Reborn

Inside the ruined and chaotic guild hall, lonely figures sat upon thrones, watching everything that had once been familiar with a cold and resolute expression.

Before entering the game, Avilan swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills in one breath, hoping to spend his final moments within the game. The real world had left him thoroughly desperate. Once he died and lost his brainwaves, making him unable to log back in, it would be equivalent to character deletion. Because the guild had no successor, it would also automatically disband three days later.

Death might be more relaxing than living.

As Avilan felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier, he muttered to himself.

Is this what death feels like?

Avilan opened his sleepy eyes and looked at the familiar surroundings, assuming this was just the illusion left behind by nostalgic attachments after death. He looked at everything familiar before him and smiled happily.

Could you still hallucinate after dying?

Avilan suddenly thought of something incredible and instinctively looked at his hands. They felt so real. He instinctively smashed the armrest of the throne with his fist.

Thud!

A loud noise echoed through the huge palace, followed immediately by a cry of pain.

"Why does it hurt so much?" Avilan cradled his hand, wincing, but failed to notice that the throne made of rare materials had actually been caved in by the blow.

"Lord Avilan, has something gone wrong?" A deep, magnetic male voice rang out beside his ear.

Although Avilan was startled, he still searched for the source of the voice. When he discovered whose mouth those words had come from, he could not help being shocked into speechlessness.

The one responding was none other than the NPC who had raised his head—Arthur.

In the game Myth, if a guild possessed a territorial city, it could gain several special benefits.

One of those benefits was having NPCs to protect the stronghold.

The NPCs obtainable by Despair Fortress were demons from the Abyssal Demon Realm. These automatically appearing NPCs could reach a maximum level of thirty, and even if they were destroyed, they would automatically revive after a period of time. The guild did not need to pay any cost; they were simply the lowest-tier creatures of this city.

However, these automatically appearing NPCs could not allow players to change their appearance and AI programs according to their own preferences.

Therefore, in the later stages, they basically had no use for defending against invaders.

After all, in the late game, Myth players basically reached level eighty or ninety, and top-tier level-one-hundred players could be seen everywhere.

In addition, there was another option: crafting completely original NPCs from scratch. Of course, the higher the level of the NPC, the higher the cost to create them.

When creating NPCs by oneself, aside from clothing and AI, one could also put effort into their equipment. Back then, these NPCs were equivalent to bosses stationed within the territory. Although they were level one-hundred just like players, they were not something a player could handle in a 1-on-1 fight.

Arthur was a guardian NPC created in the world of Myth, the guild manager, and also the only NPC who survived when Avilan's guild was annihilated. At the time, even though the guild had completely fallen, Gu Tianzhen had no intention of destroying the guild territory of Despair Fortress. He still planned to sell this guild for a good price, which was why he let Arthur, the guardian of the guild foundation, survive.

"Is there a problem, Lord Avilan?"

Arthur continued to ask. Avilan did not know how to answer because incomprehensible things kept emerging endlessly, causing his thoughts to short-circuit.

"Are you really Arthur?"

Avilan could only foolishly stare at Arthur, who had walked up to his side.

"Yes, your most loyal servant, Arthur."

Arthur raised his resolute face, as if making it convenient for Avilan to observe.

This Arthur was from the game Honor of Kings released in the previous life in 2015, similar to a MOBA mobile game. The gameplay in the game was mainly competitive battles, where players engaged in various types of PvP combat. They could also participate in the game's adventure mode and PvE dungeon-clearing mode, and upon meeting the conditions, participate in the game's ranked matches and so on.

Honor of Kings was a craze for a full thirty-plus years, only slowly fading away when Myth appeared.

Arthur was a mana-free hero in Honor of Kings and also one of the rookie heroes in Honor of Kings. Arthur could both attack and defend, belonging to the category of heroes with a high pick rate.

Avilan remembered very clearly that his late friend Zhu Shunquan's favorite character back then was this Arthur. Zhu Shunquan himself was a guardian knight and often had Arthur's classic lines on his lips.

"For the king's image, even sleeping in armor."

Avilan's thought loops slowly returned to normal after recalling Zhu Shunquan.

Avilan attempted to contact the GM and even opened his friend list, but all of this seemed to have vanished completely, and he was simply unable to make contact.

Finally raising his head and looking at Arthur, who was still kneeling on the ground, Avilan could not help questioning the NPC.

"Please forgive me for being unable to answer Lord Avilan's question just now regarding calling the GM. I am sorry for failing to meet your expectations. If I can be granted the opportunity to make up for this mistake, I will feel incomparably joyful. Please be sure to issue your command once again."

The two of them were conversing—there was absolutely no mistake.

Avilan, discovering this fact, was too shocked to speak. This was not an NPC's inherent response pattern, but rather conscious answering based on the question.

"Arthur, do you know where this is?" Avilan asked tentatively.

Arthur glanced around and then said, "This is Despair Fortress, my master."

"I mean the location where Despair Fortress is situated? Do you understand?"

Arthur's eyes flashed with blue light. He stood up abruptly, placed his right hand on his left shoulder, and said respectfully, "I understand, my master. I will go out immediately to scout the surrounding terrain."

Avilan watched Arthur's already receding figure and instinctively uttered a sentence.

"He really is prompt and decisive!"

An NPC could actually speak. This was very unscientific, even though games could use automated processing methods (editing macro commands) to make NPCs speak, because roar data and cheer data were provided for players to download.

It was simply impossible to have such a reasoned and logical dialogue with an NPC like this.

Especially the casual questions Avilan had just asked—none of them had been set up beforehand, let alone events he had ever thought would happen, yet Arthur had made judgments and answers perfectly.

Then why did such an impossible thing happen? Could it be that only Arthur was unique?

Avilan quickly opened the guild city control panel. The interface floated before his eyes. Looking at the data on it, Avilan sighed.

Today, the entire Despair Fortress had been reduced to ruins, and many buildings had been completely destroyed. Before being repaired, they were simply unusable. As for the other servants, they were all in a grey interface, obviously in a state of death.

Avilan tapped casually, and an interface popped up immediately.

"Revive level-fifty guild city East District manager Mitqi?"

He selected yes! But the result gave a reminder that the resurrection funds were insufficient and resurrection props were missing.

This discovery made Avilan's eyes light up abruptly.

Right at this moment, Arthur's voice suddenly rang in Avilan's ear.

"Respected master, Despair Fortress is currently suffering an invasion, and the location where we are is also different from before."

"Invaders?" A solemn expression immediately surfaced on Avilan's face.