27. An Impossible Challenge (Begging for You to Keep Reading)

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In Proof of the Stars, players existed in separate world bubbles. Only after entering a public area would their respective world bubbles partially merge with the primary world.

Windpod City was one such public area, as were certain ranger cabins and adventurers' associations in the wilderness around Windpod City.

Within these public areas, PvP could only take place if both sides agreed.

By contrast, certain special conflict zones existed on wilderness maps. Upon entering a conflict zone, players could attack anyone they encountered by default.

The underground temple of the Clearers was not a conflict zone. Everyone from the Boundary Between Reality and Illusion existed under one shared world bubble, and logically should not have been disturbed by anything outside.

Jiang Heyi toyed with the key in his hand, which emanated an ominous aura, and immediately became interested.

Watermelon Shaomai had used this strange item to make two world bubbles overlap and collide, thereby initiating the invasion.

He could not help asking, “Does the holder consume a use when peeking into another player’s world bubble?”

“Yes. The two functions are bound together. If you peek into a world bubble but choose not to invade it, the use is still consumed. The only difference is that peeking does not accumulate the Sin curse.”

Clockhand Bro had no idea what the exact negative effects of Sin were. He only knew that, as Watermelon Shaomai’s most devoted sycophant, the man’s face had twisted into a bitter melon after using it.

When Watermelon Shaomai asked him about it, he had gritted his teeth and magnanimously said, “It’s nothing.”

Even so, anyone could taste the flavor of someone suffering terribly simply to save face.

Jiang Heyi kept his word. Once he had obtained the information he needed, he gave the two unlucky men a swift end.

Before “releasing” them, Jiang Heyi had Clockhand Bro deliver a message.

“Tell Watermelon Shaomai…” He pinched the key between his fingers. “The item is excellent. The children love it. Come by whenever you have time.”

“Also, we’ve already reached the second floor. Don’t expect to use this place to invade us again.”

This was the first PvP match the five members of the Boundary Between Reality and Illusion had played since entering the game—a relaxed and delightful victory achieved while outnumbered.

The whole affair looked nothing like a passionate competitive battle. It was more like a group of despicable players had laid a trap, dragged low-level monsters inside, and farmed experience and equipment.

Orange Tea, who had no previous experience with game combat, exclaimed that it was rather different from what she had imagined.

“They’re even easier to beat than the monsters in the temple!”

Er… that did seem to be the case.

The gaming experience of the five members of the Boundary Between Reality and Illusion was dramatically different from that of ordinary players. Most players entering Proof of the Stars spent their time farming low-level monsters outside Windpod City. They, however, had challenged an underground temple dungeon at an average level of five—and had even successfully looted a floor guardian.

Still, this sudden first victory did not change their established goal. Their attitude toward the first guild war, which would begin in more than twenty days, remained the same as before…

Participation was what mattered. Securing the participation reward counted as victory, and getting the consolation prize was reason enough to open champagne!

Gazing at the Thief’s Key in Jiang Heyi’s hand, Plain Fries narrowed his eyes.

“We need to speed up our progress.”

“They haven’t even solved the phantom walls. Most likely, they haven’t triggered Sister Arna’s storyline yet.” After enjoying a thoroughly satisfying exchange against his opponent, Jailer Bro hummed an optimistic little tune.

“Watermelon Shaomai used our world bubble as a passage. When the two world bubbles overlapped during the invasion, she had enough opportunity to use the Starry Sky Gem to record the coordinates.”

Everyone froze.

“You can do that?”

“I think so.” Plain Fries stared at the key glowing dark red. “Isn’t the item’s name, Thief, already giving you a hint?”

“Steal progress and skip the storyline?” Jailer Bro cried out. “An item like that can exist? That completely destroys the balance! Who would still be willing to clear the game honestly? Everyone would just hitch a ride!”

Jiang Heyi’s lips curved upward. “If the method Plain Fries suggested is viable, then based on everything we experienced after entering the game, I don’t think it will be a simple ride.”

…

…

Watermelon Shaomai had indeed become stuck at the storyline. After paying the price of several weakened members, they had barely defeated the two Shadow Wolves at the entrance to the underground temple—only to find themselves utterly unable to locate the way forward.

Their party also included a believer, but compared with Orange Tea, this believer’s obscure revelations were clearly somewhat inferior.

“Could the problem lie with that nun’s spirit?”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have attacked her first.”

“I don’t think we destroyed the nun. It seemed more like she left of her own accord.”

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“Ignorant, violent, so utterly loathsome…”

“We gave everything we had. In the end, were we protecting people like you…?”

Now that they recalled the nun’s spirit speaking in a voice filled with utter disappointment as it faded away, they realized they had made the wrong choice.

After checking every party member’s loot again, Watermelon Shaomai spotted the Thief’s Key.

The words “peek into another player’s world bubble” and “invade” immediately excited everyone.

So there had been an alternative solution all along!

Once they realized that the key could not activate the temple’s magic formation, they combined it with the Starry Sky Gem’s coordinate-location function. They could simply lie in wait until some unfortunate player who had already solved the stage passed by, then invade and steal their progress.

The plan went more smoothly than ever. The only problem was that, when they faced the Boundary Between Reality and Illusion, every one of them died and returned.

Back once more at Windpod City, their starting point, Watermelon Shaomai was seething with frustration.

She had once had every chance to ride the wave and enjoy the first benefits of the game’s opening phase.

Without Cyber Potato, commercial partnerships, money, and influence would already have been flooding into her arms.

But now, why was it him again? Why was it still him?

Anger made Watermelon Shaomai breathe heavily.

“I absolutely cannot let him clear the underground temple without a hitch. I absolutely cannot let him become the first person to complete it.”

Overtaking her rivals and taking their place was one of the few opportunities she still had to turn her reputation around.

As long as she cleared the dungeon first and then “selflessly” shared some of her攻略 experience, uninformed people would naturally help whitewash her reputation. Given enough time, history would be rewritten, and nothing would have happened.

After all, the internet had no memory. Pretending to disappear was the simplest and most effective way to handle public opinion.

“Everyone, do your best to pool the materials needed to charge the gem.”

The moment her deathly weakness had passed, Watermelon Shaomai eagerly began issuing orders.

She hid the fire in her heart very well, wearing a bright, professional smile.

The people gathered here were all fans she had selected and refined again and again. Thus, after hearing her repeated, heartfelt, humble pleas, they generously emptied their bags of the last materials they possessed.

Some even sacrificed their final few bottles of potions. Others removed one or two pieces of armor from their bodies to make up the shortfall.

Fourteen people, and their bags were swept clean. Only Watermelon Shaomai still had a few potions left.

There were fourteen because, after delivering Jiang Heyi’s message, Clockhand Bro had left the team under the pretext of “forming a party with friends.”

“Don’t worry. My gaming experience tells me that once we get through the passage, the temple will reveal just the tip of the iceberg. Clearing even one stage will make our investment worthwhile.”

“If we can finish the攻略 before Cyber Potato and the others, do you think our names might appear on the front pages of all the major gaming communities?”

Watermelon Shaomai’s grand promise soothed the hesitation and resistance in everyone’s hearts. The radiant Starry Sky Gem released dazzling starlight that enveloped them all.

Yet just before the teleportation began, the Seagull notification sound suddenly rang out.

“Sin descends!”

“Sin descends!”

Watermelon Shaomai, who was manipulating the Starry Sky Gem, stared in astonishment at the message displayed on the projection panel.

“The Thief shall bear this Sin.”

“I didn’t use the Thief’s Key! Why am I being burdened with Sin?” Watermelon Shaomai shouted.

The game system offered no explanation. It merely coldly repeated, “The Thief shall bear this Sin.”

They struggled to establish the coordinates, then sold everything they could and completed the charging ritual…

The enormous sunk cost meant that not only Watermelon Shaomai, desperate for revenge and eager to make a comeback, refused to give up; even her fans could only grit their teeth and swallow their objections.

The negative effects of Sin varied from person to person.

Some were simply hated by NPCs and became more likely to be scrutinized by knight judges, who imposed exceptionally severe sentences.

For others, blessings and protective boons weakened this major negative effect on combat. The person who had received Sin twice belonged to the latter category. His name on the projection panel had already begun to turn red.

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“It’s fine. As long as we gain something, everything will work out.” Watermelon Shaomai hurriedly sweetened her voice, lifting the party’s somewhat flagging morale. “I can distribute my loot to you first, okay~~”

Moved by Watermelon Shaomai’s selflessness, the fourteen-member party recovered its fighting spirit and arrived at the teleportation area, which resembled the Parthenon.

Had Jiang Heyi and the others been there, they would certainly have been astonished. The statue, which required Sister Arna’s lantern to awaken, had somehow spared Watermelon Shaomai’s party that procedure.

They merely touched the glittering, damaged statue and, just like the others, descended into the great bathhouse of the Dust-Cleansing Layer.

The freshness and excitement of arriving in a new area lasted for quite some time. Without a map, they groped their way out of the great bathhouse.

A corridor more than a hundred meters long came into view—the same corridor through which Orange Tea and Bell Zemo had once fled for their lives.

There was no time to admire the game’s splendid, gilded scenery. They had not even reached the area where the Boundary Between Reality and Illusion had triggered the Elemental Mist phenomenon when—

“Thud!”

The muffled sound of something sharp piercing flesh rang out, accompanied almost simultaneously by the instinctive cries of players dying.

Then everyone saw one of their companions, pierced through the chest by an invisible object, suddenly rise into the air. A tremendous force kneaded him into a ball, after which he burst into a shower of blood that spattered down from above.

The shocking spectacle left many of them standing stunned.

Someone turned and tried to flee, only to have his thigh crushed and his body flung aside.

“How—how are they in front and behind us?”

“What are they?”

As though it understood their panicked cries, two figures slowly emerged from the flowing magic power.

The first form of the Frog-Headed Stitch Beast stood at one end of the corridor. At the other stood its second form, its frog head and humanoid arms replaced by black-and-white flames. Together, they trapped Watermelon Shaomai’s party in the middle like the filling of a sandwich.

Unwilling to sit and await death, someone launched an attack against the Stitch Beast’s second form.

The frigid ice spike had not even fallen before it shattered in midair.

And this happened only because the second form softly uttered a single word…

“Flameflow.”

A fiery stream shot from the elemental head burning like a bonfire, transforming the spellcaster into ash from head to toe.

It could cast spells through speech alone.

The two forms tore through the party, whose average level was below five, like harvesting machines. The people in the corridor fell one after another like cut wheat.

“This difficulty is unreasonable!” Watermelon Shaomai raged. “They only have five people! How could they possibly clear the stage?”

“There has to be something wrong! How could anyone defeat monsters like these?”

“I’m filing a complaint! They’re cheating!”

“They must be cheating! This difficulty is impossible to challenge!”

The Frog-Headed Stitch Beast showed not the slightest trace of mercy as it kneaded Watermelon Shaomai into a ball and flattened her, until her hysterical cries dissolved into the tranquility of death.

In the world bubble where no players remained, a mechanical announcement echoed.

“Adapting the Thief Behavior Module.”

“Difficulty converted based on Guild Boundary Between Reality and Illusion, Clearer Underground Temple, Dust-Cleansing Layer攻略 Data Record 001.”

“Inserting defeat-learning template: Increase vigilance toward potions.”

“Inserting defeat-learning template two: Avoid combat in confined spaces.”

“World Bubble 559021: recording and storage complete.”

Boundless darkness descended like a stage curtain, and the world bubble sank into a deep “sleep.”

Jiang Heyi and his companions had no idea what delightful misfortune had just befallen Watermelon Shaomai. By then, they had already arrived at the underground second floor, the Garrison Layer.

Following the marks provided by Arna, they had also found a treasure there.

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