

"Exactly! I've spent hundreds of thousands in other games and never felt this stimulated!"

The fanaticism in the players' bones was thoroughly ignited; the noisy, chaotic, and various-accented roars converged into a sky-high frenzy, dispelling the gloom left by the black-robed envoy.

At the entrance of the ancestral hall, Shield Mountain slowly straightened up.

He leaned against the giant shield covered in scratches, his chest heaving violently.

Only now did he feel that his back had long been soaked with cold sweat.

The trembling of his legs had also just subsided.

He knew better than anyone how close he had just been to "character data corruption."

That wasn't a BOSS; that was a natural disaster.

He turned around slowly, looking at the core players arguing fiercely in the ancestral hall, and then glanced at the ordinary players on the square who had survived the disaster but had quickly fallen into a frenzy.

His gaze finally landed in the distance.

A tall, arrogant figure was striding over; it was the commander-in-chief of the Divine Wind Battalion, Charge to the End.

Charge to the End had obviously also received the system prompt; his face was so gloomy it could drip water. The moment he saw Shield Mountain, he knitted his brows: "What happened? That commotion just now..."

Shield Mountain did not answer, just tilted his chin, signaling him to look at the wreckage on the square and the nauseating scent of death that could still be smelled in the air.

Charge to the End's pupils shrank slightly as he saw the unrecognizable humanoid dust.

"Dead?" His voice was a bit dry.

"They were 'deleted'." Shield Mountain's voice was calm, yet carried an indisputable heaviness, "No chance of resurrection."

Charge to the End fell silent.

He looked around, and finally his gaze landed on Shield Mountain and his giant shield that was almost totaled.

He opened his mouth, but the habitual phrase "only know how to hide in the back" just wouldn't come out.

He knew that just now, this "coward" he had always found to be an eyesore had used his ridiculous door-like shield to stand at the very front for everyone.

"Need help fixing it?" After a while, he squeezed out from between his teeth.

Shield Mountain was stunned for a moment, then shook his head: "No need. This material won't hold up next time. It needs to be replaced."

Having said that, he hoisted the giant shield and turned to walk into the ancestral hall.

Inside the ancestral hall, I Love Exploiting Loopholes was facing a wooden board that had been temporarily moved in, quickly writing and drawing with charcoal.

"We are now facing three core problems." His voice was terrifyingly calm, "First, how strong is the enemy? An envoy at the Foundation Establishment Mid-Stage can 'obliterate' us, so what about the Demon Venerable himself? Golden Core? Or higher? Second, what do we have? Apart from this group of reckless players, our high-end combat power is zero. The Ancestor is very strong, but he acted once just now, and the memorial tablet dimmed for a long time; clearly, the consumption is huge, and we can't rely on him for everything. Third, what should we do?"

His gaze swept over everyone present: "From now on, all production-class players, 24-hour shifts; all combat-class players, in squad units, go to the depths of North Mountain and risk your lives! Level up! Find materials! Find everything that can make us stronger!"

"And intelligence!" A crisp female voice rang out; it was Gossip Reporter Little Trumpet.

Her face was pale, but her eyes were exceptionally bright, "My reconnaissance squad has lost contact; it's very likely they ran into people from the Heavenly Demon Sect. We know nothing about this sect! Where is the mountain gate? How many people are there? What cultivation techniques do they specialize in? These must be figured out immediately!"

Everyone fell into deep thought. This was an arms race with no visible end. And their opponent was a behemoth that had stood in this world for who knows how many years.

Just then, the silent memorial tablet belonging to Lu Bei suddenly emitted a faint light again.

A piece of information flooded directly into the minds of all the core players present.

They were incredibly complex, glowing blueprints.

[Standard Magical Artifact Assembly Line - Fragmented]

[Mass Production Recipe for Pills - Basic]

[Basic War Puppet Core - Design Blueprint]

[Spirit Gathering Array - Simplified Version]

...

At the end of the information stream was that indifferent and ancient voice, carrying a hint of unquestionable command.

"Ninety days."

"I want to turn this land into a war fortress capable of devouring gods and demons."

"Now, go and change my coffin lid... to gold."