Chapter 151-1: Reckless Newbie, Power of Halting Updates (1) |
Earth.
Bloodslaughter City.
This is a large city with a resident population reaching fifteen million, and the city is divided into two districts, the eastern and the western.
The eastern district is inhabited by the Giant Brute race.
They have humanlike faces and forms. Adult members average 2.3 meters in height. They like to paint complex totems on their bodies, and an honor mark is printed on the left chest. Each time they kill a formidable enemy, a black ring mark is branded on the left chest. Their attire fuses natural wildness with the mystique of ancient times, creating a look with great visual impact.
Every adult of the Giant Brute race has a blood-red ribbon tied around the left hand.
According to the records in the Starnet Information Database, in ancient times the Giant Brute race suffered an unprecedented crisis. Foreign races invaded their homeworld and natural disasters followed one after another, bringing the race to the brink of extinction. At that moment of despair, a hero named Bloodfang stepped forward and single-handedly reversed a near-extermination war.
In that war, Bloodfang’s left hand was accidentally severed by the enemy. He wrapped the injured, broken wrist with bandages and chose to continue leading his people into battle.
It was precisely this indomitable courage to defend the homeland to the death that sparked unprecedented cohesion and combat power in the Giant Brute race.
Although it has been close to 190 years since they came to Earth.
The blood-red ribbon has always been an indispensable part of Giant Brute culture. It is also a spiritual bond of inheritance for the race, linking the past and the future.
The Starnet database records a passage said by the third leader of the Giant Brute race after arriving on Earth: ‘Although what we look up to is no longer the same sky as our predecessors, we share the same blood as our ancestors and shoulder the same dream of great rejuvenation.’
Although they are belligerent by nature, it is precisely because of their shared history and cultural inheritance that the Giant Brute race is very united internally.
The western district of Bloodslaughter City is inhabited by the Night Demon race.
This race descended to Earth at roughly the same time as the Giant Brute race.
Every adult Night Demon stands close to two meters tall, with a slender build. Even without deliberate training they have smoothly contoured muscles. Their skin shows a blue-violet hue. They like dim and chilly environments. In a combat state they are like a crouched leopard, with astonishing explosive power.
After integrating into Earth, the Night Demon race underwent dramatic change under the impact of various cultures.
When they first arrived, Night Demons disliked wearing clothes.
Because their homeworld is like spring all year round, with all things coexisting, they believe life originates from nature and should commune with nature in the most primal, pure state.
Wearing clothes, in their view, is a self-imposed constraint that abandons closeness to nature. Only bareness is a return to nature, an embrace of life.
But after descending to Earth and linking to the Starnet, the thinking of the new generation of Night Demons changed.
The Starnet world exposed them to an abundance of outside information.
This information broadened the horizons of Night Demon members and led them to reflect on their traditional culture and customs. Values once taken for granted were questioned, and tradition and modernity clashed fiercely.
This change did not happen overnight.
Members of the first two generations of Night Demons even proposed withdrawing from the Starnet to preserve their original values. They launched many intra-racial education programs, trying to correct the changing ideas among their people.
But the flood of information brought by a vast array of films, novels, games, and other entertainment products could not be stopped. After the third generation following their arrival on Earth came of age, the situation reversed.
The new generation completely overturned the views of the older generation, freely choosing their lifestyle, and they also put on clothing.
The original inheritance, in turn, was transformed into intangible cultural heritage. For example, once a year they hold a Nature Festival. On that day all Night Demon members take off their clothes to celebrate together and give thanks to nature.
Although the customs changed, the Night Demons’ innate reverence for nature’s primal wildness has not faded.
Like the Giant Brute race, they greatly revere combat.
On their homeworld the Night Demons have a Blood Sacrifice Day each year, during which they hunt large numbers of beasts to record a warrior’s growth.
To this day, the blood of battle still runs in their bones.
At first, the Night Demon race and the Giant Brute race tried to integrate with other races, but conflicts frequently broke out.
To solve this problem, the Starnet proposed merging the two races to co-build a city and to release the warriors’ desire to fight through combat events organized within the two races.
Facts proved that this decision solved the problem.
After that, every year the two races hold fighting tournaments between their warriors to dissipate the urge to fight.
After virtual games appeared, players of the two races became regulars of virtual games as well. If they weren’t fighting, they were on the way to a fight.
But compared to virtual games, the warriors of the two races prefer real world combat events.
The reason is simple. The warriors of both races feel virtual games lack a sense of reality and cannot bring the unrestrained thrill of combat.
The Giant Brute race and the Night Demon race are also among the races in the Earth Alliance with the lowest virtual-game online rates.
Bloodslaughter City Starnet.
Berserk Warrior Arlin: Anyone up for a D-tier event challenge? Let an E-tier Night Demon fighter come and cross blades. Livestream revenue split fifty-fifty. Life-and-death waiver required. A passionate, hot-blooded battle awaits us.
Three Axes Chop Your Granny: F-tier event, rookie bracket, schedule a fight tonight, using an online virtual confrontation. Livestream revenue to be discussed in private messages.
Ye Junluo: A-tier event, the side that goes down first counts as the loser. Looking for a capable A-tier opponent from the Giant Brute race. Offline bout.
Storm Warrior: E-tier event, looking for someone. Online virtual confrontation at 8 tonight.
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Unlike the Starnet Forums of other races, which mainly discuss virtual games, the Bloodslaughter City Starnet Forum co-built by the two races discusses nothing but combat events.
This is also the favorite form of entertainment of the two races.
They brawl via livestreams, then earn subscription viewing fees, with the revenue split negotiated in advance.
The viewers of the events include netizens of various races, as well as audiences from the Giant Brute race and the Night Demon race.
Events are divided into S to F tiers, among which E and F tiers are called the rookie bracket and are generally carried out in virtual scenes built by the Lunar Eclipse race.
Once events reach D tier, they are conducted via offline livestreams.
For events above D tier, the danger is extremely high, and deaths may occur during the fights between warriors of the two races.
But the warriors of both races are already accustomed to this and do not see it as a problem, they still try to avoid causing death.
Each event has a referee to promptly stop it once one side falls unconscious, preventing the other side, carried away in the heat of the fight, from killing a warrior who has lost the ability to resist.
At this moment, a link appeared on the Bloodslaughter City Starnet Forum.
This link immediately aroused the curiosity of members of both races, triggering heated discussion.
They found that Welfare Officer who posted the link actually had no verification information, and they could not understand how he bypassed the verification process to enter the internal forum of Bloodslaughter City.
Before long, a sensational piece of news appeared, attracting the attention of the two races’ members.
Dark Fighter: Something big has happened. The link downloaded the official Dark Land. After entering the game there is perfect physical simulation. I cannot take screenshots, so I cannot provide useful information. Everyone hurry and download, the link may be blocked soon.
Seeing the message posted by the forum netizen Dark Fighter.
Netizens of the two races all clicked the inexplicably pinned link to download.
Unlike other races, communication among members of the Giant Brute race and the Night Demon race rarely involves joking.
Seeing racial members say they could download a cracked version of Dark Land, they did not harbor the slightest doubt.
As for Dark Land, players of the two races have been looking forward to it for a long time.
Information circulating on the Starnet shows that this is a virtual game that perfectly simulates real world physical behavior.
This setting has immense appeal to the two races. It means that battles in the future can avoid death.
They do not like virtual fighting precisely because previous virtual games were too lacking in realism, causing the combat feedback experience to fall far short of real life.
If Dark Land has perfect physical simulation, it means they can fight to their hearts’ content without worrying about various risks.
They could even engage in more thrilling combat modes in the game environment, such as war mode.
But in the first two rounds of qualification distribution by the Lunar Eclipse race, there were no Giant Brute or Night Demon slots.
To obtain Dark Land qualifications, the leaderships of the two races once negotiated with the Lunar Eclipse race, hoping to obtain an extra batch of qualifications through diplomatic means.
But the Lunar Eclipse race’s reply was like a stiff robot, stating that the qualification distribution process was set by the Starnet AI core and that they would not interfere in any way.
Mentioning the Starnet AI core meant there was no room for negotiation. The high levels of the two races, having been refused, could only abandon the idea.