“What happened?”
The sudden shaking of the surface woke up countless players who were still in the mountains. They hurriedly came out of their tents, quickly packed up their things, and called their teammates.
“Another earthquake?” The contestant who had experienced the earthquake at the seaside changed his expression, but then he thought that there was no ocean here and there would be no tsunami, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Put out the fire, go to an open area now, and stop the rocks from falling from the mountain.” In the dark, the contestants ran in an orderly manner. After days of rigorous screening, these people already knew what it meant to be calm.
“Haha, without a tsunami, earthquakes aren’t that scary anymore?” The game designer smiled as he looked at the relatively calm players. He glanced at his communication watch and calculated the time for the machine to officially start up.
All machines after the third layer had been set to automatic programs, and even he himself could not pause or advance. The reason for this was that the game was previously hacked, causing all plans for the session to be disrupted and the response was not good. He stood up and went to the simulation stage of the gaming venue. The entire gaming arena was shrunk in real proportion on the three-square-meter simulation stage.
The designer randomly zoomed in on a valley, and there was a person in the valley, representing the contestants. He could see what these people were doing at the moment, and they were all heading towards the mountain. There was a plain in the valley.
“Hmm?” The designer noticed a person without a player logo. “Stowaway?”
He immediately found the player’s code and entered the live broadcast room. It turned out to be a stowaway without a player’s uniform or a character watch. This person was a little embarrassed at the moment. His unsystematic actions kept causing trouble, but everyone around him was willing to protect him, and the live broadcast room was full of complaints.
“Charm insect?” The game designer stroked his chin, his eyes sparkling with interest.
“Even a medium-sized Zerg can be easily attracted and controlled. Is this bug a mutant? Just like Qin…” The game designer licked his lips, “Powerful abilities, and almost no moral sense.”
He was very curious about the limit of this control ability. Would it make the controlled Zerg willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect him?
On the plain across the mountain, rocks and trees rolled together and made a rumbling sound. Those in Ken’s team who had the ability to fly had turned into insects, and they also flew with their teammates.
The earthquake was very strong, and cracks appeared on the ground. These cracks spread to both sides at a very fast speed, and the surface began to bulge, as if something was pushing up on the surface.
“It doesn’t look like an earthquake, but more like a strong crustal movement, such as plate movement.” An Yinong quickly retreated to the soil without any visible cracks. However, in the blink of an eye, new cracks appeared under his feet, and this plain was on the fault zone.
There were landslides and rolling stones on the mountain, there were cracks on the mountain, and the sky was dark and the road was unclear. There was no truly safe place.
“Come here.” Qin pulled him as he almost fell. His hands were big, strong and warm.
The ground was cracking and shaking, but Qin took every step very steadily. He had a strong confidence that made people feel at ease. An Yinong also calmed down quickly. He stepped on the ground Qin had stepped on. The falling rocks and cracks could not keep up with them.
Feng Chi chased after them, floating up ten centimeters, the curly hair on its claws rolled up a ball of wind, and it stood beside An Yinnong like a mobile air conditioner. The two men and one beast dodged cracks and rolling rocks while heading towards the relatively calm slope.
The soil was soft and soaked by rain, and after a while, a layer of mud and dead leaves stuck to the soles of their feet. The grass elves lay on the leaves and trunks, holding on to the branches tightly, and staring at them, the uninvited guests, with wide eyes.
“Who?” Qin suddenly frowned and stopped.
“Chirp–” A bird flying over the grass called out, and a drop of dew rolled down from the tip of a leaf, but before it landed on the ground, it was shattered by a murderous gust of air.
The birds in the air scattered, and those that couldn’t dodge were cut in half by the invisible knife, and the blood drew a straight line on the grass.
“What?” An Yinong also sensed a strange aura and looked around vigilantly.
It seemed like there was wind coming from all directions. Before he could react, thin ice appeared around him. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, like bullets, leaving marks on the paper-thin ice, but it remained intact. Who was it? A player? Someone he met by chance, or an enemy who set an ambush here?
He didn’t have time to think too much. The ground was bulging and cracking, as if something on the surface had pushed open the thin shell. The plants on the slope fell down and the animals were running around in all directions. The shaking of the surface was so severe that An Yinong lost his balance and was pulled by Qin to avoid falling.
His miserable appearance caused dissatisfaction among the audience in Qin’s live broadcast room, and they all scolded him for being a “drag”.
The audience in An Yinong’s live broadcast room kept reminding him: “Don’t forget your ability to control plants.”
This was also a typical example of the audience outside the stadium being more nervous and excited than the players inside. The air twisted, and one person after another appeared. No one knew when they appeared here or how long they stood there.
It was a bit inaccurate to say “standing”; these people were floating. They wore black robes that were different from the players’ clothes, and had six-hole bone masks on their faces. They were about the same height, weight, and size. It was unclear who was who, but they all looked murderous.
Seeing these people’s attire, An Yinong was reminded of the bird-beak doctor in the Middle Ages, who represented the emergence of the plague.
“Soul Clan!” The six-member team on the side also noticed the situation here. They had already spread their wings and were about to stop, with solemn expressions.
The short-haired green man in the lead absorbed the power from all around, and the wind swirled the leaves around him. Soul Clan? An Yinong looked at these uninvited guests. Was this one of the alien races that Qin mentioned, one that often appeared on the battlefield?
The black-robed aliens shifted their positions, as if they were arranged in some kind of formation, and some strange sounds came out of their weird bone masks. The piercing sounds carried a special magical power, and those who heard them were like being cast under a spell of ‘silence’, their brains going blank.
An Yinong was stunned, and then he came to his senses. These black-robed monsters grew rapidly, and were already three or four meters tall. The grass around them withered and died at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the skin and flesh of the birds that were not completely dead melted away, leaving only feathers and bones. Death was spreading, and the deathly air was being breathed in and out of their mouths, as black as a swarm of mosquitoes.
“These can’t kill me.” Qin’s face had no expression, he just stood in front of An Yinong.
A strange, crackling laugh came from the darkness. The pain in his brain made Qin more awake. Frost spread from his fingertips, passing over his new teammates and attacking the surrounding “Souls”.
He had fought for half his life, driven away and offended countless foreigners. So he was not surprised that the foreigners wanted to kill him, and he was ready to die at any time. It just shouldn’t involve others.
On the shaking earth, An Yinong had been holding Fengchi’s neck. He saw the grass outside was covered in frosted, and snowflakes were floating in the air like fireflies. In the light spot, a warrior dressed in silver frost condensed, holding a sword in his hand and attacking in all directions. They had no substance, sometimes they gathered, sometimes they dispersed, and it was impossible to capture their trajectory.
A louder, hoarse cry came from the masks of the black-robed people. The circle of deadly grass leaves expanded again, and clouds of black air gathered above their heads.
These black gases seemed to be extremely lethal to the living. Fengchi was so scared that he kept stamping his feet even through the ice layer. An Yinong tried to calm it down. He squatted and stroked the earth. The torn soil was roaring and death was spreading underneath, killing the sleeping seeds and animals.
“A sinister race.” This was not just about causing temporary killing, but about severing the life force of the land. He frowned and looked at the men in black robes again.
At this time, the live broadcast room was in chaos. They found that not only Qin but also some other players who were being watched were attacked by aliens.
They accepted Zerg players killing each other, even if a group of them die, but they absolutely did not allow other races to enter the game and kill their Zerg. This was a matter of principle. The game organizers were flooded with complaint letters, and even people from higher-ups came to question them.
The person in charge seemed calm. He asked his subordinates to investigate thoroughly while crossing his legs on the table. He said lazily, “It’s just a few souls race members. They are not enough for Qin to chop. Why are you in such a hurry? The most important thing now is to find out how these things came in. I want to know who is behind this.”
He was right. The Soul Clan had great lethality to living things, but Qin’s Frost Soldiers were a symbol of winter and cold, and death had no effect on them. They suddenly appeared in front of the black robes with the cold wind and cut off the masks on the faces of the Soul Clan.
The light brown bone mask fell off, revealing a spinning void inside: “Ah——”
The sound was so piercing that it sounded like scratching a blackboard pierced into the eardrums, and this sound almost emptied everyone’s live broadcast room.
The audience had encountered the Soul Clan made up of data in the virtual world, and had also experienced the baptism of the Soul Clan’s death sounds, but when they faced the real thing, even a weakened version of them through a screen, they were unable to withstand it.
“Mute! Mute!” the audience covered their ears and shouted.
The audience felt this way, and the contestants on the scene had it even harder.
Killing, hatred, distortion, madness… it made the soul feel like it was being torn apart and exploded. An Yinong felt a dull pain in his head, as if his brain had been taken out for a death roller coaster ride. He shook his head and saw that the world was black, life was red, and blood was white.
Everything was so chaotic and indescribable, accompanied by a fear that made people tremble in the soul.
The soul clan was a life form formed by the resentment of the dead. So when the soul clan died, all the negative energy would explode, and people who heard the sound of their death were said to go crazy.
An Yinong was not crazy, but his head was torn apart with pain. An Yinong knelt on the ground with his head in his hands, and his ears, nostrils and eyes began to bleed. The world showed another picture.
But this was just the beginning. Where the soul clan died, black smoke formed a group of strange symbols. They rotated and slowly condensed, and in the blink of an eye, a new soul clan member appeared.
“There are Soul Clan priests here.” Ken took a breath.
At this time, another loud bang was heard, and a hill near them exploded, as if a huge mecha stood up.
It shook off the rocks and dirt on its body and emitted an electronic voice without changing its tone: “I didn’t expect to guard two fish at once. Mountain witch, your ‘sacrifice for directions’ is quite useful.”
A strange crackling laugh came from the air, as if in response.
WhiteMoon x BlackSun 