Chapter 1
The conversation didn't last long before Arina's wristwatch vibrated, indicating that it had detected the electronic frequency of her companions.

Overflowing with surprise, Arina took the lead, following the direction of the electronic frequency. Soon, beneath a certain suspended ladder, they found Eva and the others, who were wearing similar wristwatches.

Their condition wasn't great. Apart from Nina, everyone had injuries, light or severe. Bai Haozheng, Juzi, and Cheng Ying were especially disheveled and battered.

Seeing that it was Arina and Xingyun, Eva and Qin breathed a sigh of relief, lowered their weapons, and walked over.

Li Ang and Liu Wudai also nodded to Bai Haozheng in greeting.

The group began to exchange information, and they were surprised to discover that everyone already knew about the otherworldly players.

Arina and the others had encountered them personally, while Eva and her group's information came from...

"The Zerg?"

Xingyun said in shock, "There are self-aware individuals within the Zerg who told you that otherworldly players actually exist?"

"Yes."

Eva and Qin exchanged glances, their eyes filled with helplessness.

They recounted how they met Qing Xingdeng and the others, how they infiltrated the Zerg hive city with Bai Haozheng and the others to carry out a rescue mission, and how they were trapped in a heavy siege, implicating Pei Youzhen and forcing her to withdraw from the competition.

"We kept breaking into the lower levels of the Zerg hive, and there were Zergs everywhere, impossible to kill them all. We sent signals to Ju Tianfu and the others using the communicator, but received no response."

Eva said helplessly, "At that time, we wanted to retreat but couldn't.

Special units with exceptionally sophisticated weapons, extremely strong physical qualities, even surpassing players of the same level, suddenly appeared in the Zerg hive. As soon as we encountered them, we were suppressed, unable to even release explosive items to cover our retreat.

It was at that time that Youzhen was entangled by the Drone soldiers and chose to surrender and withdraw from the competition."

To increase her persuasiveness, Eva even had Nina bring out a projector to play the footage they had recorded of the overwhelming Zerg swarms.

"At that time, we were already prepared to withdraw from the competition,"

Eva paused and said slowly, "Unexpectedly, one of the creatures on the other side—it called itself the 'Zerg Hive Lord'—

Suddenly stopped attacking, and the Zerg units also stopped moving.

It..."

Eva frowned, her expression a little strange, "Negotiated with us."

Li Ang said in surprise, "Negotiated?"

"Yes."

Eva said, "The Zerg Hive Lord said that they had just received news that, in addition to us, another group of otherworldly players was also in the Lost World.

The latter was attacking Zerg hives and Earth players in other places.

Considering that the overall strength of that group of otherworldly players was higher than ours, and they had caused considerable trouble for the Zerg,

The Zerg Hive Lord decided that if we could provide some equipment, items, and supplies as collateral,

It could let us go to find other Earth players, unite, and deal with the otherworldly beings together.

To this end, it could allow the previously captured hostages to communicate with us through communication devices,

And return one hostage as a guarantee."

"That hostage was me."

Cheng Ying, standing in the corner, raised his hand and said helplessly, "Ju Tianfu and I were held in different cells and couldn't see each other.

My own treatment was being locked in a mummy coffin, conveying my extraordinary power system to the Zerg—I imagine the others were similar."

"After completing the call with Ju Tianfu and confirming that he was okay, we were 'escorted' out of the Zerg hive by the Zerg."

Eva smiled bitterly, taking out a carpet-sized map made of leather, covered with lines and patterns,

"To prevent us from getting lost and wasting time, they also gave us a map, marking the locations of the passages and elevators on each floor below the forty-first floor..."

"..."

Arina looked at the map in Eva's hand, speechless, and after thinking for a moment, said, "Wait, when did the Zerg stop attacking you?"

"Half an hour ago," Eva replied, "What's wrong?"

Arina and Xingyun exchanged glances and pondered, "Half an hour ago, we were still avoiding the Zerg's pursuit... The timing doesn't match up.

If the Zerg thought the threat of otherworldly transcendents was too great and wanted to unite the Earth players, why would they keep chasing us?

Unless..."

"The tokens you carry."

Li Ang frowned slightly and said, "Perhaps the Zerg cannot directly and effectively distinguish between Earth players and otherworldly transcendents.

You happened to have captured otherworldly tokens on you, so you became the Zerg's target.

Of course, it is also possible that there were no units capable of communicating with humans in the Zerg at that time."

Arina nodded thoughtfully, "Is that so..."

Eva glanced at Li Ang, who was shrouded in a black hoodie, and was a little curious about who this person was, but now was not the time for idle chat. She immediately said, "In any case, let's leave here first. According to the Zerg, something terrible might happen later..."

Rumble!

Before she could finish speaking, the dome vibrated violently, and the solid ceiling collapsed and caved in, crushing down on the people below.

————

Global Supernatural Alliance headquarters.

Failed, failed...

South Korean girl, Pei Youzhen, lay in an oval medical pod, staring blankly at the ceiling through the sterile transparent lid of the medical pod.

The robotic arms and various medical instruments in the medical pod quickly completed the work of suturing wounds, scanning for potential injuries, and thoroughly disinfecting the whole body, emitting beeping sounds.

As the disinfecting spray dissipated, the lid opened automatically, and Pei Youzhen jumped out of the medical pod.

Like other official organizations, the Global Supernatural Alliance's contestants who withdrew from the competition had to stay in isolated and sealed rooms for a period of time,

To undergo examination, observation, and questioning,

To check whether they carried any deadly bacteria from other worlds,

Whether their minds had been interfered with or manipulated,

Whether their souls had been taken over, and so on.

Pei Youzhen was familiar with this process. She stayed in the isolation room and completed the examination—because the examiners included both expert teams and high-level players who had not participated in the competition, who could use skills to directly detect,

The examination process was much faster than other organizations.

Before long, she left the isolation room, greeted her colleagues outside the door, and went straight to the command center.

Players in the mission could only see what was in front of them, but the official organizations, which were constantly watching the live broadcast, could collect the most intelligence and see the most information.

"Eva and the others are okay?"

Pei Youzhen, who was reviewing the data in the room next to the command center, was shocked and her eyes widened.

She was surrounded by the Zerg at the time, which led to her forced surrender and withdrawal from the competition.

After she went offline, the Zerg stopped attacking, and the Zerg Hive Lord Kerberos came forward to negotiate with Eva and the others.

The content of the negotiation was unknown because the detector went offline, but it seemed that they would not be completely wiped out—Eva and the others had not been teleported back yet.

After learning that her companions were safe, Pei Youzhen breathed a sigh of relief and quickly browsed other information with some worry and trepidation, "Wait, Michael was actually sealed?"

Soon after entering the Lost World, Michael encountered an attack by four first-tier players: Shi Kong, the Truth Side, Hohenheim, and Tai Hao.

Even more unbelievably, Michael actually used his own strength to wield the Blazing Sword and suppressed the four of them (although this was partly due to the four of them being wary of each other).

When she activated the Four-Winged Angel form, she even shattered the [Isostatic Loss Anchoring Program] initiated by Hohenheim with a single sword, as well as the psychic-powered creation crystal wall created by the Truth Side.

The blazing flames stirred up by the Flame Sword were boundless, melting the steel in the floor into molten iron and obscuring the system's detector lens.

When the flames gradually subsided and the lens returned to normal, it was difficult to see the original appearance of the floor in the picture.

The entire ground was like a nuclear test area, obliterating a large area.

The Truth Side hid behind a temporary crystal barrier, the crystal barrier covered with cracks, about to shatter.

Hohenheim hid in a Klein bottle-shaped special container, the container itself almost melted.

And Tai Hao and Shi Kong, both covered in thick frost created by the *Shigan Shierzhi* (Ten Heavenly Stems and Twelve Earthly Branches) technique, were also pale and had consumed most of their energy.

Michael slowly floated down from mid-air, his four wings dissipating into two,

The tips of his wings burned with starlight flames.

Just when everyone thought that Michael was going to kill his opponents with a single sword, a group of otherworldly players dressed in various ways and exuding a dangerous aura appeared.

They seemed to have come prepared and knew that Michael was the strongest among Shi Kong and the others.

Several figures shrouded in tattered and dirty robes scattered,

Chanting muffled and obscure spells full of evil and filth,

Causing black silt to appear on the walls around Michael and the others, blocking space teleportation skills;

Four practitioners wearing ancient oriental costumes cut their skin and smeared blood on a palm-sized bronze bell, causing the shadow of a slowly inverted bronze bell to appear above the heads of Michael and the others.

Five demonic beasts rushed forward without hesitation, using various abilities to briefly suppress the Truth Side and Tai Hao, who were trying to resist.

One of the stick insect-shaped demons even used its body to block Michael's action of drawing his sword—although the cost of this action was being directly burned to ashes by the Flame Sword.

Footsteps and the sound of running came from the distance, suspected to be otherworldly reinforcements arriving.

At the moment when the bronze bell was about to fall and seal everyone, four wings extended again from Michael's back, and the Flame Sword in his hand soared to a hundred meters,

Shattering several robe-clad figures who were chanting spells, and knocking away the otherworldly practitioners who were praying to the bronze bell,

At the same time, his wings shook backward, stirring up a whistling gale,

Blowing Tai Hao, the Truth Side, and Hohenheim away from their original positions, and sending them far into the rear tunnel.

And she herself and Shi Kong,

Perhaps because they were subjected to the greatest sealing force, they were ultimately unable to resist the gradually descending and expanding giant bronze bell shadow,

And were sealed in the bell that emitted a warm light, remaining motionless.

The shadow of the bronze bell seemed to have the ability to stop everything around it, freezing Michael, Shi Kong, and the land below them,

Moreover, once summoned, it seemed that it could not be canceled, nor did it need to be maintained—the four practitioners who used the bronze bell had withered into skeletal remains when the bell shadow solidified.

At this time, the otherworldly transcendent reinforcements rushed over,

They avoided the light of the bronze bell and chased after Tai Hao and the others in the rear tunnel.

Tai Hao and the others had consumed most of their energy and did not engage in battle. They retreated directly, and the three of them dispersed during the escape. After that, the detector did not capture their figures.

The only image left was of those otherworldly transcendents,

Shoveling out Michael and Shi Kong, who were covered by the shadow of the bronze bell, along with the land below,

Taking them away and heading to the lower floors.

"..."

Pei Youzhen stared blankly at the data. As a member of the Global Supernatural Alliance, she was very clear about Michael's power.

The title of "humanoid walking strategic weapon" might be an exaggerated description for other players, an adoration for the strong who attribute power to themselves,

But when used to describe Michael, it was just a literal objective description, even somewhat of an understatement.

Even if Michael was not in complete condition at the time and had consumed some stamina and spiritual power in the battle with Tai Hao and the others, it was still an incredible thing that those otherworldly players were able to seal Michael.

After the shock, Pei Youzhen also reacted and immediately flipped through the pictures taken by the detector of other otherworldly players appearing.

It was certain that these people were indeed from another world. They were generally divided into three types:

Those wearing tattered cloaks, with hunched bodies and slurred voices,

Demons,

And practitioners wearing ancient oriental costumes.

These people had a unique power system and could release a variety of skills. They had been working together, searching for and hunting Earth players, killing or kidnapping them.

When necessary, they could also withdraw from the competition, surrender, teleport away, or use token-like props to summon reinforcements.

In the pictures taken by the detector alone, at least thirty Earth players had been killed directly, and more had been kidnapped.

As for their identities and purposes, they were still being analyzed.

"..."

Pei Youzhen was silent for a moment, and couldn't help but feel more worried about her companions who were still in the Lost World.

The Zerg was already difficult enough to deal with, and now there were more otherworldly players...

Ding-a-ling—

The communicator rang, from the Global Supernatural Alliance's superiors.

Pei Youzhen answered the phone, listened to the content, got up, and left the data room, heading to a certain studio on the lower floor.

The high-level executives of the Global Supernatural Alliance actually knew that Ju Tianfu carried divinity and had been cooperating with the Special Affairs Bureau in conducting experiments to collect the power of faith.

Pei Youzhen was also aware of this. Now that the situation had changed, Ju Tianfu needed support (when talking to Eva and the others, it was confirmed that the power of faith in the real world could be transmitted into the Lost World).

Pei Youzhen, as a knowledgeable person and a front-line player who had just withdrawn from the Lost World, needed to cooperate with the Special Affairs Bureau to help Ju Tianfu collect the power of faith as much as possible.

In other words, become a commentator.