Word of the Artifact Spirit Path Star Meridian Li Tie had chosen spread among the players.
During this time, some players followed Li Tie to Weapon Spirit Valley, also hoping to contain Primordial Artifact Spirits and earn rewards.
Weapon Spirit Valley held few monsters, but their levels were extremely high. The deeper one ventured, the higher the Artifact Spirits' Hunting Levels became, and the more impressive their appearances grew.
Several teams returned defeated after repeated attempts.
Li Tie was no exception. After containing five Artifact Spirits, he chose not to venture any deeper into Weapon Spirit Valley.
Apart from the five Artifact Spirits at the valley's entrance, those inside had Hunting Levels of at least 30. He could not withstand even a single hit, so continuing to challenge them was pointless.
The emergence of the Artifact Spirit Path gave many players a direction to work toward next.
Beneath Emperor Tomb Village
Qi Sheng sat cross-legged atop the Primordial Sacrificial Altar, online data relayed by Guide flashing rapidly through his mind.
Just then, the elusive Guide Water Orb suddenly appeared:
[Boss, I sensed the Dark Tide's presence on Earth.]
"Where?"
[In the direction of the Arctic.]
"Let's take a look. Notify Uncle Yan."
[You got it. On my way!]
The Guide Water Orb vanished from sight.
Before long, an indifferent voice rang out:
"Qi Sheng, I'm here."
A scene projected on a screen of light appeared before Qi Sheng. It showed a room with simple, traditional furnishings. Dark Blue flames burned on a round table, beside which sat a man with an otherworldly air.
He had long, jet-black hair and pale skin. An exquisite bow tie set off the perfect lines of his neck, but his handsome face bore no expression.
Mysterious and noble-those were the thoughts that had surfaced in Qi Sheng's mind when he first met Yan Ming all those years ago.
The man in the projection before him was none other than Yan Ming, one of Emperor Zhao's Four Devoted Servants, who commanded Spatial Power.
He had created the Spatial Guidance component of the Challenger System (player recruitment system), while Guide had handled Datafication and Content Analysis.
In the head-on battle against the Terrifying Dark Tide back then, Yan Ming had lost most of the vitality within his body. Since then, he had been like a puppet, appearing utterly indifferent.
Qi Sheng was used to it.
If Yan Ming and the other devoted servants had not risked their lives to save him back then, he would long since have died in the Black Fog of Fear.
He had asked Guide to notify Yan Ming this time because he could not perform Spatial Teleportation over such an immense distance and still needed Yan Ming's help.
"Sorry for the trouble, Uncle Yan." Qi Sheng nodded politely.
"Get ready."
As Yan Ming finished speaking, icy-blue light spilled from his pupils, and a rotating Dark Blue teleportation array appeared beneath Qi Sheng's feet.
An intense sensation of weightlessness followed.
Boom!
Dark Blue flames enveloped his body, and he vanished on the spot in the blink of an eye.
When the Dark Blue radiance obscuring his vision dispersed, snow filled the sky before him. He looked around at an endless expanse of white. Glaciers covered the vast land, meeting the azure sky in the distance to form a pristine, magnificent scene.
Biting winds converged in the air, tearing past his ears with piercing howls.
The sudden drop in temperature made Qi Sheng shiver, and he promptly switched to Emperor Zhao Form.
Boom!
Scarlet flames spread from his head across his entire body, dispelling the chill.
He flew into the sky and headed in the direction provided by Guide's senses.
Several minutes later, he spotted a black line suspended high in the air. He reached out to touch it, and the line immediately sprouted several thin black tendrils that tried to coil around his palm.
But under the scorching heat of Emperor Zhao's Flame, the tendrils disintegrated instantly.
This discovery made Qi Sheng realize how serious the problem was.
His former home was being corroded and invaded by the Terrifying Dark Tide.
Unlike in Monster World, the Terrifying Dark Tide's erosion of Earth was still in its initial stages and would not affect this world's ecology at all.
But in the foreseeable future, Earth, too, would be corroded and devoured by the Terrifying Dark Tide.
This reminded Qi Sheng of a conjecture he had made before.
During the years he had been away, many Alien Races Factions had appeared on Earth. Their arrival might have been connected to the Terrifying Dark Tide.
A few days earlier, he had seen a discussion thread online.
The discussion concerned why purchase eligibility for the virtual game Darklands was issued only in limited quantities.
In theory, the Virtual Server created by the Eclipse Race could easily support an enormous player base, yet eligibility was always distributed in limited quantities to the Human Federation and the other Alien Races Factions that had settled on Earth.
If this was scarcity marketing, it made no sense.
Although the Eclipse Race used currency to buy resources from other racial factions, it more often gifted technology and resources to the various races.
Someone had compiled statistics showing that the resources the Eclipse Race provided to other races each year far exceeded what it spent purchasing resources from them.
The person who started the thread offered a conjecture about this issue.
They believed the Eclipse Race's fundamental purpose in creating virtual games was not to earn resources from other races through games, but to train troops in a nearly realistic virtual environment, with the aim of preparing for some immense crisis that might arrive.
As for granting game access to other races, that was merely incidental, giving them a role as sparring partners.
In the virtual games the Eclipse Race usually developed, the Eclipse Race formed one faction, while the other races joined together as the opposing faction.
Thus, training troops was the main objective, and the Eclipse Race's own needs had to come first.
One point could support this conjecture.
According to historical records, when the Eclipse Race fled to Earth three hundred years ago, it stated that its Planar World had been eroded by some mysterious force, causing the world to collapse and shatter.
Faced with an apocalyptic crisis, the Eclipse Race ultimately abandoned resistance. Its surviving members used spatial technology to flee to Earth before their world collapsed, eventually building Eclipse City on the moon.
The other Alien Races Factions that had come to Earth all gave similar accounts.
And Qi Sheng already had an answer to this question.
The apocalyptic crisis that had struck the Eclipse Race's former home world was very likely an invasion by the Dark Tide. The years of fighting the Dark Tide had brought the Eclipse civilization from its peak into decline, and the other Alien Races Factions had all had similar experiences.
Now Earth was also showing the first signs of invasion by the Terrifying Dark Tide.
This supported the conjecture in the discussion thread: the Eclipse Race was training troops to face an unknown terror.
There was another point that could corroborate his conclusion.
Monster World was expanding, and its terrain and environment were constantly changing.
He had thought this was some unknown change caused by the Dark Tide's erosion. Now that he considered it, it was very likely that the Terrifying Dark Tide had devoured other worlds and incorporated their fragments into Monster World, causing its area to keep growing.
This was also why the game's map feature included unexplored fog.
It was not that he did not want to give every player a complete world map, but that Monster World's terrain had changed so much that the old maps no longer matched the present Monster World.
[Boss, this world will gradually deteriorate in the future. You need to speed up your player recruitment plan.]
Guide spoke with a serious expression.
"We'll advance steadily. At least it won't have any impact at this stage."
[Boss, I have a question.]
"Ask."
[If this world enters the peak stage of the Terrifying Dark Tide's invasion, with Evil Spirits running rampant, what will you do?]
"If that day really comes, perhaps I'll grant players permission to bring Monster World's power back to reality. At the very least, I need to ensure their safety in the real world... but before then, I won't reveal any information."
[Why?]
"Only players free of real-world pressure can find joy in Monster World and enjoy playing the game, and that joy is precisely the source of their fearlessness and creativity."