Lin En knew the Fourth Catastrophe's ways all too well.
As long as an NPC was pretty enough and had a good enough character concept, players would gladly throw their lives away!
If a monster ever dared touch a single hair on Sivir's head, these players would absolutely dig up eighteen generations of its ancestors and flog their corpses, their eyes bloodshot with rage.
This was the ultimate driving force for getting players to spend money and grind themselves into the ground!
Sleep well, little girl. Your good days are still ahead of you.
Lin En snapped his fingers inwardly in satisfaction, then slowly withdrew his consciousness and sank into a deep sleep.
In this world overrun with horrors.
The Ash Church on the edge of the Black Forest was nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust in the vast Wasteland.
The view pulled back.
Across rolling, desolate hills and beyond the snow-covered Death Canyon, in the center of the continent, hundreds of kilometers from the Black Forest.
A magnificent, sprawling city stood there: Winterhold.
It was entirely different from the moldy, dilapidated despair of the Black Forest.
A translucent curtain of pure white light, hundreds of meters high, securely enveloped Winterhold.
Under its protection, the city blazed with lights and bristled with spires, while enormous windmills turned slowly amid the ice and snow.
Even nobles dressed in luxurious furs could be seen traveling the streets in carriages, protected by patrolling knights.
At the city's highest point stood a magnificent temple built from pure white marble.
Deep within the temple, an unquenchable fire burned in an enormous fireplace, warming the entire hall until it felt like spring.
At the very center of the hall stood a statue of a god, dozens of meters tall.
It depicted Winterhold's rightful chief god, the Lord of Winter and Contracts!
At that moment, on the temple's soft animal-hide carpet, an archbishop in a robe trimmed in white and gold held a glass of dark red wine, gently swirling it.
"Your Excellency."
A knight in silver armor strode into the hall and dropped to one knee, his expression respectful.
"Our rangers in the wilderness have sent word."
"Fog Town, a hundred kilometers to the southwest, is under siege by large numbers of fallen Cultists and Mutants."
"Fog Town's Guardian Deity, [Weeping Madonna], has severely depleted divine power. The barrier could collapse at any moment."
"They have sent us a plea for aid, requesting reinforcements from Winterhold."
After hearing the knight's report, the archbishop did not so much as lift his eyelids. He merely drained his wine, a contemptuous sneer curling his lips.
"Fog Town? That wretched backwater that produces nothing but inferior coarse grain and inferior faith?"
The archbishop toyed with his empty wineglass, his lofty voice carrying the peculiar arrogance of city folk. "An obscure wild god like the Weeping Madonna should have faded away long ago. If that god dies, so be it."
"In this dog-eat-dog world, weakness... is the original sin."
"But, Your Excellency..."
The knight hesitated. "If Fog Town falls completely, the Cultists' influence may expand further..."
"Hmph. It's nothing but a pack of ignorant country bumpkins making trouble!"
"Around a dump like Fog Town, there are probably only a handful of village gods, aren't there?"
"Even if those Cultists swallow them all up, they won't pose any threat to our Winterhold!"
The archbishop rose and walked to the fireplace, his tone cold.
"Winterhold's noble knights should not waste their blood on those country yokels."
"Still... we must keep up appearances, lest the other city-states accuse our Church of Winter of leaving people to die."
"Pass on my orders. Pick any squad of trainee knights and have them make a circuit in the direction of Fog Town."
"There's no need to actually fight. Once Fog Town's barrier has shattered completely and the Cultists have withdrawn, take over the remaining territory and round up the survivors who have lost their god's protection. Bring them back as mine slaves."
"As you command, Your Excellency!"
The knight accepted his orders and respectfully withdrew.
Silence returned to the magnificent temple.
The archbishop gazed haughtily at the snow drifting outside the window, utterly indifferent to whether those obscure gods deep in the wilderness lived or died.
Clearly, these lofty city dwellers had spent far too long enjoying comfort inside their warm barrier.
They had no idea what sort of monsters had appeared in that remote backwater they so despised!
One of those no-name wild gods they called "village gods" had just summoned an utterly deranged Fourth Catastrophe from another, higher-dimensional world called Blue Star!
Arrogance was often the prelude to destruction.
The night passed uneventfully.
Early the next morning, at 6:45 a.m. Blue Star time.
There were still fifteen minutes until their agreed login time.
Yet the five-person group chat with Lu Ziye and the others was already boiling with excitement, everyone itching to get to work.
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior]: "You guys awake yet? I've already wolfed down my soy milk and fried dough sticks! Today, we have to grind out that remaining 50% in one go!"
[Ji Luo]: "I've been ready for ages. Reservations on the official website passed five hundred thousand last night. The whole internet is waiting for us to open the gates. Today, we get to be the saviors!"
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]: "Hehe, when those fifty newbies come in and see that all five of us are level 3 veterans with skills... damn, just thinking about it feels good!"
At seven sharp, five familiar pillars of light lit up on schedule inside the dilapidated church in the other world.
The moment they logged in, the five of them did not even bother exchanging greetings.
"Come on, come on! Everyone, get into position! Ma Lou, pull the mobs! Lu, get ready to cast your skill! Bossy Guy, get your brick up!"
Like a ruthless capitalist overseer, [Ji Luo] immediately led everyone charging toward the "Fully Automatic Slaughter Trap," where they had slaughtered hundreds of mobs the day before.
"Here comes the truck! I'm smashing a hundred skulls today!"
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] shouldered his Pimple Mace, already covered in black blood and brain matter, and took his position with a roar.
Ma Lou was even more practiced, plunging into the misty outskirts of the Black Forest like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Five minutes later.
The four at the edge of the trap stood ready, their arms aching from holding up their bricks and spears.
"Weird. Why hasn't Ma Lou kited the mobs over yet?"
"By this point yesterday, he'd already pulled his second wave."
Bossy Guy scratched his head in confusion.
Another ten minutes passed.
The withered grass ahead rustled, and Ma Lou emerged, panting. His hands were empty, and there was not so much as a shadow behind him.
"Where are the mobs?"
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] stared wide-eyed. "Did you fucking pull thin air?"
Ma Lou plopped down beside the trap and wiped the sweat from his face, looking as though his whole world had been turned upside down.
"There aren't any mobs! Seriously, not a single one left!"
"I just ran a full kilometer out and didn't spot a single Corrupted Villager!"
"How is that possible? Don't mobs in online games always respawn the next day?"
[Ji Luo] frowned. This completely contradicted everything he had learned from years of playing online games.
"Ji, have you considered the possibility..."
[I'm Not Jiahao] adjusted a nonexistent monocle and pointed out their blind spot in a grave tone. "That this groundbreaking masterpiece, which claims to be a 100% full-dive simulation, doesn't have a concept of 'respawning' at all?"
Jiahao pointed toward the deathly silent edge of the Black Forest. "This is a hardcore world with absolute realism."
"The monsters here aren't textures spawned out of thin air by a bunch of code. They're creatures that actually exist in this world. If we carry out an extermination-level slaughter of all the creatures in an area, like we did yesterday..."
"Then we've really killed them off completely." [Ji Luo] finished Jiahao's thought and drew in a sharp breath.
Before you continue