Players' Speculations and the Revelation of the Game's Invasion

In the emperor's view, the Skyfall World had long been plunged into despair.

Strange things roam freely, and demons are everywhere.

The imperial court, the common people, and the Noble Personage were all merely clinging to life.

The appearance of players is not a bad thing; they can act as a third party to act as a buffer.

Therefore, the Emperor considered the Fourth Prince's elaborate efforts to kill the players as a futile endeavor.

Of course, the emperor, high above all others, wouldn't understand a simple truth:

From the perspective of ordinary people, if the strange occurrences disappear, they will suffer even greater strange occurrences.

At least the weirdos won't be constantly exploiting them.

Therefore, the common people would rather choose the bizarre than the strange in the imperial court.

This is not an exaggeration, but a realistic description.

The villages surrounding Capital Island are generally several levels poorer than those further away.

But the emperor didn't care about any of that.

All he knew was that the strange was the greatest threat.

Therefore, when faced with player intrusion, he simply stood by and did nothing.

He watched Jingjing as the two demons devoured each other and fought amongst themselves.

Use barbarians to control barbarians.

That was the strategy he had decided on.

At the same time.

Upon hearing the Game System error message, Gao Linzhi turned and ran.

Behind him came the voices of the cavalry.

They shouted in unison.

Their voices kept ringing in Gao Linzhi's ears.

"Sacrifice yourself, sacrifice yourself, sacrifice your most precious possession, and you will obtain the key to eternal life!"

"Then you can enter the eternal kingdom in your heart."

"Isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

As Gao Linzhi ran, he sneered, "What I want, I will get with my own hands, not be given to me by others."

"I've understood one thing since I was little: only things I can decide for myself count; promises from others don't count."

"Really? Isn't what you're saying hilarious?" the voices mocked in return. "You've set up pawn after pawn, sending them on their quest for Immortality."

"Isn't this relying on others?"

Gao Linzhi was speechless for a moment.

This guy is just arguing for the sake of arguing.

"How can that be the same?" he said dismissively.

"Hehe, now there's an even simpler way to achieve your goal, so why are you refusing now that it's time?"

"Isn't it the same to treat this Divine Anomalies as just another pawn?"

"Is that all you've got? You only dare to use those you can control as pawns, but you dare not touch these high and mighty gods?"

"Well, it seems you're not all that great after all."

"The so-called number one on the list is just the capacity of an ordinary person."

The sounds rang out in a noisy cacophony.

But Gao Linzhi remained unmoved.

"Hmph, it seems you haven't given up hope yet; you still have a lot of hope."

"Very good, we'll be waiting for you."

"The capacity of mortals will always encounter an insurmountable despair!"

We'll reappear in a while.

"This is a Divine Anomalies gift, take it."

"It belongs to you."

The cavalry behind them stopped their pursuit.

Their faces contorted simultaneously, becoming one.

That was Gao Linzhi's own face.

Gao Linzhi did not stop, flying all the way.

But not long after, suddenly, a stone floated in front of him.

It was a bright red oval stone.

It has distorted facial features that look like a human's.

There are also several eyes.

They opened their eyes together and looked at Gao Linzhi.

Gao Linzhi frowned immediately; he thought of something that seemed somewhat familiar.

If he were an indigenous person, he probably wouldn't know the true nature of this thing.

But he is a time traveler.

He thought of a dark, adult-oriented comic he had read before his transmigration.

This is a dark anime that might be considered a childhood nightmare.

Legend

This thing is shown above; it's called a "Beherit," a demonic object that tempts others to sacrifice their most cherished possessions in exchange for power.

One type, the red "Beherit," is called the "Overlord's Egg."

It can turn a person into the Hand of God.

Possessing the power of a demigod.

Of course, this kind of "Overlord's Egg" depends on the person who gets it.

Only certain people, gifted individuals, can obtain it.

The prerequisite is that you must sacrifice your most precious person.

Gao Linzhi couldn't help but smile when he thought of this.

Why would that thing appear in this world?

Upon closer reflection, it becomes understandable.

Because this is a world teeming with the bizarre.

The bizarre can be said to be infinitely varied, with all sorts of rules and types.

The practice of "sacrificing things to gain power" is another common and bizarre rule.

Therefore, it is quite normal for similar things to appear.

In the Skyfall Game, encountering such an anomaly means truly meeting a formidable opponent.

How many players can withstand this kind of thing?

Unless it has a fatal flaw.

Otherwise, it can directly hit what the player desires deep down.

For players, strength is the most important thing.

To become stronger, betraying allies, abandoning alliances, and relinquishing power is simply a perfectly normal course of action.

Friends who have played together for years can turn against each other and sever all ties over a piece of red-tier equipment, an epic necklace, a special class, or even a single drop or a single sentence.

For laughable gains in the game, players may betray others in real life.

For example, some groups have even betrayed their online activities directly offline.

This stone, this strange thing, just happened to resonate with people's hearts.

The player's greatest weaknesses lie in "betrayal" and "greed".

Players have absolutely no connection to the word "loyalty".

When have you ever seen a so-called loyal player?

Once a player enters a game, their fate is already sealed: they will quit and run away.

Almost no one can play a game until they die.

Quitting the game means betrayal, a betrayal of the Game System.

It's just that this is a real game now, so quitting isn't easy, but betraying to another faction is possible.

Gao Linzhi sighed.

He realized that entering that strange player's game would likely cause the game data to become disordered.

They have probably broken free from the constraints of the game.

The offline world.

Inside a brightly lit stone cave.

Large patches of red are faintly visible on the white stone wall.

Gao Linzhi opened his eyes in reality; his Game Character had already logged off.

Gao Linzhi looked at the Game Character standing in front of him and couldn't help but sigh.

If he weren't a time traveler, if he weren't playing the game from a third-person perspective, his immersion wouldn't be strong, and he probably wouldn't be able to stay rational.

After all, the power of that kind of weirdness to distort people's hearts is too Powerful.

Fortunately, he was playing the game in third person, so there was no need to worry that he would suffer the same mental distortion as the other players.

The biggest weakness of other players is that it's too realistic.

There's nothing wrong with it in normal combat.

They can also rely on their high mental attributes to combat various forms of mental pollution.

However, this kind of mental attack that directly confronts one's inner weaknesses cannot be resolved by mental attributes alone.

It depends on your own mindset, your own stance, your own determination, and your own will.

Even if your mental attribute is as high as tens of thousands, it's useless if you willingly sacrifice yourself or make an exchange.

Mental attributes are like city walls; the higher and thicker they are, the stronger the enemies they can resist.

However, if the soldiers defending the city walls open the gates themselves, then even the highest city walls are useless.

Of course, there is also a more fundamental reason: he actually doesn't have anyone he cherishes.

Because he has never trusted anyone, never relied on anyone, and never formed any so-called bond with anyone.

When he has nothing to exchange, there's no point in exchanging anything.

Of course, Gao Linzhi can also exchange his own soul, his own flesh and blood, his own emotions, and his own obsessions.

You could exchange yourself for someone else.

However, this was naturally not what Gao Linzhi wanted.

Because this is completely contrary to his path to immortality.

Gao Linzhi pondered carefully.

Just then...

A game notification appears:

"Ding! Congratulations to player 'Can Xue Waves Across the Map' for successfully breaking free from the contamination of the unknown."

"The Game System has begun using this player's game data as a template to repair the data of other damaged players."

"Game reward: A Safe Zone of 50 square kilometers."

"This location is designated by the player, and is not limited to online or offline."

Upon seeing this, Gao Linzhi knew that the Skyfall Game had indeed been able to invade reality.

Actually, it could have been done a long time ago.

But now, it's just that it's stronger.

Given this, he naturally placed the Safe Zone offline.

Because offline industrial technology far surpasses that online.

Online, there are no opportunities to develop industry.

Because weirdness has become part of the rules of the online world.

With a 50-square-kilometer absolute Safe Zone, we can do a lot of things.

A nuclear power plant, combined with industrialized agriculture, such as building agriculture, and other industries, is enough to meet the basic living needs of tens of millions of people.

At the same time, the game also issued an announcement.

"A major bug has been discovered in the game and is being fixed. All players are being forcibly logged out."

"Logging off in the wild or during combat will not result in being killed or losing any items."

"The game is expected to take more than two hours to be fixed."

Many players were instantly forced offline.

The offline Archipelago Forum immediately erupted in excitement.

"What exactly happened?"

"Weren't we just doing some weird time-loop mission?"

"Why is there an error suddenly appearing in the game?"

"How could such an amazing game possibly have any data errors?"

"How ridiculous! This is a real game, an extraordinary game, and it still has errors?"

"Ridiculous. I used to think this was like putting a data panel on everyone and directly transporting them to that Skyfall World to play a game."

"Yes, I think so too. It's called a game, but it's really just wearing a VR headset that maps reality into game data so you can play it."

"Heh, are you guys idiots? This game drops loot when you defeat monsters, and your body gets stronger too. How could this be a helmet game?"

"That's true, but I think it should be a mix of realism and gamification."

Gao Linzhi was also logging into the Game Forum.

He was also watching the players' discussion.

It must be said that as modern people, after being exposed to a lot of information, people still have a lot of creative ideas.

Many of the speeches provided Gao Linzhi with profound insights.

For example, the phrase "semi-realistic, semi-gamified" allowed Gao Linzhi to vaguely grasp the true meaning of game intrusion.

Could it be that this game aims to completely analyze the real world and turn it entirely into a game?

This parsing process is also the intrusion process. Players are like data hooks, backdoors, and viruses used to invade other worlds.

In this process, the Game System only provides some negligible benefits.

While it may seem like the player has been strengthened, those powers actually belong to the Game System.

Just like in real-world online games, no matter how powerful your account is, if the game company goes bankrupt, you'll have nothing.

So, is there any way to resolve this?

Of course.

That means the player is rich enough to buy the game company, or has the technology and time to open a private server and copy the game data to their own private server.

In this way, how long you play is entirely up to you.

With this thought in mind, Gao Linzhi had a new goal in mind.

Buy the game!

At the same time.

In a city.

Lin Qing, the woman who became a player at the same time as Gao Linzhi, was also the one who actually obtained the qualification to receive the Game Poster.

Unlike Gao Linzhi, who remained stuck at level 1 in the game, she was now a level 72 player.

Because her talent is related to resurrection.

That's why she dared to fight high-level monsters, which is why she leveled up so quickly.

This talent used to be very strong.

After all, back then, the Game System didn't support player resurrection.

However, it has now quickly become a common, mass-produced item.

This is the real game.

Each version has its own meta.

As the game updates, previously Powerful classes, equipment, and talents may become obsolete.

Only by spending money can you keep up with the version updates.

Because now everyone has free resurrection attempts, three times a day.

This caused her to lose her previous advantage in monster-slaying.

Of course, she still has some advantages.

After all, she was resurrected more times.

That's just how reality is.

Unless you have a lot of spending money, you can easily become obsolete due to game updates.

Game developers update game versions precisely to force players to keep spending money.

She glanced at the Game Forum, gritting her teeth inwardly.

"With our advantage gone, what should we do next?"

The Official Game Group.

"@Heavenly Skyfall's Most Handsome, what exactly happened? Why is the game suddenly needing to fix a bug? This has never happened before!" asked Riding the Wind to Beat Luo Shao.

"Yes, we're all panicking. Is the game going to shut down?" Empty 2086 pressed.

He had just become king and was eager to make a fortune, but then this problem suddenly occurred in the game.

And then there are matters concerning powerful territories and the Jade Seal of Founding —all of these require consultation with a certain bigwig.

Headache.

"Well, I don't know what happened either, but everyone don't need to worry."

"The Game System is highly intelligent; it can fix this kind of game bug on its own. It should be quick, so please rest assured." The Skyfall's Most Handsome answered the question immediately, a rare occurrence for him.