"Get ready to fight."
Wang Meng's expression turned extremely grim as he readied his shoddy greatshield.
On their way here, they had rested for a few minutes, recovering most of their health and mana.
The pretty girl holding a staff, Lin Liyu, had still been fretting over failing to add Qin Feng as a friend.
"It must be because I'm covered in mud. He thought I was gross. Boohoo..."
She was on the verge of tears.
But before she could grieve for long, the sight ahead stunned her, and she immediately raised her staff, ready to join the fight.
More than a dozen Crawlers!
They had slaughtered an entire six-player party in mere seconds!
Wang Meng had been preparing for battle with a grave expression.
But then...
The dozen or so Crawlers glanced back at his party. Seemingly sensing that they were different from ordinary parties, they all looked wary and turned to leave.
Of course, before leaving, they absorbed all the non-tradable lifespan dropped by those six players.
Although Demons needed time to digest lifespan,
absorbing and storing it was quick.
Once they were done, the dozen or so Crawlers fled deeper into the woods...
"They ran?"
Wang Meng and the others froze for a moment.
These Demons...
They didn't follow the usual rules at all!
And those Crawlers were seriously fast!
They weren't as fast as Sprinters, but Wang Meng and his party still couldn't catch them.
"If they want to run, there's no way we can catch them."
"These monsters even know to pick on the weak and avoid the strong?"
All six party members, including Wang Meng and Lin Liyu, found it rather unbelievable.
Once again, their awe of the Godforsaken Game deepened.
The monsters in this game...
They weren't like those in ordinary online games, standing around mindlessly waiting for players to kill them!
Instead, they formed groups to hunt players!
And plundered their lifespan!
Wang Meng and the others didn't yet know what the Demons did with the lifespan they stole, but this alone was enough to chill them to the bone.
"Let's go."
Wang Meng led his party onward.
Soon, they spotted another six-player party. Three were already dead, and the remaining three were fleeing for their lives.
Unfortunately, they were too slow. Five Crawlers pursued them relentlessly, attacking nonstop, and were about to finish them off...
"Arcane Orb!"
"Triple Shot!"
The two ranged attackers in Wang Meng's party attacked the five Crawlers from afar.
Each hit a Crawler, blasting away roughly a tenth of its health.
"Surround them! Don't let them run!"
Wang Meng charged forward with his shield, leaped, and slammed down with a thunderous crash, stunning all five Crawlers in place...
Scenes like this were unfolding all around Shell Town.
The Demons that people had assumed would simply be killed and turned into experience were actually joining forces and gathering together to surround and slaughter players instead!
At the respawn point in the town square,
flashes of white light appeared constantly, barely stopping for even a moment.
Every player who respawned wore an ugly expression.
"We have to reach level 3 to return to reality. I thought it'd be easy, but..."
"Even the monsters know to form parties. How the hell are we supposed to reach level 3?"
"I have a question. If we never reach level 3, doesn't that mean we'll be trapped here forever?"
"Then wouldn't we be in vegetative states in the real world?"
"No, we have to gather more people. If a six-person party won't work, we'll have two or three parties travel together!"
"That won't work. Too many people attract bosses. A forty-player group just drew some 'Cursed One' over, and it killed more than thirty of them with one skill..."
Countless people were terrified.
Just then, they suddenly noticed...
On Shell Town's level leaderboard, the top-ranked player, Dark Shadow, had reached level 3!
"Holy shit, is Dark Shadow really that good?"
"We can barely kill a regular monster, and he's leveling up so easily?"
"Looks like Dark Shadow is soloing! He's the only one on the leaderboard with a level that high."
"He must be soloing. Isn't that insane?"
Everyone found it unbelievable.
By now, many people had ventured outside town.
They had experienced firsthand just how vicious the Demons outside were.
Under these conditions, Dark Shadow could still solo and keep leveling up. Just how powerful was he?
Meanwhile,
Sister Pear, whose alias was Pear, respawned in the square again with her teammates.
The girl in the black short-sleeved shirt now looked positively thunderous.
Because...
This was already her third death!
She had originally had eighty years of non-tradable lifespan. Now, only ten remained. Her losses were devastating...
Although she still didn't know whether this lifespan was real,
it nevertheless weighed heavily on her mind...
The gentle, long-haired girl who respawned alongside her now had trembling hands!
"Sister Pear... what do we do now?"
The soft-spoken girl glanced worriedly at her experience bar.
Their party had killed four Crawlers so far. Once the experience was divided, each person had received fewer than ten points. They were still far from the hundred experience points needed for level 2, let alone level 3!
Even those four Crawlers had been extremely difficult to kill.
Because...
When their health ran low, they ran away!
Fortunately, their leader, Sister Pear, had a few tricks up her sleeve. She had a hidden class, after all, and had used her longbow to finish off the low-health Crawlers as they fled.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have managed to kill even those four Crawlers.
"Whatever happens, we can't die again."
Pear, the girl in the black short-sleeved shirt, wore an awful expression. Then she suddenly noticed that Dark Shadow had reached level 3 on the leaderboard...
Her eyes lit up.
"Split up for now and spread the word."
Pear said solemnly, "I'll pay ten million RMB for Dark Shadow to get me to level 3. Whatever happens, I need to get back to reality first... He's leveling so fast. Carrying me should be easy, right?"
And so, word quickly spread through Shell Town.
A wealthy young lady was willing to pay ten million RMB to have the top-ranked Dark Shadow carry her through leveling!
Meanwhile, Qin Feng happened to be heading back.
After killing the Sprinter, he had killed another dozen or so Crawlers in the dense forest, finally obtaining one evolution point through Greedy Hand.
He immediately evolved Greedy Hand!
--
[You have spent 5 evolution points. Remaining: 0.] [Greedy Hand (Platinum Tier → Jadeite Tier): Assassin skill. Can be used on Demon corpses, with a 110% → 160% chance of obtaining an additional set of loot rewards. Additional loot obtained has a 20% chance of being upgraded by one tier.]
--
After evolving to Jadeite Tier, Greedy Hand had actually gained a special effect.
There was a 20% chance of the additional loot being one tier higher!
"Unbeatable!"
Qin Feng's eyes lit up.
This effect was downright amazing.
"If I keep evolving it... won't the chance of upgrading the loot's tier reach a hundred percent?"
"Kill a Bronze Tier boss and get Silver Tier equipment."
"Kill a Silver Tier boss and loot Gold Tier equipment?!"
Perfect!
Qin Feng had already memorized a boss's location.
The boss was called the Cursed One, a Demon shaped like a withered treant. It seemed to have killed dozens of players and was hiding somewhere in the dense forest, digesting their lifespan...
Soon, that Cursed One would advance into a Silver Tier boss!
Before you continue