This Instance Is So, So Trash

Time inside an instance was perfectly synchronized with time outside it.

Under Itō Hidetaka's leadership, everyone voted to undertake mission one: destroy the Pearl Harbor military base.

The instance mission lasted 96 hours, so Itō Hidetaka did not attack rashly. Instead, he first organized his forces into formations.

They were actually quite lucky this time. Among the seven thousand challengers were quite a few advanced LV2 challengers, bringing their total number of warships to a full 50!

Among them were five of the most advanced battlecruisers of the age, belonging to the Indian prince Singh!

Given Azure Star's current level of military technology, battlecruisers could be considered the most advanced naval units available.

Moreover, every challenger was equipped with a Type 38 rifle! Aside from naval combat, they were by no means lacking in land combat either.

This level of combat strength far exceeded Itō Hidetaka's expectations, and he was brimming with confidence.

As long as they could land at the Pearl Harbor base, he was fully confident they could complete the mission.

After two full days of preparation and sailing.

Early on the third morning.

Itō Hidetaka's fleet had reached a position less than a hundred nautical miles from the Pearl Harbor military base.

Itō Hidetaka was drinking coffee in the command room of his warship, the Matsushima.

Beside him, Singh was using radar reconnaissance equipment to observe activity at Pearl Harbor.

"Mr. Itō, something's strange..."

"Why is there no activity at Pearl Harbor? Didn't the mission instructions say there was a nation-destroying fleet at the Pearl Harbor military base?"

"Why can't we see any patrol units in the surrounding waters?"

Itō Hidetaka frowned as well and began using the reconnaissance equipment to take a look.

He found that the waters around Pearl Harbor were indeed completely quiet.

After thinking for a moment, Itō Hidetaka burst out laughing.

"Prince Singh, it seems... this Lin Ye has no military talent whatsoever."

"I reckon he never gave his enemy forces orders to patrol automatically when he set up the instance. If I'm right, his fleet should all be resting in the harbor right now."

Singh looked incredulous.

"Th-that's a little too stupid, isn't it?"

"Not setting patrol orders for naval units? That's practically inviting people to attack."

Itō Hidetaka took a sip of coffee, a relaxed smile appearing on his face.

"He's a newcomer. They're always making mistakes where they focus on one thing and lose sight of another. I'm guessing Lin Ye put all his energy into expanding the map and deploying his forces, only to overlook the simplest command settings."

Singh was still somewhat skeptical. He simply couldn't imagine that a purgatory-level instance could be so full of holes.

It was a little too trash.

Itō Hidetaka's fleet soon sailed into the Pearl Harbor military base.

Yet they still saw no patrol ships. Even the Pearl Harbor military base itself was completely quiet.

The base was fully equipped with all kinds of combat facilities, but it had no defensive installations whatsoever.

The challengers' fleet had almost reached shore, yet not a single alarm had sounded.

Even Singh had no choice but to believe it now: the Raging Waves instance really did have a huge flaw.

"Do you believe me now, Mr. Singh? The enemy forces in this instance have no defensive arrangements whatsoever."

"I even suspect the so-called nation-destroying fleet is a deceptive trick, and doesn't exist in this instance at all!"

Itō Hidetaka's words amused Singh as well.

After all that hype, its actual quality was so abysmal. Lin Ye's instance was surely the biggest joke in the history of Azure Star's instances.

"It's so lame. I've never seen such a ridiculous instance."

"I don't think there's any need to land now. Just fire shells from the warships at the military base and use all our firepower to destroy every building on land. That should be enough."

There was a trace of disdain in Itō Hidetaka's eyes.

"What a pity. It seems this young man of the Great Xia people is going to be erased."

He had originally thought Lin Ye would have at least some ability, but what the hell was all this?

It was supposed to be a nation-destroying fleet with 30 naval units, yet they hadn't seen so much as a hair of it.

The entire naval base looked vast and sophisticated, but in the end it was nothing but an empty shell.

"All forces, listen up! Open fire with everything you've got!"

"Launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor!"

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Deafening explosions echoed over the vast sea!

Streams of fire, like enraged dragons, burst from the mouths of the challengers' warships and slammed into every inch of Pearl Harbor's soil.

The sea was covered in enormous waves churned up by the bombardment, like boiling water.

Blinding flames and thick smoke intertwined, blotting out the sky and plunging all of Pearl Harbor into chaos!

Those towering warships now seemed to have become giant beasts that destroyed everything, firing on the military base without restraint.

The blast waves instantly left the buildings and facilities in the base teetering on the verge of collapse.

At the sight of the one-sided bombardment, the spectators outside the instance were dumbfounded too, and immediately began hurling abuse in the bullet comments.

[Seriously? That's it?!]

[This is worthy of being called a purgatory-level instance? I don't think it's even as good as those easy instances!]

[I thought it was a world-class problem, but now it looks like it's just handing out points.]

[I said it long ago: the Great Xia people are no good at designing instances.]

[It's so damn useless, a complete waste of my time. I've been watching this instance for two whole days and nights, and this is what I get?]

[I want to enter an instance like this and get free rewards too!]

[Person above, forget it. After this round, Lin Ye will probably be erased outright, and the instances under his name will disappear along with him.]

[Where are the Great Xia people? Say something!]

[...]

The dramatic back-and-forth made the bullet comments for Raging Waves unusually lively. For a time, people were drawn in to watch the instance, whether they cared about it or not.

Meanwhile.

At the Great Xia people's settlement.

In the conference room of the First Instance Technology Research Institute.

The large screen was showing everything happening inside the [Raging Waves] instance.

The atmosphere in the conference room was suffocatingly tense.

At the beginning, the researchers in the room had actually been engaged in a heated discussion about the instance as a whole.

After all, it had been designed by one of their own people, and it was the first purgatory-level instance in Azure Star's history. They couldn't help but take it seriously.

Everyone had praised Lin Ye's map design and mission settings, thinking that he truly was a talented designer.

But now...

They were about to watch Itō Hidetaka conquer the instance.

"He was far too careless. How could Lin Ye have made a mistake in the command settings?"

"Sigh... he's still too young. His mind was always on things that would stand out, and he ended up failing to get the most basic things right."

Sighs rang out one after another in the conference room.

They couldn't even bear to watch the live broadcast anymore.

At this rate, the instance was bound to be conquered. With all seven thousand people clearing it at once, a massive number of points would be deducted from Lin Ye.

Lin Ye would be erased outright, one hundred percent.

Watching the Pearl Harbor military base collapse amid the flames, Zhao Jianyu let out a long sigh as well.

Everything was more or less as she had expected.

At first, when the instance appeared, she had suspected she had misjudged him. Yet now that things had come to this, they were still heading down the path she had foreseen.

For an arrogant genius, the only end was to return with broken wings.

But as a fellow member of the Great Xia people, Zhao Jianyu couldn't feel happy at all.

She wished she had misjudged him, wished Lin Ye really were an unparalleled genius who would give her a resounding slap in the face.

She would rather that than see such a stifling scene!