"Actually, I've wanted to say this for a long time: not all monsters eat people. Some monsters just like to play pranks and have fun with people, while others are very aloof and ignore people."
Those who have had contact with the monster have the most say; they are either members of a hunting party or encountered it by chance during the day.
"Just like some snakes or large felines, they feel that humans are dangerous and can kill people, but in fact they don't want to come into contact with humans and will stay as far away as possible."
The constant feeling that some treacherous subjects might plot against me is actually a result of humanity's overconfidence. It's true that some monsters target humans because their nature is to eat them, but many monsters don't specifically include humans in their diet.
Of course, they wouldn't mind taking a bite if a human offered it to them.
A man in the crowd, who identified himself as an urban explorer, recounted his encounter with a monster during the day. However, the monster, disturbed from its sleep, didn't even bother to acknowledge him.
The onlookers listened with astonishment, filled with curiosity about this group of monsters. Of course, they dared not approach, only daring to peek from afar from within sturdy buildings.
Some monsters are man-eating, while others are not. This is a real test of one's luck, so they don't want to gamble and would rather stay far away.
"How did these monsters get into our base?" Finally, someone remembered this.
"It must have been one of you who sabotaged the base's equipment and lured the monsters in!" The people who had previously belonged to the official forces had something to say.
The protesters immediately felt somewhat embarrassed, and even a little regretful.
Suddenly, cheerful sounds of gongs and drums, along with a mixture of children's laughter, rang out from the monster horde.
The monsters, huddled together, slowly parted to make way, revealing a group of strange dolls, all hopping and skipping. They were all soft, cute, and dressed in cartoon colors, completely different in style from the other monsters.
Those strange dolls carried a bridal sedan chair made of colorful satin and flowers, on which sat a person wearing a scarlet cloak, swaying with the movement of the sedan chair.
His soft, long black hair was parted on both sides, and he held a crossbow with the hunting team's markings in his hand, seemingly studying it.
A glimpse of the lace trim on her skirt peeks out from under the red cloak, along with white stockings and burgundy Mary Jane shoes.
"How beautiful!" From afar, humans could see the petite figure on the bridal sedan chair. Surrounded by various dolls, she looked like a large doll, exuding an inhuman level of exquisite detail. Her clear red eyes were unforgettable.
Although the atmosphere was a bit eerie, it was really beautiful.
"Who is that? Is he a monster too?" Humans felt a lot of goodwill towards him because of his face.
"The Scarlet Witch." The human who recognized him immediately turned pale. "He's here for revenge? But how could the Scarlet Witch have done all this? Gathering these monsters that don't obey orders at all…"
"The base is in trouble."
"There." The small figure on the bridal sedan chair pointed to a certain place, and everything flying in the sky, walking on the ground, and rolling in the ground obeyed his command.
The massive monster procession turned around and headed towards the place the Scarlet Witch had pointed out, an area that had once been heavily protected.
However, upon seeing the monster horde approaching from afar, the guardians either surrendered without a fight or turned and ran.
The puppet procession continued with its music and fanfare. On the palanquin they carried, the beautiful monster glanced indifferently at the crowd. The players in the crowd seemed to be instantly stunned, holding their breath and daring not to move.
Only after the mascot procession had disappeared into the distance, leaving only a small silhouette in sight, did the girl with twin tails finally let out a long sigh of relief: "Holy crap, I think that boss was staring at me just now, it scared the hell out of me."
"Your feeling is right, the Scarlet Witch is watching us on purpose. She probably knows we are players," said Natural Curly.
Ghosts and players are natural enemies. The Scarlet Witch is warning them not to act rashly, or she will tear them to pieces and feed them to the monsters.
The player with naturally curly hair was also startled: "But I really didn't expect that the Scarlet Witch was hiding so well that she could actually command the entire monster horde."
Calling on monsters to besiege the city, truly befitting a boss.
But he was chased like a stray dog by human NPCs before, has the seal been broken now?
"Strange, he's already so powerful, how could he still have such a strong obsession?" The girl with twin ponytails stroked her chin thoughtfully.
"If you find it strange, we'll follow them and see for ourselves." With that, Natural Curly followed. Feather Clipper followed closely behind.
The girl with twin ponytails ran off, shouting, "Wait for me!"
Not only the laid-back trio, the baby-faced guy and the middle-aged guy, but even other players who hadn't shown up before joined in.
The boss is clearly preparing for something big. They should follow him first; what if they can snag a bargain?
When the players caught up with her, they discovered that Scarlet Witch was heading to the very base laboratory they had been planning to visit for so long.
The once heavily guarded laboratory was now deserted, with only a group of monsters standing guard at the entrance. And the Scarlet Witch was no longer on the bridal sedan chair.
"How do we get through these monster-protected zones and into the laboratory?" The players pondered.
The base leader in the basement looked extremely grim; he knew that something unexpected must have happened.
He had sacrificed people, yet monsters still got in and even destroyed the base; he could already hear their roars. Damn it, who's sabotaging his plans?
The base leader sensed that things were getting out of control, and he made a silent decision: we can't delay any longer.
"I didn't expect you to be so good at hiding it, but it's no use." The handsome player appeared in front of the base leader at some point, with a gentlemanly expression, but holding a miniature 'Iron Maiden' in his hand.
This instrument of torture resembled a pharaoh's coffin, human-shaped and made entirely of iron. With a casual toss, the handsome player imprisoned the base leader inside, and the two iron doors locked automatically.
"Snap." The handsome player snapped his fingers, and a row of sharp iron spikes pierced through.
"Although I don't know what's wrong with your constitution, during my interrogation you can only endure all the pain."
He was very confident in his prop; it was specially designed to torture people and could ignore defense levels to reach their souls directly.
The young lady remained motionless, listening to the commotion outside while watching the handsome player court death.
Yes, that's courting death.
The base leader's blood flowed from the 'Iron Maiden' and into the ground below, making the entire basement seem to come alive. The ceiling, floor, and walls began to shake, and chunks of soil fell down.
The handsome player sensed danger and immediately retreated.
The next second, the 'Iron Maiden' cracked open from the inside, shattering into countless pieces. The effect was comparable to an explosion, and the flying fragments were even more lethal.
The handsome player had already retreated, and Saman and the young lady dodged at the same time, but the three of them were still hit in many places by the shards.
After the explosion, the base leader who reappeared was no longer human; he writhed like a lump of mud.
The mud moved towards the coffin at incredible speed, and by the time Saman and his companion noticed, it was too late. It plunged headfirst into the coffin, and in that instant, the entire basement was illuminated.
Radiant threads emerged from various parts of the basement, wrapping around the entire coffin like a giant, glowing cocoon.
Centered on the laboratory, golden threads spread towards the base, including government offices, residential areas, entertainment districts, and slums... Humans and monsters alike stared in astonishment at the golden threads that were moving across their bodies.
The entire base seemed to be enveloped by a spherical golden crystal, with golden threads gradually stealing energy from the living beings and converging towards a certain point.
"What is this?" The humans in the base were terrified by the unknown, but the players had already noticed something was wrong.
"Holy crap, this thing seems to be draining my energy!"
Ren Yifei also sensed it. He looked up at the golden threads that were moving through the space. It seemed that both monsters and humans were surrounded by them.
The scene of "offering sacrifices to all things to support one person" is hard not to evoke this saying.
Ren Yifei walked towards the laboratory; something must have happened down there.
Following his previous impression, he quickly found the laboratory and saw the slide-like pipe inside. But Ren Yifei did not choose to go down from there.
In his red eyes, there was a special energy fluctuation underground, the fluctuation as red as blood, pointing him toward a hidden door.
"Wait a moment," Ren Yifei said to himself, "There are still some preparations to be made."
He searched the lab for a while and found the drug specifically for the Scarlet Witch. It was in a test tube, the same one used to inject the Scarlet Witch in the video, and it had a silvery sheen.
"Found it." Ren Yifei shook the medicine bottle and put it away.
In the basement, Saman and the handsome player each summoned a ghost card. They decided to temporarily set aside their player-versus-player combat and first eliminate this threatening base leader.
As players, they have a keen sense of danger, and at this moment, the glowing cocoon gave them a strong sense of threat.
The young lady watched their movements, but her eyes were devoid of light, as if she had already foreseen their defeat.
They did fail.
The two ghost cards tried everything, but they couldn't break through the cocoon of light. All their attacks were converted into pure energy and absorbed; their actions not only failed to weaken the cocoon of light, but actually strengthened it.
"Come back." The ghost cards returned to their respective masters, bowed slightly, and disappeared.
"Assuming your Azure Moon Wheel is still intact, this thing wouldn't have a chance to evolve." The handsome player smiled, but it looked sarcastic.
The Azure Moon Wheel's ability to ignore defense is abnormally powerful; even this type of devouring defense can be easily broken through.
Saman glanced at the handsome player and said, "That's a real shame. We even took your Flying Star with us." Didn't he know who started it?
"It seems that in this instance, the Light Cocoon is designed to be unstoppable once activated." Ignoring the handsome player, Saman looked thoughtfully at the Light Cocoon. The Ghost Card skill he used was specifically designed to counter tanky characters with high HP and defense, but it was still completely useless; it didn't break through and even replenished the Light Cocoon.
The handsome player was the same; he turned to look at the cocoon of light: "I didn't expect the hardest challenge in this dungeon wouldn't be the 'ghost,' but this guy. Perhaps the 'ghost's' obsession is partly due to this."
"Yes, it's been around for a long time and no one knows about it. It has an extremely high mortality rate, and it has wiped out entire groups several times. I couldn't understand it at first, but now I know why. The difficulty of this round is not in the 'ghost,' but in this ending," Saman analyzed calmly.
"Even without us pushing the storyline forward, this guy will definitely turn into this by the seventh day at the latest," the handsome player said. "Unless we kill him, this dungeon won't be easy. No, it's impossible to clear."
Neither of them knew that the entire base was an altar and all living beings were sacrifices; otherwise, they wouldn't be so calm right now.
The cocoon of light came with an invincibility buff, so the two of them stopped wasting their skills and items and waited for the cocoon to mature and crack open to see what would pop out.
Samantha glanced around the basement and suddenly noticed the female player from before. She was staring at the cocoon of light, her gaze indescribable—a mixture of numbness and pain.
This doesn't seem like a normal player.
Before long, the cocoon of light began to move. Its light dimmed and became hazy, and a moving shadow could be vaguely seen inside.
"It looks like a person."
Just as I was about to take a closer look, the door was suddenly flung open.
The sound of leather shoes echoed in the suddenly quiet basement as the Scarlet Witch slowly emerged from the darkness.
Author's Note: Afei: Make w
ay, everyone.