Inside the church.
Lin En looked at Ma Lou sprawled on the floor and let out a long sigh of relief, wiping nonexistent cold sweat from his forehead while he was at it.
"Good thing I kept him alive. That saved me another 10 faith points!"
Still, since Ma Lou hadn't died, Lin En decided to go with the flow and turn this thrilling "narrow escape" into motivation for the players to keep exploring.
He immediately brought up the system console and sent a special notification exclusively to Ma Lou, who was grinning foolishly on the floor.
Ding!
A system scroll glowing with a faint, dark-blue light immediately appeared in Ma Lou's field of vision:
[Explorer achievement unlocked (hidden)!] [You survived being hunted by a Lantern Night Terror in the darkness!] [Achievement title obtained: Night Survivor.] [Core game mechanics information unlocked:] [The world of "Awakening of the Old Gods" contains numerous spectral horrors immune to physical damage.] [Work hard to raise your level, complete quests, increase your territory's prosperity, and unlock more Ash Apostles skills to counter monsters with special attributes.] [Friendly reminder: Your mind has suffered severe contamination. Please log out and rest immediately. The system will perform a thorough restoration of your soul.]
After reading the pop-up, Ma Lou froze for a moment, then sprang up from the floor!
"Holy shit!! A hidden achievement!"
"And information about the gameplay! So this class comes with combat skills too!"
Ma Lou was so excited that both his hands trembled.
This was exclusive, firsthand, top-secret information that nobody else on the server had!
"Hahaha! I knew I was the chosen one!"
Laughing wildly, Ma Lou brought up the system panel and eagerly clicked [Log out].
He had to get offline immediately and show off big-time in their "Closed-Door Strategy Room for First-Test Veterans"!
Whoosh!
White light flashed, and Ma Lou instantly turned to ash and vanished.
As Ma Lou disappeared, the blue barrier of light that had expanded outward slowly receded like the tide.
It shrank back to its original size, just large enough to enclose the entire dilapidated church and the small wooden cabin nestled against its outer wall.
Inside the cabin, Sister Sivir slept soundly, clutching a coarse linen blanket.
She knew nothing of the life-or-death escape outside the barrier moments earlier. A faint smile still lingered on her lips as she slept, as though she were dreaming of the glorious sight of her god's revival.
But Lin En, seated on the altar, was in no hurry to sleep.
"Phew... Tonight's little maneuver saved me the resurrection fee, but it also served as a wake-up call."
Lin En gazed at the empty church, quietly weighing things up.
The five players were certainly full of enthusiasm. They weren't afraid to die, and they dared to fight monsters head-on.
But at the end of the day, they were still only "Zero Tier." They didn't even qualify as "Ash Apostles."
So, in the players' eyes, "Awakening of the Old Gods" currently felt more like a hardcore wilderness survival game with a bit of pain, where they fought monsters using nothing but the laws of physics and handmade tools.
Against a physically immune creature like tonight's Lantern Night Terror, the players had no way to fight back. They could only flee in terror or wait to die.
"Only once they've gradually earned experience from killing monsters and raised their levels will they be able to draw on more ashen divine power and unlock all kinds of skills."
"Then they'll finally get to experience the supernatural power of being a god's followers."
Yet Lin En's brows furrowed slightly.
Even if "Ash Apostles" could learn skills as they leveled up, the class was fundamentally closer to an "elemental mage" in a traditional online game.
What was the biggest draw of an online game?
A diverse mix of classes!
Without the warrior-mage-healer setup, without assassins or archers, relying entirely on a bunch of Ash Apostles to blast monsters would leave them helpless against special mechanics.
After searching through the original god's surviving memories, Lin En had actually come up with an incredibly bold, utterly crazy idea for unlocking new classes for the players.
In this world, a god's authority wasn't set in stone!
Divine Cores could be devoured and merged!
Lin En was currently the Lord of Ashes. If he could find another obscure, dying god...
For example, if there were a dying god called the "Lord of the Forest," and Lin En devoured his remaining Divine Core before he faded away completely...
Then Lin En would evolve into the Lord of the Forest and Lord of Ashes!
As long as Lin En gained more authority, the players who worshipped him would gain a new [Forest Apostle] option in the class advancement system.
That would give them the ability to control plants, heal, or use nature magic!
If he devoured a god who governed metal, the players could even advance into indestructible, heavily armored knights who served as tanks!
"As long as I devour enough Divine Cores, the class system for this bunch of Fourth Catastrophes will keep getting bigger and more complete."
Ambition gleamed in Lin En's eyes.
But that gleam soon faded.
Lin En glanced at the pitiful balance of faith points in his system backend and gave a helpless, bitter chuckle.
"Forget devouring anyone else. At this point, I'd be lucky not to get devoured by another god!"
"For now, I'll just have these players behave themselves, farm monsters, and earn me Resurrection Coins."
The day's twists and turns, along with forcibly activating the barrier, had left Lin En deeply exhausted.
Lin En slowly closed his eyes.
The deep-blue divine light within the stone statue gradually went out, and the ancient church sank once more into absolute darkness and silence.
Even gods needed to sleep.
Blue Star, two thirty in the morning.
In the men's dormitory, Lu Ziye lay sprawled across his bed, snoring loud enough to shake the walls.
In his dream, he held a Gatling gun spitting blue flames and riddled the Big Bug that had one-shot him earlier that day with bullets.
Just as he was about to pull the trigger and deliver the killing blow, the phone beside his pillow suddenly began vibrating like crazy.
"Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz! Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz!"
Then the custom notification tone for his starred contacts rang more than a dozen times in a row, like a summons to his doom.
"Who the hell is it at this hour?!"
Lu Ziye's eyes snapped open. With dark circles under his eyes and a bellyful of irritation at being woken up, he grabbed his phone.
He unlocked it and saw that the Green Bubble Group named "Closed-Door Strategy Room for First-Test Veterans" had completely blown up.
Every message came from [Even Monkeys Have Dignity].
Not only had he sent five or six stickers of a gorilla furiously beating its chest, but he had also dropped a screenshot exported directly through the gaming device's "consciousness capture" feature.
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]:
"@Everyone! Fuck sleeping, get up and party! Boys, look what I got!!"
"The server's first hidden achievement! How do you like that?!"
The group had been dead silent, but the moment those messages appeared, everyone who had just fallen asleep was jolted awake and dragged into the chat.
Before you continue