World Boss?

Blue Star time, the seventh day after the second beta test began.

Coordinates: Storm Abyss - "Dawn" Fortress.

After a week of frantic infrastructure building and leveling, the aesthetic of this place has undergone a world-shaking transformation.

The temporary stronghold, which originally consisted of only a few broken walls, has now expanded into a sizable "City of Bones." The city walls have been raised to five meters, the perimeter is covered in bone-spike traps, and the interior has even been divided into a "Trading Zone" and a "Resurrection Plaza."

The average level of the players has also risen to LV.7, with the hardcore grinders in the first echelon even touching the threshold of LV.9, just one step away from changing classes.

But the charm of Titan: Genesis is not just about killing monsters to level up.

In the fortress tavern (which is actually just an open space surrounded by a few large rocks), a group of players who aren't carrying weapons, but rather expensive Image Recording Crystals, are excitedly chatting.

They are the casual players of the game, or "war correspondents."

"Brothers, I flew upstream of the Crimson Star Path for two hours yesterday!"

The player with the ID Star River Wanderer is showing off his holographic recording, "Guess what I saw? At the source of that red star river, there is a pumping core (valve) as huge as a planet! The sense of oppression from such a giant object is enough to be used as a wallpaper just by taking a screenshot!"

"Pfft, that's nothing."

Another player with the ID Ancient Relic Excavator says disdainfully, "I dug up a fossil with strange patterns in the underground cracks of the Storm Abyss yesterday! The system prompt says this is a 'Relic of the Ancient War' (Immune Cell Residue). This game definitely has a bottomless background story!"

Although these players are not high-level, the videos they post on the forums, such as Titan Geography Magazine and Abyssal Ancient Civilization Research, are even more popular than the strategy guides.

This has also made more people convinced that the background of this game possesses a complete history and ecology.

Storm Abyss - 30 kilometers deep.

Just as the casual players were sightseeing, the elite squad led by Feng Xing Tian Xia was conducting a desperate expedition.

"The wind speed is getting higher."

Yun Zhong You gripped the rocks beside her; the gale was howling here, and visibility was less than ten meters.

At this moment, Feng Xing Tian Xia has already reached LV.9 (80%). He is the player most likely to be the first to change classes in the entire server. In order to find higher-level monsters and resources, he decided to venture deep into this no-man's-land.

"According to the clues provided by Star River Wanderer, there should be a huge high-heat reaction source nearby."

Feng Xing Tian Xia looked at the red mark on the map, "As long as we take that place, we can establish Outpost No. 10."

"Feng-ge, the ground is shaking."

Dali Chu Qiji (LV.8) suddenly stopped in his tracks, his expression grave.

This tremor was different from the past; it was accompanied by a dull, thunder-like roar.

Boom--!

The dark green mist in front was suddenly torn apart by a terrifying heatwave.

"What is that..."

Dali Chu Qiji looked up, and the shield in his hand clattered to the ground.

In the distance, a terrifying figure a hundred meters tall slowly stood up.

Its entire body was composed of burning charred rock, with golden magma flowing inside. It had no facial features, only a burning abyssal maw. With every breath, the surrounding air was ignited, turning into a sky full of fire rain.

From the macro perspective of a Titan, this was just a relatively active, insignificant "inflammatory spark."

But in the eyes of players who were only LV.9, this was the descent of a myth.

[Warning! Encountered an extremely dangerous creature!]

[Entity Name: Living Flame: Ember (Wandering Elite)]

[Level: LV.???]

[Description: The embodiment of disaster in the Storm Abyss, the Ember of Destruction that mortals cannot look upon directly.]

"Elite monster? The system calls this thing an elite monster?"

The Spirit Pivot Envoy in the team, Thunder King, screamed in terror, his voice cracking, "Its toes are taller than me! This is clearly a world BOSS!"

"Run!!"

Feng Xing Tian Xia didn't hesitate at all and roared.

This was simply not an existence that players at the current stage could fight. The high-temperature radiation emanating from its body alone had already caused everyone's health bars to plummet.

[System Warning: Suffering from high-energy thermal radiation, 10% of HP deducted per second!]

"Ten seconds to death? How is this playable?"

Yun Zhong You was just about to cast a heal on herself when the fire giant took a single step.

Boom!

A visible shockwave swept across.

"Dodge!"

Feng Xing Tian Xia shoved Yun Zhong You hard, pushing her into a rock crevice nearby.

But he himself was a step too slow.

A heatwave swept past, and Feng Xing Tian Xia felt as if he had been thrown into a steel smelting furnace. The health bar on his retina evaporated instantly.

[You have died.]

Next was Dali Chu Qiji.

This number one Divine Guard of the entire server attempted to raise his shield to block the splashing sparks.

"Even if I can't beat you, I'm going to test your damage!"

He activated Savage Collision, charging like a brave ant toward the foot of an elephant.

Bang!

Without any suspense, he was vaporized.

In just three short seconds.

The top elite squad of the entire server, except for Yun Zhong You who was lucky enough to be left with a sliver of health while hiding in a crevice, was completely wiped out.

Blue Star, the real world.

Magic City, Cloud Apartment.

"Hoo—!"

Chen Feng sat up abruptly from the life-support pod, gasping for air, his entire body already soaked in cold sweat.

The pain of being burned by the raging fire seemed to still linger in his nerves.

"Too strong..."

Chen Feng looked at his own hands, which were still trembling slightly. "That scale, that sense of oppression... our current power is simply a joke in front of it."

He felt a deep sense of powerlessness. But at the same time, an unprecedented desire for conquest grew wildly in his heart. This was a common desire for every gamer when encountering a challenge.

"One day, I will trample that big guy under my feet."

Chen Feng climbed out of the pod and habitually reached for the water glass on the table.

Because he had just experienced the intense stimulation of death, his mind was somewhat dazed, and his elbow accidentally knocked the glass on the edge of the table.

Clatter.

The glass slipped and fell toward the floor.

Chen Feng's pupils constricted sharply.

In his field of vision, the falling glass seemed to turn into a monster's attack animation in the game—slow motion.

Without any conscious thought.

His right hand reached out instinctively, his wrist flicked, and two fingers precisely pinched the rim of the glass in mid-air.

The movement was fluid, fast as lightning.

"..."

Chen Feng froze.

He maintained the posture of bending over to catch the glass, staring fixedly at his right hand.

This was a hand suffering from Synaptic Reaction Delay Syndrome.

The doctor had said that his nerve reaction speed would become slower and slower, his hand would shake more and more, and let alone catching a falling glass, even holding chopsticks might become unstable.

But in that instant just now, that long-lost sense of control from his peak period had truly returned.

"?"

Chen Feng put down the glass, his brows locked in a frown.

"Perhaps it was just a stress response caused by a surge of adrenaline?"

He did not believe in miracles. As a professional player, he only believed in data and repeated verification.

Chen Feng took a deep breath and took out a set of Jenga blocks from the drawer.

This was what he usually used for rehabilitation training. In the last half-year, he had found it difficult to even stack to the fifth level because his fingers would tremble involuntarily.

The first block, steady.

The second block, steady.

The tenth block, steady.

When the fifteenth block was placed steadily on the top of the tower, Chen Feng's hand suddenly stopped.

It wasn't because he couldn't hold it steady, but because he discovered his palms were covered in cold sweat.

"It's not shaking anymore..."

Chen Feng looked at his hand, his eyes filled with shock, confusion, and a trace of unbelievable ecstasy.

Although it had only been a few short minutes and that sense of control was rapidly fading, with his fingers beginning to show their familiar slight tremor, the stability he had felt during those few minutes was real.

"This game..."

Chen Feng turned his head abruptly to look at the life-support pod, his eyes becoming extremely complex.

"It's said that brain-computer interfaces can stimulate nerve endings and produce physical therapy effects? But..."

He quickly opened the official forum for Titan, his fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard as he searched for the keywords: "physical changes," "post-logoff reaction."

In an inconspicuous corner, he found a post titled: <I'm not sure if it's an illusion, but the sleep function in this game seems to cure insomnia>.

Poster: Dali Chu Qiji.

Content: "Brothers, I'm a construction worker and have suffered from chronic lumbar muscle strain for years. But after grinding this game for the past few days, every time I log off, my lower back feels warm, and today it actually doesn't hurt! I just tried carrying a bag of rice, and I didn't even throw my back out! Does this game have some kind of bio-electric massage function?"

Most of the replies below were mocking:

"The OP is overthinking it; that's just a placebo effect."

"Or maybe you're getting so much exercise in the game that you've just gone numb from exhaustion in reality."

Chen Feng stared at the post without replying.

He silently closed the webpage and looked back at the Jenga tower.

"If that's true..."

Chen Feng clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms.

"Even if there's only a one in ten thousand chance, I have to try."

From a high-dimensional perspective, within the Titan Divine Body.

Gu Yuan did not care about the psychological struggle Chen Feng was experiencing on Blue Star.

He had just glanced at the battle deep within the Storm Abyss. Calling it "deep" was actually an exaggeration; it didn't even account for a tiny fraction of the smallest bronchial tube. After all, on the scale of a Titan's body, even a minuscule bronchial tube was tens of millions of kilometers long.

The Ember of Destruction, which appeared a hundred meters tall to the players, was merely an insignificant spark among countless necrotic lesions in the lungs from Gu Yuan's perspective.

It was like a single match lit in the dark universe.

"Is this level of inflammation enough to wipe out the current players?"

Gu Yuan looked at the backend data, where the life signals of the Feng Xing Tian Xia squad had instantly dropped to zero, and shook his head slightly.

"Too weak."

"Compared to my body, which spans several light-years, they aren't even bacteria right now; at most, they are a group of rather active viruses."

However, Gu Yuan also noticed the surge in bio-energy feedback after the players died. The top-tier players hadn't been slacking off these past few days.

"Very good."

A curve appeared at the corner of Gu Yuan's mouth.

Regarding the feedback to reality, he had no intention of telling the players directly that "playing the game can cure illnesses" or improve physical fitness.

Letting them discover, verify, and go crazy over it amidst their own uncertainty and doubt would yield the best results.

"Since you've been struck by that spark, I'll give you a glimmer of hope to become stronger."

Gu Yuan tapped his finger, adding a new line of text to an unlocked area of the Gene Shop and setting an extremely high threshold for unlocking it.

[Special Item Preview: Titan Blood (Diluted Version)]

[Unlock Condition: The birth of the first player to complete a class advancement.]

[Effect: ??? (A gift from the gods, perhaps capable of breaking the shackles of mortals.)]

After finishing all this, Gu Yuan closed his eyes and began to use the bio-energy contributed by the players to repair the cracks in his heart valves.

"Grow quickly, warriors."

"That spark is merely the most insignificant speck of dust in this Storm Abyss."