Chapter 301

Roar!

The bellow of Xue Ling Dahuang shattered the snowstorm,

One colossal arm swept forward, carrying a violent gust, crushing down upon the United Warband.

Immediately after, a chorus of roars erupted.

The monster-stream players within the United Warband surged forward, roaring back at Xue Ling Dahuang, their mountain-sized bodies charging straight into it.

The partially emerged Xue Ling Dahuang was shoved into the valley by the monster-stream players.

The remaining monster-stream players followed suit, leaping over the ridge and plummeting from above into the Kongyuan Peak Valley.

With thunderous crashes, the monster-stream players piled atop Xue Ling Dahuang like a human pyramid.

Once a single beast capable of annihilating entire player legions, Xue Ling Dahuang now had no resistance against the mob of monster-stream players, only able to emit low, guttural roars as its spined arms swung wildly.

But against the thick-skinned, tough-fleshed monster-stream players, pure physical assaults posed no threat.

Before long, they pounded this Xue Ling Dahuang to death.

The dying shriek of Xue Ling Dahuang stirred more of its kind in the valley; one after another, mountain-like forms rose from the valley floor.

“Descend into the valley, form ranks.” The Shen Wang issued the order immediately.

Instantly, members of the United Warband advanced forward, leaping over the ridge like dumplings falling into a pot.

Below, they reformed their battle lines; every player who landed looked up toward the valley’s end.

In the distance, the earth moaned,

A muffled heartbeat thundered, like war drums being struck.

The silhouettes of Xue Ling Dahuang kept appearing, converging at the entrance of the Kongyuan Peak node.

One, two, a thousand… massive forms emerged from the blizzard, or leapt from other peaks.

Each stood as towering as a mountain, its ox horns piercing the heavens, its spines standing like a forest of needles, and its thick arms sweeping up ice storms with every swing.

No words were wasted—war erupted instantly.

The gathered Xue Ling Dahuang charged forward, shaking the earth and trembling the mountains.

The ground, long compacted by constant trampling, cracked open; frozen soil was pulverized into dust, and snow surged like a tidal wave.

The entire valley trembled beneath their advance, as if the whole world were being shattered by these furious titans.

“Hold the line! Monster-stream players take the front! Damage-takers deploy blood shields to protect the rear!”

The Shen Wang’s roar echoed through the United Warband channel, but the voice was instantly drowned out by the deafening snowstorm outside.

The front-line monster-stream players all roared in unison, leaning forward, bracing for the impact.

Monster-stream players who had not yet transformed during their approach now activated their monster forms.

Their bodies twisted and elongated; their initial black robes dissolved automatically, replaced by thick fur or scales growing across their skin.

Roar!

One player’s body suddenly stretched, his skin cracking inch by inch as black scales surged forth like a Black Tide.

In an instant, a black serpent eighty meters long reared up, its pupils narrowing into cold vertical slits, its purple fangs glowing with lethal venom, its tail sweeping aside frozen earth with ease.

On the other side, a player curled his body, muscles swelling violently as white hair pierced his skin like steel needles.

His head deformed, fangs jutting out, transforming into a 70-meter-tall roaring war bear; after shifting into his Ming Hun form, he slammed both palms onto the ground, the shockwave blasting away surrounding snow.

Beside the roaring bear, a slender player suddenly dropped to the ground, his spine protruding joint by joint, his back splitting open with a series of cracks as a spiked lizard tail erupted from his coccyx.

His limbs transformed into claws, his tongue split, and his body swelled like an inflating balloon, becoming mountain-sized within a few breaths.

A burly player’s arms, upon shifting into his Ming Hun form, became two massive bone hammers; his heavy frame caused the valley’s ice to collapse beneath him.

During the transformation, his shoulder blades bulged, forming thick biological armor—looking like a living siege engine.

Black-armored snakes, roaring bears, rending lizards, heavy-hammer beasts… various melee monster forms sprouted like spring bamboo shoots, forming the front line of the United Warband’s monster legion.

“Blood Burn!” The Shen Wang’s voice rang out again.

Instantly, players from the Life Light squad locked onto pre-set monster-stream targets, releasing beams of Blood Burn that soared skyward and rained down like meteor showers, striking their own monster-stream players with pinpoint accuracy.

Under Blood Burn’s enhancement, monster-stream players’ muscle fibers tore and reformed, bones cracked in rapid succession, scales and fur boiling in crimson light.

Their bodies swelled rapidly; their already massive frames grew even larger, muscle contours rising like mountain ranges, veins beneath their skin flowing with blood like magma.

The scales of the black-armored snake pack gleamed with metallic luster; their bodies writhed, emitting the grinding roar of steel on steel.

The roaring bears shook their bodies, their expanded forms casting shadows that blotted out the sky.

The rending lizards’ backs erupted in synchronized rows of bone spines, glinting coldly in the snow.

The heavy-hammer beasts’ bone hammers were covered in crimson runes; each breath expelled scalding steam…

Under Blood Burn’s enhancement, the monster legion became like a powder keg doused in gasoline—furious energy made every muscle in their bodies tremble, their bloodthirsty pupils locked rigidly onto the approaching Snow Ridge Great Wilds army!

“Crush them!”

With the Shen Wang’s command, two colossal streams of beasts charged toward each other in a destructive collision.

The beast streams crashed together with a thunderous roar.

At the moment the front-line Blood Burn heavy-hammer beasts collided with Xue Ling Dahuang, the impact of hammer against spine exploded into a visible shockwave, instantly vaporizing nearby snow.

One heavy-hammer beast swung its hammer-arm directly into the head of a Xue Ling Dahuang; activating its Heavy Hammer trait, it stunned the beast into forced incapacitation.

A nearby black-armored snake coiled around the Xue Ling Dahuang’s body, its fangs tearing frantically at the joints.

The roaring bear reared up, using its claws to forcibly pry open the beast’s massive maw, then unleashed a Roar trait shockwave directly into its mouth.

Brutal combat erupted between the titans.

No flashy techniques—only pure, raw physical collision.

Roars echoed throughout the valley.

Avalanches, earthquakes… the battlefield became a meat grinder.

In the freezing cold, blood sprayed and instantly froze into crimson ice crystals; beastly roars wove together into a symphony of destruction.

At the rear of the battle line, the Shen Wang hovered in midair, his forehead’s Lord Mark switching to War Lord Cultivation Mode.

Amplification power radiated from his body, enhancing the physical attributes of the monster-stream warriors ahead.

After issuing the new command,

Countless brilliant light points suddenly ignited in the sky above the snowfield as spellcasters gathered ambient energy from the heavens and earth.

Elemental tides surged violently through the air, twisting even the snow and wind into spirals.

The arcane flood descended.

Dense, dazzling beams of light shot skyward like a reverse meteor shower, weaving into a net of destruction above, precisely targeting and detonating behind the rear ranks of Xue Ling Dahuang.

The rear of the valley was instantly covered in colored elemental energies.

Ink flames, thunderbolts, ice breath, void grips, dissolution, withering… the earth groaned and sank beneath the onslaught.

The next instant, the archer legion activated; the twang of bowstrings echoed across the battlefield.

The rising arrow rain formed a vast curtain, arcing gracefully through the air before plummeting—activating their Speed trait, they instantly transformed into a storm of death.

The assassin squad also activated, surging across the battlefield like a Black Tide of ink, hunting down low-health targets for decapitation.

Their advance resembled a meticulously choreographed death ballet.

Like a flock of crows scattered by the wind, front-line assassin players continuously released shadow clones, each becoming a solid coordinate.

Each clone served as a node; assassin players could use these coordinates to instantly teleport via Star Shift, crossing the battlefield in the blink of an eye.

Forming a killing star-map that covered the entire battlefield.

Viewed from above, the assassin squad’s advance resembled ink spreading across rice paper, leaving behind expanding trails of death.

Their light forms darted between the colossal Xue Ling Dahuang; the sharp hiss of blades cutting air and the crack of breaking bones followed their path, leaving streaks of splattered blood in their wake.

But against the thick-skinned Xue Ling Dahuang, the assassins’ damage output was far inferior to the rear-line spellcasters and archers.

Their primary role was eliminating low-health targets.

Just as the battle reached its fever pitch,

Kongyuan Peak shuddered violently; from the direction of the mine entrance cave came a roar more shocking than thunder, reversing the entire snowstorm into the sky.

Seven mountain-like figures broke through the snow curtain and appeared.

These seven figures were all Wang Shou among the Xue Ling Dahuang—each twice the size of ordinary individuals, each radiating suffocating pressure.

“Protect the damage dealers.”

As the voice finished speaking, the lead Wang Shou twisted its form and reappeared instantly at the center of the battle line.

Where its pillar-like arm swept, hundreds of spellcasters were instantly reduced to black mist, leaving a massive crater in the ground.

The second Wang Shou transformed into a pale-blue streak, crossing kilometers of battlefield in an instant, appearing above the spellcaster squad.

With a gesture, it summoned a downward vortex of black hole, sucking in and crushing dozens of spellcasters.

The remaining Wang Shou followed suit, entering the battlefield.

These Wang Shou normally dwelled near the node crystals, absorbing vast amounts of spatial elemental energy.

Their evolved life forms retained spatial attributes, granting abilities such as space-jumping and generating spatial counter-currents.

This made them, in the Shen Wang’s eyes, the most troublesome combat units in this battle.

Each Wang Shou’s body seemed to penetrate physical barriers—sometimes bursting from the ground to launch entire groups of spellcasters skyward.

Sometimes tearing through the clouds to plummet from above, crushing dozens of melee players beneath their impact.

The Shen Wang acted decisively, marking each of the seven Wang Shou with his Ming Hun Mark, ordering the United Warband’s designated elimination units to strike.

Pre-assigned players were tasked with protecting these elimination units.

No sooner had the order been given than the second Wang Shou descended as a pale-blue afterimage, slamming a palm downward to summon a black hole vortex.

The terrifying suction twisted ice crystals and nearby players’ bodies into spiraling clouds of blood, instantly shredded by spatial forces.

At this moment.

A bolt of ice pierced the sky and struck the Wang Shou squarely on the forehead, yet failed to breach its formidable physical defense.

The burst of freezing energy from the arrow instantly swept across the Snow Ridge Wilds, coating its body in a layer of ice crystals.

But this Wang Shou, having grown up in frigid lands, was utterly unfazed by the extreme cold; it roared, locking its gaze onto the figure that had fired the arrow.

At that moment, Ning Qing stood suspended in midair, her silver hair whipping like a battle standard in the storm.

In her hand, the ice crystal longbow blazed with brilliant icy light; each vibration of the bowstring sent forth a Snow Maiden arrow.

The next arrow struck the Wang Shou’s knee, causing it to stagger, and the spatial energy swirling around its body instantly grew chaotic.

The second arrow followed swiftly, piercing the nascent black hole forming in the palm of the second Wang Shou; the clash of extreme cold and spatial turbulence triggered an early detonation of the unformed vortex.

The third arrow split midair into seven beams of light, each striking vulnerable points on the Wang Shou: eyelids, eardrums, finger gaps.

Though not lethal, the strikes caused these apex beings to roar in pain for the first time, their furious gazes fixed unblinkingly on Ning Qing.

“Focus fire! All players with marked Ming Hun, attack! Everyone else, hold the main frontline!” The Shen Wang’s roar echoed across the battlefield.

Having a marked Ming Hun allows attacks to automatically lock onto the tagged target.

This was the Shen Wang’s decision to prevent friendly fire.

The area-of-effect strikes from the alliance’s support and archer squads could easily send their own players back to the black room.

At this moment, Ning Qing fired another arrow—but not at the Wang Shou. Instead, it shot straight upward into the heavens.

When the arrow exploded among the clouds, the blizzard above froze midair.

Countless ice crystals refracted brilliant auroras, and a rain of ice arrows rained down in a devastating area attack.

“Light Shield!”

Seeing Ning Qing’s move, the Shen Wang shouted decisively.

Instantly, the support squad’s Light Shields rose from the ground, intercepting the dense hail of ice arrows.

The Wang Shou, blocked by the shields, were now exposed to the full force of the arrowstorm.

Yet this strike inflicted no substantial damage—only faint blood trails scratched across their hides.

Realizing that her weapon’s area-effect skill, which had effortlessly wiped out groups in the Eternal Silence Ice Firefly Lake region, could barely even break through their defense, Ning Qing swiftly changed tactics and resumed focused single-target elimination.

The Shen Wang’s voice echoed immediately in her mind, ordering her to continue single-target kills and avoid area damage.

At this moment, besides Ning Qing, other single-target elimination players were also active.

Under the boost of his Divine Fragment, the Garden Master activated the third growth stage of his Divine Body form, transforming into a golden deity who ascended into the sky.

Standing aloft, the Garden Master’s Divine Body shimmered with flowing golden liquid, his physical form shifting into pure energy; every spiritual rune on his body blazed with brilliant gold, his eyes transformed into blazing white suns, their pupils reflecting the movement paths of the seven Wang Shou.

With a gesture, golden energy erupted from his palm, weaving into golden chains that surged forth like divine punishment, tracing the Wang Shou’s trajectories across the battlefield.

But the Snow Ridge Wilds moved too swiftly to be bound by the chains.

At that instant, the Garden Master raised his hand and pressed downward, unleashing the power of Divine Punishment.

A colossal golden spear phantom appeared above one Wang Shou’s head and plummeted violently.

BOOM!

The Divine Punishment struck the Wang Shou squarely on its back.

A visible golden shockwave exploded outward in concentric rings; the mountain-sized body of the Wang Shou was driven deep into the frozen earth, the ice within a kilometer radius surged like a tidal wave, vaporizing players below.

When the dust cleared, the Wang Shou staggered upright in the massive crater; the golden spear had not shattered its body, but had transformed into chains coiled tightly around its form, making every movement agonizingly difficult.

“Garden Master, hold it—I’m coming!”

As “Zui Nai” called out over the squad voice channel, a supercharged Ink Flame fireball, amplified a hundredfold, shot forth.

Upon impact, it ignited the Wang Shou’s body.

Screaming, the Wang Shou activated spatial teleportation and retreated to the rear of the battlefield.

The Garden Master’s gaze snapped instantly to the other six Wang Shou still rampaging; his Divine Body form consumed faith energy every second—he had to maximize damage before his mana bar emptied.

On the other side.

Faced with Ning Qing’s devastating single-target capability, the remaining full-strength Wang Shou simultaneously locked onto her; six towering figures vanished at once.

They reappeared above Ning Qing.

Seeing this, the veteran squad’s commander, “Li Tie,” stepped forward, gazing up at the six looming shadows descending from above, a smirk curling his lips.

Crimson energy erupted from his body, engulfing him.

The Tyrant Avatar activated.

His gray-white hair whipped wildly in the surging energy; his robes flared violently, revealing corded muscles and scars that had existed on his body long before entering the game.

Bathed in crimson light, each scar resembled a awakened dragon, writhing as if a furious dragon surged beneath his skin.

BOOM!

A crimson pillar of light erupted from the crown of his head, rapidly expanding.

Within the pillar, a Tyrant Avatar clad in tattered battle armor rose from the earth, enveloping Li Tie.

The avatar’s phantom stood over a hundred meters tall, its Iron Face indistinct, yet the glowing scars on its body precisely matched the locations of Li Tie’s own scars.

Li Tie slowly raised his right hand; furious energy surged from his skin, his blood and qi rapidly draining away.

As he slowly clenched his calloused fingers, a metallic clang rang out in the sky. The Tyrant Avatar’s massive palm, rising in sync, wove countless crimson energies into its center.

A weapon took form in the Tyrant Avatar’s grasp: a dark-gold, blood-rune-entwined battle-axe named Li Man.

BOOM!

The torrent of power was fully unleashed.

Li Tie’s eyes locked onto the six Wang Shou in the air; the Tyrant Avatar swung its axe in unison.

The simplest chopping motion.

Yet it carried the killing aura of ten thousand years of battlefield warfare.

The Tyrant Avatar’s arms, muscles bulging, swung the Li Man axe, carving a dark-gold afterimage through the air.

Before the blade even reached, the terrifying pressure tore a rift through the clouds; the layers of cloud rolled aside like ocean waves.

The six Wang Shou roared in unison, activating spatial barriers, their massive bodies continuing their descent.

At the instant the battle-axe met the spatial barrier.

BOOM!

A dark-gold shockwave exploded outward in concentric rings.

Where the dark-gold blade met the blue barrier, spiderweb cracks erupted—each crack pulsed with blood-rune lightning.

The six layers of spatial barrier, stretched to their limit, refracted prismatic light from their indentations.

“Break—!”

Li Tie’s throat exploded with a war cry, veins bulging in his neck.

The Tyrant Avatar, driven by his will, blazed crimson across its entire form; the blood runes entwining the axe blade writhed like living creatures, channeling power through the barrier’s cracks.

The spatial barrier emitted a grating, teeth-chilling screech—as if a million-ton hydraulic press strained to crush a fragile object.

BOOM!

The first barrier shattered into a million crystal shards—before the second barrier even touched the blade, a chain reaction erupted; shattered spatial fragments exploded again under immense pressure.

By the time the axe reached the third barrier, its dark-gold shaft glowed white-hot; the escaping energy left a long crimson tailfire behind.

“Muuuuh!” One Wang Shou’s eyes burst with blood; the fourth barrier Ningju at its horns crystallized instantly.

The axe blade struck the crystal wall, exploding into radiant sparks; the shockwave, serrated like a saw, swept across the clouds, turning the cumulus into a ring-shaped vacuum.

The Tyrant Avatar’s armored arms shattered piece by piece, yet its bare, furious upper body continued its upward slash.

This sight stunned the viewers in the live stream—and Ning Qing and her child, protected nearby.

The forum universally recognized the Shentanggong Society as the strongest guild, and the Shen Wang as the supreme war commander.

But who was the strongest player? No consensus had ever formed.

Some players believed the Tongue Brothers were strongest; though their kill efficiency was low, they were unquestionably the undisputed phantom gods of internal warfare.

Others argued it was the Garden Master, who commanded the An Yi Legion.

Among them, Li Zheng of the Gan Di Squad was also under consideration.

Even the despised Xiao Xiao Fashi was debated; with his Ling Xi Legion and hyper-beast enhancements, his combat power had long surpassed the vast majority of players.

Yet among these peak players, the loudest cheers belonged to someone else.

He was Li Tie of the veteran squad—known to forum players as “Iron Ye .”

A tech-savvy player already famous in other games before entering the Monster World.

His personal fame even surpassed that of his own “Fanzuigong Society.”

Most of the popular Qiling Ming Hun on the Ming Hun leaderboard were individually captured by Li Tie.

Under his command, the veteran squad was composed entirely of elite players—each one a supreme player standing atop the player hierarchy.

It had been too long since his video had topped the forum—but now, Li Tie, with absolute power, told every player: he still stood at the pinnacle.

He was the first player to ever use the “Tyrant Avatar” in live combat.

Viewers in the live stream now realized this veteran player had already pulled far ahead of the general player base in combat power.

With avatar and potion enhancements, his displayed strength was no weaker than that of a 140+ level Wang Shou.

Li Tie’s power continued to surge as he stood against the Wang Shou.

The progress bar of his charged Ming Hun trait was steadily climbing.

When it reached the limit of his body’s endurance, Li Tie’s roar shook heaven and earth.

The long-stored Ming Hun trait finally shattered its critical threshold.

His body instantly exploded into countless droplets of blood mist; each drop ignited into crimson-gold flames midair, converging toward the Tyrant Avatar’s hands.

The Tyrant Avatar’s pupils blazed with blinding crimson light; the energy swirling around it went utterly berserk—and the previously motionless Li Man axe surged forward.

Crack!

The final spatial barrier finally could not withstand this utterly brutal force, shattering like fragile glass with a thunderous crash.

The dark golden axe light, its momentum undiminished, became an arc tearing through heaven and earth, slashing violently toward the six King Beasts.

The screams of the six King Beasts carried fear.

Their massive bodies were flung away by the shockwave, crashing like meteorites into the distant snow-white mountain ranges.

The hard spines on their bodies cracked inch by inch as they flew backward, blood gushing from the fissures.

The first King Beast, taking the full brunt, had its chest torn open by the frenzied blood energy into a grotesque gash.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The consecutive impacts shook the earth. Li Tie stood firm upon the ground, the warlord’s phantasm’s axe still slanting toward the heavens, its blade’s blood runes greedily devouring the blood energy Li Tie channeled, radiating brilliant light.

At this moment, Li Tie had also reached his limit; the phantom form of the Warlord Phantasm began flickering unstably.

But in the livestream rooms of the participating players, the barrage of comments had exploded.

“Holy shit, one axe flung six King Beasts away—Mom, come quick, there’s a god among us players! One of our players has become a god!”

“Is this even damage a player can deal? We’re all players—I’m still wrestling with minor monsters in the Eternal Silent Ice Firefly Lake region, while top-tier players are already wielding divine power. Wait for us, please! You’re ascending too fast!”

“Iron Ye , forever a god. Led the pack from the start and still stands atop the peak after all this time.”

“Too strong! Iron Ye ’s actual combat power must already be over level 140—absolutely shocking! I’ve recorded the video; I’ll upload it to the forum soon.”

Li Tie’s performance stunned everyone.

When players in the livestream uploaded the video to the forum, it drew even more players and spectators into the participating players’ livestreams to watch.

At this point, Li Tie had exhausted his blood energy and waved his hand, dispersing the massive Warlord Phantasm.

But the other veterans’ performances continued.

Aside from Li Tie, every other player in the veteran squad possessed peak-player-level combat power.

Among them was the original first Assassin Flow player, whose video of seven forays and seven exits within the Black Black Tide was still frequently dug up and watched.

His performance in this war remained astonishing.

Using his Shadow Clone technique, he wove a network of nodes; as his body moved, he precisely activated the Spirit-Sealing trait each time, disrupting the Snow Ridge Great Wilds’ spatial abilities.

A rarely used, obscure Nascent Soul appeared in his hands.

This Nascent Soul was “Spirit Eye.”

When activated, his vision could pierce flesh, revealing the target’s weaknesses and tracing the flow paths of energy within its body.

This was the key to his precise disruption of spatial leaps.

He never focused on killing; his ethereal figure on the battlefield was a mobile “interrupt machine.”

Many Assassin Flow players cried out in awe, learning techniques from him.

Compared to the players in the United Warband, the mixed squad’s members were all powerful loners invited by the God-King from outside.

They all displayed the pinnacle of individual skill.

This included the forum-famous player Phase Killer, whose tiny form defiantly clashed with the towering silhouette of the Snow Ridge Great Wilds.

This scene was even frozen in screenshots by livestream viewers, deemed profoundly artistic.

In the frame:

Snow Ridge valley, heaven and earth vast and desolate.

Phase Killer’s figure was nearly invisible amid the raging blizzard; the Snow Ridge Great Wilds roared and slammed down a colossal fist. Phase Killer did not dodge or retreat—he stepped back with his right leg and punched straight into the sky-shattering blow.

The frame froze at the instant before the two fists made contact.

Others included Drunk Milk from the Baby Squad, who drew a hundredfold boost; “I Am Strong,” the Arena master from the Wild Eagle Squad; Deputy Commander “Cloud Without Trace” from the Wind and Cloud Squad, and more.

Facing the ferocious assault of the Snow Ridge Great Wilds, the United Warband demonstrated extraordinary war resilience.

During this time, the God-King also displayed exceptional battlefield control.

Although he could not, like Earth Nuisance Tyrant, effortlessly manage every detail of the battlefield and respond with pinpoint precision,

with the aid of the Hawk-Head Demon’s perception, he could instantly grasp every movement of the Snow Ridge Great Wilds.

Each time the Snow Ridge Great Wilds rushed the rear lines, he reacted within the next second, swiftly readjusting and transferring the damage suffered by the ambushed players via Life Link to the rear Blood Bag squad.

When the first wave of ferocious assault was repelled, the God-King already knew the ultimate outcome of this battle.

If the Snow Ridge Great Wilds did not deploy new forces, this war would end under his control.

Our players, like the Black Black Tide,

once the enemy is dragged into a prolonged war, victory or defeat is already decided.

In prolonged warfare, aside from the Black Black Tide and the Insect Black Tide, our players have never lost.

No matter how strong the Snow Ridge Great Wilds’ endurance, how could it compare to our players, who return to battle the moment their death cooldown ends?

And before this battle began, the specially invited Ning Shu and her son did not disappoint him.

Every arrow she fired inflicted effective damage upon the Snow Ridge Great Wilds.

Despite lower Nascent Soul level and incomplete Star Vein issues, Ning Qing, wielding a level 428 weapon, performed among the very best on the battlefield.

This is one of the most wondrous settings in the Monster World.

In the game, there is fundamentally no such thing as fairness or balance.

Even a novice player can, through a lucky encounter, rise to the top tier in a short time.

For example, the early Garden Master entered the game half a year later than veteran players.

Yet, with the divine soul granted by his encounter and the special rules of the Dark Descendant Legion, he had long since ascended to the peak of players.

Likewise, the Gank Emperor Squad—a small group once surviving by mining and selling sacrificial power—now has every member among the peak players.

Countless similar cases exist.

The game explicitly includes an element of luck, which may arrive in any form.

Beyond exploration, it might simply fall from the sky.

For example, the Pain Brothers’ inheritance was found by themselves.

The early top player (short-term) of the Control Flow, who obtained the “Celestial Soldier” pet, received it when it fell from the sky and smashed right before him.

This unfairness and imbalance brought by luck did not make players feel alienated; instead, they found it deeply authentic.

Second, every player has the chance for a lucky encounter.

Within their lifetime, perhaps all can, through unexpected surprises in the Monster World, reach the peak of players.

This “setting” of unexpected encounters gives players a sense of anticipation in every moment within the Monster World.

Just like during dungeon runs, players always hope for rare gear drops.

The course of the war gradually became clear amid fierce combat.

As the Snow Ridge Great Wilds kept falling, being extracted by All Things into light orbs that merged into the players’ bodies, their numbers steadily decreased.

All seven King Beasts were wounded; even with instantaneous movement, top players from the mixed squad rushed to confront and restrain them.

The Snow Ridge Great Wilds’ former crushing advantage over players had long since been erased by time.

Half a day later, just as the players’ potions were about to run out, the last King Beast’s body collapsed with a thunderous crash.

In truth, the King Beasts with spatial leap ability could have easily escaped the battlefield—the United Warband’s players were powerless to stop them.

But all seven King Beasts chose to fight to the death, unwilling to relinquish the territory node they regarded as “home.”

This sealed their fate.

The war ended when a member of the United Warband, an Assassin Flow player, touched the node crystal.

The Challenger Prompt echoed in every player’s mind.

【Challenger Prompt (All Channels): Congratulations to the squad led by player “God-King” for successfully containing the territory node: Kongyuan Peak.】

Kongyuan Peak:

Territory Type: Resource

Territory Trait: Spiritual Ore Generation (Special Spiritual Ore)

Trait Description: Continuously generates a single spiritual ore, “Kongyuan Stone,” usable for crafting spatial-type items or consumed to expand the space of a Spatial Satchel.

Territory Status: Contained.

As the Challenger Prompt sounded, the entire peak was swallowed by a spatial black hole, fully merging into Emperor Tomb Village’s space.

This news instantly ignited the forum.

It meant that from now on, when players mined in their own space mines, they had a chance to unearth space-type ores with high prices on the Trading Market.

Finding one stone could save days of grinding.

The mining faction players immediately opened champagne on the forum to celebrate this successful containment.

Equally excited were the Arms Dealer Society, the Gold Coin Guild, and other player organizations that heavily relied on space-type ores.

With increased output of space-type ores, all of them would benefit.

Especially the Gold Coin Guild—their long-held dream of establishing a space teleportation array between Dream Island and Misty Coast could finally be launched.

On the other side, Ning Qing also received a private message invitation after the battle ended.

The invitation came from the Explorer.

He hoped she could use her ultra-long-range sniping to hunt down one of his enemies.

Seeing the Explorer’s private message, Ning Qing immediately recalled the three widely circulated forum videos.

In the videos, the Explorer was pinned down and brutally beaten by a certain butterfly, its wings flapping into blurs.

The Explorer challenged three times, each ending with a swollen Iron Face and begging for mercy.

Many scenes from the videos had been turned into meme collections by forum players—including Ning Qing herself used these memes.

(End of Chapter)