Gloomy Cave.
After three consecutive days of direct clashes, the fighting between the players and the Dungeon Clan grew ever more intense.
Under the Dungeon Clan warriors' control, countless Iron Shell Bugs surged up from underground. They seemed impossible to kill, and the players hated them with a passion.
The one thing that comforted the players was that this game had no monster respawn system. Dead monsters stayed dead.
Victory would be theirs in the end.
Meanwhile, Qi Sheng, who was behind the scenes, had also grown curious about Gloomy Cave and wanted to learn what made this Domain Node special.
He decided to explore it before the players did.
Just as the players and the tide of Iron Shell Bugs clashed once again, a wisp of his consciousness followed Guidance's tendrils of perception, probing deeper and deeper underground until it reached the fifth subterranean level.
There, he saw a vast palace surrounded by stone steles.
Thousands of soldier statues stood before the palace. Most were damaged, clad in shattered black armor and holding broken weapons. Some stood upright, others charged forward; each was posed differently, lifelike in every detail.
At the palace's western entrance, he saw countless Iron Shell Bugs dragging ore inside under the direction of Dungeon Clan warriors.
Qi Sheng's consciousness followed Guidance into the main hall. At its center stood a five-meter-tall, ruined statue.
The statue was clad from head to toe in heavy shattered armor. It held a blood-red, broken battle blade and knelt on one knee, gazing up at the vaulted ceiling.
Behind it stood a gigantic furnace. The Iron Shell Bugs entering the palace were being directed by Dungeon Clan warriors to feed ore into the furnace for smelting.
[Ice Blade!]
Guidance's sudden cry startled Qi Sheng.
"You know this statue?"
[A warmongering madman. After Di Zhao fell, he was once a warlord who ruled over his own territory.]
"How does he compare to you?"
[He was nowhere near as powerful as us Four Attendant Servants, of course, but he was still formidable. I once tried to recruit him, but he thought he was fit to become the next Di Zhao and refused to serve me.]
"Is he dead?"
[His life flame has gone out. He's well and truly dead... Hmm? There seems to be a mass of informational energy left inside his body.]
"Try to analyze it."
Guidance did not answer. It drew a wisp of Qi Sheng's consciousness closer to Ice Blade's statue and activated its analytical abilities. At once, boundless killing intent surged toward them like a roaring tidal wave.
"We, the warriors of Di Zhao... do not retreat."
At the sound of that hoarse, resolute voice, countless scenes from the past flickered through Qi Sheng's mind like slides.
He saw the plight Ice Blade had faced as the world neared its collapse.
It was when the Four Attendant Servants had just arrived at Emperor's Tomb Village, before he himself had transmigrated into this world.
At the time, the Monster World was being corrupted more and more as the Terror Black Tide swept across it. The ecological environment was growing ever harsher, and the region under Ice Blade's rule had also been ravaged by the Terror Black Tide.
Faced with this desperate situation, Ice Blade began making plans for the future.
He sank his palace underground, then moved his noncombatant clansmen below the surface. He instructed them to mine and store the spirit ore buried underground, telling them to wait for the future.
Thus began a vast underground construction project.
The clansmen did not understand why their leader was doing this, nor what he meant by "waiting for the future," but they carried out his plan all the same.
Before the underground project could be completed, the Terror Black Tide swept over them.
Ice Blade chose to lead his warriors against the tide of evil creatures, defending the pure land beneath their feet.
The scene shifted.
The evil creatures in the vision were like locusts descending upon the land, packed so densely they blotted out the view. Clad in heavy armor, Ice Blade led the Black Armor Army, drew his blade, pointed it at the creatures, and charged.
The battle was exceptionally brutal. By the time they drove back the tide, only half the warriors had survived.
A second wave of evil creatures could arrive at any moment. Ice Blade did not leave. He stayed with his warriors at the entrance to the underground palace, prepared for battle.
The next wave of evil creatures struck three days later.
Then came the third wave, then the fourth. The endless enemy fought Ice Blade until his weapon shattered. Every warrior who followed him fell, yet he still did not leave.
On the day the underground palace was completed, the clansmen who had worked on it emerged from the caverns. They hoped Ice Blade would go underground and hide from the next wave of evil creatures.
As his clansmen knelt and begged, Ice Blade swept his icy-blue eyes over them, devoid of the slightest emotion, and said coldly:
"The pure land beneath our feet was granted by Di Zhao. I swore to defend it with my blade until my life withered. I would rather die than retreat."
After driving his clansmen underground, Ice Blade faced his final battle.
Countless evil creatures surrounded him. In the fighting, his life flame flickered like a candle in the wind, liable to go out at any moment.
Exhausted, Ice Blade dropped to one knee and gazed at the last remaining "Di Zhao's Light" in the sky. Boundless Battle Intent still blazed in his eyes.
In his final moments, Ice Blade thought of the day Di Zhao had crowned him and granted him his territory.
An overwhelming sense of pride and honor filled his heart. With great effort, he lifted his broken battle blade and pointed it at the tide of evil creatures. His hoarse voice rang across the sky:
"Blood-forged souls, heroes left behind on the battlefield—even broken bodies can still slay three million enemies!"
"Beneath Di Zhao, there are no cowards! Rise, all of you, and fight with me once more!"
As his words fell, Ice Blade's life flame went out. Yet his lifeless body moved, and the remains of countless fallen warriors rose at the call of his lingering will, joining him in battle against the evil creatures once more.
The memory ended there.
[That guy... Even after he died, he could imprint Battle Intent onto his body. He really was a complete madman.]
The scenes from the memories left Qi Sheng shaken.
As Guidance analyzed them, he could even feel Ice Blade's unyielding resolve in the face of desperation.
What Di Zhao had said so casually had been the proudest moment of Ice Blade's life. He had chosen to fight to the death to protect that honor.
[Looks like his clansmen carried his remains into the palace.]
"Guidance, what did Ice Blade mean when he spoke of waiting for the future?"
[I'm not sure. It seems he had some kind of plan for the future. Could he have wanted to resurrect himself somehow?]
As Guidance and Qi Sheng wondered about Ice Blade's plans for the future, the remains standing at the center of the hall trembled slightly, as if sensing their presence. He lifted his head and looked toward their cluster of consciousness. A scarlet glow suddenly flared in his dim eyes, and then a message entered the minds of Qi Sheng and Guidance:
"Guidance? Nine Yin? Yan Ming? Hyperdimension?... Whichever of you four old-timers inherited Di Zhao's will, carry on with my share of the honor. I can fight no longer, but I can still lend you this."
As his voice faded, the ground behind Ice Blade split open, revealing a golden crystal resting atop a formation.
The energy from the ore smelted in the furnace was being channeled here. The formation absorbed it and infused it into the golden crystal.
Even without touching it, Qi Sheng could clearly sense the surging, pure energy within the crystal.
[Ice Blade, you...!]
For the first time, Guidance—who had always spoken of Ice Blade with a teasing air—was stunned.
Qi Sheng finally understood what Ice Blade had meant by waiting for the future.
Ice Blade had believed that one of the Four Attendant Servants would inherit Di Zhao's will and become the next Di Zhao. So he had prepared a gift for them that had waited centuries to be claimed.
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