dognovel Chapter 122 [Forum Storm and the Horn of Greed]
Chapter 122 [Forum Storm and the Horn of Greed]
Not long after that announcement, the official forum was ignited by a series of scarlet pinned posts.
[The first server-wide exploration log of a ??? level difficulty area (Warning: wipe)]
The poster is the captain of the Earth's Core Explorers team, "Drill Breaks Through the Sky".
His profile picture is currently grayed out, and the post content is an unedited first-person video attachment.
All players who click on the video are pulled into it. The recording begins in a deep underground mine tunnel, where glowing ores are embedded in the rock walls, barely illuminating the way ahead.
The person in the viewpoint, the team captain, was shouting in the team chat.
"Brothers, we've struck it rich! This is definitely an old mine abandoned by the ancient dwarves! Mark the coordinates, sell it to the guild, and we can get a new set of gear!"
The camera shakily pans, and several other players, also wielding pickaxes, enter the frame, striking the rock wall and sending sparks flying.
"Clang!" The captain's pickaxe struck a seemingly ordinary rock, producing a hollow metallic echo.
The ground collapses, the camera drops, and the feeling of weightlessness is transmitted to every viewer through the screen.
A few seconds later, the fall disappeared, and instead it became a reversed levitation.
Once the view stabilized, the beam of the flashlight illuminated the incomprehensible scene.
The enormous, silvery-white metal structure, covered with intricate patterns, stretches to the horizon.
Broken pipes lay scattered haphazardly in various places.
"Where...is this place?" It was the captain's voice, and his slightly trembling voice was enough to confirm that he was not in a good state of mind.
[Warning: Danger level assessment for this area: ???]
The system's pop-up warning made everyone gasp.
A red dot appeared in the darkness not far ahead in front of my eyes.
The captain raised his flashlight and shone it over. In the beam of light, a metallic face flashed by.
"Buzz—" After a piercing electrical sound, thousands of red dots lit up simultaneously in the darkness from all directions.
"Run!!!" the captain roared in a distorted voice.
The last three seconds of the video became a nightmare that all viewers would never forget.
Countless gleaming metallic tentacles emerged from the darkness, filling the entire space.
Cutting, piercing, strangling.
The video abruptly ended, freezing on a completely black screen.
Below the post, the comment section refreshed at a rate of hundreds of comments per second, causing the server to even lag for several seconds.
"Is this the other side of the world...? What is that? A Gundam? A Transformer?"
"I feel like I'm not playing with swords and magic, I'm playing with cyberpunk."
"???"
"Has anyone calculated how many seconds it took from when that red dot lit up to when the entire team was wiped out? It looks like less than three seconds to me!"
After a brief moment of shock and the usual greetings to the game designers, the forum's tone quickly shifted.
"Don't be afraid, brothers! Being afraid means you'll lose! The higher the danger level, the better the reward! This is definitely the hidden final version map!"
"So what if we get wiped out? We can always respawn. This is called 'paid scouting,' a salute to our brothers, the 'Subterranean Explorers'! Your sacrifice was worthwhile!"
"I hereby declare that the silvery-white underground structure will be called 'The Lost Golden Kingdom'! Our 'Roman Holiday' guild has reserved the first kill spot!"
"Give me a break, upstairs. Do you think your guild's few rotten apples are even enough to fill those iron tentacles' teeth?"
Greed, like wildfire, consumed all fear.
Most players, far from being deterred by the instantaneous wipeout, instead erupted in unprecedented excitement.
In their eyes, the sci-fi style of the "Sweeper" represents a "version endgame gear" that is completely different from the existing equipment system.
And that difficulty level label, ? ? ?, signifies a vast treasure trove that could instantly elevate a guild and widen the gap between it and all other forces.
Of course, a small number of rational players also issued calm warnings in the post.
"Everyone, calm down. I've analyzed the video frame by frame. First, the 'Sweepers' attacks are purely physical cutting; any armor is ineffective against them. Second, their defense is conceptually level; the captain's adamantite pickaxe is currently the highest-level tool, and it didn't even leave a mark. Finally, and most importantly, their numbers are unknown. I strongly advise all ordinary players and small to medium-sized guilds to absolutely stay away from that coordinate at this stage."
This analysis post quickly rose to the top of the comments, but the replies below were full of sarcasm.
"Get out of here, you idiots! If you don't go, we will. Don't block our way from making money."
"For us, the Fourth Natural Disaster, the word 'fear' doesn't exist in our dictionary."
……
A virtual conference room on the top floor of a top-tier office building in Beijing.
The lighting is soft, and the environment simulates a traditional teahouse.
Zhang Wei, the president of the "World Guild" and a college student, was sitting in the main seat.
On the virtual screen in front of him was playing the video of the team wipe, but it had been divided into hundreds of independent slow-motion windows by the technical team.
Every frame and every data point was analyzed repeatedly.
"The tentacles' attack speed is initially estimated at 75 meters per second, breaking the sound barrier."
"Material analysis failed, energy reaction model unknown, completely incompatible with existing magic and forging systems."
"Their behavior logic isn't biological logic; it's more like some kind of pre-programmed... antivirus software," a young man in charge of data analysis said, adjusting his glasses.
Zhang Wei didn't speak; he just stared quietly at the emotionless red eye of the "Sweeper" on the screen.
Since being forced to step into the limelight by the "Crimson Plague" incident, he and the "World Guild" he founded have become the backbone of all "farming" players.
They are not keen on PVP, but instead focus on analyzing the game rules, building, and producing, accumulating advantages in a more civilized and efficient way.
But this time, he sensed something different emanating from that cold, mechanical creation.
That is a power capable of overturning all existing rules.
"This is an opportunity," Zhang Wei finally spoke, his voice not loud, but it instantly silenced the entire conference room.
"An opportunity for our guild to transform from a logistical production organization into a top-tier power that can truly define the direction of the expansion."
He stood up and paced around the conference room.
"If we were to say that we were passively responding to the previous Scarlet Plague, we found a way to break it by studying its weaknesses."
"So this time, what lies before us is a complete 'technological civilization' that we understand absolutely nothing about. Whoever can decipher it first will control the future."
He stopped and glanced at his core team.
"Order all intelligence teams to abandon surveillance of other guilds and focus all their efforts on gathering all information about the 'Underground Abyss'."
"Data team, be on call 24/7. I need you to create a preliminary behavioral model of the 'Sweeper' within three days."
"Production Department, all high-grade ores and materials production has been halted. Resources are being redirected towards 'high-temperature resistant' and 'high-toughness' equipment."
Zhang Wei issued instructions methodically, his brain working at high speed, and a massive plan was taking shape.
……
At the same time, in the world of Ashem, in a recently emptied orc camp.
The campfire was blazing, roasting a whole, unidentified giant beast over a flame, its fat dripping and sizzling.
The leader of "Spirit Chapter," "Lightning Blade," is sitting on a small mountain of orc skulls, holding a huge goblet filled with crimson liquid.
He was also watching that video, but in a much more brutal way.
The holographic projection was projected directly onto the smoke from the campfire, creating a huge and distorted image.
When he saw the "Sweeper" appear and its metal tentacles instantly tear the player's body apart, he felt no fear. Instead, he excitedly punched the skull beneath him.
"Damn it! That's what you call power! That's what you call fucking cool!" he roared at the group members around him.
Surrounding him are the core players of the "Fighting Faction," each a formidable figure with a name on the PVP leaderboard.
The way they looked at the "cleaners" wasn't out of fear, but out of the fervor of gazing at a top-tier work of art.
"Compared to that, what are our pile of junk? What are the dwarves' rune armor?" Lightning Blade stood up, downing his drink in one gulp. "That's the equipment a man should have! That's the ultimate gear!"
He was completely captivated by the pure, overwhelming, and violently aesthetic power displayed by the "Sweepers".
He's tired of PvP and fed up with grinding elite monsters; he needs a real challenge.
A goal that could ignite the fighting frenzy within him and his men.
"That sissy Zhang Wei is probably figuring out how to bypass it and find bugs again," Lightning Blade scoffed.
"But we're different." He spread his arms and shouted to his men, "What we want isn't to bypass it, but to conquer it! To dismantle it! To strip every single piece of its armor and make it our spoils!"
"We're PvP players! PvE is just a means for us to acquire equipment! And this is the top-tier dungeon and the most spectacular boss in this version!"
He posted a message directly on the official forum with an extremely arrogant title.
[The ownership of the underground abyss has been reserved by "Spirit Peak". Unauthorized personnel should leave, or they will bear the consequences.]
Below the post, Zhang Wei quickly replied using the official account of "Tianxia Guild".
"The World Guild reminds all players that this area is extremely dangerous. It is recommended to explore in groups as guilds and never act alone. Also: A friendly reminder to our friends in 'Apex': recklessness is not courage, it's foolishness."
The leaders of the two guilds clashed briefly and directly for the first time, under the watchful eyes of all players on the server.
However, despite the clamor...
That evening, the Lightning Blade's battleband launched its first probing attack.
Fifty elite players, ranked among the top 1,000 in PVP across the entire server, equipped with the best rune weapons they had acquired at a high price from the dwarves, entered the underground abyss from another direction.
As a result, they couldn't even see the "cleaner" in person.
It only triggered the first layer of defense alert.
Hundreds of small laser turrets protruding from the wall turned them into charred remains with an impenetrable energy net.
The entire army was wiped out in one minute and twenty seconds.
Staring at the grayed-out team list, Lightning Blade fell into a long silence.
On the other side, Zhang Wei received the same report from his own intelligence personnel.
"Thermal weapons, with an energy level far exceeding the current magic system, are impossible to defend against or block."
Two presidents with vastly different personalities and styles of doing things came to the same conclusion after paying a bloody price.
It's impossible for a single guild to crack this tough nut.
Late at night.
Looking at the guild warehouse's equipment list, which had shrunk considerably due to deaths, Lightning Blade finally let go of his ridiculous pride.
He opened the forum's private messaging function and found the ID "Zhang Wei".
He spent a long time deleting and revising the text in the input box, and finally only typed out a few words.
"Shall we chat?"
A minute later, the other party replied.
"Half an hour later, in the top-level encrypted conference room, the password is: For the Alliance."
Lightning Blade paused for a moment, then burst into a grumbling laugh.
"Damn, this nerd is actually quite funny."
The two guilds, long-time rivals who had fought endlessly since their early days in the starting village due to differing ideologies, chose to put aside their grudges for the first time in the face of absolute interests and an even more absolute threat.
A secret high-level meeting aimed at a joint exploration of the abyss is about to begin.
The horn of greed has been sounded.