Chapter 152: Story Reshaped, Great Clan Conflict

After a detailed analysis, Qi Sheng saw the living being hiding at the end of the pitch-black space.

It was not composed of physical matter, but rather a mass of spiritual substance fused with the darkness.

With his analysis ability activated, information about the opponent floated into his mind.

[Shu Yan]:

Hunting Rank: Demigod

Target Introduction: A conscious lifeform controlling the Book, Pen, and Execution; originally the Heavenly Dao rules of the Shu Yan World, it descended into the Monster World after its own world collapsed.

Just as the Guide had speculated.

The so-called Shu Yan Clan was actually a faction composed of a single lifeform; by writing stories, it constructed worlds within the framework scenes of books and generated various system-based troop types.

Just then, the Guide spoke, interrupting his thoughts.

[Boss, there are records of other scenes within the Book World.]

Hearing this, Qi Sheng shifted his consciousness toward the Rule Book floating in the scene.

As his consciousness swept over it, he saw that the open pages recorded a total of five stories.

The first story depicted a young boy named Leon on the Astral Continent who, harboring an infinite desire to become a god, embarked on a journey to forge a legend, starting as a lowly soldier, establishing the legion "Dawn's Light," and eventually rising to become the most powerful deity in the world.

However, unlike the background introduction, an external force (an invading faction) interfered midway through this story's development.

According to the background text automatically supplemented by the story, this faction was none other than the Black Black Tide.

When his consciousness attempted to make contact with this story, vast amounts of pitch-black pollutants instantly filled his vision, and countless image frames surged through the mottled blackness.

What appeared in Qi Sheng's mind was a scene nearing collapse: the Black Black Tide swept across, evil spirits ran rampant, and the scene, covered in spatial cracks, was on the verge of being completely devoured by the Black Black Tide.

All living beings within the entire scene had perished, and all things were withering.

By analyzing the complex text on the book, one could discover that the power of the Black Black Tide was constantly seeping into the Book World, causing the established story background to develop in an uncontrollable direction.

In other words, the terrifying Black Black Tide had shattered a story system created by Shu Yan; the protagonist was strangled in the cradle by the suddenly appearing Black Black Tide Demon King before he could grow into a god.

This also caused Shu Yan to completely stop updating and abandon the description of this story, as the main storyline had already collapsed.

Yet, the text within this story continued to generate automatically.

The Black Black Tide devours... the Black Black Tide devours... the Black Black Tide devours... the story was currently describing the process of the terrifying Black Black Tide devouring and digesting the scene.

This showed that the framework world of the book was not entirely dominated by the three rule powers of "Execution, Pen, and Book."

Any foreign entity entering the Book World could also influence the plot's direction, and the only thing Shu Yan, pulling the strings from behind, did was attempt to change the plot's trajectory by consuming "Ink Power."

However, this consumption was not unlimited.

Ink Power was the energy used to weave the plot of the Book World; every method of rewriting would consume Ink Power, and the higher the intensity of the rewrite, the more Ink Power was consumed.

For example, if one wanted to grant a warrior combat power comparable to that of a god.

Then this single stroke of description would consume an enormous amount of Ink Power, exceeding the limit of what the Ink Power reserves in the space could achieve, making it impossible to generate the corresponding plot.

Similarly, when modifying scene rules, the "Rule Divine Lamp" controlled by the Blue Lamp Clan of the Jile Selection was obviously far superior to Shu Yan.

In comparison, the only advantage of the rule power held by Shu Yan was its plasticity.

The world created by combining Execution, Pen, and Book could generate various types of system-based troops.

And what Shu Yan had left behind with its pen in the first story was only a single line:

Story collapsed, self-devouring feedback.

The first half of this sentence could be understood as: the story was written into a collapse, so updates stopped and no more was written.

The second half was an order, attempting to recall the Ink Power constituting the Book World, but this order clearly had not succeeded.

According to the analysis readout, the Book World scene in the first story had been frozen by the Evil Moon; this was a scene-construction power far stronger than the Rule Book, causing the Book World to be unable to be recalled by any external force.

One could understand the scene under the illumination of the Evil Moon as a scene framework of higher intensity than the book scene.

Shu Yan issued a command, requesting the Book World framework to self-destruct and then transform into Ink Power for recall, but after the Evil Moon appeared, it reinforced the entire scene into a brand new one.

It forced the Book World framework to continue existing; during this process, the Black Black Tide completely devoured the Book World composed of Ink Power and transformed it into Black Black Tide energy.

After the appearance of the Black Black Tide Demon King, the first story ended in a complete mess; the scene's soul protagonist had already been killed, and it would soon be sealed and disappear.

Below this story was the second story written by Shu Yan.

The background of the story was that the world had entered a new technological era.

In this age, AI intelligence and the wisdom of living beings were deeply integrated, quantum computing allowed data processing speeds to reach unprecedented heights, and interstellar exploration became the common dream of all living beings in the world.

In this era of rapid technological advancement, there was a city named "Evolution Capital," which served as the world's center for technological innovation, gathering top scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from all over the world who jointly promoted the development of worldly civilization.

The protagonist, "Black Sun Great Journey," had parents who were scientists; from a young age, he was full of curiosity and love for technology, and his parents fully supported Black Sun Great Journey's interests, helping him grow into the God of Technology.

But this story likewise did not develop according to the established direction.

In the middle-to-late stages of the story, the Black Black Tide Demon King descended once again, causing the story to collapse into failure once more.

The protagonist Black Sun Great Journey controlled a mechanical army to resist the Black Black Tide invasion, but was killed without suspense by the evil spirit controlling the Black Black Tide; with the soul protagonist lost, the story completely lacked a main thread.

At the end of the story, Shu Yan attempted to salvage the failed story, but still could not prevent the Black Black Tide from devouring the Ink Power within the scene.

The third story, the fourth story... although these two stories did not feature the Black Black Tide, they were both invaded and destroyed by external factions, leading to the stories collapsing and ending in failure.

As for the fifth story, it was a story with a sword and magic background framework.

This was the frozen scene that Qi Sheng had seen earlier.

This story was still in its initial stages, but a large amount of Ink Power had already been injected to construct the story scene.

After reading the story content, Qi Sheng asked curiously in his heart:

"Guide, what is the production conversion rate of Ink Power?"

Facing the inquiry, the Guide remained silent for a moment before speaking:

[According to the analysis, after each war ends, the Book World devours all matter within the scene that does not belong to the story framework, with a conversion ratio of 29.83%; although it cannot compare to the terrifying Black Black Tide, it is still quite excellent... however, devouring and converting through war is not the core method of acquiring Ink Power.]

[I have thoroughly scanned this spatial scene and discovered that there are 320,000 projections within the scene, and these projections are producing Ink Power every moment.]

"What do you mean? Can this scene also automatically generate resources?"

[Boss, many rule powers can produce rule resources through specific methods; for example, "Fighting Soul" produces Fighting Soul Power through one-on-one combat, the Warband's War God Seal acquires War Power through warfare, and the Evil Moon rules generate energy autonomously by shrouding the scene... these rules can all autonomously generate energy through specific methods, and the Paper, Pen, and Book controlled by Shu Yan are no different.]

[Shu Yan connects with countless minor worlds through conscious projections, gifting its stories to authors in those minor worlds via inspiration or dream delegation, and the authors of the minor worlds record the stories compiled by Shu Yan and then disseminate them; every reader's reading of the story generates Ink Power, which is then fed back to the world constructed by the Execution, Pen, and Book.]

[Therefore, many writers in minor worlds believe they are creating stories using their own inspiration, but in reality, they are writing stories created by Shu Yan, which are then disseminated by the hands of the minor world authors.]

[To explain using the background of your era before transmigration, Boss: a writer suddenly gains inspiration and writes a story titled "The Record of Black Sun Great Journey Becoming a God"; he compiles his inspiration into a story and publishes it on Qidian Chinese Network, and when a large number of readers click to read it, it brings Ink Power revenue to Shu Yan; the better the performance of this book and the more readers who read it, the more Ink Power is produced.]

[This is the core of Ink Power production, with devouring being secondary; therefore, the quality of the story affects Ink Power output. If one can write a blockbuster work chased by readers across countless worlds, the Ink Power production will be very considerable, subsequently allowing the story scene to develop in a better direction... conversely, if a story has no reader attention, then that story proves to have no potential and will be forced by Shu Yan to end in failure, because it simply does not produce Ink Power.]

[It can be understood that every story can nurture a mine that continuously produces resources; even better stories can become timeless classics in many minor worlds, bringing continuous Ink Power resources to Shu Yan throughout the long years to come.]

[This is also why Shu Yan needs to construct stories and compile systems, rather than directly modifying scene rules like the Blue Lamp Clan; comparing the two, the Blue Lamp Clan's rule modification ability is far stronger than the scene world constructed by Shu Yan using Execution, Pen, and Book, but it is currently unclear whose method of resource acquisition is superior.]

The Guide's explanation vividly illustrated the abilities controlled by Shu Yan, as well as its two methods of resource acquisition.

At this moment, Qi Sheng's consciousness swept toward those projection nodes.

Instantly, a flood of information surged into his mind:

"You promised daily updates of ten thousand words and never giving up, but instead, you directly gave us a discontinued and failed ending; this operation is even more caught-off-guard than the plot twists in the story!"

"The beginning was written so well, but then suddenly the Black Black Tide Demon King descends—what dogblood plot is this? The protagonist is dead; author, what were you thinking with that pig brain of yours? You truly deserve to die!"

"Your act of discontinuing and failing the ending is like building a skyscraper, setting up the framework, and then leaving us with just a rough shell; my enthusiasm for following the text was like a Flame Mountain splashed with a basin of cold water, turning completely cold; we agreed to accompany each other all the way, but you jumped off the train halfway, and even wrote the protagonist to death—disgusting, too disgusting."

"I originally thought it would be a splendid feast, but your discontinuation and failed ending were like suddenly taking the dishes away halfway through the banquet, blowing up the venue, and throwing in a bunch of disgusting things; I want to ask, author, did you collude with the villain in the novel just to torture us readers? Pah!"

The failed endings of the first four stories caused the projection feedback to be filled with reader resentment.

Fortunately, each of Shu Yan's stories was written by different authors found in minor worlds, possessing countless aliases; otherwise, the intensity of the flaming would have risen by several levels.

But even though the four stories had already ended in failure, readers continued to read them, and they continued to produce Ink Power.

It was just that the Ink Power produced by the failed stories was extremely scarce.

At the current stage, the story producing the most Ink Power was the fifth one currently being written, which was the story with "Red Cloud Overturning Sky" as the protagonist.

And this time, Shu Yan set up the scene near the Ascension Clan's breeding grounds, most likely having designs on the Ascension Clan, wanting to gain extra Ink Power by devouring them.

Since it was doing this, it proved that Shu Yan was confident in taking down the Ascension Clan and had even conducted investigations beforehand.

Just as Qi Sheng was feeling curious about this, the Execution and Pen in the space suddenly moved.

Below the fifth story, a passage of text was written: Story reshaped, self-devouring feedback.

In Qi Sheng's view, this sentence was undoubtedly a declaration of becoming a eunuch.

In other words, the Book Spirit had voluntarily abandoned the framework of the fifth story.

As the command was issued, the scene constructed by the fifth story collapsed accordingly, and the Ink Power was recalled to the scene where Shu Yan resided like a receding Black Tide.

The Execution and Pen slashed through the air toward the Rule Book, and the sixth story was rapidly generating.

Through analysis, Qi Sheng discovered that this story was actually written using the Ascension Clan's breeding minor world as a reference background framework.

The protagonist of the new story was a cultivator named "Great Sun."

During his years of cultivation and growth, he discovered that the cultivation world, though seemingly prosperous, actually hid a huge secret.

The beings of the Upper Realm bewitched the living beings of the Lower Realm through parasitism, controlling everything in the cultivation world just as a shepherd controls a flock of sheep.

They set the cultivation rules for cultivators, guiding the trajectory of life ranks, causing cultivators to constantly chase higher realms on the tracks they delineated; the ultimate purpose of all this was to make the hard-grown cultivators become targets for the Ascension Clan to seize their bodies and complete incubation by borrowing their bodies.

Upon seeing the three words "Ascension Clan" through the analysis, Qi Sheng immediately realized Shu Yan's purpose.

This fellow had clearly investigated the system framework of the Ascension Clan; weaving this story was intended to dig up the roots of the Ascension Clan.

Barring accidents, this story would be implanted by Shu Yan in the form of projections into the minor worlds where the Ascension Clan bred living beings, planting seeds of doubt.

[Not a bad idea; first cut off the Ascension Clan's subsequent combat power output, then engage the Ascension Clan in a war of attrition through domain connection; during this process, Shu Yan can obtain continuously produced Ink Power from projections in other minor worlds, but if the Ascension Clan loses the combat units produced by the minor worlds, they will inevitably be devoured by the story world controlled by Shu Yan in the prolonged war of attrition.]

[But this tactic has a prerequisite: the intensity of the story scene compiled by Shu Yan must be able to withstand the first few rounds of attacks from the Ascension Clan... the prerequisite for fighting a protracted war is possessing the strength to contend with them, and only then does the subsequent supply of combat power and resources affect the protracted war.]

Regarding the problem mentioned by the Guide, Qi Sheng was also curious.

Just as Qi Sheng wanted to delve deeper into analyzing how much ink power Shu Yan had mastered, the Guide suddenly carried his consciousness out of the pitch-black space where Shu Yan resided and into the outside world.

The original magic world scene had vanished; the world within the scene now resembled a canvas splashed with various colors, where space and time were kneaded into a tangled mess, devoid of any rules.

A normal world is constructed from countless basic elemental light points and rule-based lines, but the current Book World scene exists in a chaotic state where nothing has yet been born.

As the brush wrote, ink power continued to pour into the scene world.

Like chaos first splitting open, black qi currents wound and wandered like spiritual snakes, gathering and condensing.

In an instant, a blinding flash of light streaked by, as if a creator deity had swung the first axe to split heaven and earth, causing space to expand rapidly.

Amidst the churning chaos qi, it was as though an invisible giant hand gently stirred the mixture.

A wisp of light, formless breath gestated within the scene; this breath was light and free, bound by no constraints—this was the rudimentary form of wind.

The breath of wind traversed the chaotic scene, bringing the first trace of motion to the world.

As the wind danced, tiny water droplets condensed within the chaos, gathering in the air until they finally transformed into a continuous fine rain, nourishing this yet-unformed scene world; at this moment, the breath of water was generated.

After wind and rain intertwined, a dazzling light slashed across the vast sky, and the breath of thunder gestated and formed at this moment...

Once the basic elements constituting the world's framework were continuously generated, the material world began to take shape; a towering, majestic peak rose first from the ground, piercing the clouds, its summit hidden amidst swirling mist, its body composed of a kind of spiritual rock emitting a dim glow, with strangely shaped spiritual plants growing in the crevices.

Subsequently, various living beings were outlined by ink power; some resembled phoenixes spreading their wings ready to fly, others looked like coiling dragons winding through the waters.

Below the mountain peaks, spiritual springs gushed forth, forming a vast spiritual Firefly Lake; subsequently, brilliant spiritual rosy clouds, resembling burning flames, formed in the sky, while white mist transformed into ever-changing spiritual clouds, looking like galloping steeds or blooming flowers.

On the vast plains beside the Firefly Lake, spiritual grasses grew thickly, and the mortal beings generated by ink power entered the Stone Age on this land.

Under the continuous infusion of ink power, their growth resembled a movie with the acceleration button pressed; in a flicker, their numbers grew greater and greater.

Before long, mortals perceived the rules of heaven and earth and embarked on the path of cultivation.

A few minutes later, cultivation dwellings were scattered in an orderly fashion along the mountainsides; some were carved out from the mountain body itself, with powerful defensive formations set at the cave entrances where spiritual light flowed, while others floated in mid-air, wrapped in layers of spiritual mist, resembling jade towers and palaces from a fairyland... the era of cultivation had thus descended.

After this, streaks of escaping light occasionally shot across the sky as cultivators rode their magical treasures to roam heaven and earth.

Occasionally, one could even see huge spiritual birds carrying cultivators soaring through the heavens; their spread wings spanned several zhang in width, and each flap stirred up gusts of fierce wind.

Just then, a patch of brilliant rosy clouds surged in the sky.

The protagonist of the story scene, "Great Sun," was about to be born.

Seeing this scene, Qi Sheng felt a touch of embarrassment; he realized that whenever a protagonist in Shu Yan's stories was born, auspicious signs always descended from heaven without fail.

However, he did not dwell on this issue.

The rosy clouds were like brocade carefully woven by the Weaver Girl, covering the entire sky; within them, golden light sparkled as if countless stars were leaping, dazzling and brilliant.

Accompanied by a cry, Great Sun was born.

The story quickly advanced to Great Sun joining a cultivation sect, embarking on the path to seek immortality.

In fact, Great Sun in the story had already been endowed with spiritual intelligence, yet he remained unaware that he was merely the protagonist of a story, his life's trajectory controlled by Shu Yan, whose power rivaled the Heavenly Dao.

Seeing this, Qi Sheng suddenly thought of many novels he had read before transmigrating.

In those stories, the Heavenly Dao that controlled the world always appeared as the villain.

Shu Yan's behavior perfectly fit this setting.

The plot continued to accelerate; under the continuous infusion of ink power, Great Sun's hunting level kept rising, and in the blink of an eye, he reached level 24.

In the scene, Great Sun arrived at a village at the foot of the mountain, bowed before his parents' tombstones, and at the moment he turned to leave, he severed all ties with the mortal world, devoting his heart solely to seeking the Dao, pursuing the elusive yet yearned-for method of immortality.

The consumption of ink power intensified accordingly, and the story scene continued to advance.

During this process, the world framework (the scene) kept expanding.

Sect trials, treasure hunting in secret realms, fortuitous encounters, paths of revenge... every story caused the area of the world scene to increase, requiring the input of ink power to multiply.

Before long, starting from the area around the peak that was born first, the scene generated a bizarre and motley minor world.

By this time, Great Sun had become a Supremacy Elder of the sect, his hunting level reaching 109; he no longer bothered with sect affairs, having only the Dao of Immortality in his heart, seeking only to prove the Great Dao before the Five Declines of Heaven and Man and ascend to the Heavenly Realm.

However, as his strength and realm improved, Great Sun in the story scene gradually discovered problems with cultivation.

He detected that his spiritual roots seemed to hide some great secret.

Time acceleration slowed down at this point, and the story content began to be finely crafted.

Besides enhancing the story's appeal, doing this was also to reduce the consumption of invested ink power.

When the story progressed to Great Sun discovering clues about cultivation and feeling shocked, the opening layout began to oppose the villainous faction set within the story: the Ascension Clan.

Through a series of investigations, Great Sun strangled the parasites implanted within his body by the Ascension Clan and united various forces to prepare to defy heaven.

When the story reached this point, the scene image suddenly froze.

Clearly, Shu Yan had stopped controlling the brush and pen.

Just as Qi Sheng felt puzzled by this, the scene suddenly shook, and a large number of Ascension Clan members broke through the scene's mist to appear, attacking once again.

This time, Shu Yan had to Iron Face an Ascension Clan that came prepared.

Subsequent content automatically generated on the Rule Book, inserting text descriptions: "Peering into heavenly secrets is an unforgivable crime; the Ascension Clan attacks!"

Clearly, the story had laid the groundwork in advance, waiting for the Ascension Clan's invasion to unfold the subsequent plot.

The great battle between Shu Yan and the Ascension Clan reignited.

Only this time, the combat system controlled by Shu Yan underwent an earth-shattering change.

It shifted from swords and magic to a cultivation system, and the story entered the stage of resisting the Ascension Clan.

At the same time, a post sparked heated discussion on the player forum.

["Accidentally discovered the Ascension Clan fighting with the newly arrived Shu Yan Clan during exploration; any brothers want to watch a live stream?"]

This post immediately attracted a large number of players to enter the live stream room to watch the drama.

This was also the first time players witnessed a peak contest between powerful clans.

Before this, although they had seen clashes between Champion Fighters and Ascension Clan members in live streams, those could only be considered small-scale battles, hardly qualifying as war.

During this period, some players who specialized in controlling soul spirits sailed out to the live stream location, wanting to camp near the battlefield between the two clans to pick off low-health targets.

The server's first level 75 pet had been obtained from the Ascension Clan, making countless players extremely envious.

Now that a large-scale war had finally arrived, players specializing in controlling soul spirits first thought of going to join the fun, hoping that a low-health monster might fall from the sky onto their heads, allowing them to also possess a powerful good brother.

Secondly, some player teams wanted to snatch leftovers on the battlefield by finishing off enemies.

Although monsters with high hunting levels simply couldn't break their defense, in a near-death state, a monster's bodily functions would not repair themselves autonomously but would only deteriorate.

By then, equipping a Blood-Burning Soul Spirit that dealt true damage would lead to instant wealth in one wave.

The conflicts between major powers that other races avoided like the plague were, in the eyes of players, a treasure land filled with opportunities for wealth everywhere.

(End of Chapter)