Making Trouble Instead of Helping

In the Outer Domain Battlefield, Gu Ding crushed the head of a Carter Tribe, glanced at the corpses scattered on the ground, and said, "The tenth day is almost over, it's about time to return to the Gate of Purgatory. How many kills have we made so far?"

"6117, which is more than 6000. That means you have accumulated six points that have doubled. The total points that can be redeemed is 126,117."

In this Outer Domain Battlefield, both Alien Race are gregarious, which has led to Gu Ding accumulating points much faster than before. While other humans fear encountering large Alien Race colonies, for Gu Ding, the larger the colony, the better, as it makes harvesting easier.

"I wonder how many people have Arena Registration," Gu Ding muttered to himself as he walked toward the teleportation array.

In this Outer Domain Battlefield, signals are blocked, so the Sea Emperor doesn't know the outcome, but he still offers his guess. "The number of people imprisoned in the Second Level of the Gate of Purgatory is no less than that in the First Level. Adding Barite's influence in the Second Level, I estimate that the number of challengers is even greater than when we were in the First Level."

Hearing the Sea Emperor say this, Gu Ding felt a little relieved, because under normal circumstances, the Sea Emperor's analysis results were unlikely to be wrong.

When Gu Ding arrived at the location of the teleportation array, the tenth day had just passed.

Gu Ding quickly returned to the Gate of Purgatory via the teleportation array.

As soon as he regained his footing, Gu Ding checked the simple Smart Watch on his wrist. "What's going on? Why is Barite still the only challenger?"

"There might be a system delay. Let's wait and see." Sea Emperor was also somewhat puzzled.

Gu Ding stood there, waiting for over a minute, but the number of challengers on his wristwatch remained unchanged. "Could this wristwatch be broken?"

"It's not a problem with the watch. I've already checked it. It's not a system delay either; I checked the system ports. There was no challenge message sent at all." Sea Emperor quickly realized the problem. "It seems to be caused by someone."

"Man-made? What do you mean?" Gu Ding was a little confused.

"There are two possibilities. One is that someone deliberately blocked the information about your appearance on the Second Level, so the people on the Second Level did not know about your arrival, and naturally no one challenged you."

"The second possibility is that someone somehow coerced everyone else in the Second Level to give up their challenge to you."

"However, the first possibility is unlikely. When you appeared on the Second Level of the Gate of Purgatory, there were thousands of witnesses in the arena. Even if someone blocked the news, judging from the reactions of those witnesses when they saw you, they probably wouldn't have given up the opportunity to challenge you. So, it's possible that Barite tampered with things. With his strength and fame on the Second Level, he was indeed enough to intimidate others from challenging you."

The Sea Emperor's deduction is not far from the truth.

Gu Ding listened with some doubt, "But why would he do that?"

Sea Emperor didn't provide an answer to this question. In fact, he had never understood why humans needed motivation to do so many things. For him, with his super-intelligence, he would immediately assess whether something needed to be done. If so, he would execute it immediately, requiring no motivation whatsoever.

After converting Alien Race kill count into points, Gu Ding asked an Order Keeper for his room number on the Second Level and headed towards the prison building. He planned to rest for a day to prepare for the next day's battle. Although it seemed he only had one opponent at the moment, Gu Ding believed that no matter how many opponents there were or who they were, he would take them all seriously.

As soon as he stepped into the prisoner's building, many people looked at Gu Ding. The once noisy building suddenly fell silent.

Gu Ding glanced around and noticed that the people's eyes didn't show surprise when they saw him, but rather other emotions. There was disdain, curiosity, schadenfreude... and a few people were completely emotionless, simply scrutinizing him.

Ignoring the various stares, Gu Ding walked straight towards his room number, already having an answer in his mind about why no one had challenged him.

The Sea Emperor was right; these people did know they had entered the Second Level, and the lack of challenges was due to some kind of deliberate obstruction.

Once inside his room, Gu Ding closed the door, buried his head in the bed, and lay down.

After Gu Ding left, the building became noisy again, and some people were whispering about Gu Ding.

"The news that Gu Ding came to the Second Level is actually true."

"That guy Barite, in order to be the first one selected by the system to fight Gu Ding, actually forbade others to sign up for the challenge. That's really going too far."

"This is a good thing for Gu Ding, isn't it? If Barite hadn't caused this trouble, there would probably be over 100,000 people challenging Gu Ding on the Second Level. Even if there were 100 challenge matches a day, it would still take three years to reach 100,000 matches."

Hearing the discussion, the Sea Emperor relayed the information to Gu Ding.

"To ensure he's the first one selected by the system, he forbids others from signing up for the challenge... I see... It seems that the Scarface uncle not only didn't help, but actually caused trouble." Gu Ding finally understood the reason behind the situation.

"So what are you planning to do tomorrow? After defeating Barite, will you go straight to the Third Level of the Gate of Purgatory, or will you continue to wait for the people in the Second Level to challenge you?" Sea Emperor couldn't help but ask.

"There's no need to wait. Let's go straight to the Third Level. Since Barite is the undisputed strongest on the Second Level, once I defeat him, the others probably won't challenge me anymore after watching the match. Waiting any longer is pointless and just a waste of time." Gu Ding knew that since Barite was so fearsome, he, who had defeated Barite, would be an even more terrifying figure in everyone's eyes, and the others probably wouldn't challenge him anymore.

"But if we do that, we'll lose a chance to win a thousand consecutive wins. The base score for the Second Level is 2 points, and the score for a thousand consecutive wins is twice that of the First Level, which is more than 400,000."

Even including the points he gained in the Outer Domain Battlefield of the Second Level of the Gate of Purgatory, Gu Ding only has a little over 400,000 points in total. A thousand-win streak would have nearly doubled his points, but that guy Barite ruined everything.

But Gu Ding wasn't upset. Instead, he laughed and said, "Since he's the one who took away my winning streak, I can only ask him for it back."

The Sea Emperor instantly knew what Gu Ding was thinking, "You mean...?"

"That's right!" Gu Ding grinned.

~~

[I spent two days at a friend's place and got home a bit late today, so I can only squeeze in one update. At least three updates tomorrow, and if possible, I'll try to squeeze in four! ~~] (To be continued~^~)