Chapter 123: The Earth's Will and the Evil Eye (Requesting Monthly Passes)

Meng Yuan Chu Altar.

Qi Sheng's gaze switched between the various arena stages.

After the 12 selected lucky players entered the Death Arena, they were arranged for the first round of duels.

The average hunting level of these 12 players was 29; in the first round of lottery combat, 5 people had very bad luck and drew opponents whose hunting levels suppressed their own.

Players without attribute suppression were no match for these alien warriors who had undergone professional combat skills training in one-on-one slaughter.

They were eliminated without a doubt.

The remaining seven players advanced to the second round; amidst the curses of players in the livestream rooms, they happily received the Low Martial Spirit Pearls bestowed by the Ancient Gods and joyfully gained 2134 points of Shou Shou Jili revenue.

This was not the end.

If they could still win victory in the second round, their revenue would double and grow.

This made the onlooking spectator players infinitely envious, all hoping that when the next opportunity arrived, they could obtain the chance to please the Ancient Gods.

During this time, Qi Sheng, who was observing secretly, also breathed a sigh of relief.

When this round of players was sent to the Ancient God Arena, he was considering two questions.

The first question was: assuming players are sent to the Ancient God Arena repeatedly in the future, will any clues be discovered?

Exposure didn't matter; after all, he was not afraid of the so-called Ancient God race, so what could exposure do to him?

What he feared was that the path of shearing the Ancient God race's wool would be cut off.

The Guide provided an explanation for this question, stating there was no need to worry.

To the various factions of the Monster World, the players' appearances were not important; unless there was long-term contact, external factions would not pay attention to the appearance of individual players. In their eyes, the members of the Player Race looked much the same, with no obvious differences.

This point could be compared by contrasting the Hei Chao Xie Sui and the Insect Race warriors.

Players would not pay attention to the appearance of the Hei Chao Xie Sui or the Insect Race warriors either; in the players' eyes, they were all combat units replicated from a single template.

Even if other factions discovered similarities in appearance, they would judge from this angle and would never realize that players possessed the ability to resurrect and be reborn.

Secondly, the question that worried Qi Sheng more was the players' performance in the arena.

The Death Arena was a special channel for the Ancient God race to obtain Battle Soul power; the players' performance in the arena would severely affect whether more players would be selected to go to the arena in the future.

Fighting against alien races, players would fight desperately for Shou Shou Jili.

But if it was a confrontation between players, based on his understanding of players, cheating would inevitably occur.

For example, both players could agree to split the revenue in half upon returning, then play rotten and end the duel hastily.

Or even one side could actively end their own life for a quick death and quick resolution.

If such behavior occurred many times, the value of players in the eyes of the Ancient God servants would be greatly discounted; after all, the Ancient God Arena was not a charity institution; they needed to earn revenue through the fierce slaughter between fighters.

Rotten behavior would cause the Ancient God race to absorb not a single bit of Battle Soul energy, thereby causing a shift in their attitude toward the Player Race.

This was a question Qi Sheng was quite worried about.

If the arena drew two players to slaughter each other, there was a probability of unexpected performance appearing.

But this question found its answer in the investigation and observation of this round.

When the Ancient God race formulated the arena rules, they obviously also considered the possibility that one side would sacrifice themselves to fulfill the other after warriors of the same race met.

Therefore, the arena's lottery rules would separate warriors marked as the same race to avoid such events occurring.

And this setting solved Qi Sheng's worry very well.

As long as players were not allowed to meet, abstract events would not occur.

Without thinking much, he began to continue paying attention to the players' performance in the arena.

Players who obtained one victory recovered their status in the room and then, without hesitation, applied to open the second round of arena combat.

For the players, they did not need any psychological construction or preparation.

Since the first round was finished, they should start the second round of combat as soon as possible.

Letting them wait in the room for three days was more painful than killing them; this time was better spent hunting for revenue.

Even if they didn't hunt, they could lie on the Colorful Mist Coast area to enjoy the bright sunshine and natural scenery, as well as various delicious Spirit Foods with taste feedback surpassing the real world.

Staying here to waste time was completely foolish behavior.

Through the performance of the first player to enter the arena, they learned they could open the second round of combat early, so he contacted the Ancient God servant supervising the arena without hesitation.

To this, the Ancient God servant did not refuse and arranged the second round of arena combat for the remaining players.

After this round of arena combat opened, a large number of players flooded into the seven livestream rooms.

Although they were brothers of the same camp, the players in the livestream rooms were all shouting for strong enemies to appear.

To use the words of a player in the livestream room who got high likes: "Folks and elders miss you so much; don't try hard at all, hurry home to take a look; the village is distributing Shou Shou Jili, and everyone is waiting for you to return to the village."

The intensity of the second round of confrontation had significantly increased.

Among the remaining 7 players, only 2 passed the arena trial and advanced to the Flame Arena.

These two players obtained the reward of 2 Low Martial Spirit Pearls, which once again triggered the wailing of players in the livestream rooms.

The feeling of watching others get rich but being unable to share it oneself was, in the eyes of many players, more painful than losing money oneself.

Especially since everyone started the same, but some players could obtain the chance for hidden quests.

There was a mindset of: "We were all doing fine being poor, so why did you get rich?"

And the players who advanced with 2 wins did not stay on this floor either; after drinking healing potions and stamina potions in the room to restore their status, they decisively opened the third round of arena trials.

This time, both players were matched with opponents far stronger than themselves.

One of them even matched with an alien warrior of hunting level 57; upon receiving the analysis information, the player realized he was doomed to lose.

The fact was indeed so.

Both battles were ended by the alien warriors with crushing strength.

This time in the arena journey, the players still failed to break the 2-win record and could not see the generous rewards of 3 wins.

And what the players did not expect was that several hours after this round of arena journey ended, the arena aircraft visited the Colorful Mist Coast again.

The players' active performance in the arena earned the approval of the Ancient God's servants.

They also decided to grant the player clan more opportunities to please the Ancient God.

This was precisely the result Qi Sheng wanted to see.

For future missions training the players' combat proficiency, he planned to entrust them to the Ancient God clan.

The players in his hands feared no consumption; they could be captured at will, given in whatever quantity available, and if insufficient, more could be recruited and mass-produced later.

Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range, Tianyuan Domain Node.

On top of the towering Evil Eye Tower, a Di Nian Evil Spirit clad in black, fearsome battle armor stood at the platform's edge, arms crossed before his chest, his gaze piercing through layers of black mist to look toward the area where battles were erupting with the players, his expression grim.

Compared to when he first arrived, the Di Nian Evil Spirit's strength had grown several times over by absorbing derivative energy from multiple domain nodes.

Yet he could not feel happy at all.

Looking back, back then his combat power was not even high, yet he could roam freely through small worlds, becoming a nightmare and calamity in the eyes of the small world's living beings, causing them to tremble with fear.

But the situation in this world was entirely different.

His strength had increased several times, yet in this world he still had not managed to conquer even a single region.

Compared to the sweeping dominance and the joy of rampant growth and devouring he enjoyed in the small worlds, the situation in this world made him feel incredibly stifled.

It felt as though he had boundless strength but nowhere to vent it.

The several-fold increase in strength brought only changes to his own senses.

With combat power like his, there was clearly still a very long distance to catch up to the word "powerful" in the Monster World.

Besides the huge gap between his own strength and that of world-class powerhouses.

Over this period, he could clearly notice that the combat power of the player clan members descending was steadily increasing.

The resulting outcome was that the growth progress of the Hei Chao Xie Sui under his control was repeatedly delayed.

The energy nutrients extracted from multiple domain nodes were all dispersed by the players' bizarre abilities; every Hei Chao Xie Sui that died vanished completely.

This caused the confrontation between him and the player clan to become a war of attrition where they merely canceled each other out.

Facing the player clan entering from outside the world barrier, he could find no breakthrough point at all.

If the player clan had a clan territory, even at the cost of consuming most of the Hei Chao energy, he would have to crush this peculiar faction.

Under the current circumstances, the Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range region faced continuous harassment from the player clan, while behind him a locust army of the Insect Clan lurked with predatory intent; unable to advance in either direction, the Hei Chao under his control was completely locked down in this area, unable to unleash the Hei Chao's characteristic of sweeping across all directions and growing rapidly through devouring.

Judging by the trend of increasing combat power intensity of the player clan's subsequent descents, he would soon find himself in a situation where the Hei Chao weakened under siege.

By that time, the Hei Chao's growth would turn into continuous decline.

This was a result he was unwilling to see.

If that day truly came, once the Hei Chao under his control fell into a comprehensive disadvantage, it would be difficult to turn the tide again.

How to solve this problem, the Di Nian Evil Spirit chose to seek help from the Evil Eye.

As an assistant to the Hei Chao commander, the Evil Eye could acquire data shared from other nodes to learn and grow, and was also the most important strategist by his side.

Thinking of this, the Di Nian Evil Spirit turned to look at the massive Evil Eye floating behind him.

No need to explain with words; he knew the Evil Eye could read his thoughts and understand what he wanted to ask.

Their gazes met; the Evil Eye blinked twice:

"Di Nian, if I had a way to break the stalemate, I would obviously have told you immediately, wouldn't I?"

"So you have no way at all?"

Facing the Di Nian Evil Spirit's stare, the Evil Eye's eyelids slowly lowered, appearing very serious:

"I have already attempted to report the player clan's special circumstances to other nodes; the characteristic that the Hei Chao Xie Sui slain by the player clan cannot be counter-attacked has also been recorded and archived. The higher-ups are very curious about the player clan's situation. The Dark Monarch, responsible for managing your node and the other Hei Chao nodes on this continent, has decided to grant your node Commander-level resource subsidies, and is considering upgrading the resources allocated to you to Lord-level in the future."

Hearing these words, the Di Nian Evil Spirit showed no expression whatsoever.

He had already known about this matter.

After receiving Commander-level resources, his node could receive a large amount of extra growth resources transported daily from other nodes.

But the continuous transport of resources had been going on for a period without bringing decisive help to the direction of the war; it was still in a state of being continuously consumed by the player clan, completely unable to break the stalemate.

What made him feel most unbearable was that the player clan's elimination characteristic was also effective against domain nodes.

When he unleashed the Hei Chao to ravage the Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range region, occupying all nodes outside the Artifact Spirit Valley, the result was that two domain nodes were still erased by the players.

The erased domain nodes disappeared mysteriously, leaving absolutely no opportunity for him to counter-attack and reclaim them.

In his view, this was simply an utter humiliation; not only did he fail to expand his territorial area, but he also lost two important resource-producing nodes.

In subsequent confrontations with the player clan, he had also learned to be smarter.

He knew the players would focus their main attacks on the domain nodes in the Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range region, while also employing strategies such as feints during the process.

Having fallen for a trick once, he would not fall for it a second time.

He absolutely would not allow himself to lose another domain node.

But judging by the combat power growth speed of the player clan members, losing the next node was already inevitable.

Only with resource assistance from other nodes could he better maintain the balance, or even crush the player clan comprehensively, killing them until they dared not descend again.

"I need more resource support," the Di Nian Evil Spirit said to the Evil Eye word by word.

"I am merely your auxiliary eye; I have no authority to mobilize resources from other nodes for you," the Evil Eye said, appearing somewhat innocent.

"You are a child of the Thirteenth Divine Eye; don't you have even a tiny bit of privilege?"

"Di Nian, you need to understand one thing: this is not a small world. If I, as a descendant of the Thirteenth Divine Eye, were descending in a small world campaign, the warriors I assisted could obtain absolute resource mobilization authority. But this is the Monster World; every auxiliary eye arranged to enter this world is a offspring of a Divine Eye, including the offspring of the First Divine Eye."

"Compared to them, my status has nothing special." Saying this, the Evil Eye suddenly looked at the Di Nian Evil Spirit with curiosity:

"By the way, may I ask you a question?"

"Ask."

"Your war record shows that you only participated in two small world-level campaigns, and your combat power level is merely Commander-level, with a huge gap compared to Marshal-level. Based on my judgment, after ending the Dungeon World campaign, you would most likely be sent to another small world to continue assisting in combat. But why were you directly transferred to the Monster World to exclusively occupy a regional node, and even receive my assistance? This obviously does not conform to the characteristics of our clan's combat power deployment arrangements."

"Secondly, although my report on the Player Clan's situation attracted the Monarch's attention, the Monster World contains countless races with bizarre abilities and traits; the Player Clan's uniqueness is clearly insufficient to warrant extra resource support. Yet the Monarch quickly approved that the node you occupy receives Commander-level resource support, which leaves me deeply puzzled."

"So, what do you think is the reason?" Di Nian Evil Spirit did not answer the question but countered directly.

"May I speak my mind openly?" the Evil Eye blinked.

"Speak freely; you and I are bound in the Monster World, so there is no need to worry too much."

"You are a well-connected insider. One of your parents is likely an Apostle-level warrior who surpasses the Monarch. You are one of their many offspring, yet unvalued, and were cast into Wang Xiao Shi Jie for tempering. But since you are their child, they decided to grant you certain support after you came of age, sending you to the Monster World—the strongest known world—so you could grow rapidly in its energy-rich regions."

"It is precisely because of this connection that my mother resurrected me and arranged for me to become your Auxiliary Eye."

"Now everything makes sense; you are a super well-connected insider." The Evil Eye offered this analysis with a serious tone.

"Bullshit!" Hearing the Evil Eye call him a well-connected insider, Di Nian Evil Spirit's forehead veins began to throb with anger:

"You're the well-connected insider, damn it."

"I am. My mother is the Thirteenth Divine Eye." The Evil Eye nodded earnestly, then continued:

"But I rely on my own abilities. My mother has too many children; I am not important in her eyes. Yet my abilities are sufficient to become an Auxiliary Eye in this world... By the way, the previous Commander-level warrior I assisted was also a well-connected insider, but he was too weak and died in battle not long after arriving in this world."

"I am not." Di Nian Evil Spirit shook his head.

"I don't believe it. Can you tell me about your parents?" the Evil Eye asked inquisitively.

"I have never seen them; they must have died in battle in other worlds long ago. I grew up in the Abyss Furnace. All of us Evil Spirit warriors from that batch were parentless children, trained as warriors and commanders from childhood."

"So, why do you enjoy special privileges?"

"After the battle in the previous Wang Xiao Shi Jie ended, I participated in the Abyss Assessment."

Hearing Di Nian Evil Spirit's reply, the Evil Eye's half-closed eyelids suddenly snapped open:

"The Abyss Battlefield?"

"Exactly. I survived, so I am a potential warrior in the eyes of the higher-ups and a key focus of their cultivation efforts."

"No wonder. The database contains no record of this information, leading me to misjudge you. No wonder you were so arrogant when you first arrived; I thought the battles in Wang Xiao Shi Jie had given you blind confidence." The Evil Eye nodded in sudden understanding.

"My pride has not been lost; I simply realize that the current me is not yet sufficient to support this pride. But in the future, I will let this pride in my heart be displayed without reservation... I will become a Monarch-level warrior, even surpass the Monarch to become an Apostle-level warrior, or even a Demon God-level warrior."

Gazing at Di Nian Evil Spirit, who spoke these words with a calm expression, the Evil Eye saw intense confidence in his eyes, causing ripples in his ever-peaceful heart:

"I will accompany you until our lives end, or until we stand together at the peak."

"So I need extra resources; go apply for them immediately."

"I cannot do that."

"If you can't do it, what use are you?"

"I can provide you with long-range vision and node database information, assist you in combat and cognitive judgment, and offer effective development suggestions."

"I only want resources; whether you exist or not is irrelevant."

Hearing these words, the Evil Eye fell silent. After a long while, he said slowly:

"Di Nian, I can decompose myself to provide you with the portion of the Rule Power that belongs to me. After I merge with the Black Tide, I can also produce some growth nutrients to accelerate the Black Tide's growth speed."

Di Nian:...

"Are you serious?"

"I never joke. If this is an order from a commander, I am willing to execute it."

"Forget it, keep yourself. At least you are still of some use." Realizing the Evil Eye was serious, Di Nian Evil Spirit immediately felt a headache and decisively retracted his previous statement.

"Very well. I will continue to stay by your side to provide assistance. I will continuously submit your various requests to the Monarch and inform you immediately upon receiving a reply."

Hearing these words, Di Nian Evil Spirit did not respond directly. After gazing at the Evil Eye for a long time, he could not help but ask:

"Did you truly have the thought of sacrificing yourself to fulfill my wishes just now?"

"Yes, but before executing this plan, I would need to report it. The Monarch supervising me would certainly not agree, so this hypothesis is fundamentally invalid." The Evil Eye answered with an earnest tone.

"Shut up; I don't want to talk to you."

"Very well."

This chapter mainly lays the groundwork for some plot points useful later. Today's ten thousand words are finished~

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(End of this chapter)