Chapter 114: No Evil, No Problem

The news about players is always ever-changing; no one can be the players' darling forever.

When the Psionic Spire verification facility on the Antarctic Continent began construction, people outside were all discussing the changes players and the other world were bringing to their own planet. Many even started fabricating claims that they possessed psionics and similar topics.

In another world, such topics could always stir up infinite reverie. Although the Star-Bearers of the Old World had stirred up all kinds of trends, as time passed, this heat began to gradually subside. Countless demons and unimaginably powerful enemies brought the players' pace of advance and exploration to a halt.

Completely different from the high-spirited progress they had imagined, more players and guilds were forced to choose a strategy of building high walls, starting to set up their own Psionic Spires on one strategic location after another to call for psionic support from the Star-Bearers. But even so, one high tower and building after another collapsed with a boom during the tug-of-war. Because the demons' infighting also had its limits.

After the threat reached a critical point, those demons would also choose to launch charges at the players' positions, attempting to make the players retreat in the face of difficulties; such things were actually quite consistent with their state.

Once it turned into a tug-of-war, everyone's attention would naturally dissipate very quickly.

News pursues greater heat and more explosive stories; for example, the Floating City of the Violet Mage Council in Kalimdor falling due to the power of a Great Demon—such news was obviously much more stimulating than the Old World, which had already fallen into a time of mutual slaughter.

A large wave of fresh traffic and attention began to pour into Kalimdor, while for the Old World, what remained now were more player guilds and continuous investment.

These players who truly intended to operate did not need attention; what they needed was exactly this kind of thing that could be held steadily in their hands for a long time. A continent where they could steadily make money for a long time, build their own city-states and towns, and have the opportunity to become superhumans—in this situation, as long as they weren't the type of casual players who ran away as soon as the traffic shifted, basically everyone was prepared to come to the Antarctic Continent to choose their own utopia.

Although there was much less news compared to the beginning, basically just various dull and boring frontline advancement maps, the actual number of people was significantly higher than the initial players. A continuous stream of supplies and shipping was being transferred from the Nanbu Conglin and the Elf outposts to the Antarctic Landing Point, becoming food for the players.

And now, the players in the Fourth Ring Defense Zone were piling up and building high walls, gradually squeezing and killing the demons' territory bit by bit within the range of the Psionic Spires.

The players ultimately chose the safest mode of pushing from within a circle.

Because of the quality of their troop system, they really could not count on any possibility of defeating the demons head-on. It could even be said that as long as the demons slammed into the position or swept a whip, basically all the players on that player position would be wiped out. The gap was simply too large.

Therefore, they could only continuously build all kinds of Psionic Spires, using the psionic support provided by the Psionic Spires to advance in a staggered manner toward the interior of the entire Antarctic Continent, wearing down the demons' military strength bit by bit.

Before, the demons didn't pay much attention to these strange fellows, but now the demons had already begun to turn their eyes toward these dregs.

Even yesterday, one player guild had its home and spires completely destroyed by a combined demon army because their advance was too fast, and their bodies were hung on wooden stakes and burned. This kind of cruel scene could, to a certain extent, be considered a daily occurrence on the entire Antarctic Continent.

The players' living state here now was that every day, suicide squads would go out to find detailed intelligence within a radius of ten to twenty kilometers, and then other players would continuously build walls and start doing urbanization in the back.

Because the Star-Bearers could help with processing and would accept any supplies, the various basic building materials were truly inexhaustible.

Every player had basically participated in the construction of the city walls with their own hands. Centered on the Antarctic Pivot, the players had opened up a total of thirteen large Psionic Spire areas across the entire Antarctic Continent, staggered with each other, and were gradually marching toward the deepest part of the Antarctic Continent.

Sometimes, the players could even reach the Demon Fortress that was closest to them, which had a huge Magic Domain Rift. The conflicts and friction between them even made everyone feel their blood boiling.

Although it was honestly a bit abstract for a group of scattered soldiers and wandering warriors to fight a war of urbanization, it could win.

As long as they could win, no matter how ugly it was, it was acceptable. Not to mention that they were also paying money.

You must know that even Li Ang and Edward, two heavyweight players who had always been hostile to each other, were now working together under the Star-Bearers' "wealthy" influence, with both sides jointly agreeing on a player covenant.

Working and getting paid, having their own land, and even having food and housing provided—why did the players get all the good things? Although generally, it felt like something was not quite right somewhere, the players still cheered, believing that this should be the Promised Land for players. After all, the Star-Bearers really didn't have any bad intentions.

Killing demons in the Arctic, killing demons in the Ice Wall Magic Domain, killing demons under the sea, killing demons in all kinds of places. Even in some sea areas where there were many sunken treasures, these Star-Bearers would just leave after killing the demons. They didn't even look at the countless treasures. They were truly here to kill demons, as if they had an irreconcilable hatred for them. Why wait to support such a good force? Except for a few players who were too free and loose and had too many ideas of their own, almost no one had any opinions about such a life.

"But I often think sometimes, are the Star-Bearers too good to us? Could there be a conspiracy?"

"Huh? What conspiracy?"

"Why can these city walls also be used against the interior?"

Smearing the composite material that shone with golden light onto a flat surface, placing a Magic Rune Brick on it, and after carefully aligning it, the player who was building the wall pointed somewhat confusedly at the internal rune structure.

"The Star-Bearers' modules, the Star-Bearers' magic runes, and a series of construction conditions—look here, didn't they say so? When needed, these city walls will flip over to fight against enemies inside, or something... This doesn't seem like a normal combat requirement, right?"

"Because demons can teleport in. Are you stupid? Didn't we talk about it last time? A stupid guild had a whimsical idea to use a portal to send supplies, and after it exploded, it was the Star-Bearers who cleaned up the mess."

"... But I just feel like something is wrong somewhere. Looking at these things, I always feel like something is wrong."

"Don't tell me your brain stopped working well after you learned psionics..." Another player looked at the player who was deep in thought with quite a bit of pity, their expression seeming rather sympathetic.

There was actually another reason why the players couldn't occupy the entire Antarctic region like locusts in a short time. That was that the demons would often suddenly occupy certain areas where spells had been cast in a short period.

Because the Star-Bearers were teaching players psionics and magic. Although the vast majority of players didn't have anything that could be called talent at all, the Star-Bearers still generously gave the players the right to be educated. For just two hundred Gold Coins, one could get a complete set of psionic magic education processes, as well as the Silence Curse.

After they learned psionics, they had no way to tell others about the psionic mysteries belonging to the Star-Bearer Faction. Even writing it down unconsciously was impossible, and word-of-mouth was also impossible.

This was knowledge that belonged only to the purchaser, and it was also a theory that belonged only to the purchaser.

This meant that almost every player who learned psionics would eventually give some theories that had conflicting parts between them. They couldn't explain it in detail, but they could use some specious and profound sentences to roughly describe the existence of psionics and the methods of cognition.

And the final result was that a large group of players all became a bit obsessed. It had to be said that there were indeed talented people with high intelligence and high talent among the players, who could come up with a little blessing and small magic even in this environment.

But that was all. And if you wanted to practice, you could only run outside the Antarctic Continent or practice in reality.

Because as long as it was inside the Antarctic Continent, the players' psionic training would mostly only lead to one outcome: the Demon Legion would smell the scent and rush out to manifest, and then bring several legions to chop everything around into pieces.

This was also the reason why the city walls eventually actively added internal attacks. These massive amounts of materials, which stretched across almost every corner of the entire Antarctic Continent and were transferred by countless players like ants moving house from various great worlds, were thus gradually repaired into one giant spire after another belonging to the Star-Bearers' runes and Defense Matrix. If it weren't for the fact that the Star-Bearers' reputation was truly too good, I'm afraid no one would dare to invest like this.

And in fact, even now, there were many players like the one building the wall who raised objections and different ideas. The Star-Bearers were indeed killing demons now, and just thinking about killing demons was not wrong, but the Star-Bearers themselves did not have the thousands of years of heritage that other races had; what if they were gone? If these runes and spells contained the Star-Bearers' vicious ambitions and had some unimaginable rune seals, what should they do? Various speculations and interference made the offensive on the Antarctic Continent difficult to move forward.

"If you ask me, it's just that the players are too full and think too much. If you had supported with all your strength early on, we would have already taken down the first fortress."

Listening to the questioning voice of the person beside them, another player who was building the wall snorted disdainfully, used a tool to scoop up a large piece of composite material and smeared it on the city wall, and incidentally used a Rune Steel Seal to press a clear rune mark on it, humming somewhat dissatisfiedly: "What do you think he can plot against us for? The blueprints for the Psionic Spires were given, and the opportunities for learning runes and psionics regarding the Antarctic were also given. Other races hide things and treat you like dogs—hey, that's right, they should treat you like dogs. Now that someone generous and magnanimous comes along and treats you like a human, you feel that this is wrong instead. What kind of mentality is that? Are you asking to be scolded?"

"It's not like that. It's just that the more I learn, the more I feel like there's something wrong. You also know that our Antarctic over there has now also built a Psionic Spire, and there is also a group of people replicating these things."

"And then? Did you detect any problems?"

"That's not it, but it just gives people a feeling of being very uneasy, very uneasy. It's as if someone has been watching us through these runes all along."

The player holding the opposing view looked at the gorgeous and complicated golden runes one after another on the city walls and bricks, recalling the conclusions drawn after the psionic teaching in their mind, and there was always some thought about to come out.

The Star-Bearers' psionic theory was different from everyone else in the world at present; it was a unique theory that was completely independent and conflicted with every mainstream society. It believed that the psionics of this world were essentially an objective phenomenon influenced by human subjective thinking; this phenomenon existed universally in the universe, so it could be interfered with by human will.

As long as one firmly believed in a certain conviction, and as long as emotions and one's own thoughts reached a certain level, then people could achieve things that only magic in imagination could achieve.

They provided a series of defensive runes, Anti-Chaos Brand, and data about Chaos Demons in great detail.

Now the players all knew very well that Chaos was not a good thing, and the reason why the major races of the world guarded the data on Chaos more strictly than anything else. Even the players themselves had now begun to consciously shrink their knowledge about Chaos, hoping that the environment could become a little better.

After all, as long as one had thoughts and cognition, and as long as one had one's own ideas, then those demons would ignore any distance and time and could descend by one's side at any time; such a thing was too terrifying.

However, this was always where every psionic player felt a headache.

Almost every psionic player could realize that there was probably a huge problem hidden here, including in reality, and even in their exchanges and websites, there was some unimaginable danger hidden. But after possessing psionics and being enlightened by the Star-Bearers, they always didn't know where the problem was.

Demons could ignore distance and time to teleport over and could even exert power, so they had to use the Star-Bearers' runes to block them.

The Star-Bearers' power could ignore the span of the continent and instantly crush those emerging demons, which was good.

Then, what exactly was the problem here?

There wasn't any, what problem could there be? But what exactly was this worry in the soul...

Just like now, players possessing psionic energy could only scrape the white plaster with sorrowful faces, scraping back the excess Composite Material, and sighing as they looked at the city wall they had built. They did not know where this negative emotion was coming from.

And just at this moment, that reckless player pulled on his palm with eyes shining, pointed in a certain direction, and whispered: "Look, Li Ang and Edward, and the Pale Army, they have started to leave the city to hunt again."

Six thousand more words coming at two o'clock! Things are already gradually getting better! Please rest assured!

(End of this chapter)