The Hilichurl, seeing a whole group of its own kind appearing in the forest, thought rescue had arrived.
It immediately began shouting at the top of its lungs.
Little did it know—
that shout only hastened its death.
The moment it screamed "yikayaika,"
a crisp crack sounded.
Liang Chuan twisted its head clean off.
Ordinary Hilichurls were just that fragile.
He moved fast—
but not fast enough to stop the forest's abyss-tainted Hilichurls from hearing the call.
More than a dozen of them were already shambling toward the base.
Each step heavy.
Each step suffocating.
Huoyanyan's scalp went numb at the sight.
"Boss! Let's RUN! We can't stay here!!!"
"Run? We can't run."
Liang Chuan shook his head.
"The Abyss Gate in the Mistsplitter region has opened.
Abyssal creatures are everywhere now.
What we're facing here are just small Hilichurls lightly tainted by Void Power.
These we might hold off.
But if we flee and run into a Hilichurl Berserker, an Abyss Mage, or a Rift Hound…
we die for sure."
"Then what do we do now?!"
"We hold."
Liang Chuan's voice deepened.
"The Natlan tribes won't ignore Abyssal creatures roaming outside.
And Chasca saw us here earlier.
She knows outsiders are in the forest.
She'll come."
"So… all we have to do is stall?"
Huoyanyan glanced at Beef, who had just gotten back up.
"This must be story content.
Why don't we log off and avoid it?
We can skip the cutscene.
If we die here, we don't even have the bio-energy to revive!"
"I think logging off is a great idea.
That Hilichurl punch almost killed me…"
Beef groaned while holding his stomach.
Liang Chuan's eye twitched.
Log off to escape?
You think it's that easy?
He glared at them.
"Next up depends on you two to defend the base!"
"Ah?! M-Me?!"
Huoyanyan froze like someone ordered to assassinate the Buddha.
Right on cue,
new text appeared in both players' vision.
BOSS has issued a quest —[Defend the Terminal]
Objective: Protect the Mistsplitter Region's[Bio-Energy Terminal]until the Abyssal monsters retreat.
Reward: 100 EXP, 1 Silver Coin
(1 Gold = 100 Silver = 10,000 Copper)
Note: This is a[Player Faction Quest]and cannot be refused.
Failure to participate or deliberate idling will result in account termination.
"F—!!!"
Huoyanyan couldn't help shouting.
A non-refusable Player Faction Quest?!
And no chance to slack off?!
"Uh… so do we log off or do we do the quest?"
Beef looked at him.
"You blind? Didn't you see the punishment?"
Huoyanyan sighed.
"If we do the quest, we might survive.
If we refuse, our accounts get deleted.
You think we have a choice?"
He looked again at the rewards.
"Actually, the reward is insane…
If we finish this, we level up instantly AND get a silver coin!
Even with Boss Chuan's black-heart prices, one silver should buy something!"
The players were finally persuaded.
Liang Chuan immediately gave instructions:
"Move the corpses—normal and abyssal Hilichurls—into the Bio-Energy Terminal.
I'll pull the others away."
"Got it, Boss!"
Huoyanyan and Beef each carried a corpse back to the Terminal.
Liang Chuan fired arrows at the nearest abyssal Hilichurl, pulling aggro.
Fortunately, these Void-corrupted small Hilichurls were slow and braindead.
Kiting them alone wasn't difficult.
During this time, he even scored three perfect headshots, killing three abyssal Hilichurls and rising to Level 3, gaining another attribute point.
Soon, the other two players finished converting the corpses.
The system messages echoed in Liang Chuan's mind:
Hilichurl converted — Bio-Energy +0.99
Void-tainted Hilichurl converted — Bio-Energy +9.9
"Hm? These numbers…"
Then he remembered.
"Right… players get 1% of the biomass for their own revives.
Which means…
These abyssal Hilichurls…
They give TEN TIMES the bio-energy of normal ones."
A grin crept onto his face.
"That means converting one abyssal Hilichurl is enough to summon one more player."
He checked his bio-energy reserves:
With the 10 points he had saved earlier for revival,
he now had 20.89 bio-energy.
"Good thing the host's revival cost doesn't scale with level.
Otherwise I'd never dare summon more players."
He immediately spent 10 points to summon another player—
this time, not specifying any individual.
A human from some universe instantly responded.
This player created his appearance extremely fast and stepped out of the Terminal.
His ID: [Throat-Severing Slash]
Height: barely 1 meter.
Build: thin to the point of bones.
Skin: pitch black—
so dark that only his whites of the eyes and teeth were visible in the night.
Huoyanyan stared.
"Bro…
that's the character design you went with?!"
"I'm playing an assassin.
You know what I mean?"
"I KNOW what you mean!
Pure min-maxer!
All for combat power!"
"Exactly."
While kiting abyssal Hilichurls, Liang Chuan checked the newcomer's stats.
Name: Throat-Severing Slash
Race: Human
Level: 1 (0%)
Class: Rogue
Constitution: 5
Strength: 5
Agility: 20
Spirit: 5
Unused Points: 0
Talent Skill: Gale Step
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