Birth Point: Gobi

The white light before her eyes faded. Ling Chu looked up to find herself standing in a desolate, bleak expanse of Gobi desert.

Cracked, hard yellowish-brown earth was strewn with sharp gravel. Withered Gobi trees rose jaggedly from the ground, their branches twisted into grotesque shapes.

Over the barren wasteland, several black-feathered vultures circled low overhead. The sound of their wings was hoarse and heavy, adding even more grim menace to this deathly silent land.

Ling Chu frowned slightly. She had really been teleported into a Public Challenge...

As far as she knew, there were only two ways to enter a Public Challenge.

The first was to actively use a Public Challenge Selection Card and choose a challenge type; the second was to pass through certain sea regions and passively trigger a Public Challenge.

But she had remained inside the Whispering Tower the entire time. She had neither used any Challenge Card nor entered any special sea region.

Even stranger, the crew had all been beside her at the time, yet she alone had been forcibly teleported here.

Ling Chu instinctively raised her hand and opened the System Panel, intending to connect to the Crew Channel and ask about the situation outside. But the panel kept loading over and over, remaining gray and blank.

The system notification sounded at just the right moment.

[Welcome, Player No. 027, to the Public Challenge "Death God's Game." The rules of this Public Challenge will now be explained.]

[1. During this challenge, you may only use equipment already worn on your body. Apart from the system-issued Soulstone Bag, no storage space may be opened. Private chat, the Public Channel, and trading functions are disabled for the duration of the challenge.]

``` [2. A total of 200 players will participate in