Chapter 167-2: How dare they do that! (2) |
As someone who had once been a member of the Darkborn Legion, a raiding force spanning multiple worlds, he clearly understood a truth: when facing any power, you should strive to eradicate the weeds and pull up the roots, leave none alive.
No one could be sure whether the faction once plundered would one day unexpectedly obtain a Rule power, then grow to an unimaginable realm.
But the answer from the player race was plainly telling him that they did not take him seriously at all.
This conduct completely ignited Anshui’s fury.
He swore in his heart.
When the day came that he recovered his strength, he would seek out the player race and bring them destruction and despair.
Thinking of his miserable state at this moment, Anshui clenched his fists tightly. His knuckles whitened with force, veins bulged on the backs of his hands, and tears welled in his eyes, only to be forced back.
He then slowly stood up. Staring at the backs of the departing players, he gnashed his teeth and said.
“You will regret this.”
“Got it. Good luck.”
The player who had just spoken to him did not even look back. He raised his right hand, waved casually, and offered encouragement.
In that instant, Anshui felt like coughing up blood.
‘What contempt, what humiliation. It infuriates me.’
The sky began to rain, as if mirroring Anshui’s mood.
Recalling scene after scene of being humiliated by the player race, Anshui’s mood sank to the extreme.
“If I had known, I might as well have died the moment I revived. All the clever schemes I thought I had, holding on until now, what did I gain?” he murmured, and tears slipped from the corners of his eyes.
“You gained training in willpower.” At that moment, a voice came.
He looked up. In the pounding rain, a player had somehow doubled back.
He came to stand before Anshui, gave him a shy smile, scratched his head a little sheepishly, then swept a glance around to make sure there were no other players nearby. He reached down, picked up the necklace on the ground that had lost its gem, and decisively bolted.
Watching the player’s back recede, Anshui’s long-suppressed emotions surged from his eyes like a burst dam. His sobs intertwined with the thunder rolling in the sky.
His hatred for the player race reached its peak.
His body was already weak, and with the added emotional shock, he finally could not hold out. Darkness swept over his vision, and he collapsed to the ground.
He did not know how long he slept. When Anshui woke, the sky was dark and the rain had stopped.
He lay on the ground, feeling his stomach growl, with no intention of getting up.
At this moment he felt utterly lost, not knowing where to go.
Though hatred burned in his heart, in his current state he did not even know how to begin.
Without the resources in the Darkborn treasury, he could only hunt weaker lifeforms like a beast to gain the strength to recover.
The road of revenge was incredibly long.
Just then, a dark red glow appeared at the corner of his eye.
Anshui turned his head and saw that the shattered gem fragments were flashing with a regular, faint light.
Huh?
He crawled to one shattered gem, dug it out of the muddy ground, wiped off the dirt, and held it before his eyes to examine it carefully.
Sensing the pulsing frequency of the gem, Anshui fell into thought.
As time passed, an unbelievable thought surfaced in his mind.
He drew a wisp of vitality from his near-dried-up body and injected it into the gem shard, trying to tap the gem according to the same frequency.
At once, a voice came through intermittently.
“Who are you, why do you have my Darkborn Legion’s Reincarnation Node?”
Hearing the voice from the other end, Anshui was overjoyed and hurried to respond,
“I am the commander of the 228th branch legion of the Darkborn Legion. I am Anshui.”
Hearing his answer, the gem suddenly stopped flashing. There was no further reply.
But Anshui’s mood was indescribably excited.
He realized something. There was actually another force of the Darkborn Legion in this world.
It was obviously one of the splinter forces from when the race split during their flight back then.
As long as he could establish contact with this force, he would have hope for revenge.
What he did not know was why, when the transmission was halfway through, the voice on the other side vanished.
The hope that had just sprouted in his heart turned into fear. He was afraid that the communication had been cut off because the gem shattered, and that he would never be able to establish a connection again.
In his anxious waiting, an invisible force descended.
The shattered gems on the ground suddenly rose up and automatically pieced themselves together in midair. Then an unseen force pulled him into a spiritual scene.
The place was filled with a putrid miasma. A withered figure sat upright at the far end of the spiritual projection scene.
It wore a tattered, ancient suit of battle armor. Thick, ink-black darkness coiled around it. Its face was gaunt, and the contours of its facial bones were even visible.
This figure made Anshui feel both unfamiliar and familiar.
“Anshui, after such a long age apart, you have actually become this weak.”
A hoarse voice came from the Darkborn man at the far end. As he spoke, the figure could not help but cough violently.
“Who are you?” Anshui could not help asking.
“Anstar.”
Hearing the answer, Anshui’s heart trembled.
According to the historical brand carried before their flight, the name Anstar referred to the leader of the main lineage of the Darkborn Legion, and also the supreme commander of the entire Darkborn Legion.
Although in his previous life he had been a branch legion commander, he had always revered Anstar.
“Why have you become like this?” Anshui asked in confusion.
Anstar did not directly answer the question. He shook his head and said.
“How long have you been in the Monster World?”
Facing the inquiry, Anshui answered truthfully.
“I am not sure. Not long after I came to this world, I fell into slumber.”
He then recounted in detail the situation before he descended into the Monster World, as well as what he encountered after arriving.
After hearing his story, Anstar could not help but cough violently. Two red lights lit up in his dim eyes.
“Foolish. You actually deluded yourself into wanting to destroy this world. Do you know why I disbanded the Darkborn Legion back then?”
Faced with the question, Anshui thought of what was recorded in the histories.
According to the image records and descriptions in the historical annals, the Darkborn Legion was plundering a world called Sacred Spring at the time.
The Darkborn Legion swept that world’s living beings with irresistible force.
But just as victory was in sight, a shadow that blotted out the sky surged up from a corner of the world, sweeping toward the Darkborn Legion like a black tide.
Beetles as huge as mountains, scorpions spitting corrosive slime, death worms that could devour energy. Countless terrifying war machines appeared. This was a natural-catastrophe level raiding force called the Battle Swarm.
Just like when the Darkborn Legion invaded this world, the Battle Swarm crushed the Darkborn Legion with unstoppable momentum.
The war lasted for years. The Darkborn Legion chose to withdraw voluntarily and yield the world’s resources.
But the Battle Swarm was unwilling to let the Darkborn Legion leave, and launched an endless pursuit.
Realizing there was no way to escape the Battle Swarm’s hunt, Anstar, as commander, chose to cut up the legion and scatter in flight so that the Darkborn Legion would not be completely destroyed.
This was undoubtedly the correct choice.
In the end, the Swarm followed one of the fleeing Darkborn branches away.
The once glorious Darkborn Legion then dissolved, establishing new civilizations in different worlds.
What he led was one of those branch legions.
What Anshui did not understand, however, was why Anstar was asking him this. He then replied,
“Anstar, we were hunted by the Battle Swarm, and could only dismantle the legion, sacrificing a portion to preserve the remaining strength of the legion.”
“Correct. That force is in the Monster World now. You want to destroy this place, and you think you have the ability to contend with it?”
Anstar’s answer gave Anshui a fright.
Though he had not witnessed it with his own eyes, the image records of that sky-blotting, deafeningly grand scene had left a deep impression.
He had not expected that a natural-catastrophe level raiding force would actually be in this world.
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