Chapter 342: Value of Existence, The Evil Eye Returns

Meng Yuan Chu Altar.

Qi Sheng's consciousness swept over the Di Zha Mountain Range region.

He had been paying attention to the entire encounter of the Di Nian Evil Spirit.

The fragment of the Guide's clone had also been monitoring it non-stop for 24 hours.

This encounter of the Di Nian Evil Spirit was not caused by recklessness, but was more due to the inherent limitations of the Black Tide system itself.

This war logic, which takes devouring as its creed, has always only taught Evil Spirits to measure strength and weakness by force, never caring about unknown factors beyond the present.

The Evil Eye's perception can precisely scan the current enemy's dissipated energy levels, war patterns, system architectures, and so on.

It can even assist Evil Spirit warriors in precisely deducing the opponent's tactical logic.

But these things are ultimately calculations based on current information.

If it is judged through current information that victory is impossible, the Di Nian Evil Spirit will also retreat.

For example, when the Di Nian Evil Spirit, not long after first venturing out, encountered the Giant Domain and faced the vast numbers of giant beasts in the golden ocean, it decisively chose to temporarily avoid their sharp edge after a preliminary investigation.

It is just that the situation this time was different.

The Temple Guards hidden behind the Bei Yuan Clan were a "unknown factor" completely exceeding the Evil Eye's perception limit.

No matter how strong the Evil Eye's computing power was, it could not capture any unknown factors that were completely disconnected from the information provided by the current scene.

Unless the Guide's analysis ability provided a more detailed investigation.

But the Di Nian Evil Spirit obviously did not have that.

This means that the war pattern of the Di Nian Evil Spirit will always have a layer of unknown risk.

This problem is not only present in the Black Tide system; in the Monster World, apart from players and a few factions possessing precognition-level abilities, the vast majority of factions will encounter this type of risk.

The Black Tide Legion's risk in this regard is particularly severe.

As a calamity that devours all things, they have always been the side taking the offensive.

The Evil Spirit warriors under the Black Tide system are all a force within the torrent of devouring.

Expansion, devouring, growth; this is a cycle of the Black Tide system, and war cannot be avoided at all.

Among the factions players have contacted, the only one that has managed to avoid risk is the Bliss Clan ruled by the Lord of Bliss.

The experience accumulated over long years made the Lord of Bliss clearly realize a problem.

Every seemingly weak opponent might also hide immeasurable war power behind them.

Rather than risking confrontation, it is better to decisively give up and run away.

This survival experience allowed the Lord of Bliss to perfectly avoid all risks, even though doing so would affect the development of the Bliss Clan, or even cause substantial resource losses.

This is also the core reason why the Lord of Bliss, crossing long years, can still thrive in the Monster World.

But the Black Tide system destined the Di Nian Evil Spirit to be unable to walk the path of the Lord of Bliss.

The core logic of this survival method is: when encountering an opponent, regardless of whether they can be defeated, run first and avoid potential risks.

Putting this problem onto the Di Nian Evil Spirit, or even other Evil Spirit warriors, becomes: if I don't fight this, and I don't fight that, then what is the meaning of my existence?

Retreating because one cannot judge whether unknown risks exist in a situation of advantage completely negates the meaning of the Evil Spirit warrior's existence.

The "absolute caution" behavior like that of the Lord of Bliss is completely inconsistent with their ideals and system.

Therefore, facing the unknown is a potential risk that Evil Spirit warriors under the Black Tide system must bear.

If one does not bear it, it means development will be stuck and unable to move forward an inch.

So the death risk encountered by the Di Nian Evil Spirit is essentially an environmental risk, an inevitability resulting from the collision between the Black Tide system and the various factions of the Monster World.

The core logic can be summarized in one sentence: either gain evolution in the devouring war that bears risks, or stagnate in retreat.

In this war, the Di Nian Evil Spirit encountered unknown risks.

Judging that the current situation is fightable is already an executable answer.

The result, however, was the appearance of an enemy beyond the Evil Eye's computing limit, crushing the Black Tide controlled by the Di Nian Evil Spirit with a force that sweeps away withered wood.

As for the players' intervention, Qi Sheng was completely expecting it.

Because the information provided by the Guide proved that the Star Web was about to intervene in this matter.

Switching the perspective to the Star Web, it is not difficult to understand why the Star Web wanted to intervene.

The Guide analyzed the Star Web's way of thinking, as well as the logic by which it deduced the answer.

Its choice to intervene in this matter was related to two questions.

The first question is: why is the Di Nian Evil Spirit still alive?

According to past wars, the Star Web discovered that for wars posing a serious threat, or wars from which players could directly extract benefits, player missions involving all participants always appeared.

For example, when the Tian Huo Fa Wang descended with the Tian Huo Clan back then, it triggered an all-participant mission.

Two years ago, when Evil Spirit warriors descended on the island north of the Colorful Mist Coast, it also triggered an all-participant mission, allowing all players to go out to sea together to participate in the siege and crush them in the cradle.

There are many other similar all-participant missions.

But the Di Nian Evil Spirit is an exception.

Even when being crushed with a force that sweeps away withered wood by the Civilization Legion, and players could have gone to get a share, the all-participant mission still did not appear.

This proves that perhaps, in the eyes of the high-dimensional gods controlling the players, the Di Nian Evil Spirit has its value of existence.

The second question is: what is the value of the Di Nian Evil Spirit?

A superficial analysis of this question can be understood as: the Di Zha Mountain Range controlled by the Di Nian Evil Spirit is a special scene capable of continuously producing revenue.

It cultivated the Divine Hall, as well as a large number of top guilds and top players.

It can be regarded as an advanced version of the A Le Training Camp: a pool for incubating the strong.

War understanding, command ability, war coordination... most of the abilities of the United Warband were basically trained personally by the Di Nian Evil Spirit.

Secondly, the Di Nian Evil Spirit is always growing and will not be eliminated by players.

In normal games, the monsters of the starting village provide growth assistance for players in the early stages, but are soon eliminated due to insufficient strength.

But the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit has been growing at breakneck speed all along, and each growth comes with an upgrade in the Black Tide's intensity, bringing players greater war dividends.

The convenience of stepping out the door straight onto a battlefield, and war dividends that are always rising — these two points alone are a tremendous boost to the development of the player faction.

So the existence of the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit has real value.

This is perhaps why the higher-dimensional gods chose not to act against the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit.

Before this, the higher-dimensional gods had actually intervened many times.

For example, the early Dark Rhythm Accord incident.

The players who took part in it, after losing the game, did not trigger the extinction-level pursuit.

But later, competitive players saw members of the Dark Rhythm Association in the Ancient God Arena.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, but the more likely possibility is that the pursuit was interfered with by some means of the higher-dimensional gods, causing it to descend upon the Ancient God Arena.

For factors that completely exceed what players can handle, the higher-dimensional gods will step in to intervene.

The contest between Dirt-Eater and the Fated Ones is also a good reference case.

So the higher-dimensional gods' non-interference — even tacitly allowing the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit, a warrior under the Black Tide system, to grow right under their noses — proves that in the higher-dimensional gods' eyes, the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit is a controllable factor.

That is the surface level.

The deeper reason may be related to the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit's anomalous behavior.

As an evil-spirit warrior, its behavioral patterns have long since deviated from the Black Tide system's standard logic.

It would, for resources, scheme against other evil-spirit warriors, turning its own side's evil-spirit warriors into nourishment for its own growth.

Later it went even further, establishing a teleportation array in the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range, thereby founding what players call the "Overlord Alliance."

These actions simply don't look like the decisions a pure evil-spirit warrior would make.

Secondly, the Evil Eye has clearly undergone some unknown change, just like the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit.

Otherwise, the moment the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit erred, it would have stepped in to stop it — and even if it couldn't stop it, it would have quickly relayed the situation to its superiors.

So both the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit and the Evil Eye, these two beings under the Black Tide system, have developed problems.

Cognitive contamination, divine contests, unknown metamorphosis… the changes happening to the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit cannot be pinned down to any specific answer.

It might very well be an experiment produced after the higher-dimensional gods' intervention.

The logic offered by all the information ultimately points to one thing: the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit alive is a net gain, and it is an existence tacitly approved by the higher-dimensional gods.

This is the answer the Star Net derived.

After getting a clear answer, it quickly contacted the Divine King.

Then came the Divine King issuing a muster on the forum, calling on players from other regions to jointly take part in the Overlord Defense Battle.

Here, the Star Net concealed the higher-dimensional gods' underlying intentions, amplified the players' benefit angle, and strengthened the players' sense of immersion and faction honor.

So from the players' perspective, the issue is nowhere near that complicated.

The core logic is just one line: the Overlord dies, the rice bowl shatters.

Players of the United Guild would face the same predicament as when A-Le's Training Camp went under — becoming a war legion roaming and hunting across Monster World.

This does not necessarily mean long-term returns will definitely suffer.

Roaming hunts carry potential fortune-grade gains; perhaps the returns could even exceed those of the Earth-Reading Overlord.

But in terms of return stability, it clearly falls short of the Earth-Reading Overlord, and on top of that, constantly traveling around wastes a fair amount of time.

Before mastering abilities on the level of spatial jumps, the Earth-Reading Overlord entrenched in the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range region holds an irreplaceable position.

Qi Sheng was very satisfied with the Star Net's analysis.

In fact, even if the Star Net had not stepped in, he would have stepped in to keep the Earth-Reading Evil Spirit alive.

The way he looks at problems is from a more macro perspective.

The Earth-Reading Evil Spirit is undoubtedly the most special evil-spirit warrior; it has broken through the inherent mind-imprint of evil-spirit warriors, making itself increasingly independent.

Both its thought logic and its actual style of conduct prove this.

And the Black Tide has always been the strongest opponent in Qi Sheng's eyes.

The Earth-Reading Evil Spirit's unknown change might become a chip for him to use against the Black Tide.