Foot Care

"Fire on me—!!!"

Along with Vanguard Across the Realm's furious roar that shook the entire battlefield, every Spirit Pivot Envoy stopped hesitating and unleashed everything!

Thunder filled the sky, weaving into an impenetrable net that poured down upon that tiny patch of air like heavenly punishment.

Boom—!!!

The dazzling energy storm swallowed everything. In the final instant before he was consumed, Vanguard Across the Realm grinned savagely and drove [Origin Fang] deep into the Plague Priest's energy core!

[System Prompt: You have died]

[Server Announcement: Lord "Plague Priest" has been slain!]

As the priest's shriveled body exploded into dust amid the thunder, the green chains of light that were about to reconnect instantly collapsed.

"Woohoo! The Symbiotic Link buff is gone! Charge, charge, charge!"

Everyone's spirits surged, and morale soared! They all turned their attention toward the two remaining behemoths—the Meat Mountain and the Hydra.

The battle was far from over.

"Roar—!!!"

"Hiss—!!!"

Having lost the protection of Symbiotic Link, the two remaining giant beasts no longer shared health or enjoyed triple regeneration, but they had completely gone berserk.

[Gluttonous Meat Mountain]'s eyes turned blood-red. The rotten flesh all over its body began to tremble violently, and its originally gray-white skin took on a dark red glow like heated iron; [Venomous Touch Hydra]'s nine heads hissed madly, and its once rhythmic venom spray turned into indiscriminate barrages. The entire plaza instantly became an ocean of poison.

"The healer's dead! The link's broken!"

Dragon Fighting in the Wild crawled out of the ruins and wiped the blood from his face. Looking at Meat Mountain's still despairingly long health bar, he gritted his teeth. "This thing's normal regen is already ridiculous! And its defense is insanely high too!"

What were they supposed to do when facing a boss like this?

As outstanding youths of the new era and gaming veterans who had played since childhood, everyone knew there was only one option now—

Chip away at it! Trim its feet!

To prevent the two bosses from combining their attacks, a large number of Divine Guards stepped forward and drew aggro in different directions. The battlefield was quickly split in two. Dragon War handled one side, Imperial Dynasty the other, while Dawn Guild scattered to provide support everywhere.

Detoxification Camp Respawn Point.

A flash of white light.

Vanguard Across the Realm emerged from the Resurrection Altar. His weapon, [Origin Fang], was bound to his soul and had not dropped, but the durability of his fine armor had completely hit zero and shattered.

"That lightning really hurt." Vanguard Across the Realm rubbed his chest, still feeling a little tightness at the memory of that pain. Even with pain sensitivity turned to the minimum, being struck by lightning was no pleasant experience. Still, he did not pause for even a moment before sprinting back toward the battlefield.

By the time he ran back to H-124, panting heavily, what he saw was not the dawn of victory, but an even more brutal war of attrition.

The two bosses were still standing, their health bars reduced by less than ten percent!

The left battlefield was fighting [Gluttonous Meat Mountain].

This maddened beast was like an out-of-control biological steamroller. It swung its enormous Meat Cleaver, and every sweep severed players at the waist within a fan-shaped area, turning them into white light. Even [Steel Bastion] could not withstand many hits under the level suppression.

"Can't hold it! We seriously can't hold it!"

Brute Force Yields Miracles was kicked over ten meters away with his Tower Shield raised, but he immediately rolled to his feet and roared in the channel, "Don't take it head-on! Lead it back! Use the terrain to trap it! Don't let it get close to the backline!"

"How do we lead it? Whoever goes up dies!"

"Then die! What the hell are you scared of?!"

Dragon Fighting in the Wild hardened his resolve, stripped off his heavy plate armor, grabbed only a Two-Handed Greatsword, and charged forward bare-chested.

"All Divine Guards, take off your armor! We need speed! Lead it into the Collapsed Corridor in Zone B! Don't stop taunting!"

Several hundred warrior players really did remove their armor and dart around beneath Meat Mountain's feet like a swarm of irritating flies.

"You pusbag freak! Look over here!"

"Come chase your grandpa! You tumor-covered fat pig!"

Meat Mountain was enraged by the flea-like players. Roaring, it wriggled its massive body after the player with the highest aggro and thundered toward the edge of the plaza. Every step shook the ground.

"Flesh Artisans! Build walls!"

Dozens of advanced Life Weaver classes—[Flesh Artisans]—who had long been lying in wait above the ruins cast their spells simultaneously.

Countless Bone Walls and Flesh Walls rose from the ground. They could not hard-control this thick-skinned monster, but they successfully interfered with its movements.

"Rumble!"

Meat Mountain's enormous body stepped into empty air and sank into ruins filled with all manner of filth, temporarily unable to move.

"It's stuck! Brothers! The foot-care specialists are online!"

Hundreds of melee players swarmed forward.

Due to level suppression, most Divine Guards could only force "-1" and "-2" damage numbers from their attacks against Meat Mountain. Fortunately, quite a few skilled Hunters had survived and could deal significantly higher damage.

But that was fine. The players here had broken equipment and scattered formations, but the one thing they did not lack was numbers!

Take turns! Beat the hell out of it!

Dense masses of players crawled all over Meat Mountain's body like army ants.

Some frantically hacked at the tendons in its ankles, some climbed onto its back and plunged longswords into its pus-filled lumps, while others focused their attacks on its eyes.

Meat Mountain struggled madly. Every twist of its body crushed several players clinging to it. The white light at the Respawn Point almost formed a continuous line.

"Hold on, brothers! Wait for me to revive!"

"Ura!"

"Don't let it get out! Block the path even if we have to use our corpses!"

"What are you doing? Don't die on my face! Damn it, die farther away! Use your corpses to block the boss! Ow, pus sprayed all over my face! Get away, get away!"

The Flesh Artisans were delighted, because using ready-made corpses as materials to alter the terrain consumed relatively little mana. They could even knead flesh into grenades on the spot.

This was a brutal execution by a thousand cuts, and also a contest of will.

The main force on the right battlefield was Imperial Dynasty Guild, whose style was completely different as they fought [Venomous Touch Hydra].

The battle here tested execution even more.

The Hydra was a fixed turret. Though it could not move, its venom spray covering the entire field was a nightmare. The ground was covered in deadly poison, and anyone standing on it lost health furiously every second.

"Spread out! Everyone spread out! Keep at least five meters between positions!"

Data Maniac stood on high ground in the safe zone. At that moment, he was the brain of the entire battlefield. [Cerebral Overclocking] was running at full power, making his brain resemble a precision computer as he predicted where each of the Hydra's heads would attack. Tian Ce assisted at his side.

"The three heads on the left are charging up. They're expected to cover Zone B! Everyone in Zone B, roll right!"

"The central main head has run out of venom. There's a few-second window! Hunter squads, get up there and sever its Poison Sacs!"

Imperial Dynasty Guild's tactics were extremely underhanded and precise.

Several hundred [Thunder Lords] and [Mind Hackers] did not seek damage. They only sought to inflict that instant of stiffness.

"Ready—fire!"

Whenever one of the Hydra's heads opened its mouth to spray venom, dozens of lightning strikes mixed with psychic interference immediately slammed into its eyelids, forcibly choking the skill back down. With this strategy, they could interrupt five out of every ten shots!

Meanwhile, countless [Ghost Blade] players activated stealth on the ground and risked their lives rushing into the poison zone, frantically attacking the Hydra's body.

Their health plummeted in the poison mist, while the staffs of the Life Sages behind them nearly smoked as they desperately healed them.

"Can't heal through this! Retreat!"

"No retreat! I can still get three more hits in! One, two... Damn, bro, I was wrong! Stop hitting, stop hitting! Aah—"

The battle lasted a full three hours.

Layer after layer of player corpses covered the plaza of H-124 Fortress, only to be trampled beneath the feet of players rushing back after revival.

Equipment durability empty? Pick up someone else's weapon from the piles of corpses and keep fighting!

Mana empty? Cloud Pomelo took the lead in calling on the healers to grab their staffs and start whacking!

This was the most terrifying aspect of the Fourth Calamity—tireless, fearless of death, and endless.

Finally.

"Roar..."

With an unwilling cry, the Meat Mountain that had endured attacks from hundreds of thousands of players collapsed with a crash. Its legs had literally been foot-trimmed until they broke, and not a single inch of intact skin remained on its body. By the end, even its passive regeneration had weakened; every last one of its hematopoietic stem cells had burned out.

"Bang!"

Its enormous body slammed into the ground, kicking up clouds of dust.

Immediately afterward, the Hydra's final head was blasted apart as well.

[Server Announcement: Congratulations to the player coalition for successfully conquering the H-124 Hub!]

[This is a great victory! The first major gateway to the Liver Region has opened to you!]

"We won!!!"

"Holy shit! We finally wore them down! My hands are sore!"

"Damn, I died eight times and lost all my money, but this was totally worth it! My experience bar's shooting up!"

Cheers instantly flooded the battlefield. Countless players collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath, their faces nevertheless glowing with the joy of harvest.

Where the bosses had vanished stood an enormous crystalline core half the height of a person, radiating blinding green light.

Vanguard Across the Realm stepped forward and looked at the core.

[Item: H-124 Flesh Core]

[Description: The fortress's power source, containing high-purity Bio-Energy accumulated in the H-124 region over a long period.]

[Contained Energy: 10,000,000 Bio-Energy]

"Ten million Bio-Energy..."

Dragon Fighting in the Wild stepped closer, eyeing the core greedily. "If we took this thing for ourselves, we'd get rich, right? It'd be enough to repair everyone's equipment in my guild once."

Tian Ce also walked over. Though he said nothing, a trace of desire showed in his gaze as well. At this resource-starved early stage, so much Bio-Energy was a fortune.

Vanguard Across the Realm placed his hand on the core and felt the vast energy within it.

He raised his head and looked around.

Dawn's people, Dragon War's people, Imperial Dynasty's people, and countless independent players. Everyone was covered in blood, their equipment in tatters. They looked utterly miserable.

"We can't divide this." His voice was calm, yet it reached everyone's ears through the regional channel.

"Everyone contributed a lot. This thing's too valuable to give to any one group, so my suggestion is to recycle it and split the Bio-Energy among everyone."

The core was not a crafting material, nor could it be forged into equipment. The best option was to break it down into Bio-Energy and divide the money. Though everyone felt some regret, they still agreed.

Without hesitation, Vanguard Across the Realm opened the server-wide quest panel—[Titan Armory].

The current Bio-Energy progress bar was stuck just above twenty percent. That was the result of players across the server grinding monsters like mad over the past few days, combined with the accumulated drops from countless minor monsters during the H-124 siege.

There was still quite a long way to go before one billion.

"Although we're still far from completing the quest, this core represents that we've taken H-124."

Chen Feng firmly pressed the [Recycle] button.

[System Prompt: Player "Vanguard Across the Realm" has submitted "H-124 Flesh Core"!]

[Server Progress Update: Increased by 1%]

It increased by one percent. The progress bar visibly jumped.

But the nearby players were somewhat disappointed.

"Huh? That's all it went up?"

"This is way too hard. How many bosses do we have to kill to gather one billion?"

But just then, the roar of machinery operating came from inside the fortress.

[H-124 Joint Camp has been established.]

[Regional Announcement: With the infusion of Core Energy, H-124 Fortress's "Bile Salt Refinery" has been activated!]

[This facility has been occupied by players! Functions unlocked!]

[From now on, all players may accept "refinement quests" here to refine gathered and recycled ordinary Gallstones into High-Energy Crystals! Worth massive amounts of Bio-Energy!]

Everyone's faces lit up with joy. This was H-124's true value. Not a one-time reward, but a machine capable of producing Bio-Energy without end!

[System Announcement: It has been detected that the fortress was conquered jointly by numerous guilds. Camp revenue shares will be distributed according to contribution. Total allocated share: 20%. Organization shares are as follows:]

[1. Dawn Guild: 6.41%]

[2. Dragon War Guild: 6.33%] (stacked through sheer numbers)

[3. Imperial Dynasty Guild: 5.23%]

[Other small guilds]

[Purchasing eligibility for Titan Blood (Diluted Version) ×5000 has been distributed according to individual contribution.]