The more you fear, the stronger you get!

Xin Yue snagged a rusty spear. He tested it in his hands a few times and looked quite pleased.

The other players also chose weapons with greater killing power.

Things like large machetes and longswords.

By the time Xin Jiu came back to her senses, most of the usable weapons had been taken. She looked around and picked up a slingshot.

[Ah! Why did Jiujiu take a slingshot?!]

[Even that hammer that's about to fall apart would work! You can unlock the shop as soon as you clear the first floor. Pick again, Jiujiu!]

[Take the hammer, Jiu'er!]

Xin Jiu thought the slingshot was pretty good. It could attack at range, and as long as she had small stones, she could use them as ammunition to strike NPCs in the temples. At close range, she had her bayonet.

"I remember the first floor being Lilliput. Why do we even need weapons?"

Xin Jiu turned toward the voice and got a fright.

The speaker was an incredibly beautiful girl.

It wasn't her beauty that startled Xin Jiu, but the half-meter-long rusty machete slung over her shoulder.

A beauty carrying a huge blade made quite an imposing sight!

The players here were all familiar with the first-floor Lilliput instance. It was Lilliput, after all-one stomp could kill a whole bunch. It was a very easy instance.

But since the game had arranged a treasure scramble ahead of time, would it really let them clear it so easily?

"No matter what, don't let your guard down."

"Mm, you too." The beauty smiled at her.

Just as Meow-Meow-chan was about to open the instance, she seemed to suddenly remember something and hurriedly said, "Oh, right! Your appearances will change once you enter the instance. The game specifically made this change in case you run into your enemies. Very thoughtful, right?"

The players: "..."

Xin Jiu, however, was quite satisfied.

Since she was a gaming streamer, many players knew her. Showing her real face would invite unnecessary trouble, though the players' appearances would still look normal on the livestream.

Meow-Meow-chan snapped her fingers.

Everything went black before all the players' eyes.

Xin Jiu opened her eyes.

A broad street stretched out before her, lined on both sides with dilapidated buildings that looked little different from ruins.

So, they had been teleported into a city?

The system panel appeared.

[Server: Nine Provinces District 46]

[District player count: 100000/100000]

[Current instance player count: 2500/2500]

The players from S City had been scattered.

[Identity: Inspector (activated)]

Xin Jiu had almost forgotten about that. She quietly waited for the system to explain.

"..."

That was it?

Was she supposed to figure it out herself?

Just then, a commotion suddenly broke out a few meters away.

An extremely burly man in a gray tank top had grabbed an old man by the collar.

The old man looked to be in his seventies.

His hair was graying, and his back was hunched.

"You've already got one foot in the grave! What are you doing getting mixed up in this?!"

The burly man roughly flung the old man aside.

The old man staggered a few steps before someone beside him steadied him.

"How could you shove him?"

A young girl with a ponytail glared at the burly man in displeasure.

"So what?!" the burly man shouted at her. "Do you know you can die in this game? At his age, when a monster chases him, are you going to carry him and run, or leave him behind to die?! He's this old-he should be enjoying his retirement, not playing games!"

The burly man wasn't angry that the old man would hold them back. He was angry that this game could kill people!

And the old man was so advanced in years.

How was he going to survive from here on out?

"I signed my grandson up for the game, but he never came back to visit me. I figured the gaming pod was just sitting there anyway, so I used it as a bed. One time, I accidentally turned it on."

"Who knew I'd get pulled into the game this time... I don't want to be a burden to you either."

[How is he supposed to clear instances at his age?]

[His grandson would feel guilty as hell if he saw this.]

So he was an empty nester.

The burly man fell silent.

Xin Jiu was speechless.

Dragging in an old man who could barely get around-there was no end to how underhanded this game could be!

[Tutorial match, round one.]

[Mission: Kill the goblins wielding wooden clubs. Each goblin killed awards 5 points.]

[Time: Thirty minutes]

[Notice: After thirty minutes, the goblins will disappear. Note: goblin attack power is proportional to the number of players in the instance. Once a goblin bites a player, it will not let go until that player dies.]

Xin Jiu remembered goblins being third-floor monsters. Their attack power wasn't particularly high, but there were lots of them, and they liked to move in groups. They were as irritating as something stuck to you that you couldn't peel off.

Goblins in the tutorial match... The difficulty had increased.

"They're coming!"

Someone shouted!

A mass of goblins suddenly emerged from the ruins on both sides of the street, clutching wooden clubs and making gibbering noises.

The crowd scattered instantly!

Most players' first reaction was to flee.

Because dying inside the instance meant dying for real!

Some of the bolder ones gritted their teeth and readied their weapons.

When a goblin charged up to the ponytailed girl, the old man, who had been so meek just moments ago, grabbed his battered shovel and brought it down!

The goblin fell to the ground, twitching.

The livestream chat filled with question marks.

He told the ponytailed girl, "Don't be scared, lass. These green things aren't that tough."

The ponytailed girl stared, dumbfounded.

"Didn't you say you were frail? How are you so good at fighting?"

She had meant to protect the old man with her axe, only to end up being the one getting protected.

The old man said a little sheepishly, "I went to the science museum and picked up a card. It said that as long as I'm scared, my attack power increases by 100%, and the effect is permanent."

It seemed each city had a different location for obtaining skill cards.

Xin Jiu was now even more certain that the players in the instance had been randomly matched from all across the country.

A yellow-haired young man beside them, stabbing at a goblin with a steel pipe, said enviously, "That skill guarantees you'll clear it! You're really lucky, sir!"

Xin Jiu didn't agree.

A 100% increase sounded impressive at first.

But fear would fade as he killed more and more goblins.

When that happened, the skill would be useless.

[Goblin killed. Points +5]

Xin Jiu kept moving.

[Goblin killed. Points +5]

[Goblin killed. Points +5]

[...]

The non-players watching the livestream felt their blood pumping.

[Go, Grandpa!]

[Jiujiu's as amazing as ever!]

[Are goblins really this weak? I could do this too.]

[Weak? Haven't you noticed that a hundred or so people have already died? It's only been two minutes!]

The goblins' attack patterns were actually very simple.

1: Hit you with a wooden club.

2: Bare their teeth and bite you.

But the system notice had been right. Their attack power had become very high, and their sense of pain seemed to have dulled too. They could keep crawling forward even with their legs chopped off.

Only piercing their skulls or severing the major arteries in their necks could kill them for good.

"Help! Someone save me!"

A player whose arm had been bitten by a goblin screamed shrilly.