Interlude I

At first, it sounded surprising, but on second thought, it did not seem all that unexpected.

Since the Main God's intention to vigorously promote "going easy" was already so obvious, a minor "default" ruling hardly seemed worth fussing over.

If nothing else, just looking at the groups of figures "returning" in the light before them—so many that they vanished from sight at a glance—was enough to show the difference.

The boundless azure platform stretched in every direction, clearly extending all the way into the seemingly empty horizon.

At this very moment, countless bursts of white light were erupting across that vast blue expanse like rain falling upon a great lake, sending ripples spreading wildly outward.

Before one cluster had faded, another burst open fiercely. Halos rose and fell one after another, accompanied by cries of alarm from the crowd, stretching beyond the limits of human sight...

Standing amid the dense mass of people, even Li Qingzhi had no time to care about his earlier questions. He could only stare dumbfoundedly at the distant white lights, still flashing and surging in waves.

The situation—or rather, the "scale"—far exceeded what any normal person could have imagined.

They said that once a crowd exceeded ten thousand, it became boundless. Yet the people continuously arriving at the Main God Platform now numbered far more than merely ten or twenty thousand.

Just the densely packed heads nearby, rolling like waves along with the flickering light among them, were enough to make one dizzy.

Of course, those striking beams were not solely the light of the Main God's transmissions. Mixed among them were also the "white lights" that descended upon Main God users upon their return, restoring their various conditions.

But after the previous Main God mission, how many Visitors had successfully become Main God users? And how many people were already standing on the platform now?

No one could say for sure. Yet simply from the vast area the crowd occupied, and the visibly increasing density of people standing and moving about, one could directly sense the enormous difference.

Viewed from above, the surging crowd would have looked like countless small "black spots" forming across the azure ground as the lights rose and fell.

Even without such an aerial view, the longer Old Li looked, the deeper his frown became. In the end, he could not help spitting in disgust.

When he had seen those newcomers in the mission world who were clearly of different nationalities and skin colors from himself, he had already made a few guesses and mentally prepared himself.

But now that he truly saw this bustling, chaotic scene before him, Li Qingzhi still could not suppress the sense of trouble rising in his heart.

As far as the eye could see, there were black, white, yellow, and mixed-skinned people; faces painted with patterns; people wearing robes made from strips of ragged cloth; people holding living wooden sticks still covered in green bark; people draped in bloodstained pajamas; people wearing cleats that obviously did not fit...

He even spotted an African woman in the crowd, struggling to catch her breath. She held a serrated short blade in reverse grip. Her dark skin was set off by a rather primitive leather skirt that had at least been tanned and smoke-cured. Her hair, which reached past her ears, had been carefully braided into countless tiny plaits decorated with shells and pearls.

Most of those "ornaments" were clearly of poor quality, their colors dull. Some of her hair had already come loose, and blood stained her scalp and cheeks...

Yet she was obviously not a resident of modern civilized society, at least not in the conventional sense.

And the scope of this Main God Game could no longer possibly be limited to just the country, as it had been in the previous round.

Especially judging by appearances alone—the wildly varying styles of clothing, manners, and speech, as well as the mismatched lip movements clearly caused by the Main God's translation effect...

These complicated figures who had just escaped from their mission worlds truly came in every conceivable form, each bearing a different demeanor.

For instance, Li Qingzhi saw a newcomer nearby whose original appearance and skin color had nearly been obscured by soot, yet he still clearly maintained the tense, tightly wound posture of someone in combat.

Most of his clothing was torn, and a long strip that was obviously an ammunition belt hung at the waist of his white shirt, now blackened gray by ash. There were also two or three crude grenades that could definitely be called "heavy weapons."

Even his eyes carried a numb stiffness mixed with an unusual sharpness, as if he might pounce at any moment.

He had clearly spent too long under extreme pressure.

The instant that man emerged from the white transmission light, everyone around him—including the few who had appeared alongside him—instinctively backed away, leaving an open circle around him.

A visibly obvious "dangerous individual."

Meanwhile, a man with a little goat beard and exotic-looking clothes—though most of them had been torn into rags—sat limply on the ground nearby, looking around in confusion. He did not even react when he saw the conspicuous wooden-handled grenades, as though he had yet to recover his senses.

When he finally became a little more lucid, his hair had already been chewed away in a huge patch as though by a dog, while his loosened headscarf drooped lifelessly behind him. Yet his eyes still retained traces of lingering terror—or perhaps wild delight.

Naturally, such cases were relatively rare.

More often, those who emerged collapsed straight to the ground, gasping violently, sweat soaking their entire bodies. Others shouted madly around them in a state halfway between excitement and delirium, as though they had just been hauled out of the water.

Under the present circumstances, these were merely one face among countless lives, insignificant details. But the crucial point was that there was no need to count: the number of "yellow-skinned" people in this vast crowd clearly no longer held an overwhelming majority.

That obvious result undoubtedly left some people in the crowd deeply disappointed.

Others, however, did not care about that at all.

Looking at the faint white glow around his body, identical to that around everyone else, Li Yun saw how it seemed like an invisible "boundary," blocking all unauthorized outside interference.

Li Yun nodded slightly.

The distance should be... around thirty centimeters.

He casually reached one hand toward the person beside him. When the distance between his palm and the other person's shoulder narrowed to roughly thirty centimeters, an instinctive resistance arose, stopping his arm precisely there.

When he applied more force, the resistance increased accordingly.

Very good. It seemed the Main God handled the rules prohibiting combat and malicious interference with others on the platform with considerable flexibility and precision.

After confirming that, amid the torrent-like, bustling crowd, this seemingly insignificant layer divided out a small "personal space" and prevented anyone from directly interfering with others out of malice...

...some people were indeed satisfied, while others were utterly overwhelmed.

"...Wenshu, come over here too! Hurry... Later, follow Old Xin in that direction and recruit people! Do whatever he does!"

Still remembering the "recruit talent" task on his shoulders, Wang Cheng was shouting himself hoarse. His expression made him look like a savage dog ready to tear into someone.

"Remember! Don't waste too much time on individuals! Ask Asians first!"

"Especially those whose accents and lip movements confirm they're from our country! It'd be even better if you can recruit them to help! Get as many as you can!"

"Go! Make every second count!"

This young man, who had only been a low-level civil servant in reality a few days ago, had never felt so desperately short of manpower as he did now!

He had just hurriedly explained the requirements to the two or three "temporary coworkers" beside him, but the white lights showed no sign of stopping. Meanwhile, the platform's "population density" continued becoming more and more astonishing!

At this point, throwing a brick at random would probably hit several Visitors or users. Wang Cheng could see it, and it was driving him crazy!

Normally, only a scattered few dozen or hundred domestic users logged in randomly every hour of every day, and they had to shamelessly approach them, build rapport, and try every possible way to recruit them. When had they ever had an opportunity this good?

Even if a huge number of those newcomers clearly were not even from Asia, they were still people, weren't they?

Unable to care about anything else, and with the faint glow around him creating a perfectly spaced thirty-centimeter gap, he gritted his teeth and forcibly "squeezed" his way through the crowd!

"Old Pei! Old Pei! Look over here!"

"Old Pei! Stop staring around! I'm over here! Do we have any spare hands left?"

Only after getting considerably closer amid the deafening chaos did he finally shout at another middle-aged man with all his strength.

"It doesn't matter if they're bad with words! Send them over for me to use first! Hurry! We're running out of time!"

"No! Not a single one left!"

After finally noticing him in the crowd, the middle-aged man called Old Pei roared back in an even more thunderous voice than Wang Cheng. "I even sent out the person Little Xie recruited earlier! I haven't seen anyone else yet!"

"Our return locations didn't completely match where we entered the mission world. Maybe we got separated in the crowd?! Anyway, none of the others are in sight yet!"

"I asked through the numbered communications! But with so many people on this platform, they can't tell where they are either!"

"We're not like those tiny teams with only a few people. There are too many of us, so we've all been scattered!"

With communication relying entirely on shouting, the two users, who had just undergone another round of "Main God restoration" and returned to peak condition, held an obvious advantage over the majority-Visitor crowd around them!

"...Forget about them for now. Hurry and keep gathering information about the situation! And try to recruit some more people nearby while you're at it!"

"Got it... Oh, I asked a female Visitor over there wearing a long leather coat and got some information out of her. She said she came from Liezhidundeng!"

"What?"

"Liezhidundeng! A small European country! The kind with no real reputation!"

"Damn, this is getting more and more complicated... Fine! I got it! Remember to add that information to the report after you 'log off.' Don't forget..."