Future Crisis

Future Crisis

The Artifact Spirit Style Astral Veins chosen by Li Tie spread throughout the player community.

Some players followed in Li Tie's footsteps to Spirit Artifact Valley, hoping to contain Origin Source artifacts and earn rewards.

There weren't many monsters in Spirit Artifact Valley, but they were extremely high-level. The farther in you went, the higher the artifacts' hunting levels, and the cooler their designs became.

Several teams tried repeatedly, but all came back defeated.

Li Tie was no exception. After containing five artifacts, he chose not to venture farther into Spirit Artifact Valley.

Apart from the five artifacts at the entrance, the lowest hunting level among those deeper inside was 30. He couldn't withstand even one hit, so there was no point in continuing to challenge them.

The emergence of the Artifact Spirit Style had given many players a new goal to work toward.

Beneath Emperor's Tomb Village

Qi Sheng sat cross-legged atop the Origin Altar, quickly scanning the online data that Guidance had sent back to him.

Just then, the elusive Guiding Water Orb suddenly appeared:

[Boss, I sensed traces of the Black Tide on Earth.]

"Where?"

[In the direction of the North Pole.]

"Go take a look, and let Uncle Yan know."

[You got it. On my way!]

The Guiding Water Orb vanished without a trace.

Not long afterward, a cold voice spoke:

"Little Qi, I'm here."

A projected scene appeared before Qi Sheng. It showed a simply decorated room, where a bluish-white flame burned on a round table. A man with an otherworldly air sat beside it.

He had long, jet-black hair and pale skin. His exquisite tie accentuated the perfect lines of his neck, but his handsome face showed no expression.

Mysterious and noble. Those were the words that had come to Qi Sheng's mind the first time he'd met Yan Ming.

The man in the projection was Yan Ming, one of Di Zhao's four attendants, who controlled the power of space.

He had created the spatial guidance component of the Challenger System (Player Recruitment System), while Guidance was responsible for the data conversion and content analysis.

In the direct confrontation against the Terror Black Tide all those years ago, Yan Ming had lost most of the vitality within him. Since then, he had been like a puppet, appearing utterly cold and indifferent.

Qi Sheng was used to it.

If Yan Ming and the other attendants hadn't risked their lives to save him back then, he would have died in the Terror Black Mist.

He'd asked Guidance to notify Yan Ming this time because he couldn't perform ultra-long-distance spatial teleportation and needed Yan Ming's help.

"Uncle Yan, sorry for the trouble." Qi Sheng nodded politely.

"Get ready."

As Yan Ming finished speaking, an icy blue glimmer spread through his pupils. A rotating, bluish-white teleportation array appeared beneath Qi Sheng's feet.

A powerful sensation of weightlessness swept over him.

Boom!

Bluish-white flames wrapped around his body, and in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.

When the bluish-white light obscuring his vision faded, he found himself beneath a sky full of snow. All around him stretched an endless expanse of white. Glaciers covered the vast land, meeting the azure sky in the distance to form a magnificent, pristine scene.

Bitterly cold winds converged in the air, shrieking as they tore past his ears.

The temperature plummeted, making Qi Sheng shiver. He promptly switched to Di Zhao Form.

Boom!

Crimson flames spread from his head to cover his entire body, banishing the chill.

He flew into the sky and headed in the direction Guidance had sensed.

A few minutes later, he spotted a black line suspended high in the air. When he reached out to touch it, several thin black tendrils extended from the line and tried to wrap around his hand.

But the tendrils instantly disintegrated under the scorching heat of Di Zhao's flames.

The discovery made Qi Sheng realize how serious the situation was.

His former home was being invaded and corroded by the Terror Black Tide.

Unlike in the Monster World, the Terror Black Tide's corrosion of Earth was still at an early stage and wouldn't have any impact on the world's ecology.

But he could foresee that Earth, too, would eventually be corroded and devoured by the Terror Black Tide.

It reminded Qi Sheng of a theory he'd had before.

During the years he'd been away, many foreign races had appeared on Earth. Their arrival might have something to do with the Terror Black Tide.

A few days ago, he'd seen a discussion thread online.

The thread asked why the virtual game Dark Land limited the number of people who could buy access.

In theory, the virtual servers built by the Moon Eclipse Clan could support a huge player base. Yet the clan kept limiting the number of slots it issued to the Human Federation and the other foreign races that had settled on Earth.

If the clan was trying to create artificial scarcity, it didn't make sense.

Although the Moon Eclipse Clan used currency to buy resources from other races, it gave technology and resources to the other races far more often.

Someone had done the math: every year, the resources the Moon Eclipse Clan gave to foreign races far exceeded what it spent buying resources from them.

In response, the thread's author had offered a theory.

He believed that the Moon Eclipse Clan hadn't created a virtual game to acquire resources from other races. Instead, it wanted to use a near-real virtual environment to train troops, preparing for some enormous crisis that might one day arrive.

As for giving other races access to the game, that was merely a secondary benefit, allowing them to serve as sparring partners.

In the virtual games the Moon Eclipse Clan had developed in the past, the Moon Eclipse Clan formed one faction, while all the other races banded together as the opposing faction.

That was why troop training was the main goal, and why the game had to serve the Moon Eclipse Clan first.

There was one piece of evidence that supported this theory.

According to historical records, three hundred years ago, when the Moon Eclipse Clan fled to Earth, they'd said that their Plane World had been corroded by some mysterious force, causing it to collapse and shatter.

Faced with that apocalyptic crisis, the Moon Eclipse Clan had eventually given up resisting. Before their world collapsed, the few surviving members had fled to Earth using spatial technology, eventually building Moon Eclipse City on the moon.

The other foreign races that had come to Earth had similar stories.

Qi Sheng already knew the answer.

The apocalyptic crisis that had struck the Moon Eclipse Clan's former home had most likely been an invasion by the Black Tide. Their long years of resistance had driven Moon Eclipse civilization from its peak into decline, and the other foreign races had gone through similar experiences.

Now there were early signs of the Terror Black Tide invading Earth as well.

This confirmed the theory in the discussion thread: the Moon Eclipse Clan was training its troops to prepare for an unknown horror.

There was another piece of evidence that supported his conclusion.

The Monster World was expanding, and its terrain was constantly changing.

He'd once thought this was some unknown change caused by the Black Tide's corrosion. But now he realized that the Terror Black Tide had probably devoured other worlds and merged their fragments into the Monster World, causing it to grow larger and larger.

That was also why the "Map" feature in the game was covered in unexplored fog.

It wasn't that he didn't want to give every player a complete map of the world. The Monster World's terrain had changed too much, and its old maps no longer matched the world as it was now.

[Boss, this world will gradually grow worse in the future. You'll need to speed up your player recruitment plan.]

Guidance's expression was grave.

"Let's keep moving forward steadily. At least for now, it won't have any impact."

[Boss, I have a question.]

"Ask."

[If this world enters the height of the Terror Black Tide invasion, and evil spirits run rampant, what will you do?]

"If that day really comes, I might give players permission to bring the Monster World's power back to reality. At the very least, I'd need to make sure they're safe in the real world... But until then, I won't reveal anything."

[Why?]

"Only players free of real-world pressure can enjoy themselves in the Monster World and have fun playing the game. Happiness is what makes them fearless and full of creativity."