Everyone stared intently at the writhing blood-red meteor in the sky, watching it grow smaller and smaller and smaller...
Apep.
The evil god that had sprawled across the Thirteen City Alliance's God Banning Barrier, gazing down upon the Alliance like a nightmare for nearly a thousand years.
It had just died like that?
For a thousand years, Apep had merely rested its vast body upon the barrier and had never truly made a move.
Yet it had still become the nightmare of every Alliance citizen.
Creators of every kind of cultural work chose it as their final Boss. Everyone had dreamed of it. Even if they rationally knew otherwise, the Alliance still regarded it as the strongest evil god.
Because all they had to do was raise their heads to see its crimson eyes in the sky.
Had it really died just like that???
Though the online evidence of Apep's fall sounded convincing enough—after all, the crimson eyes in the sky had suddenly vanished more than ten days ago.
Until they personally saw the fragments of it being shattered, however, no one truly believed it deep down.
Not until the thunder carrying heaven's majestic wrath, like a declaration of execution, ruthlessly annihilated Apep's hidden flesh.
Only then did everyone uproot the "fear" that had been deeply planted in their hearts since childhood and replace it with new roots called "greed."
The two players, however, did not have such complicated thoughts.
Most players knew that Apep had been the first World Boss blocking the way in the old version. Apparently, because it had gained nothing when the Alliance was destroyed, it had angrily camped at the exit of Broken Sword Canyon.
'I Don't Want to Pay the Penalty' stared at the map, comparing it with the trajectory of the flesh in the sky and predicting where it would land.
When the divine fragment in the sky had been melted down to the size of an arm.
The endless lightning finally lost interest in that piece of flesh.
The arm-sized divine fragment vanished soundlessly into the nearby treetops, yet it struck everyone's hearts with a deafening boom.
"Quick, quick, quick! Follow me! We just need to go around up ahead!"
'I Don't Want to Pay the Penalty' instantly confirmed where the God's Flesh had landed. Ignoring the shrubs blocking the way, he took the lead and strode in one direction.
Everyone immediately followed, though they tacitly spread out from one another.
The three fully armored knights moved together. One cleared the way while the other two guarded the rear, watching out for each other and forming a triangular formation.
Scholar glanced at the Dragonkin sitting atop the mech, sighed helplessly, and followed behind the knights.
The mercenary activated the exoskeleton's battery and checked his ammunition reserves.
As for the woman who had originally been responsible for clearing the path, she now trailed behind the group, continuously tossing crushed trees from along the way into the Mining Mech's fuel compartment.
Seeing how the NPCs reacted, 'Not Iaido, But Drawing Sword' felt his blood surge.
This was the role-playing he had been looking forward to!
Though he had been a launch-day player of "Despair Expedition OL," he had barely participated in any PVE content while competing professionally for his club.
All he could do was stay in the arena, practicing PVP techniques day and night.
That was how clubs worked. Professional players only needed to devote themselves completely to their matches, slay gods that stood in their way and slaughter Buddhas that blocked their path, then bring the championship trophy back to the club. The club, however, had far more to consider.
They arranged power-levelers to raise the players' levels, farmed attributes for their accounts, provided equipment, and ensured that players had enough rare consumables stocked up for competitions...
"Despair Expedition OL" competitions were a rare form of asymmetric competition.
Players' accounts, equipment, and items all had to be farmed from within the game.
That meant that after a single annual global tournament, the rough estimated value of consumable items alone exceeded ten million!
By the time 'Not Iaido, But Drawing Sword' retired from professional play, "Despair Expedition OL" was already an old game.
People only discussed how to grind for money, how to speed-farm, and how to fight Bosses.
The grand era when everyone role-played like they had at launch was gone!
The God's Flesh had landed nearby. With the group advancing at all costs, they reached the vicinity in barely over ten minutes.
It was a dense forest nestled between valleys.
Broadleaf trees at least five meters tall had stolen the sunlight from the ground vegetation, covering the earth in a soft layer of fallen leaves.
There were no irritating shrubs, giving everyone a clear field of view.
'Not Iaido, But Drawing Sword' checked the encyclopedia. Lv32 Elite Monsters, Headless Centaur Phantoms, would spawn nearby at night.
But the thunderclouds that had churned overhead for weeks had long made it impossible to tell day from night.
He found an opportunity to jump down from the Mining Mech and ran near the knights, having the knights whose favorability toward him had reached 60 stand between himself and the drill-equipped Mining Mech.
"It should be nearby," the dwarf's somewhat childish voice said.
'I Don't Want to Pay the Penalty' activated scan mode and discovered a strange red glow more than a hundred meters to the right-front.
"There!" he shouted.
'Not Iaido, But Drawing Sword' glanced helplessly at this junior who loved watching trouble unfold, while also wondering how these highly intelligent NPCs with built-in AI would react.
The group froze briefly, then all turned to look where the dwarf pointed.
The three knights at the front exchanged glances, then wordlessly assumed formation and charged toward the flesh.
They raised shields half a person's height, with one guarding each side, respectively watching the directions of the woman, Scholar, and the mercenary.
"Rumble—"
A pure white lotus blossomed between the three knights. The incoming heat wave made even Scholar, hiding fifty meters away, feel suffocated.
The two players reacted instantly and ducked behind the nearest tree.
When the smoke cleared, the fully armored knight on the right had only half his body left, while the knight guarding the left had collapsed onto the ground, his fate unknown.
The knight at the very front ignored his severed arm and threw the silver-glowing longsword in his hand toward the mercenary some distance away.
The longsword passed smoothly through the mercenary and sank into the tree trunk behind him.
Optical Camouflage?
Scholar's pages turned without wind. A flash burst from between the pages, illuminating the surroundings as brightly as day.
Only then did the mercenary hiding nearby reveal himself beneath the intense light.
Doomsday Type 7 Exoskeleton!
Everyone except the Dragonkin recognized the equipment the mercenary wore.
It was unmistakably military-grade equipment. Merely possessing it was a serious crime!
The woman's Mining Mech, more than five meters tall, was worth only around four million Alliance Coins and was considered a "large civilian facility" beloved by explorers.
Yet this man's exoskeleton was worth at least twenty million apiece!
The exposed mercenary cursed, stopped loading Thermobaric Rounds, aimed the rotary machine gun on his arm at Scholar, and unleashed a roaring barrage of large-caliber bullets.
But before the bullets could hit Scholar, they all veered away in other directions.
The speeding rounds peeled away a layer of soil behind Scholar, while Scholar's pages continued flipping rapidly.
Seeing this, the mercenary stopped firing, activated Optical Camouflage again, and vanished from everyone's sight.
"It is a curse."
The dwarf saw through Scholar's spell and said to the Dragonkin on the other side:
"That bald guy is done for."
As though to confirm the dwarf's words, the bald mercenary suddenly reappeared the next moment. Clutching his heart, he staggered two steps forward.
Then he finally collapsed.
A low-level character using high-level equipment did not even have enough mechanical power to protect himself. He could only take damage head-on...
'I Don't Want to Pay the Penalty' summed up the reason for the mercenary's death.
He stared at the fallen mercenary, then suddenly widened his eyes and shouted a warning:
"Fuck, self-destruct!"
The next moment, white flames even hotter than before erupted.
A blooming white lotus swept up everyone who had failed to escape in time.