Chapter 364: The Actor

After more than two years of development.

Players' forums divided different growth patterns into two categories: the Righteous Path and the Evil Cultivators.

The Righteous Path refers to the mainstream growth gameplay.

War, hunting, competition, fishing, spirit cooking, dungeons… these are all mainstream gameplay styles and the growth choices of the vast majority of players.

The Evil Cultivators refer to growth patterns that oppose the mainstream gameplay.

The representative player is: Xiao Xiao Fa.

His growth path was dubbed by players as the Evil Dark Lord, having defected from the player faction and established a brand-new power outside.

He is also regarded by many players as one of the strongest players.

There are many other Evil Cultivator gameplay styles.

Among them, one Evil Cultivator gameplay style leaning toward the mainstream is the Pet Flow, originally called: Control Flow.

By capturing external creatures, one obtains a pet that cannot benefit from Painful Painful Minghun traits, only gaining active buff-type trait effects.

This differs fundamentally from the Summoning Flow.

If it is a Painful Painful Minghun-summoned entity, it can fuse with all the player's abilities.

For example, traits the player possesses—Ink Flame, Thunder Rush—can be directly granted to the summoned beast.

But external pets can only gain enhancements like Blood Burn, Wind Break, and other active buff-type trait effects.

Opposing the mainstream gameplay is the hallmark of the Evil Cultivators.

The emergence of the Summoning Flow gave the forums the concept of a righteous-versus-evil divide in gameplay.

Some players preparing to follow the Summoning Flow even declared: "Back then, evil flourished; now, the righteous path must rise."

This statement clearly conveyed a message to Pet Flow players.

Times have changed; the orthodox Summoning Flow is about to suppress the evil Pet Flow, and the seventh orthodox class of the faction is about to appear.

Pet Flow players thus felt a sense of crisis and began discussing how to break the deadlock.

If one truly considers growth potential.

The Pet Flow is clearly far inferior to the Summoning Flow.

The Summoning Flow can fuse all Painful Painful Minghun traits, even granting pets fortune-based Painful Minghun bonuses.

Players need only enhance their own strength, and the summoned beasts' power will rise significantly alongside.

Unlike the Pet Flow, which requires frequent pet replacement.

But in the eyes of Pet Flow players, their advantages are unmatched by Summoning Flow players.

They can possess pets that surpass their own strength in control.

The Bookword Warrior of that era was one representative pet.

At its peak, a single Bookword Warrior could effortlessly crush a group of top-tier players.

But times have changed.

Just as the Monster Flow and Star Vein Flow once did.

The Monster Flow's glory faded after the Star Vein Flow system gradually matured.

Only when the Monster Flow system received an epic enhancement did it barely keep pace with the Star Vein Flow growth model.

The Pet Flow now faces a similar predicament.

When the Bookword Warrior's strength could no longer keep up with player progression, the Pet Flow needed a new powerful pet capture channel to rise again.

During this time, a player proposed the idea of capturing members of the Artifact Race, sparking heated discussion among Pet Flow players.

This race's power generally exceeds 120, even reaching higher levels.

The Artifact Race's leader, "Evil Blade," has a hunting level of 325; if a capture channel to the Artifact Race could be opened, their power could be replenished for a long time.

Within the forum's "Pets" section, a player immediately proposed an idea.

To pool funds and build a teleportation array to advance toward the Artifact Race's territory.

To better capture pets, Pet Flow players spontaneously gathered data on the Artifact Race and exchanged strategies to formulate specific capture plans.

During this time, background materials previously compiled by the Research Faction players were unearthed.

These contained much knowledge about the Artifact Race.

The Artifact Race first appeared in the livestream of an Exploration Faction player, as a parasitic lifeform resembling a spirit of an artifact, requiring a symbiotic host to feed on negative emotions for growth.

Thus, the more suffering the host endures, the stronger the Artifact Race member becomes.

This doomed the artifact to guide its host step by step toward destruction.

Massacring kin, betraying close friends, collapsing faith… the Artifact Race would constantly deceive the host as elders or guardian spirits; every being possessed by an artifact would ultimately die in despair.

Once the host's value was exhausted, the artifact would seek a new host, continuing the parasitic cycle.

The Exploration Faction player who encountered the Artifact Race member believed he could not seize the opportunity and sold it to the forum's renowned player "Painful Brother."

This revealed the Artifact Race's background data.

Unlike other races or factions, where encounter means combat.

Although Artifact Race members are powerful, they have many exploitable weaknesses.

If the Artifact Race is a bloodsucking parasite living on other beings, then Painful Brother at the time had reverse-parasitized Evil Blade, drawing pain-energy from it until finally killing it to claim the hunting reward.

Based on early videos unearthed, Pet Flow players identified the Artifact Race's target characteristics.

They always precisely lock onto beings crushed into the mud by fate.

Whether bullied by their own clan, facing survival crises, or misunderstood by their people… the more one teeters on the edge of survival, the more the Artifact Race is drawn by the scent of suffering.

These souls repeatedly twisted by pain are like rotting fruit in a gutter—their perfect parasitic vessels.

The Artifact Race appears in the guise of a savior, leading the possessed being into the abyss of despair they have woven.

But in the initial contact, the Artifact Race also grants the possessed hope.

Because the Divine Artifact Race knows that only when one sees hope and then falls into the abyss again does the feeling become even more painful.

The negative emotions bred during that process are a feast for the eyes of the Divine Artifact Race members.

Pet-stream players felt this might be a weakness that could be exploited.

As long as one could emit the aura of pain the Divine Artifact Race craved, one could gain the favor of its members.

According to the guidance of lore-investigating players, a player's acting alone was not enough to attract the Divine Artifact Race.

The "Overlord Sword" who had been slain by the Painful Brothers back then was already at the end of his rope, so his perception of emotional auras had grown dull.

On top of being gravely wounded by the gatekeeper old man, he had to pick a nearby host to quickly recover his strength.

That was what allowed the Painful Brothers to succeed.

To successfully capture a Divine Artifact Race member, one had to learn to simulate the aura of negative emotions, making oneself a fine meal in the Divine Artifact Race's eyes.

This problem immediately stumped the pet-stream players.

Simulating emotions — how could it be that easy?

However, they did know of an ability called "Momentum," which could convert emotions into released pressure, dealing dual mental and physical damage.

But players still hadn't figured out to this day how Momentum was actually used.

They had no clue at all about how to simulate the emotion of pain.

Just as the players' discussion on how to capture a Divine Artifact Race member was Xian Ru Kun Jing, someone proposed an idea.

They felt they might be able to achieve this through the Earth-Thought Overlord.

The Earth-Thought Overlord had created an evil legion independent of the Black Tide: the Tide of Pain.

Every unit within it released abilities that dealt emotional-type damage.

Making players feel despair, rage, regret, and a whole series of negative emotions.

So could they find a chance on the battlefield to have the Earth-Thought Overlord plant a Tong Ku Lao Yin on them, then decisively retreat with the Painful Imprint, and use a teleportation array to head near the Divine Artifact Race's territory to loiter, completing the lure-and-capture in the style of playing pig to eat the tiger?

This plan immediately won the approval of quite a few players.

But whether it was actually feasible still needed testing.

Before that, a teleportation array had to be built.

To test the plan's feasibility, pet-stream players self-funded the effort, with the player who proposed the idea taking the lead and contacting the Gold Coin Merchant Guild.

The entire negotiation and payment process was broadcast live publicly.

The Gold Coin Merchant Guild did not refuse this request, and immediately dispatched a professional spatial construction team to the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range region.

Heading toward the relatively safe Spirit Valley direction to begin construction of the teleportation array.

Two days later.

The teleportation array was completed, and the plan officially launched.

……

"No problem, we're all brothers on the same side. Come over now, we're about to start the battle."

"Thanks."

Closing the dialogue box, Yang Xiu excitedly clenched his fist.

Taking on the Earth-Thought Overlord alone — he clearly couldn't do it.

To have the Tide of Pain stack a negative buff on him, he needed the assistance of the joint war group led by the God King.

This was also why he had sought help from "God's Left Leg," one of the joint war group's administrators.

Fortunately, upon hearing his idea, God's Left Leg agreed without hesitation.

After topping off his potions, he summoned his pet space for a look.

His pet space was divided into eight slots, and crafting it had cost 830,000 Shou Shou Jili to purchase spatial-system materials.

Apart from his own homegrown growth-type pet, the other seven were external pets captured using the Painful Painful Minghun trait.

Each suited different battlefield environments.

For example, the underwater combat pet "Great Wave Breaker" — a monster nearly three meters long, shark-shaped, with dorsal fins glowing with ghostly blue electric light, able to raise rotating water pillars over a dozen meters high, and whose tail fin strikes would blast out electric shockwaves on impact — its underwater combat ability was extremely strong.

There was also the Thorn Demon, whose jungle combat ability was extremely strong.

The Shadow Leopard, covered in flowing black mist, able to dive into shadows for ambushes.

The Poison-Sac Frog, adept at fighting in swamp environments….

But his favorite was still the extremely rare Shadow-Devouring Butterfly.

Its wings spanned only a palm's width when spread, yet it could fan out ripples that tore space, able to devour physical attacks and convert them into its own energy, combining offense and defense.

Unfortunately, the Shadow-Devouring Butterfly's hunting level was only 78.

At this stage it was already nearly obsolete.

But he really liked the Shadow-Devouring Butterfly's various abilities, and had thought about buying a Soul Beast to let the Shadow-Devouring Butterfly's abilities transfer to the Soul Beast.

That would be equivalent to having a Shadow-Devouring Butterfly with infinite growth potential.

The problem was Soul Beasts simply weren't circulating on the market — there was no channel to buy one.

He'd posted several purchase-wanted threads on the forum, all at three times the market price, and still no player was willing to sell.

This left him deeply frustrated.

He didn't plan to kill and discard the Shadow-Devouring Butterfly either, figuring he'd eventually get a chance to obtain a Soul Beast in the future.

He glanced at the data information of his eight pets.

Yang Xiu dragged different foods from the bag column on the side of the interface into different spaces to feed them, then summoned his vehicle: the Blazing Motorcycle.

This was a vehicle he had personally designed and built.

Referencing the Earth ancient-era old movie "Ghost Rider."

The body lines were as sharp as an unsheathed warblade, the front embedded with a skull burning with Xiong Xiong flames — at first glance it looked like a ferocious beast poised to strike.

From the exhaust pipes extending from both sides of the seat, orange-red tongues of flame spurted, scorching the surrounding air until it burned hot.

Yang Xiu swung onto the seat, gripped the handlebars and twisted; the entire motorcycle was instantly wrapped in surging flames.

The engine let out a deafening roar, as if some ancient fire dragon had awakened; the flame ring at the bottom of the chassis suddenly burst open, transforming into a tail of fire several meters long trailing behind.

After leaving Emperor Tomb Village, Yang Xiu activated the vehicle's high-efficiency mode.

The flame war chariot ground across the ground, leaving a string of smoldering scorch marks studded with sparks, and sped toward the direction of the Emperor Tomb Village battlefield.

At maximum power, the flame war chariot entered flight mode.

The trailing tail of fire carved dazzling arcs through the air; wherever it passed, even the wind carried a searing heat — seen from afar, it looked like a bolt of lightning wrapped in raging flames, tremendously impactful.

Before long, Yang Xiu arrived at what players called a cathedral-class battlefield.

This time it was another three-way free-for-all among the factions.

To the north stood an impregnable wall built of Calamity-type units; to the northwest spread the creeping fungal carpet and the brutal Zerg horde.

Before the melee began, waves of intimidation surged like a rising tide.

The Zerg's piercing shrieks and the clacking of carapaces rubbing together merged into one, like ten thousand blades scraping against each other.

The Black Tide's whispers, meanwhile, were like echoes from the abyss — low, viscous, carrying a rhythm that twisted the mind.

And the players' roars were wild and brimming with fighting spirit, as if they meant to overturn the entire battlefield.

All three factions were old acquaintances; brawling had long since become routine.

The show of force was more like a greeting — the equivalent of "Have you eaten today?"

Yang Xiu also slipped into the United War Group at this moment.

When top-tier war-group players stood beside him, the surrounding air seemed to freeze solid.

When their gazes swept across the Zerg and Black Tide positions, it was as if they were tallying prey; Yang Xiu could sense a nearly tangible fighting spirit coiling around them.

"Incredibly strong!"

Merely sensing the fluctuations of their auras, Yang Xiu couldn't help but gasp in admiration.

Every single one of the players beside him was a ruthless veteran who had clawed their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

War butchers who treated the battlefield as daily routine.

When combat power of this caliber massed together and planted itself at the front line, it was itself a form of deterrence.

Put it this way — the United War Group was the top-tier war legion personally cultivated by Earth-Sense Overlord.

The one liaising with him was the commander of the United War Group's Tank 3rd Regiment, and also one of the administrators of the United God Hall guild.

A giant of a man, two meters tall, with a great axe wrapped in blood-colored Lei Ting slung across his shoulder; merely standing there, the ground beneath his feet kept cracking apart within the vortex of released gang qi.

"Left-Leg Bro."

Though it was their first meeting, Yang Xiu still politely called him "bro."

"When the fight starts, come with me to Overlord's line; once you've stacked the Pain Mark, I'll send you off." God of the Left Leg grinned, clapped a hand on his left shoulder, and spoke with easy familiarity.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it — we're all brothers on the same faction, helping each other out is only right. Besides, you're working hard for the development of the player faction too; we've got plenty of control-flow bros in our regiment who asked me to look after you."