[It was September 30, 2021, 3 PM, three hours ago when the World Ga’s individual novice instance officially began!]
[The participants are the ten billion humans of Zhai Xing! Congratulations to those chosen, you now have the opportunity to change your destiny! Beco a participant in the ga, beco a traveler shuttling between various Otherworlds!]
...
This was spoken by Boss Rabbit at the opening ceremony.
At that ti, people were also gathered like now, in the plaza, being collectively transported to the Otherworld.
...It seems so.
He thought so, his senses gradually fading...
...
"Ding-dong!"
[You have entered the special instance of Kaius Tower for the Ninth World.]
...
[Faction ranking list has comnced. (Current existing factions: Deity Faction, Freedom Faction)]
[Factions will change over ti; so will disappear after losing wars, others will be established. You can join a new faction at any ti, as long as the faction is willing to accept you.]
[You can gain Faction Contribution Points by influencing the outco of battles.]
[Your thods include but are not limited to: killing enemy soldiers, assassinating enemy generals, stealing information, disguising, spreading propaganda, holding key positions in your own side, helping gather survival resources, gaining the favor of your own generals, collecting ’Source of Civilization’, etc.]
...
[The duration of Kaius Tower is indefinite.]
[Every so often, you will return to the City of asurent, rest for one to twelve hours, and when the resting period ends, Kaius Tower will summon you back.]
[Victory tally criteria: the top ten in the faction rankings at the end.]
...
Su Ming’an understood that Kaius Tower wasn’t a continuous instance; there were random periods of rest, during which he could briefly return to the City of asurent for ammunition replenishing and body repairs.
This was a good thing.
Every ti he went to Central City, he could return in full health; Central City had inexhaustible supplies of ammunition and dicine.
If they really made him fight in Kaius Tower non-stop for eight or nine days, he feared his body wouldn’t hold up.
The system prompts still continued:
[During the duration of Kaius Tower, the world chat channel is open.]
[As (Ruler), (Fourth Rank Player), your number of ssages: unlimited.]
[World chat must not disclose certain specific information.]
...
[Transfer will soon be complete.]
[Wish you a pleasant exploration.]
...
The system’s voice ended there.
With a flash of white light, Su Ming’an’s control over his body gradually returned.
He instinctively raised his hand, but touched a smooth tal surface.
"...Hmm?"
He opened his eyes to darkness, and his posture... seed to be lying down.
Where had he been transferred to? Was this the unique start of Kaius Tower?
He tried to sit up, but his head hit sothing hard. He extended his hands to explore his surroundings, but found that he was entangled in sothing.
It seed that many wires were tangled around him, locking him like chains.
He brushed away these ss of wires and felt around, hitting an obvious obstacle, seeming to lie inside a rectangular tal box.
A rectangular box, a tal box, an enclosed space.
... Wait.
This couldn’t be an iron coffin, could it?
He instantly beca alert; five seconds later he switched to Bright State, and drew the sharp Sword of Yarman, the blade pointing inward—
After evolving to Gold Level, the sharpness of the Yarman had almost reached its limit.
Like cutting tofu, he sliced through the surrounding wires and the chains binding his limbs broke and fell.
He cut upward again, hearing the sound of tal breaking. He created a gap in the tal box, parts of soil falling in. He slled the scent of soil after rain.
...Soil?
Was it really a coffin?
He coughed from being choked, the random dampness on his body making his scalp tingle. He forcefully raised his hand, carrying a sharp black crescent arc with the sword.
"Swoosh—!"
Soil t the black arc, lting away like snow. He swung upwards, a crack like a black hole instantly opened, swallowing the falling soil around.
Dim light spilled through the soil, piercing his eyes.
He continued to swing his sword, aiming for that glimr of light, gradually widening the gap. Monts later, he finally crawled out from the tal box, his body covered with broken soil, as if he had just crawled out of a grave.
He looked down at his mud-covered legs.
In the crawl just now, he moved them without any hindrance, controlling these legs to crawl out.
Mysteriously, he had regained control over his legs.
Acto’s legs he had examined before showed no signs of physical disabilities or atrophy; they were a pair of complete legs, but they just wouldn’t move.
Now, he suddenly regained his freedom of movent.
He shook his left leg, then his right leg, observing the tal box he had crawled out of below. Its exterior appeared quite high-tech, blue halos like chained beads forming a checkerboard structure, large and small spherical patterns connected in a teardrop shape, circling around a dark blue tal box, like flowing electricity. The edge was engraved with the text "COP-19."
The interior of the tal box was a clean ice-white color, with several tubes of unknown purpose protruding, emitting white vapor; the chain-like objects had probably been what had held his limbs earlier.
"This box is... a hibernation life capsule?" he guessed, yet wasn’t sure. He had never seen this model before.
He looked up—the glaring sunlight scattered, with billowing red opening wide, like flowing lava, but upon closer inspection, it was just a deep red plain. The blood-red sunlight was close to the ground, yet emitted no heat, like a cold sun, the thick blood color about to drip onto the land.
He stood alone by the upheaved soil, seeing only a few dead black trees standing like columns on the plain, devoid of any greenery.
Though he stood under the harsh sun, he felt a chill, the howling wind piercing his skin relentlessly.
"...Let’s leave this place."
The surrounding area was barren, with dangerous currents faintly visible in the distance. He had just surfaced and knew nothing about this world; he needed to understand more about the so-called "factions."
Where there were "factions," there must be nurous wars.
He stripped off his filthy coat, revealing the deep black soft armor underneath, then used a cloth to wipe the mud off his arms and changed into a brand-new white lab coat.
The white coat unfurled like the wings of a dove. Acto’s wardrobe consisted solely of these monochro clothes, devoid of any fancy formal wear.
Smoothing out the creases in his sleeve, he noticed the world chat channel where people were already speaking.
[Fiji (Unaffiliated): Damn, which world is this now? Can we still cross to other worlds inside the instance?]
[Harry (World Tree Guild): I see blood-red soil, a blood-red sun, like the apocalypse... wait, it’s so cold, so very cold... I’m shivering all over... Where are my teammates? How did we get separated, how are we supposed to regroup?]
[Liu Shiqi (Explosive Hamr Bunny Assembly): Did they know Dragon Country was celebrating New Year’s Eve, so they brought us a winter special edition? I’m freezing to death, thanks a lot, World Ga (grits teeth).]
[Danel (United Group): Are you guys outdoors? I teleported directly inside a gathering spot, it’s very safe here, seems there are plenty of local NPCs... I’m going to see if I can join a faction.]
[Mikeson (Unaffiliated): Hmm... The information restriction is very tight, I can’t send out much information, only things that are trivial...]
...
Most players were rallying their teammates.
It seed the previous strategy of sticking together didn’t work; they were dispersed upon teleporting. Most people had been teleported outdoors, so to gathering spots and small cities.
Su Ming’an took out "Xiber’s Tracking Compass." He had marked Dong An’an earlier, so he could locate her position.
Currently, he was associated with three TEs related to Caius Tower.
[TE1・"Pioneer Immortality, Eternal Dawn" (Ascend "Caius Tower," reboot the Dawn System)], this required achieving the final victory and was likely the concluding TE.
[TE2・"Evil Dragon Enters Her Heart" (Maximize "Dong An’an’s" favorability—must experience all plots with her, Ruler’s Skill cannot be used to force enhancent)], this TE required him to act alongside Dong An’an, but previously, his progress seed promotable when he was with Little i, as they were sworn sisters; perhaps their story was linked.
[TE3・"The Fire Burning in Your Eyes" (Help the battle group leader "Che Kylstia" infiltrate Central City)], this TE demanded that he help the battle group beco the final victor inside Caius Tower.
In this way, his objectives were quite clear—act alongside Dong An’an, help the battle group win, and beco a winner himself; this would allow him to clear all three threads at once.
Perfect.
He lowered his head, found that Dong An’an’s coordinates were not far from him.
Just as he was about to go find her, he suddenly saw a cloud of sand dust kicked up in the distance.
It seed to be a large truck coming their way, frosted on the sides.
Only then did he notice that "Wang Han’s Human Skin Mask" had automatically returned to an inventory slot, which he imdiately took out and put on.
"Beep, beep—"
The truck lights flashed, and the truck expertly turned around, heading straight for him.
He stood still, his white coat fluttering slightly in the wind.
"Screech—!"
A braking sound erged, the ground shook, and the truck door "clicked" open; two n, burdened with heavy firearms and looking like two black beetles, jumped out one after the other. They wore thick masks, their hair pressed under wool hats, their cheeks red from the cold.
They observed Su Ming’an, who was free of any possessions.
Monts later, they approached, their guns slightly raised.
"There’s a berth here that looks like a hibernation capsule. Have you just woken up from hibernation?" asked the taller man, his gaze sticky and uncomfortable to et.
His presumptuous eyes scanned Su Ming’an up and down, confirming that Su Ming’an was unard.
"By your attire... you look like a scholar, a pity that in these tis, scholars are the hardest to survive. Perhaps you had a good life before hibernation, but the world has completely changed." The tall man sneered, "Want to live? Kid, the nearest sanctuary is over fifty kiloters away, and without us, you would freeze to death on the way."
Su Ming’an didn’t speak; he was examining the structure of this truck.
It was a decent vehicle, appropriate for transportation.
"What was your identity before, and how co there were no relatives to et you when you woke up?" asked the shorter man, heavily suspicious.
"I have amnesia," Su Ming’an said. "I don’t rember much."
Entering a new world, amnesia was a good explanation.
The two n exchanged a glance.
mory loss due to hibernation was very common, which ant, this scholar in plain clothes now had no one to rely on...
The tall man raised his eyebrows, his gaze at Su Ming’an becoming stickier and colder, apparently with malintent.
"Get on, we happen to have space, and we can take you to the nearest gathering place on the way," he said, then turned and climbed into the driver’s seat.
The shorter man stood by with a gun, clearly not wanting to let Su Ming’an leave.
Su Ming’an didn’t object either; he needed to gather information.
He climbed into the back seat of the truck and with a "click," fastened his seatbelt.
This truck wasn’t much different from modern trucks, with a red peace knot and a porcelain doll tied under the glass, resembling Eastern culture. There was a logo-like design on the steering wheel, suggesting the existence of an automobile industry here.
The tall man stepped on the gas, and the truck started with a rumble.
"What is your na?" asked the tall man, his voice sticky, as if clinging to one’s body, "mory loss from hibernation can be up to 95%. You say you have amnesia, but you should at least rember your na, right?"
"My na is..." Su Ming’an hesitated for a mont, "My na is Lewis."
The short man sat in the passenger seat, his eyes cold like a rat’s, fixedly staring at Su Ming’an.
Only when Su Ming’an looked at him did the short man look away, licking his lips like a fly about to feast on carrion.
"Lewis... never heard of him. Steel, was there such a person thirty years ago?" the tall man asked.
"No, our mories have been almost completely erased. Anyway, there’s no aura of the ’Source’ on him," said the short man nad Steel.
Su Ming’an picked up on so information—the group’s thod of assessing strength seed to be through sensing the "Source." They couldn’t sense this "Source" aura from him.
So, was he considered weak?
"—Good afternoon, Anjiang! It is now 1:13 PM, the temperature is low, I recomnd you put on more clothes to avoid catching a cold～" Suddenly, a voice ca from his left wrist.
The tall man nad Mairon glanced back, "Oh, a personal wristwatch?"
"Is it valuable?" Su Ming’an asked.
"It used to be valuable," Mairon chuckled. "Now, it’s not as valuable as sothing that can fill the stomach or firewood that can be burned. If you need money, you might try your luck on the black market later, maybe soone will want to buy this gadget."
Su Ming’an turned his head; he saw many cardboard boxes tied up in the back, and if he wasn’t mistaken, these were survival resources, like food, drinking water, firewood, and even firearms.
A thrown dagger "swooshed" by, grazing his fingers but not injuring him, the angle was extrely precise.
Steel’s cold eyes pinned him sternly, "Sit tight and don’t move."
Reviews
All reviews (0)