Storyline Resurrection Service
Huh, was that the kind of line a boss said when it was about to die? But the boss clearly still had hundreds of thousands of health left, Long Ao Jiutian wondered.
Then he suddenly noticed something was wrong. After the long series of battles, the Flame Lord's once-crimson body had grown dim and gray, but now it suddenly brightened again. It grew brighter and brighter, giving off a blinding white light, as though a sun were swelling inside him and undergoing fusion. Even an idiot could tell something was wrong now.
"Oh no! The boss is going to self-destruct!"
"Move! Run!"
Long Ao Jiutian cried out inwardly and suddenly remembered what Xiao Yu had said earlier: Don't say I didn't warn you. So that was what he had meant! He turned to run, but it was already too late. Amid the brilliant sunlight, he seemed to see the Flame Lord looking at him with eyes full of malice.
Boom! A tremendous explosion swallowed Long Ao Jiutian whole. Watching his health instantly bottom out, he felt a surge of despair.
"Phoenix, use Intervention on me!" he shouted at the female knight beside him.
Phoenix raised her longsword, but before she could use Divine Intervention, the violent explosion blasted her away.
By the time the explosion ended, Long Ao Jiutian's screen had turned black and white. He looked at his corpse on the screen, wanting to cry but unable to shed a tear. Damn it, I've lost big this time.
"Damn it, I've lost big this time!" Xiao Yu said, tears streaming down his face as he stood at the game's login screen and stared at the display before him.
A line of bright red text appeared on the screen: You have died. Resurrect?
Although he held out little hope, Xiao Yu clicked resurrect anyway.
System notification: Your character died in a story campaign and cannot be resurrected. Would you like to purchase the storyline resurrection service?
Huh? I can buy a resurrection storyline? What the hell is that? I've never heard of it.
This was Xiao Yu's first time being killed in a story event, so he was puzzled. I'll try it and see. With that thought, he clicked to purchase the resurrection storyline.
The image before him flashed, and he was transported into an enormous white temple.
Is this... heaven? Xiao Yu looked around and saw all sorts of strange monsters and heroes.
A scantily clad angel stood right in front of him. Her white bandeau revealed deep cleavage, while beneath her short battle skirt, her thighs were round and firm. Her skin was smooth and creamy, and her figure was curvy; she had the face of an angel and the body of a devil. Xiao Yu, however, was used to the perfect faces of virtual beauties, so he was unmoved.
"Hello, esteemed Mr. Xiao. Please follow me."
That's pretty formal, Xiao Yu thought. He followed the angel into a private office, where there was another angel. This one seemed to be of a higher rank, and although her looks had been enhanced, she was clearly only average. She was probably a real employee.
"Hello, Mr. Xiao. I'm your service representative. I hear you want to purchase the storyline resurrection service?"
Xiao Yu nodded. "What is this storyline resurrection service?"
The angel smiled. "The storyline resurrection service is a new service recently launched by our company, primarily for characters who have died in story campaigns. As long as you pay enough coupons, you can activate the storyline resurrection service. Our company will issue adventurer players a story quest to resurrect the character and guide them through it. Once the quest is completed, the character will be resurrected in the game."
Xiao Yu frowned. "Can characters with boss templates be resurrected too? That doesn't seem to make much sense in the story. After all, my character has already been killed in the story."
He certainly wanted to be resurrected, but he also knew there was no such thing as a free lunch, so he instinctively wanted to find fault with it.
"Of course it makes sense. Mr. Xiao, have you played Diablo?"
Xiao Yu thought back. He vaguely recalled that it was a very old game from the previous century, apparently the kind played on a flat-screen computer. He had only played the remastered version himself.
"The final boss in Diablo 1 was Diablo, the so-called 'Lord of Terror.' At the end of the game, he was killed by the hero controlled by the player. But in the second game, Diablo was resurrected, and of course the player killed him again. Then in the third game, Diablo possessed a girl named Leah and was resurrected once more as a female version of Diablo. Of course, she couldn't escape being taken down by the player at the end either, but that wasn't the end of the story.
"Things got even more outrageous in Diablo 4. Not only was Diablo resurrected, he was also redeemed, helping the Nephalem—that is, the player's character-fight off invaders from another world. At the very end of the game, he even sacrificed himself to take the leader of the otherworldly invaders down with him and protect world peace.
"But Diablo still wasn't truly dead. In Diablo 5, he was resurrected again and even joined with the archangel Tyrael, producing a whole bunch of ultimate Nephalem."
Wait a minute. I remember Diablo looking pretty ugly. He joined with an angel? Wasn't there an issue with reproductive isolation? Xiao Yu simply couldn't imagine Diablo and the archangel joining together.
"Who knows? The game's original setting was that the Nephalem were the offspring of angels and demons joining together, so I suppose they must have had some special technique to make it possible." The service representative looked puzzled as she said this, but she immediately shook her head.
"But that's not the point. The point is, look: Diablo is killed in every installment, only to be resurrected in the next one. So you can see that there's no problem with a boss being resurrected in a game, as long as the story makes it plausible."
At that point, the angel changed tack.
"Of course, there is a certain risk involved. After all, we can't guarantee that the adventurers who accept the quest will complete it, so the resurrection service can fail."
You can do that? Xiao Yu paused, excited. Does that mean I can be resurrected? But why have I never heard of anyone using this service before?
"Then how much would it cost to resurrect my Flame Lord character?"
The angel service representative picked up a computer and checked.
"Since your character is a major boss with three skulls, resurrecting the character requires issuing an epic quest involving at least 200 adventurer players. We would also need to create and adjust a large number of prerequisite story quests and related NPCs. Therefore, resurrecting this character will cost 1,183,417 coupons. Your account currently has 225 coupons. Your balance is insufficient. Please recharge."
Recharge, my ass. Xiao Yu stared at the numbers before him, too drained even to complain. 1,183,417 coupons, and each coupon cost one yuan. At more than a million yuan, there was no way he could come up with that much money.
Someone had once offered a million yuan for this account, and he had nearly sold it. If the transaction tax hadn't been so high that Xiao Yu thought it wasn't worth it, he would have taken the million-plus yuan and enjoyed himself long ago. In other words, as far as he was concerned, the account was worth at most a million. Now he was being asked to spend 1.2 million to resurrect the character, without even a hundred percent chance of success. Never mind that he didn't have that kind of money; even if he did, he couldn't squander it like that.
Resurrecting a character of this level was hardly different from buying a new one. It seemed this service would only be used by those wealthy players.
Thinking this, Xiao Yu shook his head, gave the beautiful angel service representative a reluctant look, and turned to leave.
Back at the game login screen, all Xiao Yu wanted to do was have a good cry.
The beautiful angel watched Xiao Yu leave the room, sighing and shaking her head. She received a commission for every major deal like this she landed, so she was naturally a little disappointed to see him leave. But she quickly put her professional smile back on, because a grim-faced man had entered the room.
"I want to resurrect my character, as soon as possible. Tell me, how much will it cost?" Long Ao Jiutian asked in a low voice.