World Boss?

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

Coordinates: Storm Abyss — "Dawn" Fortress.

After a week of frenzied construction and grinding, the place had undergone earth-shaking changes.

The temporary stronghold, which had originally consisted of only a few crumbling walls, had now expanded into a fairly sizable "City of Bones." The walls had been raised to five meters, the outer perimeter was covered in bone-spike traps, and the interior had even been divided into a "trading district" and a "Resurrection Plaza."

The players' average level had risen to LV.7, while the hardcore grinders in the first tier had even reached the threshold of LV.9, just one step away from changing classes.

But the appeal of Titan: Genesis was not limited to killing monsters and leveling up.

In the fortress tavern—actually just an open space surrounded by several large rocks—a group of players carrying expensive [Image Recording Crystals] instead of weapons were excitedly chatting.

They were the game's casual players, or as they were called, "war correspondents."

"Guys, yesterday I flew upstream along the 'Crimson Star Path' for two hours!"

A player named "Star River Wanderer" was showing off his holographic footage. "Guess what I saw? At the source of that red star river, there was a pulsating core—valves as huge as a planet! That sense of overwhelming scale was insane. Any screenshot could be used as wallpaper!"

"Tch, so what?"

Another player named "Ancient Relic Excavator" said disdainfully, "Yesterday, I dug up a fossil covered in strange patterns inside an underground fissure of Storm Abyss! The system said it was a 'Relic of the Ancient War'—remains of immune cells. This game definitely has bottomless lore behind it!"

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

That made even more people certain that the game world possessed a complete history and ecosystem.

Storm Abyss — 30 kilometers deep.

While the casual players were sightseeing, the elite squad led by "Vanguard Across the Realm" was undertaking a despair-inducing expedition.

"The wind is getting stronger."

Cloud Pomelo gripped the rock beside her tightly. The gale howled here, and visibility was less than ten meters.

Vanguard Across the Realm had already reached LV.9 (80%). He was the player most likely to become the first in the entire server to change classes. To find higher-level monsters and resources, he had decided to venture deeper into this uncharted region.

"Based on the clues provided by 'Star River Wanderer,' there should be a massive high-temperature reaction source nearby."

Vanguard Across the Realm looked at the red marker on the map. "As long as we take it down, we can establish Outpost No. 10."

"Brother Feng, the ground's shaking."

Brute Force Yields Miracles (LV.8) suddenly stopped walking, his expression grave.

This tremor was different from the previous ones. It was accompanied by a deep rumble, like rolling thunder.

Rumble—!

The dark green fog ahead was suddenly torn apart by a terrifying wave of heat.

"What is that..."

Brute Force Yields Miracles raised his head, and the shield in his hand clattered to the ground.

At the edge of their vision, a terrifying figure a hundred meters tall slowly rose.

Its entire body was made of burning, charred rock, with golden lava flowing through its interior. It had no facial features, only a blazing abyssal maw. With every breath, the surrounding air ignited and turned into a rain of fire.

From Titan's macroscopic perspective, it was merely a relatively active and insignificant "inflammatory spark."

But in the eyes of players who were only LV.9, it was mythology descending upon the world.

[Warning! You have encountered an extremely dangerous lifeform!]

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

[Level: LV.???]

[Description: The embodied calamity of Storm Abyss, the Ember of Destruction that mortals must not behold.]

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

The Spirit Pivot Envoy, "Thunder King," screamed in terror, his voice cracking. "Its toe is taller than I am! That's clearly a world boss!"

"Run!!"

Vanguard Across the Realm roared without hesitation.

This was not something players at their current stage could fight. The high-temperature radiation emitted by its body alone had already begun draining everyone's health bars at a frantic rate.

[System Warning: You are suffering high-energy thermal radiation. Lose 10% HP per second!]

"Dead in ten seconds? How are we supposed to play this?"

Cloud Pomelo had just been about to cast a heal on herself when the flaming giant merely took a single step.

A visible shockwave swept toward them.

"Move!"

Vanguard Across the Realm shoved Cloud Pomelo hard, pushing her into a crevice in the nearby rock.

But he himself was one step too slow.

The heat wave swept over him. Vanguard Across the Realm felt as though he had been thrown into a steel furnace. The health bar in his vision instantly evaporated.

[You have died.]

Brute Force Yields Miracles was next.

The number one Divine Guard on the entire server tried to raise his shield to block the splashing sparks.

"Even if I can't beat it, I'm gonna test your damage!"

He activated [Savage Collision], charging toward the elephant-like foot like a brave ant.

There was no suspense. He was vaporized.

In just three seconds.

The strongest elite squad in the entire server was wiped out. Only Cloud Pomelo, hiding in the crevice, had barely survived with a sliver of health remaining.

Blue Star, the real world.

Magic City, Cloud Apartment.

"Phew—!"

Chen Feng abruptly sat up in the life-support pod, gasping for air. His entire body was already drenched in cold sweat.

The pain of being burned alive still seemed to linger in his nerves.

"Too strong..."

Chen Feng looked at his hands, which were still trembling slightly. "That size, that sense of oppression... our current strength is nothing but a joke in front of it."

He felt a deep sense of helplessness. Yet at the same time, an unprecedented desire to conquer rose wildly within him. It was the shared urge every gamer felt when facing a challenge.

"One day, I'll stomp that big guy beneath my feet."

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

Having just experienced the intense shock of death, he was somewhat dazed. His elbow accidentally bumped the glass at the edge of the table.

Clack.

The glass slipped off the table and fell toward the floor.

Chen Feng's pupils suddenly contracted.

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

Without any conscious thought.

His right hand shot out instinctively. With a flick of his wrist, two fingers precisely caught the rim of the glass in midair.

The motion was smooth and effortless, swift as lightning.

"..."

Chen Feng froze.

He remained bent over with the glass in hand, staring fixedly at his right hand.

This was a hand afflicted with "Synaptic Reaction Delay Syndrome."

The doctors had said that his neural reaction speed would only grow slower, his hand would shake more severely, and that he might not even be able to hold chopsticks steadily, let alone catch a flying glass.

But in that instant, that long-lost feeling of control from his peak days had truly returned.

"?"

Chen Feng set down the glass, his brows tightly furrowed.

"Maybe it was just a stress response caused by an adrenaline spike?"

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

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

He usually used them for rehabilitation training. Over the past six months, even stacking them to the fifth level had been difficult for him because his fingers would tremble uncontrollably.

The first block, steady.

The second block, steady.

The tenth block, steady.

When the fifteenth block was placed firmly atop the tower, Chen Feng's hand suddenly stopped.

Not because he could not hold it steady, but because he realized that his palm was drenched in cold sweat.

"It's not shaking..."

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

Although it had lasted only a few minutes, that sense of control was rapidly fading, and the familiar tremors were beginning to return to his fingers, those few minutes of steadiness had been real.

"This game..."

Chen Feng abruptly turned toward the life-support pod, his expression becoming extremely complicated.

"They say brain-computer interfaces can stimulate nerve endings and produce physical therapy effects? But..."

He quickly opened Titan's official forum, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he searched for keywords: "physical changes," "offline reactions."

In an inconspicuous corner, he found a post titled <I'm Not Sure If It's a Hallucination, but This Game's Sleep Function Seems to Cure Insomnia>.

Poster: Brute Force Yields Miracles.

Content: "Guys, I work construction and have suffered from chronic lumbar strain for years. But I've been grinding the game these past few days, and every time I log off, my lower back feels warm. Today, it actually stopped hurting! I just tried carrying a sack of rice, and I didn't throw out my back! Does this game have some kind of bioelectric massage feature?"

Most of the replies below were mocking him:

"You're overthinking it, OP. That's just a psychological effect."

"Or maybe you've been exercising so much in the game that your body's numb from fatigue in real life."

Chen Feng stared at the post without replying.

He quietly closed the webpage and looked at the stacking blocks again.

"If that's real..."

Chen Feng clenched his fist, his nails digging deeply into his palm.

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

High-Dimensional Perspective, Titan Divine Body.

Gu Yuan did not care about Chen Feng's psychological struggle on Blue Star.

He had just glanced at the battle in the depths of Storm Abyss. Calling it the depths was an exaggeration—it did not even count as a tiny portion of the smallest bronchus. After all, at Titan's scale, even the smallest bronchi were tens of millions of kilometers long.

The hundred-meter-tall Ember of Destruction in the players' eyes was, in Gu Yuan's view, merely an insignificant spark among countless necrotic lesions in the lungs.

Like a match lit in a dark universe.

"Just this level of inflammation wiped out the current players?"

Gu Yuan looked at the life signals of Vanguard Across the Realm's squad instantly dropping to zero in the backend data and shook his head slightly.

"Too weak."

"Compared to my body, which spans several light-years, they don't even count as bacteria. At best, they're a group of relatively active viruses."

However, Gu Yuan also noticed the soaring Bio-Energy feedback after the players died. The top players had not been slacking off these past few days either.

"Very good."

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

As for feedback to reality, he did not intend to directly tell the players that playing the game could cure illnesses or improve physical fitness.

It would be far more effective if they discovered it themselves amid doubt and uncertainty, verified it themselves, and went mad over it themselves.

"Since that spark has dealt you such a blow, I'll give you a little hope of becoming stronger."

Gu Yuan tapped his finger lightly and added a new line of text to the locked section of the [Gene Shop], setting an extremely high unlock threshold.

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

[Unlock Condition: The first player in the entire server to change classes is born.]

[Effect: ??? (A gift from the gods. Perhaps it can break the shackles of mortals.)]

After finishing all this, Gu Yuan closed his eyes and began using 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."