Chapter 191: The God-Defier

Wu Chang had originally thought that a three-time perfect-rated class-change quest, directly promoting a Root Knight by one tier in one go, was already impressive enough — he hadn't expected there to be an expert!

The Mortal's Poison, which had been stockpiled across multiple dungeons and finally filled its energy bar, at last revealed its power.

It directly crossed planes to siphon a portion of authority from Lehmann's body, channeling it into him, and caused the already powerful Root Knight to evolve once more, becoming the unique class — the Strife Knight.

After transforming into the Strife Knight, the Root Knight's abilities remained largely unchanged; he simply gained one additional class-change talent.

"Talent Name: Authority of Chaos"

"Effect: You may convert energy into tangible chaos and spread it outward. All targets affected by your authority will be marked by you. Marked targets will have a portion of their primary attributes drained by you in proportion to their chaos level. When the chaos value exceeds a certain threshold, you may fully control or erase the marked target."

"Note: Chaos is your authority — you are chaos itself."

Not long had passed since the battle before leaving the Shipwreck Belt. Even now, recalling the power Zheng Ruiyuan had displayed that night still made Wu Chang's heart pound with lingering dread.

That was his first true taste of the power of authority.

Back then, if Ma Jia hadn't first taken control of the fisherman and used that identity to go undercover, striking Zheng Ruiyuan at the critical moment, and if Wu Chang hadn't summoned a Thousand Thunder to top up the damage, Zheng Ruiyuan alone — with nothing but the Authority of Chaos — could have easily wiped out an entire ship's worth of players.

And the Authority of Chaos Zheng Ruiyuan had obtained was still only a small fraction.

But now, through the Mortal's Poison, he had torn off a hefty chunk from Lehmann, and Eileen told him he had seized at least half of Lehmann's Authority of Chaos.

From the description alone, the Authority of Chaos might not seem overwhelmingly powerful, but one only needs to know that authority is a power even Eileen has yet to master to grasp the weight those two words carry.

Aside from the dual class-change talents, the ultimate skill of the class change had also shifted from the demigod-tier Root Knight to the lesser-god-tier Strife Knight.

Though the Strife Knight's name was domineering and its skills were brutally hard-core — clearly a powerhouse class built for head-on combat.

But when Wu Chang had first seen Zheng Ruiyuan wield authority, he'd felt she was using it wrong.

How could you possibly use a skill like that openly, right in front of everyone?

The Authority of Chaos should be slipped into a crowd, activated alongside skills like Social Anxiety Disorder and Elite Stealth, then — just as he had poisoned the Great Miracle — spread chaos in silence, as gentle and unnoticed as rain nourishing the earth.

Wait until the people in the field are bashing each other's brains to mush, until the only one still breathing is missing an arm or a leg, then step out with stacked buffs to finish them off — that is the correct way to use it.

If he were the mastermind behind the Xinyuzhou Sect, forget one undercover fisherman — even if the Xinyuzhou Sect turned into a distillery and every single person around him was a double agent, no one would have left that deck alive that night.

After reviewing the changes from the Strife Knight class change, his time in the dungeon plane was completely exhausted. He only had time to exchange a greeting with Cui Chengze before he arrived in the familiar settlement space.

"Player Number 4444444 has successfully completed the dungeon Silent Voyage. Settlement begins based on the player's performance in the dungeon."

"Player has completed Main Quest 1: Obtain a ticket for the Star Leap and complete the full voyage aboard the ship, reaching the destination."

"Player has completed Main Quest 2: Seek out the truth of the Silent Voyage."

"Player has completed Main Quest 3: Choose a faction to join and help that faction emerge as the final victor."

"Player obtained a ticket for the Star Leap and completed the voyage ahead of schedule, reaching the destination."

"Player uncovered the secret of the Silent Voyage, learning of the dealings between the Xinyuzhou Sect, the upper echelons of the Kingdom of Gao Mu, the Gao Mu Navy, and the Kingdom of Midi."

"Player thwarted the Xinyuzhou Sect's conspiracy and shattered the projection of the evil god Lehmann."

"Player, as the leader of a faction, took complete control of the Star Leap, eliminated all unsafe elements, and ensured the safe return of every passenger aboard."

"Player uncovered the secret of the Shipwreck Belt and completely resolved the threat of the evil god's remains."

"Dungeon Completion: 100%!"

"Title 'Perfectionist' activated, dungeon completion +5%."

"Title 'True Wanderer' activated, dungeon completion +15%."

"Congratulations to the player — in the multiplayer confrontation mode, the faction you built has achieved victory, granting an additional 25% dungeon completion. As the player's dungeon completion exceeds 75%, the overflow portion has been converted into dungeon rewards."

"Overflow dungeon completion totals 45%, base dungeon rewards increased by 225%."

"Dungeon Rating: Perfect!"

"Experience and Tarnish Silver Coin settlement correction: 300%!"

"Player gains Experience: 48,750 (5,000 × 3.25 × 3)."

"Player gains Tarnish Silver Coins: 97,500 (10,000 × 3.25 × 3)."

Staring at the final settlement numbers, Wu Chang felt there were so many zeros his eyes were starting to blur.

How much? Just how much is that?

The base rewards of an A-rank dungeon, combined with his various stacked reward multipliers, had pushed the dungeon rewards to an absurd figure.

If he kept this up, it would only take a few more A-rank dungeons before he hit level thirty.

Reaching max level before the world dungeon arrived was far from impossible.

"Player's dungeon rating has reached S-rank. You may designate one item from the current dungeon world as a special drop reward. The selected item must be a prop for which usage rights have already been obtained. Please make your selection."

Among the valuable props that had appeared in the Silent Voyage dungeon, there weren't many — a blessing for Wu Chang, who suffered from decision paralysis. He barely hesitated before directly choosing the Unlimited Portable Livestream Room.

Communication that ignored all restrictions — used well, this effect could absolutely produce miraculous results.

"Player's dungeon rating has reached Perfect. You may select one rare prop from the current dungeon plane as a reward."

"Cui Family Notes on the Occult."

"Tales of the Sea God General."

"Letter of Gratitude from a Survivor of the Star Leap."

Judging by the name alone, the Cui Family Notes on the Occult — analyzing from the title — should be one of the ancient books passed down through Cui Chengze's family, similar to the ancient tome Yin Junhao had displayed on his tablet.

From Cui Chengze's improvements to the Arcane Knight and his modifications to the Earthly Kingdom, it wasn't hard to see that the Silent Voyage dungeon had its own unique strengths in the field of the occult. At the very least, it was more than one tier above the Moonlight Sanatorium dungeon.

As the Cui family patriarch — the only one in the Kingdom of Gao Mu to have witnessed the Earthly Kingdom — the occult notes he passed down already represented the pinnacle of occult study in the Kingdom of Gao Mu, and were extremely valuable.

However, after Wu Chang obtained the Eye of Law-Breaking, he no longer needed knowledge in the field of the occult, so he ruled it out first.

"Tales of the Sea God General" — from the name alone, its category was unclear. It might be a method for attaining godhood, or it could be a skill — or a related class change — from the Sea God General.

Wu Chang thought for a moment and set it aside as another exclusion.

He had Eileen by his side — a being at the peak of lesser godhood — his own divine seed had already been activated, and he had mastered the Authority of Chaos. If he wanted to become a god, why would he need to listen to the experience of a Sea God General, the lowest-tier native god of a dungeon?

As for skills, there was even less worth learning — learn what, bang a drum to cheer him on while he hacked evil gods on Wuqu Star?

With two options eliminated, only "Letter of Gratitude from a Survivor of the Star Leap" remained.

After completing the selection, a tablet computer appeared in his hand.

"Item Name: Letter of Gratitude from a Survivor of the Star Leap"

!

"Item Type: Special"

"Usage Method: Open the computer."

Wu Chang's brow furrowed slightly. The exchanged item was neither a combat-type prop, nor a cultivation art or class change, and it had no item description — what on earth was this thing?

He opened the tablet, and an interview program automatically popped up on the screen.

The reporter being interviewed in the program was none other than Li Yubin, who was doing a special episode on the disappearance of the Star Leap.

She had followed Wu Chang's suggestion, continuously expanding the influence of the incident, pushing all the passengers to the forefront to prevent them from later being silenced by the Xinyuzhou Sect or the higher-ups of Gao Mu Nation.

The program wasn't long, only about half an hour. Wu Chang watched the entire content at triple speed.

Most of the content consisted of interviews with survivors and Li Yubin's post-event recollections; there wasn't any valuable intelligence.

As the interview was fast-forwarded to the end, the fast-forward suddenly malfunctioned.

Li Yubin in the video looked at the camera and said:

"The fact that the Star Leap was able to maintain order while deviating from its course, able to overcome all kinds of difficulties in the perilous waters, and ultimately return to the right track — all of this requires thanking one person. He rescued all the passengers on the Star Leap, but he himself vanished in those waters, his whereabouts unknown."

"That person is Li Zaishi. Regardless of how much criticism and prejudice the outside world has against him, the passengers who rode the Star Leap will all be grateful for everything he did, including me. I don't know if he can see this interview, but if he can, I really want to say thank you, and, I miss you very much."

"The player has received a Letter of Gratitude from a Survivor of the Star Leap. With the existence of the Star Leap incident and the anchoring of the Eternal Purity Light's Earthly Divine Kingdom, the player opens a fixed passage to enter the Wasteland — Plane 75236."

"Wasteland — Plane 75236 becomes the player's exclusive Past Instance."

"The player may choose to spend Corrupted Silver Coins, 100 Corrupted Silver Coins/day, to enter the Past Instance. When the player activates the Past Instance, the time flow rate between the Past Instance and reality is 1440:1; when the player leaves the Past Instance, the time flow rate becomes 1:1."

"How wonderful. Do you want to go back?"

A voice rang out from Wu Chang's spiritual world.

Wu Chang's heart skipped a beat — damn. The projection of Aelin's Earthly Divine Kingdom's descent had always existed within his spiritual world, and because the two were seen as one, Aelin had followed him into the settlement space.

Not only had she seen the Letter of Gratitude from a Survivor of the Star Leap, she could also see the prompts for the Past Instance.

Wu Chang hurriedly explained: "Nothing happened between me and Li Yubin, don't misunderstand."

In the spiritual world, Aelin looked at the final paused close-up of Li Yubin on the screen — Li Yubin, whose true feelings were showing, the affection in her eyes completely undisguised, her eyes faintly glistening with tears from sadness and worry, a pitiful sight that stirred compassion.

Aelin: "Although I don't really understand human emotions yet, from my perspective, it seems she likes you."

Wu Chang shouted in his heart: Li Yubin is going to be the death of me!

He frantically turned off the screen. "It's all a misunderstanding. She wanted to make a move on me, but I rejected her with my resolute will. She's still harboring improper intentions — it has nothing to do with me."

After explaining a few more times and completely cutting ties with Li Yubin, Wu Chang finally exited his spiritual world and continued the Instance settlement.

"The player achieved a perfect clear in an Uncontrolled Instance (Instance Pollution Value > 85) with a level greater than or equal to the character level, obtaining a random Title Treasure Chest."

"The player will only draw titles that meet the prerequisites."

First time is unfamiliar, second time is familiar.

Other players might not see a title draw once in their entire career, but this was already the fourth time Wu Chang had seen one, and the previous tension was gone.

He began the draw in a relaxed manner. Just like the previous times, the selected chest released golden light without any suspense.

Another, another golden legend!

"Title: God-Defiler"

"Title Acquisition Requirement: The player has inflicted damage on the true form of more than one deity."

"Title Description: A God-Defiler is born not knowing what reverence means. Mortals before deities are like ants — to a God-Defiler, that is the funniest joke of all. Because the God-Defiler knows better than anyone that even a mortal, so long as they wield enough power, can make a deity bleed — and he has done so more than once."

"Title Effect: While wearing this title, if the target the player attacks possesses divinity, the player will deal additional damage to the target and cause that damage to reach the source directly. The player has additional resistance to the authority of deities, able to ignore the influence of authority and destroy the influence of authority by attacking the source of the authority."

"Note: Color titles can stack with other titles."

Looking at the God-Defiler title, Wu Chang shrugged. This title suited him perfectly — just from raiding Instances along the way, the number of deities he had elbowed exceeded this count.

Settlement complete, Wu Chang left the settlement space and returned to the public area of the Crimson Courtyard.

He was preparing to spend a while at the public area's bar when the ground of the public area suddenly began to shake — more precisely, the entire Wasteland Realm was violently trembling at this moment.

Wu Chang looked up at the sky. He vaguely sensed that something was beginning to collapse from top to bottom.

Something capable of affecting the Crimson Courtyard — an earth-shattering major event was happening.

(End of this chapter)