283: The so-called fourth disaster

The Last Great Jiang Person was an Immortal Foundation after all, and his strength was considerable.

In the Newbie Village, he was confident he could charge straight through.

But the wolf demon opposite him was clearly created by the state-stabilizing seal, with strengths ranging from Mortal Realm to Golden Core Realm, so he didn't dare to be careless.

Swish, swish, swish!

He made three consecutive sword strikes, each faster than the last.

All missed.

The wolf demon's speed was faster than he expected, and it dodged the attacks with extreme agility.

Then, the wolf demon, with a ferocious expression, viciously lunged at The Last Great Jiang Person with its sharp claws.

Oh no!

The Last Great Jiang Person knew that the wolf demon in front of him was powerful and difficult to deal with.

It would be hard to dodge this attack, and he was already prepared to meet it head-on with his Physical Body.

But just at this moment...

The wolf demon's speed suddenly slowed down.

It was as if it had been set to 0.1x speed.

Or as if time had stopped.

At this point, a prompt appeared before The Last Great Jiang Person:

"Use your longsword to parry."

What is this?

How novel, a Xuanhuan World actually providing a tutorial?

The Last Great Jiang Person subconsciously held his longsword horizontally, adopting a parrying stance.

The next moment, the wolf demon's speed returned to normal.

Its wolf claws struck the longsword.

At this point, the wolf demon's speed slowed down once again.

Red lights even began to emanate from its body.

A new prompt appeared before The Last Great Jiang Person:

"Parry successful, you can immediately launch a counterattack."

Wait, does a Xuanhuan World have parry-counterattack mechanics?

The Last Great Jiang Person didn't have time to think much, subconsciously plunging his longsword fiercely into the wolf demon's body.

He saw the wolf demon's health bar instantly empty.

Then, the wolf demon let out a pained wail, transforming into fragments of light and disappearing.

"What is this? Is this a game of house created by the state-stabilizing seal?"

The Last Great Jiang Person felt a bit bewildered.

At this moment, he suddenly heard someone shouting from deep within the ancestral hall:

"Help! Hero! Help!"

An NPC?

He quickly walked inside.

He saw a pitiful young girl slumped on the ground, wearing a helpless expression.

The Last Great Jiang Person immediately saw her name appear before him:

"Friendly NPC · Distressed Girl"

Along with it was a prompt in the bottom left corner:

"Quest received: Treat the Girl"

The Last Great Jiang Person quickly stepped forward, took out a Medicinal Pill for healing from his storage ring, and fed it to the girl on the spot.

Then, he asked the girl, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

...The Last Great Jiang Person was not the only one to enter the Newbie Village.

The Newbie Village designed by the state-stabilizing seal was a very special area, similar to a special Secret Realm like a grotto-heaven, relying on the Void.

His Nascent Soul was a bit weak, and he didn't specialize in the Dao of space, so he couldn't create massive grotto-heavens like Green Emerald Heaven or Mingshui Heaven.

But creating individual, independent Newbie Villages that relied on the Void and leveraged real-world geography was not a problem.

Each player had their own unique Newbie Village.

It really looked like it was officially designed, but in fact, all the content was designed by the state-stabilizing seal, an NPC.

A Nascent Soul already had many methods at its disposal, and as a Magic Treasure that had gained sentience, its methods were even more bizarre.

A Golden Core Cultivator could achieve Thousands of miles of sound transmission (thousand-mile sound transmission), and a Nascent Soul could go even further; with the help of the Void, ten-thousand-mile sound transmission was not an issue.

Not only sound transmission, but it could also transmit its spiritual power across regions to use various methods.

Powerful offensive methods were more complex and tricky, and the state-stabilizing seal found them a bit hard to manipulate and not easy to transmit via the Void.

But ordinary communication methods, utilizing the state-stabilizing seal's inherent Magic Treasure characteristics to bestow small imperial edicts that transformed into new game UI interfaces,

That was incredibly simple.

He could even enable background music for the players.

And the reason he did this was also for testing.

"Interesting."

"As long as I change the way I communicate with these players,"

"Disguising all commands as quest guidance, they immediately accept everything."

"Enemies I mark, they will attack."

"Allies I mark, they genuinely won't attack."

"Even the prompts I pop up at any time, they will look at and follow."

"How interesting..."

The state-stabilizing seal was located in the Immortal Palace, with screens displaying individual Newbie Village players before him.

He couldn't help but clap his hands and laugh:

"It turns out these players are such useful tools."

"I did underestimate them before."

"It was I who didn't find the right way to utilize them."

"As long as the method is right, they are completely like an extension of my arm... Wait, what is this person doing?"

At this moment,

The state-stabilizing seal suddenly noticed.

In one of the screens, the player in that Newbie Village was acting a bit strangely.

Other players, upon seeing quest prompts, all followed the prompts.

They went wherever the arrow told them to go, and killed whoever it told them to kill.

But this player was different.

He wore a gray robe and carried a giant blade on his back.

After entering the Newbie Village, he immediately started wandering around aimlessly.

One moment he was rummaging through a dilapidated house.

The next he was jumping into a dry well to search for treasure.

He even used his giant blade to dig the ground, as if he thought there was something inside.

He finally reached the ancestral hall, where he was supposed to trigger a BOSS battle.

Yet, this player seemed to know there was a storyline inside and deliberately bypassed the ancestral hall without entering.

He was still searching for treasure outside.

"What is this?"

The state-stabilizing seal was utterly bewildered.

He felt that something was wrong.

He thought he had understood these players, had figured out their ways.

But this player... why was he so strange?

"Let me see, his name is... Divine Craftsmanship."

"He was also on the Great River frontline before."

"Why are his actions so strange? Could he have lost his mind and can't understand the quest prompts?"

"Eh, why is he going to the ancestral hall again? Is he finally going to trigger the plot?"

"Eh? He actually dared not to do the parry tutorial given to him, specifically using the time stop to wildly hack at the wolf demon?"

The more the state-stabilizing seal watched, the more his brow furrowed; this player wasn't playing by the rules.

At this time, the state-stabilizing seal had not yet realized a problem.

The Fourth Calamity was a moniker for players.

At the same time, with the spread of this meme and the proliferation of players' abstract behaviors,

This moniker acquired another core meaning:

The Fourth Calamity fears neither death nor difficulty.

But at the same time, they understand neither commands nor discipline.

Their actions have no method, no rules; even the "protagonist" who summoned the Fourth Calamity cannot fathom what they truly want to do.

They can help you take the enemy's head and sweep through an entire fortress.

But they might also quietly infiltrate your palace, just to steal your used toilet brush.

They can fight valiantly on the battlefield, shedding blood for a grand goal.

But they might also skip quests directly, or even defect to the enemy on the spot.

Their thought processes are abnormal, their behavioral logic is unpredictable.

"I need to differentiate these players..."

The state-stabilizing seal squinted at the screen.