Chapter 186

Wu Chang stood on the deck, laying down new rules for the players.

"I don't care which country you're from or what purpose brought you aboard the Star Leaper—right now, you only need to know one thing: I need this ship to dock safely."

After eliminating Zheng Ruiyuan, the Xinyuzhou Sect suffered heavy losses, and his control over the Star Leaper had reached 85%.

Although he was surprised that 15% remained unclaimed, 85% was more than enough to turn the Star Leaper into his own domain.

The most obvious boost from domain control was that his players' stats increased by 10%, with primary stats rising by 20%.

Xiang Jianxing and the others grinned—the boosted stats helped them handle dungeon dangers better, but more importantly, in this multi-faction struggle, they had already won nine-tenths of the battle.

With their current advantage, no other faction could possibly wrest control away from them.

Seeing Xiang Jianxing's transformation, players from other factions flickered with regret, yet most wore expressions of relief and relaxation.

For them, an early resolution wasn't necessarily bad.

In multiplayer confrontation mode, player conflicts stemmed entirely from faction alignment.

When one side gained absolute dominance, and even combined forces of the others couldn't shake it, players lost all reason to fight.

In a sense, many weaker-faction players, merely seeking self-preservation, preferred to see one side win early.

This was also why, when Wu Chang repeatedly borrowed men from Li Yubin, Li Yubin's players didn't resent it—they cooperated enthusiastically.

The players on deck showed no dissatisfaction with Wu Chang's declaration—except one.

Blood Wolf.

As Wu Chang was explaining how he'd manage the Star Leaper next, a massive black wolf leapt down from the sixth deck, charging straight at him.

Blood Wolf's eyes now glowed dim and cloudy, brimming with murderous intent—clear signs of inspiration runaway.

As a player with a hidden class, Blood Wolf ranked among the top three in raw power among all players in this dungeon, surpassed only by the Mysterious Ritualist and Ma Jia.

Now the Mysterious Ritualist had fled, Ma Jia hid in a corner pretending to be a bystander, and no other player could stop Blood Wolf.

Only the Shadow reacted in time, grabbing Wu Chang, trying to drag him into the shadows to escape—but Wu Chang refused to cooperate; he tugged twice, and didn't budge him.

Besides the Shadow, Xiang Jianxing, thanks to his passive Sword Heart, also reacted early.

He activated his flying sword to strike Blood Wolf, but it couldn't halt his charge—the flying sword, so effective in low-level dungeons, pierced only four or five centimeters into Blood Wolf's chest before being clamped by his muscles.

Could not advance. Could not retreat.

The giant black werewolf, with Xiang Jianxing's flying sword embedded in his chest, kept lunging at Wu Chang.

The distance between them shrank to less than three meters.

In that instant, every eye on the ship fixed on Wu Chang and Blood Wolf.

Most players had heard of Blood Wolf's name; they were curious how Wu Chang, this native of the realm, would handle a top-tier player like Blood Wolf.

But they didn't expect Wu Chang to do nothing—he looked at the crowd, unwavering, as if he couldn't see the massive werewolf hurtling toward him.

Just as everyone thought Wu Chang was too slow and would be tackled, a figure stepped between them, raised a size-53 foot, and kicked the hilt of Xiang Jianxing's flying sword.

That kick not only drove the sword completely through Blood Wolf's chest, but also caved in his ribcage, forcibly stopping his charge.

With domain advantage, Zhen Wo's strength reached 190; though only slightly over two meters tall, his aura dwarfed the five-meter-tall Blood Wolf.

Zhen Wo stepped before Blood Wolf, pulled out the flying sword, tossed it back to Xiang Jianxing, then lifted the werewolf's upper body, threaded his arms under Blood Wolf's armpits, clasped his chest tightly, and squeezed.

With a sickening crack of breaking bone, Blood Wolf's thoracic spine snapped, his entire body collapsing forward.

Zhen Wo repeated the move, snapping Blood Wolf's lumbar spine as well.

After freely upgrading Blood Wolf to a triple-fold, he gestured for the players to stop distractions and pay attention, then grabbed Blood Wolf's body and dove into the deep sea.

The players on deck were nearly frantic—they couldn't believe Blood Wolf, famed for his iron will, unkillable nature, and pure masculinity, had just crumbled like a boneless chicken tender before that unfamiliar giant.

Even Ma Jia, hiding in the corner, wore an expression of disbelief—as if he'd just witnessed an illusion.

In his original plan, even if Blood Wolf couldn't overpower the Shadow and Xiang Jianxing to kill Li Zaishi, he'd at least drain most of their energy.

Then he'd sneak close like a fisherman and launch a surprise attack to slay Li Zaishi.

With the faction leader dead, the faction would dissolve; the second-ranked Revelation would naturally rise to first.

He'd seize the terrestrial divine kingdom and complete the faction's ultimate objective—double victory, winning twice as one man.

But Zhen Wo's intervention shattered his plan—such pure stat suppression, he'd never seen even among the top ten players of the Wasteland Realm.

All eyes on the deck turned to Xiang Jianxing and the others—as if saying:

"Dude, that fight looked like it was about to collapse—was that all an act? You guys were hiding this monster?"

The Shadow, Xiang Jianxing, and the others wore bitter smiles—they hadn't expected the giant newcomer to be this strong.

While players' attention bounced between Blood Wolf and Zhen Wo, only Wu Chang's true self remained utterly calm, continuing to outline his next plans.

As if Blood Wolf's attack and the giant's brute force were no concern to him—not worth diverting his focus.

Players who noticed Wu Chang's composure were instantly convinced—such composure? No wonder he was a hidden NPC.

Beneath the water, Zhen Wo dragged Blood Wolf deeper into the ocean.

Once submerged beyond sight from above, Zhen Wo activated Whale Transformation, becoming a giant nearly twenty meters tall.

Blood Wolf, already at a severe strength disadvantage, now faced a size gap too—unable to resist.

Blood Wolf was still among the elite of max-level players; Wu Chang feared he might have hidden tricks, so as soon as they entered the deep sea, he quickly retreated, leaving Blood Wolf alone in the abyss.

Blood Wolf could sink slowly—any other movement, no.

Underwater, Wu Chang, with his Ocean Kin bloodline, moved with a qualitative edge over Blood Wolf.

Whether Blood Wolf tried to dive deeper or swim upward, Wu Chang would close the distance at blinding speed, smash him with a punch, send him back to his original position, then retreat to his starting point.

Strike and retreat—never linger.

Blood Wolf, with his enhanced stats and werewolf transformation, possessed powerful lungs and high endurance, allowing him to dive without gear for over four hours.

But no matter how long he could hold his breath, he wasn't an amphibian—being played like this, his lung air would inevitably run out.

The two remained locked for half an hour; after taking another heavy punch, Blood Wolf exhaled his last breath and began choking on seawater.

Zhen Wo watched from afar; ten minutes later, Blood Wolf stopped struggling entirely.

Ever since learning of Blood Wolf's super-strong regeneration ability and that he belonged to the Iron Armor Group, Wu Chang had been thinking about how to take Blood Wolf down.

What he had in mind now was a method specifically targeting Blood Wolf: drowning.

No matter how strong a wolf is, once it enters the sea it has to dog-paddle. The moment Blood Wolf hit the water, at most twenty percent of his abilities could be brought to bear. Forget facing the giant whale—even if he used his true form to transform into a sea serpent, he could easily handle Blood Wolf underwater.

Prolonged drowning would deal Blood Wolf continuous massive damage. Wu Chang, taking advantage of his swift movement underwater, carried out hit-and-run and harassment. Blood Wolf couldn't drag him into a war of attrition, and even pulling him into a combat state was a struggle.

Just as he had planned, not long after Blood Wolf stopped struggling, a wisp of life force seeped out from Blood Wolf's body and was swallowed whole by True Self.

Blood Wolf's life force was not much different in quality from Zheng Ruiyuan's, but under the compression of the planar rules, his strength only increased to 217 points.

It seemed that once a body attribute exceeded 200, it would be restricted by the plane, and the amplification value would be halved.

If it continued to stack, and attributes stacked to 300 or even higher, this reduction would further increase.

When True Self dragged Blood Wolf's corpse back to the Star Leap, it once again sparked astonishment among the players.

The players had imagined many kinds of battle processes, and had pictured how Blood Wolf would be pinched flat and kneaded into a ball by a monster with terrifying power, but the one thing they had never imagined was that on Blood Wolf's corpse, not a single wound could be seen.

People quickly realized that Blood Wolf had been held down by the head and drowned to death.

This made it even more terrifying. In their eyes, with True Self's power, killing Blood Wolf was not difficult. Choosing this method of killing was either killing a chicken to scare the monkeys—showing everyone a display of force—or savoring the miserable sight of Blood Wolf struggling, a pure-bred pervert.

Or he was a pervert showing everyone a display of force.

In any case, after this incident, the way all the players looked at True Self had changed.

Even Ma Jia chose to pause his moves against Wu Chang.

Having resolved the last unstable factor on the Star Leap, it was time to leave the Shipwreck Belt.

Before taking action, Wu Chang went to find Li Yubin first to retrieve that Unlimited Portable Livestream Room.

The result of the battle on the ship had already been told to Li Yubin by players in advance, so when Wu Chang knocked on the door, Li Yubin opened it quickly. Confirming that the person standing at the door was Wu Chang, he threw himself straight at him.

Just like in all the movies from the Beautiful Country, after the male and female leads get through a crisis together, hugs, kisses, and friendship matches are an indispensable fixed segment.

Just like in Cherry Island's youth romance anime—if episode 8's fan-service recap is missing, the whole series loses its soul.

If it were a different instance, out of respect for movie culture, Wu Chang wouldn't mind something happening with Li Yubin.

But not now.

It wasn't that he was worried about activating the Earthly Divine Kingdom right away and Aelin showing up making things hard to explain—mainly it was that Wu Chang was an upright person who could endure loneliness.

After soothing Li Yubin and briefly going over what needed to be done next, Wu Chang took the Unlimited Portable Livestream Room, brought along Great White Shark and Negotiation Master, and found Acting Captain Zheng Chengxun.

He had been craving the resentment on the Sea Song for a long time. The moment had finally come.

But before harvesting the resentment, there was one more thing he needed to do.

Zheng Chengxun was the captain of the Sea Song and also a navy man. His appearance on the Star Leap meant his purpose was definitely not simple.

He had to be questioned about his purpose and mission first before he could be taken out.

Zheng Chengxun's attribute values weren't particularly high. Negotiation Master, boosted by the home-field advantage, got the secret out of him without much trouble. Zheng Chengxun's appearance on the Star Leap did indeed come with a mission: on behalf of the Gao Mu nation military, he was to exchange intelligence with Park Changmin and keep track of the Star Leap's movements.

Just as Wu Chang had guessed before, sacrificing to the evil god was a matter of grave importance—once exposed, no one could bear the responsibility.

To ensure the news was completely sealed off, at the journey's end—that is, the sea area that would appear after the Star Leap left the Shipwreck Belt—the Gao Mu nation navy had arranged warships to wait there in advance.

The warships had two purposes: one was to pick up the high-ranking members of the Xinyuzhou Sect and the captain and other navy personnel; the other was to silence them.

According to Zheng Chengxun, over the years of sacrifices, quite a few accidents had occurred—especially during the earliest sacrifices, due to lack of experience, they had run into quite a few accidents.

Some were passengers who sensed something was wrong, and the moment they left the Shipwreck Belt they jumped straight into the sea, got lucky and were rescued by other ships, and made it back to Gao Mu nation alive.

Some were powerful passengers suspected to be players who had mixed onto the ship, killed the sacrifice officer on board, and the moment they left the Shipwreck Belt, steered the ship to escape. It took considerable effort afterward before the president could spin the incident into a pirate attack.

After that incident, to prevent similar events, the navy arranged warships to stay at that location.

In subsequent instances when players killed the sacrifice officer and hijacked the ship to escape, the warships would launch a direct attack, blow up the vessel so it couldn't leave the Shipwreck Belt's range in time, and get dragged back.

At the same time, after the sacrifice, the navy would take ships to inspect the sea surface to make sure no passengers had jumped ship to escape.

Wu Chang questioned out the warships' habit of staying put, confirmed Zheng Chengxun couldn't offer any other useful intel, and sent him on his way directly.

!

Completing the resentment on the Sea Song gave him +1 Strength, +1 Energy, +1 Will, and +2 Inspiration.

Besides attributes, he also obtained a first-mate insignia shoulder epaulet.

"Item Name: Rebeler's Will"

"Item Type: consumable"

"Item Grade: b"

"Item Skill: Rally"

"Skill Description: Use Rebeler's Will to gain the Leader status, gather rebels who share the same goal, and grant the Followers the Rebel status."

"Status: Rebel"

"Status Description: While the Leader is alive, Rebels gain +20% to all attributes, +30% to primary attributes, and +30 Will."

Wu Chang hadn't expected that completing a not-particularly-difficult resentment could drop a grade-b consumable.

The Rebel status was equivalent to stacking two home-field effects. In a multiplayer instance—especially a Silent Route with dozens of players—Rebeler's Will could raise all players' overall strength by two tiers.

After dealing with Zheng Chengxun, Great White Shark took over the Star Leap.

At the same time, as if affected by the battle's end, the storm that had lasted all day gradually subsided.

The thick overcast clouds dispersed, revealing the moon in the sky.

On the fourth deck, Cui Chengze and Ma Jia were modifying the Earthly Divine Kingdom ritual.

The escaped ritualist still hadn't been found, and the Xinyuzhou Sect's master of mysticism hadn't been eliminated—a hidden danger that remained.

Ma Jia used this as an excuse to demand continued modifications to the Earthly Divine Kingdom. Wu Chang turned the tables: after Ma Jia's modifications, he had Cui Chengze carry out a second round of modifications.

After all this was done, the night was already deep.

Everyone had been on edge the entire day, and had just finished a major battle—even the players couldn't hold up much longer, and entered a brief rest.

Just when everyone thought the day was over and began to relax.

Wu Chang had Cui Chengze activate the large-scale baptism ritual that had been prepared all along.

As the baptism ritual activated, the entire shipwreck belt fell into an eerie silence.

The clouds in the sky stopped drifting, the wind on the sea vanished in an instant, and even the sea surface calmed down, ceasing to flow.

Sword Star, who had fallen into slumber, suddenly jolted awake from his dream. He walked quickly to the balcony and looked out the window, yet detected nothing unusual.

Ma Jia, who was planning his next move, felt his eyelid twitch sharply. He walked quickly out of his room and onto the deck. Although he too could not see anything amiss, his understanding of the occult let him follow his intuition and look toward the seventh floor of the Star Leap, Wu Chang's room.

What is that dungeon native up to now?

Many players with strong intuition sensed that something was happening on the ship, but none of them could tell what.

Except Wu Chang.

His eyes, which had undergone occult origin transformation, could clearly see the sea area around the Star Leap collapsing inward.

A massive vortex was forming centered on him, drawing everything between heaven and earth into itself.

Under the vortex's pull, space shattered like glass, countless cracks appearing across it.

As the cracks multiplied, small fragments of space began to flake off.

The flaking space fragments fell into the vortex, transforming into pure occult origin power that surged into Wu Chang's body.

Wu Chang, at the center of the vortex, now floated within the class-change formation.

With his eyes tightly shut, he examined the changes within himself in the inner-vision state described in his cultivation method.

According to the description in the Esoteric Knight Manual, occult contamination — that is, occult origin transformation — is an extremely painful process, as if boiling molten iron were being poured into the body, melting all flesh and blood, then recasting an entirely new body.

Such a terrifying description made Wu Chang especially uneasy before beginning his preparations, wondering whether he should send Cui Chengze away and complete the class change alone.

He was now the boss of the Star Leap — how embarrassing would it be to cry in pain in front of his underlings.

But once the ritual began, he realized he had been overthinking.

The reason Esoteric Knights felt pain was mostly because they simply didn't understand cultivation, didn't know inner vision, and let the energy rampage unchecked through their bodies.

Following the cultivation method of the Thunder Art Remnant Scroll, Wu Chang guided the occult origin power flowing into his body, using his meridians as a network, circulating it to continuously strengthen every part of his body.

The combination of cultivation and the occult made his occult origin transformation exceptionally smooth, and apart from the aching stretch of his meridians being expanded, there was no other pain.

The occult origin power from heaven and earth circulating within his body instead gave him a sense of comfort and ease that came from the soul.

By the tenth minute of the ritual, his entire body had preliminarily completed the occult origin transformation, and the mission-complete prompt was already flashing before his eyes — he could complete the mission now if he wished.

But he did not choose to stop, continuing instead to absorb the occult origin converted by the ritual.

By the first half-hour mark of the ritual, the space around the Star Leap had completely shattered, becoming a stretch of pure darkness.

Only after confirming he could absorb nothing more did Wu Chang stop, with a hint of regret.

"Player has completed Class-Change Mission Two: Within the dungeon world, find a powerful occult ritual, place yourself within it, and let occult contamination completely remake your flesh."

"Beginning mission evaluation."

"Class-Change Mission Two completion: Perfect!"

"Class-Change Mission evaluation: You improved the Esoteric Knight baptism ritual, purifying occult contamination into occult origin, and absorbed occult origin beyond the class-change limit. Not only did you remake your own flesh and blood, you also completely remade your meridians and bones. As you are now, you are the embodiment of the occult."

"Because the degree of your occult origin transformation exceeds all imagination, no one knows what your ceiling will look like. Your Class-Change Mission Three will become an optional mission — even if the mission fails, you can still complete the class change, and the final class-change effect will be greatly enhanced."

"You have completed Class-Change Mission Two. Class-Change Mission Three is now unlocked."

"Class-Change Mission Three (Optional): Within the dungeon world, hunt a supernatural being born with the ability to manipulate the occult, and use the prey's blood to draw the final ritual, completing the class change."

Wu Chang's body descended from the baptism ritual. He slowly opened his eyes, and at the deepest layer of his pupils, faint golden lines could be dimly seen.

Complete occult origin transformation had left a trace of unformed divinity within his body.

Divinity was not something that should appear on the first layer of the Abyss.

Cui Chengze noticed something different about Wu Chang and asked, "Did the ritual go smoothly?"

Wu Chang smiled and said, "Thanks to you, it went even more smoothly than I imagined."

Relying on the baptism ritual Cui Chengze had modified, and the cultivation method of the Thunder Art Remnant Scroll, Class-Change Mission Two was over-completed.

From the system's prompt, his two-stage class-change missions had not only matched the progress of a normal three-stage class change, but exceeded it.

If he understood correctly, after completing the optional class-change mission, the strength of his class change would equal that of a hidden class change requiring four, or even more, stages.

Class-Change Mission Three required him to hunt a supernatural being and use the prey's blood to draw the final class-change formation.

He rubbed his hands together in excitement — he already had a target for Class-Change Mission Three.

A god should count as a supernatural being, right?

Lehmann had already given him both his eyeballs — buy two, get one free — so asking him to leave behind a tube of blood shouldn't be too much, right?

Wu Chang shook his head, suppressing the thought of bleeding Lehmann, and turned to ask Cui Chengze about the situation outside.

"How is the Star Leap now? Have we left the shipwreck belt?"

Cui Chengze replied, "We had already left the shipwreck belt before you had fully finished the baptism ritual."

Wu Chang went up to the deck and looked outward. Sure enough, the surroundings no longer showed any signs of the occult, as the shipwreck belt had.

They were out!

However, because the ship was sailing at night, the others on board had not noticed that they had already left the shipwreck belt.

Wu Chang quickly oriented himself by the stars in the sky, then, following the intel Zheng Chengxun had mentioned, looked toward the direction where the Gao Mu navy liked to set up ambushes.

The body remade by occult origin transformation gave him eyesight as though he had activated Eagle Eye, stronger than an ordinary telescope.

At the very edge of his vision, he faintly saw a point of light.

That was the Gao Mu warship.

Next, it was time to deal with them.

(End of this chapter)