Be my battle servant

Xiaoqing pinched his waist, telling him to stop talking.

How could a convenience store have no water? Anyone could figure out where all the water had gone without even thinking.

Li Ran realized it then, too.

Then he put the drinks into his system inventory.

Xin Jiu took a quick look. Most of the supplies they had chosen were food, along with some essential daily necessities.

After having them eat some bread to replenish their strength, the three set off.

Xin Jiu had fairly keen perception.

After walking for about ten minutes, she sensed goblins a hundred meters away. There weren't many, only around six or seven.

"As soon as you get their attention, run back this way. Run as fast as you can. I'll be waiting for you behind these ruins."

She only wanted them to act as bait, not to die.

Li Ran tightened his grip on his torch. Facing so many goblins alone took quite a bit of mental fortitude.

He walked forward, holding up the torch.

Once the torchlight moved away, darkness fell around Xin Jiu.

Fortunately, the moonlight in the dungeon was fairly bright, so visibility wasn't too bad.

Xin Jiu and Xiaoqing hid behind the ruins, poking their heads out to watch him. Ten meters, twenty meters, thirty meters, forty meters... Li Ran went farther and farther away.

Soon, all they could see was the flickering torchlight.

A few seconds later, the torchlight rapidly retreated.

Li Ran was running!

Along with it came the goblins' familiar gibbering.

Here they come!

Several goblins were chasing Li Ran, and he felt as though his legs were moving fast enough to leave afterimages!

Even as he fled, he was thinking that if he had run this fast during school fitness tests, he might have been sent to the provincial team to become an athlete.

Sure enough, extreme situations brought out a person's potential.

By the time Li Ran reached Xin Jiu's vicinity, the goblins were less than two meters behind him.

They raised their spiked clubs high, howling!

Li Ran could smell their breath.

It stank!

I'm going to puke!

In the blink of an eye, Xin Jiu leaped out from behind the ruins, holding her military bayonet in a reverse grip.

The instant the goblins saw Xin Jiu, they all slammed to a halt.

The goblin in the lead blinked.

"???"

"!!!"

It let out a few babbling cries, turned, and ran.

The other goblins immediately followed suit, scattering like birds and beasts!

"Trying to run?"

Xin Jiu curled her lips and lunged forward, the bayonet in her hand flashing menacingly in the torchlight.

The slowest goblin dropped dead on the spot.

Xiaoqing and Li Ran were dumbstruck.

When Xin Jiu had said earlier that the goblins were avoiding her, they hadn't believed her, because goblins always chased players down ferociously the moment they saw them.

But the scene before them left them no choice but to believe it.

With the ruthless way Xin Jiu raised her blade and brought it down without even blinking, they would have been scared, too.

"Only two hearts. What a low drop rate," Xin Jiu complained as she picked up the beads.

Li Ran really wanted to say that getting two was already pretty good, but a big shot was different from them. A big shot had her own standards.

"Let's keep going."

The three continued onward.

That night, the goblins' screams rose one after another through the ruins.

Most of the time, Li Ran held the torch and acted as bait. As soon as the goblins chased him over, Xin Jiu stepped forward to kill them.

Xiaoqing provided support, occasionally throwing small stones at their heads to distract them when Xin Jiu was surrounded by goblins.

Their coordination grew increasingly seamless.

They also encountered other players along the way.

They wanted to team up with Xin Jiu as well, but she refused. She had no interest in babysitting. Besides, with so many people, the goblins might hide again when they saw them.

Before leaving, they cast envious glances at Li Ran and Xiaoqing.

They really wanted to know what it felt like to team up with a big shot!

At eight the next morning.

The livestreams started right on time.

In just one minute, the number of viewers skyrocketed to over a billion!

It was only the second day since the game began, yet the attention it received had already reached an unimaginable level.

Quite a few viewers, furious that their families had been forced into the game, called in excavators, hoping to break through the Trial Tower's doors and rescue them.

But even after the excavator buckets cracked, not so much as a chip had fallen off the doors!

It wasn't just civilians. The Nine Provinces authorities had also tried to destroy the Trial Towers, but this game was too underhanded. The Trial Towers had all been placed in city centers. If they used nuclear weapons, the entire city would be gone.

...In the end, they could only give up.

All the people of the world could do now was sit in front of their screens watching the livestreams, praying that the players would earn more points for their countries to avert the unknown supernatural horrors' arrival.

The viewer count on Xin Jiu's stream reached several hundred thousand.

The bullet comments flew past.

[Jiujiu, my baby girl, I'm here!]

[Let me see whether that girl from yesterday is still alive.]

[Holy shit, she's still killing goblins?]

[Wait, does this girl not need sleep? Can a fan tell me if she was always like this?]

[Here's your answer: our Jiujiu gets fiercer the longer she fights. Staying up all night is nothing.]

Xin Jiu crouched atop a stretch of ruins, squinting down. Behind her was the collapsed top of a clock tower.

There were two thin streaks of blood on her face.

The web between her right thumb and forefinger seemed to have split open and was wrapped in gauze.

Li Ran and Xiaoqing huddled behind the ruins, not daring to breathe loudly.

The camera shifted, and the livestream chat exploded!

[What the fuck is that???]

[A boss! Definitely this stage's boss!]

[Jiujiu, run! One look and you can tell you can't beat it!]

A goblin sat on a stone throne, its eyes closed as it dozed.

Ordinary goblins were only 1.4 to 1.6 meters tall, but this one was over two meters, with a fat, burly body. Sitting there, it looked like a mountain of flesh.

It wore animal hides, with a string of beast teeth around its neck.

Its protruding tusks were about as thick as Xin Jiu's forearm, and it held a war hammer.

Xin Jiu leaped lightly down from the ruins and told Li Ran and Xiaoqing, "Move farther back."

"What are you going to do?" Xiaoqing's voice trembled.

"Kill it."

Li Ran's eyes widened in disbelief. "We already have over seven hundred hearts. Together with what the other players have farmed, there'll definitely be enough. There's no need to take the risk."

"Li Ran's right. All we need to do is clear the stage."

Xin Jiu said, "We're already here. It'd be a shame not to kill it."

A stage boss was bound to yield something hidden.

Xiaoqing wanted to keep persuading her, but Li Ran shook his head at her. The big shot had her own considerations. All they could do now was avoid holding her back.

He pulled Xiaoqing away to hide.

Xin Jiu stopped ten meters from the Goblin King. "Hey, ugly. Wake up."

The Goblin King opened its eyes.

It sized Xin Jiu up.

"Human, female, I, know you."

Its voice was harsh and grating, its pronunciation imprecise and halting.

Xin Jiu raised an eyebrow. "You can actually talk?"

The Goblin King grinned. "This king, smart, humans, all bugs."

"..." It couldn't even speak properly, and it called itself smart.

"You, very strong, last night, killed many of my, subordinates."

The Goblin King looked at Xin Jiu.