Chapter 203-4: Wandering Soul at the Village Entrance, Lord Mode (4) |
One hour later.
Family-Sharing Stepdad was pinned to the ground by Li Zheng and the others with a chokehold, getting his forehead flicked again and again.
“Out with it. Do you love your brothers or your own life.”
“Who was it that said as long as he lived he would never let his brothers get hurt. I let you run that fast.”
“Who the hell taught you to use the Star Shift trait like that. Other people’s damage-soaking tanks use Star Shift to protect teammates. You use it to screw over teammates, huh.”
Facing the gang beating from his brothers, Family-Sharing Stepdad decisively apologized and admitted fault.
“Brothers, I was wrong. I won’t dare do it again.”
“Wrong where.”
“Wrong for running faster than you.”
“Understood. Next time I definitely won’t run.”
After a round of horseplay, the Grind Kings players pressing him down stood up one after another.
Family-Sharing Stepdad swept his gaze full of grievance over the smiling faces of his brothers and swore silently in his heart that next time when they ran, he would run too. Anyone who did not run would be a fool.
As a damage-soaking tank, he had to step up only when he could actually soak damage.
After the interlude, Li Zheng planned to take his brothers to the Colorful Mist Coast for a Spiritual Food meal and wait for God King to initiate the next joint warband.
—
They arrived at the beach of the Colorful Mist Coast via the Teleportation Plaza.
Compared with the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range, the environment here was comfortable and pleasant.
The salty sea breeze, carrying the ocean’s unique freshness and moisture, brushed their cheeks. With every breath, they could feel the air brimming with vitality, like drinking a mouthful of refreshing sweet spring.
With no Evil Moon, the sky was sapphire blue, pure without the slightest impurity. The clouds were as white as snow, as fluffy and light as cotton candy, drifting with the breeze.
The beach was filled with players of different races.
Gazing into the distance, the sea’s surface glittered under sunlight. The water was crystal clear, revealing colorful shells in the shallows, seaweed swaying with the waves, and aquatic life darting among them.
The waves lapped lightly against the shore rocks, making a pleasant swishing sound and splashing white spray.
Near the shore, several sailboats made by the fishermen bobbed on the sea. Their white sails stood out vividly against the blue sky and azure sea.
From time to time, laughter from fisherman players drifted over from the sailboats.
The comfortable environment had always been the main reason the Colorful Mist Coast ranked first on the regional positive reviews list.
Finding a clear spot, the group lay down to sunbathe.
Li Zheng looked toward a Gill-Fish race player running a stall not far away, ordered several famous Spiritual Food snacks from the forum, then summoned the forum interface.
Life in the training camp meant growing every day under high pressure.
The leisure now was truly rare.
Opening the livestream section, Li Zheng entered the two words for ‘God King’ in the search box and tapped confirm with his consciousness.
There were two viewing modes for livestreams.
One was interface viewing, where the interface could be freely dragged in the field of vision and zoomed in or out.
This viewing mode did not affect activities and was suitable for leisurely entertainment.
One could even watch several livestreams at once, as long as they fit in the field of view.
The second was immersive viewing, which would switch to the streamer’s perspective or Guide’s perspective and cover the entire field of vision for viewing.
No activities could be performed in immersive viewing mode.
But recently there was one exception.
If the player being watched was in the Death Space instance, then it could only be watched in immersive mode and could not be presented in interface mode.
It was not that interface mode could not be selected.
Rather, in interface mode the scenes inside the Death Space instance would accelerate in an abstract way.
On this, players on the forum had also provided analysis.
They believed that the player’s brain activity frequency accelerated in the Death Space instance, with massive information processed rapidly, causing the visuals to appear as abstract acceleration.
This had also been confirmed by Guide.
In fact, time inside the Death Space was no different from the outside world. The flow rate was the same.
Only the speed inside the illusion was accelerated.
When players died in the illusion, it was essentially not the monsters in the illusion attacking for real, but the Lord of Ecstasy using the power of ecstasy to create injuries on the players and feeding them back in real time.
Finding God King’s livestream in the list, Li Zheng clicked to enter.
What presented before his eyes was the scene unique to the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range region, with an oppressive environment and the Evil Moon hanging high.
In the feed, God King was commanding the joint warband to clash with the Black Tide Legion led by Earthmind Bully.
What surprised Li Zheng was the power God King used.
A yellow-brown sigil surfaced on God King’s forehead, and the land at the end of his sight suddenly trembled violently, as if awakened by an invisible force.
It undulated like waves. Massive rocks abruptly rose from underground, squeezing and interlocking. In the blink of an eye, they formed a towering shield of earth.
The local offensive under Earthmind Bully’s control was immediately blocked by this shield of earth, and the assault collapsed at once.
“Damn, take this power to the mine and it would take off.” Seeing this, Li Zheng was instantly stunned by the display.
In his impression, God King had always been a commander-type player whose personal combat power was not high, but now he possessed the power to casually reshape the surface of the land.
This made him think of the forum’s hot topic two months ago.
God King had led his team to successfully contain a Sixth-Generation Primordial Monster: Lord.
This was clearly God King activating Lord Mode and releasing special abilities by consuming Lord’s power.
The strength of a Sixth-Generation Primordial truly filled him with envy.
As first-batch players, what they had embedded were still only First to Fourth Generation Primordials.
Just then, a green sigil surfaced on God King’s forehead in the stream.
From Earth Lord Mode, he switched to Forest Lord Mode.
Dots of verdant green spread from the point where God King’s sight focused. On the originally barren Black Tide land, countless tender green sprouts burst forth and grew at astonishing speed.
In just moments, a dense little forest emerged.
Thick trunks interwove to form a natural barrier. The branches were covered with sharp barbs that began lashing the incoming destruction-series units, covering the retreat and recovery of damage-soaking players in a local section of the battlefield.
At this time the sigil on God King’s forehead switched to ice-blue.
Snow began to fall over a local area of the battlefield, instantly shrouded by Extreme Cold…
Compared with First to Fourth Generation Inherited souls, the Lord Inherited soul traits gave Li Zheng a direct vision of a god who commanded nature.
But this Inherited soul also had drawbacks.
He remembered the forum’s discussions at the time, with test players stating that each activation of Lord Mode consumed lord’s power, and releasing abilities also consumed lord’s power.
The larger the coverage and the greater the change to a local area, the more lord’s power it consumed.
In theory, with infinite lord’s power, one could treat the battlefield as a canvas and rewrite the environment at will with one’s own will.
But that was only in theory.
The acquisition of lord’s power could only be continuously generated by occupying territories.
First-movers had a huge advantage. Players who joined later could only set up Lord Nodes in areas dense with monsters.
Though one could use dirty tricks, such as luring monsters to destroy the Lord Nodes set by other lord-build players, the outcome would be miserable.
Especially when facing someone like God King, the leader of a top guild. If ordinary players used dirty tricks to snatch territory nodes, they might not even make it out of the village entrance afterward.
The war continued. Watching the collisions between the joint warband and the Black Tide in the feed had Li Zheng’s blood boiling.
This was the growth mode he wanted.
He and his Grind Kings brothers all had the blessing of the War God Seal. War mode could grant their combat power a leap in growth.
After a few wars, they could widen the power gap with ordinary players by a fair margin.
Though their Star Veins did not have Inherited souls of Fourth Generation or above embedded, Guide had said that the rule of the War God Seal on them was a top-tier Derivative Rule Power even more precious than a Sixth-Generation Primordial.
The war continued, and as Li Zheng observed, he found that.
Facing the version’s epic-strengthened Earthmind Bully, even with the blessing of the Lord Inherited soul, God King’s joint warband was still fighting with great difficulty.
In particular, in personal command ability, he was completely suppressed by Earthmind Bully.
In the end, the war’s outcome was a one-sided rout.
By the time they finished their Spiritual Food, the joint warband had been scattered by the Black Tide Evil Entities.
Unable to organize effective joint strength again, they were forced to enter free war mode.
Before long, God King also died under the Black Tide’s furious offensive, and the livestream’s view was swallowed by darkness.
A few minutes later, God King sent a message:
God King: Gold-Farmer brother, gather at Emperor’s Mound Village in 50 minutes. I will take you to battle the bully again.
Game Gold-Farmer: Received. We will head over to gather in advance.
Closing the dialog box, Li Zheng stood up.
“Brothers, back to the village. We fight the bully.”