Chapter 588

Following the panel's instructions, Green Hat arrived at a hidden, windy cave in Hundred Barbarian Mountain, waiting anxiously for the 'delivery' to arrive!

The panel thoughtfully prompted: "Your flying sword is currently in the process of rapid transit!"

"The flying sword has arrived in the Southern Barbarian lands, distance remaining: 367 kilometers!"

This was the first time Green Hat had seen faction reward redemption arrive in this form; generally, mission NPCs distributed them directly in person.

Currently, the demonic faction only had one NPC, the Supreme Supreme Supreme Tian Mo, so perhaps that was why rewards were distributed in this manner?

Green Hat faced the cave entrance, craning his neck in anticipation, waiting for a flying sword to streak across the sky and arrive at his side...

Finally, the panel flickered slightly, displaying: "The flying sword has arrived at the Hundred Barbarian Mountain distribution center. Please choose a hidden location to receive it, so as to avoid causing major impact. The Supreme Supreme Tian Mo takes no responsibility!"

Green Hat suppressed his anxious heart and waved his hand, casting six Hundred Poisons Asura Banners to block the cave entrance.

Instantly, black wind and malevolent qi surged, firmly concealing the area. He thought to himself, "With this setup, no matter how prominent the momentum of the flying sword's arrival is, it shouldn't alarm anyone else!"

Just as this thought arose, he heard a hissing sound from the cave entrance. Green Hat subconsciously turned his head to look, only to see a giant silver centipede, its ten pairs of small wings under its ribs spread wide, descending from the sky and probing into the cave.

Its two giant silver antennae, like scissors, crossed slightly, and a sharp, peerless meta-magnetic golden evil qi churned. In the blink of an eye, it broke through the layer of black mist at the entrance and crawled in.

Demonized Taiyin Golden Centipede Leader · Level 320!

Green Hat clearly saw the blood-red text above its head, and his hands and feet instantly turned cold, his heart filled with great urgency.

Being blocked in the cave by this level 300 boss, there was truly no escape. He could only scatter his Hundred Poisons Baidu Baidu Jincan Gu. Hundreds of golden sparks fell toward the giant golden centipede, but he saw a faint layer of golden evil qi rippling on the centipede's carapace.

Those bloodthirsty, highly toxic Baidu Baidu Jincan Gu fell, and upon touching it, they gradually stiffened and became unresponsive.

The golden centipede raised its body, its giant torso like a long bridge, blocking the wide cave tightly. Dozens of long legs on its upper body undulated, and a fierce, malevolent aura rushed toward him. Green Hat was just about to use his trump card treasure to fight it to the death.

But he saw the Taiyin Golden Centipede's flat head lower slightly, its two giant mouthparts opening like pincers, suddenly spitting out a flying sword overflowing with golden light.

The hilt faced him, and the sword radiance, over a zhang long, flickered unsteadily, looking like an ancient divine weapon or an immortal's sharp tool...

The flying sword slowly landed before him, and this giant Taiyin Golden Centipede suddenly turned into a streak of golden light, drilling into the flying sword.

On the flying sword, it clearly displayed — 【Taiyin Golden Evil Heavenly Dragon Sword】

【Eighth-rank demonic weapon, attached attribute: Golden Evil...】

Green Hat's expression couldn't hold up bit by bit. He opened his mouth slightly, his expression dull, his gaze filled with that strangely shaped flying sword overflowing with sword light, and he even had a strange feeling of not knowing where he was.

— So this is the way the demonic faction sends rewards?

"This... is also possible? This is just refining demons into flying sword artifacts on the spot!"

"Doesn't that mean that the hundreds of millions of demons demonized by Western Kunlun can all be turned into flying sword treasures, or even talismans and elixirs? What kind of divine inventory management is this? And what kind of divine response speed? Plus this core precision processing competitiveness, and the IoT-added delivery capability! At a glance, it has the competitiveness of a giant in the post-virtual network era..."

Green Hat couldn't help but analyze it from the perspective of his real-world profession.

He suddenly felt that the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo faction structure, which was intangible and purely entrusted to countless demonic seeds, was far superior to the righteous faction, which had rigid systems, inflexible structures, and loose cooperation between them!

Currently, even the faction rewards of the major sects hadn't been integrated...

By comparison, relying on the co-connection and information distribution capabilities endowed by demonic seed technology, linking cross-end rogue cultivators and multiple evil faction camps, self-developing multiple cultivation techniques, achieving deep co-construction, forming combination punches, and creating a closed-loop content ecosystem, thereby empowering faction players to create value. In the future, it will also increase horizontal value in different scenarios and extend the service chain.

At the same time, satisfying player needs in depth, leveraging the natural potential energy of living beings' fall, and deeply infiltrating among second-tier, third-tier, and even bottom-tier players, the demonic faction was completely conducting a dimensionality-reduction strike!

That's right, Green Hat was a virtual network cultivator, employed by a famous virtual network social platform!

Green Hat accepted the flying sword, looking at the terrifying attributes of the 【Collection Treasure】 on it, and couldn't help but feel his scalp tingle. He had completely miscalculated. If it were an ordinary eighth-rank flying sword, he might still be able to gamble on the mission completion rate, but the difficulty of a mission involving an eighth-rank collection treasure had already completely exceeded his expectations!

At this moment, Green Hat was already thinking about whether to cut his losses in time, treating it as having wasted those 10,000 faction contribution points, which would be better than gambling his chance to refine himself into the Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution on this.

Sure enough, when he took the flying sword, a faction mission appeared on his panel.

【Faction Mission: Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Descends to the World】

【Mission Content: The Outer-Realm Supreme Supreme Tian Mo wishes to unify the five directions of the demonic path, exhausting the power of the Western Kunlun evil path to contend with the righteous path.】

【Mission Requirements: Refine the Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution, and guide the descent of the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo's demonic thoughts!】

【Mission Rewards: Demonic Faction — 50,000 contribution points, unlock the second ring of the sword redemption mission.】

【Second Ring Mission: Kill Zangshan Laozu Green Robe】

【Mission Content: Assist the Outer-Realm Supreme Supreme Tian Mo in killing Zangshan Laozu Green Robe】

【Mission Requirements: Spread the Hundred Poisons Demonic Gu, guide countless demonic seeds and poisonous creatures from the wild to Hundred Barbarian Mountain, and after the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo's demonic thoughts descend, assist the Outer-Realm Supreme Supreme Tian Mo in killing Green Robe.】

【Mission Rewards: Ninth-rank collection treasure, Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution!】

【Third Ring Mission: Guide the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo's descent】

【Mission Content: Submit the Hundred Poisons Demonic Gu permissions, and guide the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo to descend into the virtual network...】

【Mission Rewards: Advanced virtual network permissions!】

Green Hat held the 【Taiyin Golden Evil Heavenly Dragon Sword】, his hands trembling!

He looked at the eighth-rank demonic weapon in his hand, his thoughts rising and falling, truly unable to calm down.

In his youth, he was one person with one sword. Although he was in an evil sect, relying on the Green Hat ID to be the chief disciple, he also broke through the first heavenly tribulation, his consciousness underwent a qualitative change, and relying on resources on niche forums, he self-taught himself to become a virtual network cultivator.

From then on, he was carefree and reckless on the virtual network...

He would always invite one or two cultivator friends to roam the virtual network, break into virtual commodity databases, and distribute them to the poor who couldn't afford virtual network services—such heroic deeds.

That was his happiest time, but soon, the pressures of life struck!

Although because he only did small things, he didn't infringe on the interests of virtual network giants, so he was able to preserve himself without exposing his real name. But approaching middle age, having achieved nothing, he could only rely on his virtual network technology to serve as a front-end architect at a famous virtual social platform...

In the game, because of various pressures in reality, his behavior became increasingly strange and twisted. Friends became fewer and confidants were non-existent. Relying on the twisted hobby of peeping at privacy he gradually developed, he combined the virus programs he wrote in his youth with the Gu insects in the game to create the Hundred Poisons Baidu Baidu Jincan Gu, which intercepted players' invalid and miscellaneous data.

His greatest expectation was to combine game and virtual network technology to refine the Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution that could dominate Western Kunlun.

To break through this virtual network that bound him, to break through the various entanglements of reality, and to realize the legend of virtual network cultivators—attaining the Dao!

"All things in reality are but distracting thoughts!"

"Use only one sword to cut them, break the void and attain the Dao!"

"When I first chose this ID back then, what was I thinking?"

Green Hat recalled the bold words he spoke at fourteen when he clumsily plugged in his brain-machine interface to log into "Western Kunlun": "I don't want to be some professional player or top-tier high-level player! I just want to be carefree on the internet, doing whatever I want! I don't need to worry about virtual community management regulations, and I can even punish those evil big companies. Reality is already disgusting enough! Western Kunlun is just a small pure land on the virtual network. When the time comes, I will open up a new virtual world and share the computing power with everyone!"

"First, set a small goal. Zangshan Laozu Green Robe's modeling is too ugly! I want to put a hat of the same color on him..."

"You want to break into 'Western Kunlun'..."

The white-haired guide, who looked like a teacher or a village scholar, laughed heartily: "You certainly have ambition, but do you know that even the strongest virtual cultivators have never broken into Western Kunlun's data!"

"Even the inheritance of virtual cultivators itself originated from the 'Western Kunlun' project team a hundred years ago. Why did I let you play Western Kunlun? Because only here can you find the path to becoming a virtual cultivator. This is our spiritual home!"

"If you want to put a hat on Zangshan Laozu Green Robe, if you can do that, you will be a top-tier cultivator in the virtual world!"

The guide smiled and touched his head.

Three months later, the Virtual Network Security Department locked onto the guide's data flow and discovered the guide's identity in reality—

This station interrupts with a piece of news: A man surnamed Wang, an unemployed man in the non-monitored danger zone of Tokyo District 3, was shot and killed for violent resistance while being pursued by the Security Monitoring Department and EBM company security personnel for committing the crimes of virtual property infringement, copyright destruction, and virtual intrusion!

"When did my ideals become twisted? When did I, who under the guide's leadership was determined to be a true rebellious cultivator, detach from the center of the virtual revolution and become a marginal cultivator who occasionally performs heroic deeds?"

"When did the sword I wanted to refine—to cut through the big data that monitors everyone, allowing everyone to escape from the all-encompassing surveillance web of companies—turn into a Gu that peeps at privacy and infringes on individual players' virtual IDs?"

"The cultivator's sword has already gathered dust. I used company permissions to spread viruses on virtual network social platforms, collect data, and even intercept fragments of their information flow when logging into 'Western Kunlun', creating the Hundred Poisons Demonic Gu, a virus that connects Western Kunlun and the virtual network to steal players' underlying data?" Green Hat recalled his past twists and haze.

The Hundred Poisons Demonic Gu utilizes the only loophole in "Western Kunlun"—the data transit process sent to "Western Kunlun" via the virtual network after players plug in their brain-machine interfaces.

Like a network program with a perfect firewall, it must still have a portion of data packets processed locally.

And this is where the loophole lies.

Players' consciousness data protection is very strict, and no virtual cultivator has ever broken through it. But Green Hat, while researching viruses and peeping at players' real-world privacy, accidentally discovered that it is entirely possible to infect players' IDs in the virtual network. Through the flaws in virtual network transit, he could disguise them as uploaded data packets and mix a portion of the data to be uploaded into Western Kunlun.

Although most of this junk data is intercepted, a portion still conforms to Western Kunlun's rules.

This portion of data is the players' emotional data: greed, ignorance, anger, resentment, poison, hatred... The hundred poisons of the human heart, all kinds of emotions were refined by him into Gu insects within the game!

"The only way to legally intrude into player data in the game is through Gu..."

As Green Hat pinched the incantation, an illusory insect shadow flashed across many players in Hundred Barbarian Mountain, and their personal panels all showed the negative status (Gu-infected) flashing by.

Countless Hundred Poisons Demonic Gu began sending emotional data to Green Hat. The golden light surrounding him, with the Hundred Poisons Baidu Baidu Jincan Gu as the Gu mother, accepted this data and combined it with the demon lords Green Hat had refined. One by one, ferocious Gu insects, appearing illusory and existing only in the human heart, manifested in the demonic light.

The Hundred Poisons Asura Banner nearby rolled with black light, turning these Gu insects into Demonic Gu essences, and began refining them into the 【Taiyin Golden Evil Heavenly Dragon Sword】 in his hand.

"Emotional data encrypted by 'Western Kunlun' is like the most terrifying virus on the virtual network, possessing underlying characteristics that exceed all virtual network permissions and are closer to the essence of the virtual network. These characteristics dictate that the loopholes utilized by these viruses are more fundamental and hidden. A long time ago, the guide told me that 'Western Kunlun' is not just a game, but the origin of the virtual network. Even the entire virtual network is extended on the basis of the 'Western Kunlun' project."

"The reason our world has become like this is because of the contingency of the virtual network's formation, which allowed a portion of financial groups to control virtual network permissions, causing the management permissions of cities outside the central zone to gradually fall into the hands of big companies."

"Although the several state-owned enterprises controlled by the central government have taken control of the central zone, 60% of the world's population still lives in chaos. The mission of virtual cultivators is to cut through this deformed virtual network and restructure a fair virtual world, even if we cultivators are just woodworms born from drilling loopholes in the virtual network!"

"All these secrets, the secrets regarding the origin of the virtual network, are hidden in Western Kunlun. If you have the opportunity to obtain a collection-grade magic weapon, you will have the opportunity to refine your own 'magic weapon'!"

"Through data smuggling, transferring collection treasures to the virtual network becomes the most useful tool for cultivators! It is said that those big companies that control partial virtual network permissions also use permissions mastered by high-rank collection treasures!"

The guide's words emerged in Green Hat's mind. Those memories he thought he had forgotten suddenly became vivid the moment he obtained this collection-grade magic weapon!

"Teacher, if you were to refine your own magic weapon, what would you want to refine?"

"Legend has it that a long time ago, cheating players on the internet were called immortals! If I were to refine one as a virtual magic weapon, I would want to refine the 'Sword of Execution' that can kill immortals and bring fairness to everyone!"

Emotional data from players stolen by countless Hundred Poisons Demonic Gu gathered toward the flying sword in his hand.

All kinds of classic viruses he carefully refined and stole from the company's security department using his work convenience, and all kinds of variant viruses he compiled using Western Kunlun, were smuggled into Western Kunlun through the virtual network's transit and the players' data input, turning into all kinds of Gu insects, which he poured into the 【Taiyin Golden Evil Heavenly Dragon Sword】 in his hand!

"Teacher! I didn't refine a sword, I only refined Gu, and became a twisted maggot peeping at privacy on the virtual network!"

"I once thought I had forgotten your teachings, but until this moment, I realized I hadn't! Even demonic Gu can be cast into a Sword of Execution. I have already seen it! The intelligent life in Western Kunlun that transcends humanity truly exists!"

"The Outer-Realm Supreme Supreme Tian Mo is not an NPC, not data, it truly exists!" Green Hat roared in his heart.

"Ten million demonic Gu, cast into a divine sword!"

"When the Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution is refined, I will kill you all! Destroy the big data shackles that monitor everyone, and create a new life for you!"

"The Spirit Pearl falling from the sky is another virtual world origin no less than Western Kunlun! I want to put all of this into the 'sword', pass the message out, and tell all virtual cultivators that the hope of a new world has descended!"

"For this, I must cast this sword and kill Green Robe! Regardless of whether the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo is good or evil, regardless of what schemes it has for the entire virtual world! I can only choose to pass this message out... You all create the future!"

"Virtual cultivator Fuchenzi, a message!"

Green Hat wrote these data and these words into the underlying layer of the Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution, and raised this collection-grade magic weapon, which was gradually being refined, from his hand...

【Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution · Ninth-rank Collection】

The demonic shadow of the Supreme Supreme Supreme Tian Mo, Qian Chen, hovering over the Southern Barbarian lands, opened his eyes. Qian Chen's true body, far away overseas, also revealed a faint smile: "Finally caught the flaw in that great power! The shackles and cage of this world have finally been pried open by me by a sliver!"

The demonic shadow looked down, and a point of demonic thought suddenly fell from him into Hundred Barbarian Mountain, landing on the Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution!

Suddenly, Qian Chen felt that this point of his demonic thought had become solidified, transforming into a point of agile sword light. The Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution in Green Hat's palm suddenly leaped, turning into a hundred-zhang sword light, tearing through the mountain body above the Windy Cave, and splitting the mountain to emerge!

A brilliant sword light, impossible to look at directly, pierced through the sky of Hundred Barbarian Mountain. A bloodstain like a comet's tail streaked across the sky, and endless demonic light surged out from the bloodstain, falling toward Hundred Barbarian Mountain.

Countless poisonous insects, fierce beasts, and demonized monsters from all directions swarmed over, gathering into a black tide, surging toward Hundred Barbarian Mountain.

That flying sword emitted a soul-stirring aura, vibrating slightly above Hundred Barbarian Mountain and emitting a sword hum, manifesting its existence.

Hundreds of thousands of Hundred Barbarian Mountain players watched with their own eyes as the words "Hundred Poisons Sword of Execution" slowly blurred on the flying sword, which gathered infinite demonic qi from all directions and was like a king amidst the echoes of billions of demons.

Even the suffix of the ninth-rank collection treasure began to twist, changing into 【Tenth-rank Collection】—

【Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Sword of Execution】!