Chapter 2987

Seeing this mission's punishment, Su Xiao was surprised; just this mission's punishment, resisting it head-on was nothing, but relatively speaking, the mission reward wasn't high either.

The wealth of contractors in the Initiate Paradise largely stems from resource extraction; this is not only true for miners, but combat-system contractors are also wealthy, because before entering each world, miners hire people to protect them, lest they encounter powerful beings or dangerous creatures within the mission world while mining.

The current mission reward and punishment are both based on Initiate Paradise's standards; Su Xiao has received mainline missions before, and although the mission punishments were always forced executions, the mission rewards were very generous.

The mainline missions of the Reincarnation Paradise have a feature: they judge based on world difficulty; assuming in a world of danger level lv. 45~lv. 60, lv. 45 is an ultra-low-risk mission, receiving such a mainline mission, the reward need not be mentioned—it's essentially a 'consolation prize'.

But if the difficulty of subsequent mission rounds spikes, the reward will increase in an exaggerated manner, ultimately reaching a degree that leaves people stunned.

This is also why our side's contractors have strong overall combat power despite few numbers; as long as they risk their lives and dare to fight, they can gradually rise in one or two worlds and achieve a turnaround from salted fish.

Even within Initiate Paradise, there are benefits; although it's easy to be bullied, every world contention battle is like a 'disaster film' or 'horror film', but as long as one endures, there is still hope to rise later.

That said, but after contractors in Initiate Paradise rise, they must also guard against one thing: avoid encountering strange and bizarre things in the fully open·primitive world, such as black magic.

Su Xiao's current goal is to find the Light King; the whereabouts of the Light King are known only to the two major forces: the Soul Bell Tower and the Codo School; these two forces do not occupy territory, but each major city has their branches, and the two sides are in a semi-hostile state; colloquially speaking, they view each other as idiots, but not to the point of fighting.

The Soul Bell Tower is the lineage of the Light King; its core principles are three.

1. Develop supernatural power, i. e., the power of warlocks; ancient flying dragons, crystallized fat production, and elemental supernatural are their research directions.

2. Research vessels; without involving the Mother God and the Light King, create new vessels to re-seal the ancient gods.

3. Forge/enhance/distort the soul; the Soul Bell Tower believes that a sufficiently strong soul might perhaps resist corruption.

As for the other force, the Codo School, this force cannot be described as wonderful; they study and worship ancient gods, with the idea that since they cannot defeat them, why not coexist with the ancient gods? Since they are deities, they should also be objects of faith.

Worship ancient gods → believe in ancient gods → gain trust of ancient gods → send away ancient gods, letting ancient gods bring calamity to other worlds; this is basically the Codo School's ideology.

In the Codo School, there are also other ideological branches; since they cannot resist ancient gods, why not invite another ancient god? Use an ancient god to fight an ancient god.

Please don't laugh; in the early stages of the ancient god's descent, the Codo School appeared, and they truly summoned another ancient god—a deity controlling shadows; this ancient god, shortly after arrival, was killed by the previously descended ancient god.

It is said that the Codo School brought back only the skull of the shadow ancient god, and all members mourned for a long time, then made the huge skull of the shadow ancient god into a specimen……

These two forces, Su Xiao needs to choose one to investigate; the Soul Bell Tower is more convenient, but the 'Old Royal Capital·Talo' has no branch of the Soul Bell Tower.

Originally there was one, but after a broken container went mad and slaughtered nearly one-tenth of the population of 'Old Royal Capital·Talo', the residents here cooperated and cleared out the Soul Bell Tower's branch.

Su Xiao stood up and walked toward the street corner; he wants to visit the Codo School's branch to see, to investigate this force that believes in ancient gods.

At some point, the sky had turned gray-black; the sun behind the clouds struggled to emit light, and the light on the streets dimmed somewhat.

A sharp scream came from inside the third floor on the side, followed by a low, hoarse roar; someone had corrupted again.

With a crack, a hunched figure smashed through the window and fell a few meters from Su Xiao; this was a woman whose face was covered in black energy threads, her expression already twisted.

"Roar!"

The woman bellowed, faint black sound waves spreading in the air; just then, a fish-killing knife stabbed from behind her, piercing into her neck, and then a push.

The woman with the knife in her neck fell with a thud; the man who killed her knelt beside her corpse, forehead pressed to the ground, shoulders trembling uncontrollably, struggling to suppress his sobbing cries; just moments ago, he had personally understood his beloved—this, is the world descended upon by the ancient god.

Su Xiao lifted his foot and continued forward; he again felt the corrupting force up close, far more troublesome than expected—this is the erosion and alteration of the spirit.

As the vessel's cracks increase, this corrupting force will grow stronger; this ancient god is clearly thoroughly enraged, preparing to exterminate all living beings in the Dark Star World, then suck this world dry until exhausted.

Passing through several sparsely populated streets, Su Xiao stopped before a domed building; on this building, there is a circular emblem pattern, the symbol of the Codo School.

No one guards the gate of the Codo School branch; on the wall beside the door is written a line.

'Faint light fades, we have waited in the darkness.'

Su Xiao pushed open the door and entered the Codo School branch; the first floor is not large, with many shelves against the walls holding strange oddities; several seats are on the side of the room, an old man leans against the chair back in deep sleep, his mouth open wide.

"Woof."

Ignoring Ignoring Ignoring Ignoring Ignoring Bubu Wang barked; the old man dozing woke up, he reached back with one hand to comb his hair, almost touching the occiput before barely grasping a few strands.

"How long has it been? Believing in ancient gods hasn't changed much either."

The old man muttered lowly, dissatisfied that believing in ancient gods does nothing for hair growth.

"You came here—are you here to rob, or to join the Codo School?"

After the bald old man sized up Su Xiao, his eyes grew more wary; the -2 charm attribute gradually took effect.

"Not decided yet."

"Considering it is fine, huh? What did you just say?"

The bald old man's eyes grew even more wary; although the Codo School is not exactly a good faction, it also hasn't reached the level of utterly evil.

"I haven't decided whether to join or leave."

"Then I can relax; only this old man is here, and a few days ago it was still robbed once—Talo this ghost place, getting more and more unsettled."

The bald old man pushed open the door of a small room; this room somewhat resembles a confession booth, divided into two parts, with a wooden board in the middle, and at the center of the board is a small mesh window.

The bald old man sat inside the booth; Su Xiao, Ignoring Ignoring Ignoring Ignoring Ignoring Bubu Wang, Bahar, and Benny are on the other side, Am blocking the door.

Thud.

The booth's door was shut by Am; the bald old man opposite shook his head.

"First, let me introduce myself—I am Merlos; if you join the Codo School, I will be your guide; at this stage, regarding how to believe in ancient gods, there is great disagreement within the school—this you must know first."

As he spoke, the expression of the bald old man·Merlos grew solemn.

"What are the disagreements about how to believe in ancient gods? That is, you haven't decided whether to believe or not?"

Bahar heard the gist; its impression of the Codo School has improved somewhat.

"Cough, don't say it so bluntly; we are still very devout; maintaining devout belief prevents corruption; at this stage, members believing in the Shadow God are 'more numerous' in the school, after all, the Shadow God made great sacrifices for us."

As he said this, the eyes of the bald old man·Merlos showed a hint of nostalgic color.

"As far as I know, the Shadow God was……by you……"

"Cough! Continue the previous topic; the Shadow God must not be desecrated!"

Merlos was very solemn; regarding belief in a fallen ancient god, he does not object.

"First, I need to know your names."

"Bai Ye."

"Bahara."

"Woof."

"Meow."

"Recorded."

Morlos pretended to write on a yellowed sheet of paper, paper was expensive, before members confirmed their joining, just going through the motions was enough.

"Bai Ye, do you know about the Old Gods?"

"I do."

Su Xiao naturally knows about the Old Gods, having killed many of them, he came to understand them naturally.

"Good that you know, next question, after you join the Keto School, what contributions do you plan to make?"

"..."

Su Xiao said nothing, continuing the Q&A with the other party, which was wasting time; he wanted to resolve the issue more quickly. Thinking of this, he gave Bah a look, and Bah understood instantly.

"Respected Elder Morlos, we have considered it clearly and decided not to join the Keto School; this time our goal has changed to robbery."

Upon hearing Bah's words, Morlos had an expression of 'as expected', he slipped the pen in his hand into his pocket — this was the most valuable item in the entire branch.

"There are still three loaves of bread in the upstairs pantry; take whatever you want from downstairs; remember to close the door when you leave. Everyone, begin — everyone's time is precious."

Morlos was quite calm; this branch of the Old Capital Talos had long been abandoned; the locals here were too 'simple and honest', getting robbed an average of once every three days — who could stand that? Fighting them to the death? Is it worth it?

"Elder Morlos, you may have misunderstood something; I am more interested in you."

As Bah spoke, a smile appeared on his bird face.

"Eh? Hey! You, you better not mess around — I do have the power of the Old Gods."

Morlos panicked, he hurriedly retreated to the corner, arms crossed in front of him, eyes full of vigilance as he stared at Bah across the mesh window; even his wrinkled old face was beaded with cold sweat.

"Damn it, we're here to ask you some questions."

"What questions."

Morlos remained vigilant.

"In the Keto School, who knows where the King of Light is?"

Bah lunged out, his eagle claws shredding the wooden partition before stabbing into the wall; his sharp eyes stared at Morlos.

"You're asking these — aren't you afraid the Old Gods will bring down divine punishment?"

Morlos felt something was off in his heart; these people seemed not to be here just for a simple robbery.

Hearing Morlos's words, Bah laughed and said: "You really think we'd be afraid of that thing."